The war between the WWF and WCW was personal. Very personal. From 1995 to 2001, we saw McMahon mock his former top stars Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan on air. Eric Bischoff returned fire by giving away the results to the WWFs pre-recorded Raw. McMahon lamented behind the scenes about Ted Turner stealing all of his talent, and Bischoff told his crew that he was going to put the WWF out of business. He was wrong. The war came to an end in March of 2001. After declining ratings and millions of dollars lost, WCW lost its TV timeslots and McMahon bought them out. While many WCW talents jumped over to WWF for The Invasion angle, most of the big guns stayed home. Perhaps Bischoff, more than anyone, could have given the Alliance an identity, but he missed out. And who could blame him? How could one driven, proud, egotistical individual ever work for the man who beat him? In July of 2002, Bischoff did the unthinkable and joined the enemy. During a segment on Raw, McMahon announced that the show needed to be shaken up, and a new general manager would be revealed that night. In a random backstage segment with Booker T, the camera suddenly zoomed in on his face as he looked horrified. As the camera moved out, Bischoff stepped into frame and shook his hand. Seeing him without any sort of announcement beforehand was unbelievable. At the time, it seemed he wouldnt be welcomed in the same state as a WWF show due to how poorly he treated some of the talent when they worked for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlqZLPsFgNc Shortly after, McMahon announced Bischoff as the new GM. Instead of coming to blows, they hugged. Shocking! Even more shocking was that the company probably threw away boatloads of cash right then and there by having the two former enemies play nice.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
