Eric Bischoff had one crazy idea for a storyline in WCW that he never got to do.
During his time in charge of the promotion, Bischoff created the New World Order. This turned the tide on the battle with the WWF and was one of the greatest angles in wrestling history. However, there were more storylines he wanted to do but never got the chance.
Eric Bischoff recently appeared on the No-Contest Wrestling Podcast and was asked about storylines he wished he could have done in WCW. The WWE Hall of Famer quickly thought of a time when he wanted to fake his own death in a plane crash as part of a WCW storyline.
“I remember one time in the summer I was flying around down in Arizona. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if I faked my own death?'” he said. “People knew I flew—it wasn’t something I advertised, but it was known that I had my own plane and enjoyed flying around. The plan was to fake a plane crash. I had it all figured out. I was going to take some pictures of myself and let everybody know that I was down in Arizona, flying around—maybe over the Grand Canyon or something like that. Then, I was going to construct a story where my plane and I disappeared in Mexico.”
“The story was that I’d missed my route, ended up in Mexican airspace, got lost, ran out of gas, and my plane went down. I imagined the Mexican authorities would be ‘searching’ for me. The idea was to have someone leak the story and make everyone think I was dead.”
Eric Bischoff Wanted To Return To WCW As A Ghost
Bischoff continued, explaining how he asked TBS Sports President Harvey Schiller for permission to fake his own death, but was turned down for a myriad of reasons. The former WCW boss wanted to return at Halloween Havoc as a ghost, which ultimately ended up not happening.
“At the time, I was the president of a publicly held company and an officer of it. I knew there were some inherent risks in pulling off that kind of story. So, I went to my boss, Harvey Schiller—who was the president of TBS Sports at the time—and told him about it. I never asked Harvey for permission to do anything. He never required it and had confidence in me to do my job. But in this case, I thought, ‘Maybe I should give my boss a heads-up before faking my own death.'”
“It’d be awkward when I came back to life, right? So, I went to Harvey and explained the whole scenario. I told him how I was going to pull it off. He just sat there, listened, and nodded a couple of times. When I finished, he simply said, ‘No, you won’t be doing that.’ Then he explained why. As an officer of the company, it could have a negative impact on shareholders. It might look like stock manipulation or something along those lines—whatever his reasoning was.”
“So, I didn’t get to do it. This was in the summertime, around September, and I’d planned to fake my death about three weeks before Halloween Havoc. The idea was to return as the ghost of myself and get involved in a match. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to pull that one off.”
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