The Monday Night War Debate: 14 Things We Learned From Eric Bischoff & Bruce Prichard

11. The Kliq's Influence

Next up we move into talk about the Kliq and how much influence they truly held. History has painted them as the puppet masters behind the scenes, using the other WWE talent as pawns in their own personal chess game. Jericho asks Prichard how much of that is true and he concedes that they were very powerful backstage politicians and bullies who wielded a lot of influence and had the benefit of having Vince McMahon€™s ear. He says they made life miserable for anyone who wasn't in good standing with them. There were rumblings about Hall and Nash wanting to leave for WCW, but that Shawn Michaels was locked into his contract and couldn't go anywhere. Prichard says their discontent was based on the fact that at WWE they were paid on what they drew, and if they only drew 1,000 fans that's what they were compensated for. He said there were complaints from someone for being the lowest paid WWE champion in history, and that's because he was the lowest drawing champion in history. Jericho quickly chimes in and points out that he's speaking about Kevin Nash. "It's true! I'm not saying anything that's not documented." Eric takes exception to the claim that the only reason the two jumped was because they wanted the ease of a guaranteed contract. He claims that the reason they didn't like the pay system is because it was discretionary and no one ever knew what the exact structure was, calling it "kabuki-ish." He contends that the main reason they wanted to join WCW was because they were on the road a lot less dates per year.