Former WCW President & RAW GM Eric Bischoff has begun contributing a weekly article to WrestleZone taking a look at the world of politics from the point of view of pro wrestling.
These articles are in conjunction with Eric’s weekly podcast Bischoff on Wrestling. A new episode is released every Wednesday via iTunes & AudioBoom and features WrestleZone’s Nick Hausman as his co-host.
Subscribe: Bischoff on Wrestling on iTunes
Swerves, Plot Twists, Politics & Pro Wrestling
Last weekend my wife Loree and I went to see a matinee. We had been packing for our annual trip back to Arizona from Wyoming for the winter over the course of a couple days and we needed a little diversion.
The early holiday feature film season appeared to be kicking off strong with both Tom Cruise’s ‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’ and Ben Affleck’s ‘The Accountant’ going head to head in our local theatre.
Ben won. And I am really glad he did.
We chose ‘The Accountant’, bought a bucket or two of fake buttered popcorn and settled in for two hours of escape from the task of loading up our truck and trailer in order to “Beverly Hillbilly” our way back to Arizona. I am not a film critic. Never studied film and have never really been in the proximity of the film script development process. So I by no means want to sound any smarter than a guy who just loves great story architecture. But man…from the main story, multiple sub-plots and incredible plot twists, ‘The Accountant’ is one of the best movies I’ve seen in decades from a pure story telling perspective. By the end of the movie each of the stories were tied up in a compelling way. The plot twists that occurred during the movie all made sense and the entire experience made me wish the movie wasn’t over.
Cut to: INTERIOR-FRIDAY AFTERNOON OCTOBER 28
(Eric Bischoff is sitting at his desk working on that weeks story for wrestlezone.com. A look of quiet frustration on his face as he tries to find an entertaining way to tie politics and sports entertainment together. He looks up from his laptop to the television that is permanently tuned into one of several cable news outlets. His face contorts into a, “this can’t possibly be really happening” kind of expression as he listens to the most recent plot twist in the epic drama known as ‘The Campaign’.)
Ok, I don’t think that little snippet of my writing skill (or lack thereof) is going to get me a gig writing political thrillers. It is a pretty good description of what I was doing when I heard the news that FBI Director James Comey notified Congress that new information presented itself that could re-open the investigation into Hillary Clintons email debacle.
What a plot twist!
Last week I wrote about three dimensional finishes and how important I believe they are to the construct of a memorable wrestling match vs one that just occupies a brief moment on the card. Over the weekend, I watched the news intently as things were developing so rapidly that I really felt like, and still do, that important history is happening right before our eyes and is playing out in a way none of us has experienced. I finally finished watching this morning so I could get to work and it dawned on me once again how often politics and sports entertainment parallel each other.
For instance: There are two women, campaigning at the moment in two different venues, to be President. Now I know thats a reach but hey, for the sake of entertainment, role with me here.
The on-going movie that many of you have been following in the digital domains of sports entertainment between Dixie Carter and Billy Corgan has all the conspiratorial claims and counter claims of any decent political drama. The plot twist in this story? The argument that Billy Corgan who pretended to come in a white horse to save TNA from total destruction with his vision and $1.8mm only to nefariously set TNA up for a takeover!
Our other damsel in distress has been facing serious potential criminal charges over her handling, bleach bitting, lies and who knows what else. She thought she dodged the most deadly political bullet of her life-and, by the way, THATS SAYING SOMETHING. Only to disembark a wi-fi-less campaign plane to find out after the fact that the FBI notified Congress that new information discovered on a laptop might cause this case to be reopened.
With only 11 days remaining until the election.
I won’t take up digital space by sharing my opinions of all this. Thats not what you want to read on a site like this. I do think that its poignant that while wrestling fans in general don’t like to hear/read politics on their favorite wrestling sites the parallels between sports entertainment and politics have never been more obvious to me.
That either speaks highly of sports entertainment or rather badly on our political environment. Either way, unlike Ben Affleck’s ‘The Accountant’ I am looking forward to this movie coming to an end.
Every Wednesday night Eric has also begun contributing a weekly “Controversial Story Of The Week” segment for Sports Illustrated’s 120 Sports app with his Bischoff on Wrestling co-host Nick Hausman.
You can download the 120 Sports app via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to watch each week.
This past week’s segment took a look at AJ Styles teasing a match with Shawn Michaels at the 2017 Royal Rumble:
You can listen to the full archives from Bischoff on Wrestling in the embedded audio player below:
