On a recent episode of his 83 Weeks Podcast, Eric Bischoff addressed the belief that the creation of the NWO storyline in WCW was copied off a group in Japan. Bischoff strongly denied this narrative and provided a breakdown of the timeline leading up to the big reveal of Hulk Hogan as the third member of the NWO.
Bischoff dismissed the notion that he copied the storyline from Japan, stating, “That’s Dave Meltzer-ish. I don’t know if he’s responsible personally for it, but that’s where that narrative goes. Oh, he didn’t do that. Somebody else did that. You know Vince McMahon? Oh, that’s not really Eric Bischoff. That’s Ted Turner. You know it. People who just never saw it coming. People who were in my position and failed miserably. You know, people who disagreed with what I was doing because they felt it was the wrong way to build a wrestling business creatively. I never wanted to admit that that was just a fucking great idea, and it worked really well. It’s always, yeah, but he didn’t do that.”
According to Bischoff, he had no knowledge of any invasion angle in Japan and had no intention of copying it. He stated, “I had no fucking clue what invasion angle existed in Japan, and if you put $10 million in cash in front of me today and said, That’s what I wanted to ask you about because there’s a narrative out there that you attended a New Japan show at the Tokyo Dome on April 29th, 1996. As a reminder, Scott Hall comes down the steps on May 27th, so this would’ve been right about four weeks ahead of time, a month ahead of time. We’re talking about April 29th, 1996. It’s at the Tokyo Dome Show. It is taped for tv. There are 65,000 fans in attendance.”
Bischoff clarified that even if he was present at the event, he had no knowledge of the storylines or angles being used in Japan. He explained, “Whether I was there or not, I ain’t no fucking clue what the storylines were going into that, right? I wasn’t watching their weekly television. I didn’t sit down with somebody from Japan’s creative side and say, okay, what’s the angle here? What’s the story? How did you build that? I’d show up the day before an event. I would take care of business.”
Despite the speculation, Bischoff emphasized that his focus was on repairing the relationship between WCW and New Japan, which had been damaged by Bill Watts. He stated, “When it came to talent and storylines, one of the biggest issues I had to overcome was going back to reestablishing a relationship with New Japan after Bill Watts screwed him over famously, and New Japan didn’t want anything to do with WCW or Turner Broadcasting. I had to fix that.”
It is important to note that the belief that Bischoff copied the NWO storyline from Japan is a misconception and has been debunked by Bischoff himself. The success of the NWO angle was a result of Bischoff’s creative vision and the execution of the storyline in WCW.
For more information, you can listen to the full episode of Eric Bischoff’s 83 Weeks Podcast here.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
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