WWE 24/7 Legends Roundtable - Monday Night Wars Recap - September 10, 2007

I've been trying to get this in here for weeks but here is a review/recap of the WWE 24/7 roundtable show discussing the Monday Night Wars. If you are unfamiliar with the show, this is a shoot roundtable discussion show that is hosted by Jim Ross and other members of the roundtable include Eric Bischoff, Mick Foley, Michael Hayes, and Jerry Lawler. These shows are worth the price of admission for WWE 24/7. I have been waiting for this Monday Night Wars show since JR said that they had taped it. This show was a LOT of fun. It was fun to hear them talk about the WWF/WCW battle from different angles. Bischoff held his own against the all WWE crew on the other side. This era in wrestling was truly amazing. I feel bad for the wrestling fans that just got into it here in the last few years and didn't get to live through this golden era of wrestling. You can hear stories or watch the shows on tape but to live it was something amazing. You never knew what was going to happen on those Monday nights. Each company tried to top the other and talent went back and forth. It was a great time to be a wrestling fan!! Let's get right into it and I'm just basically going to type comments as we go through it. The show ran for 1 hour and 37 minutes. Bischoff was asked how the idea came about for Monday Nitro. Bischoff says that he was called into a meeting with Ted Turner and his crew. He was asked by Turner what it would take to beat the WWF. Bischoff replied saying that WWF is in prime time on Monday nights and live. He said that he mentioned a primetime slot head to head would be the only way thinking that there was no way he would get it and just threw something big out there. Bischoff said that he was stunned when Turner turned to one of his guys and said "give Eric the Monday night time slot" to go head to head with Raw. Bischoff said that he tried to figure out how he was going to beat WWF and said he'd have to figure out a way to be a different product. He said that he couldn't beat them at their own game and had to have an edgier and different product. Nitro was launched on a Monday night when Raw was preempted due to the US Open and it was an absolutely calculated move. Bischoff admitted to saying that telling the results of the taped Raw shows was a dirty move but he was trying to win the war. Lawler commented about how mad Vince McMahon would get when Bischoff would do that. On a side note, it made me mad too cause I would tape both shows and then watch Raw after Nitro. Hayes felt that WCW was trying their hardest to put them out of business and was mad that they were trying to make people lose their jobs by putting them out of business. Hayes admits that if he had been in Bischoff's position that he would have tried to do the same thing as well. Kind of an odd combination of comments from Hayes there. It is very much admitted on this show with how close WWF was to going out of business. JR said that he didn't know how close they were to going out of business but said that he took a tremendous pay cut at the time along with others. They asked Bischoff if he knew how close WWF was to closing down and he said he absolutely knew it. Bischoff said that he knew that he had a better product for a while talent wise and production wise. Bischoff gets asked the usual question of bringing in WWF stars to be on WCW. Bischoff brings up the point of whether the people that he brought in was former WWF guys or WCW guys. Bischoff points out that Hall and Nash were originally WCW guys who went to the WWF and then jumped back. Lawler says that they did become stars in WWF though. Hayes talks about how genius the whole nWo invasion was where they made it look like the WWF guys were trying to come in and take over. Hayes said that getting Hogan as an anchor in 1994 and getting the deal with Disney got the ball rolling. That was when they started stacking up the talent. Bischoff said that all of the talent didn't really start mattering as far as the WWF/WCW war until they went head to head on Monday nights. Bischoff and Hayes agree that Hall and Nash were much bigger stars as being in the nWo. Hayes talked about who he thought the real winners were in the Monday Night Wars and said that the fans were the real winners. JR said that it really was a golden era. Bischoff says that every night was the Super Bowl for wrestling fans cause of how competitive the companies were. JR said that they (WWF) realized that they needed to make new stars commenting that you can't just keep repackaging the British Bulldog for example. JR said that they were forced to go hire new stars and he had to fight to get certain talents that Vince didn't see as a typical WWF look. He talks about fighting to bring in Foley and then also brought in Austin from ECW. They talk about Bret Hart and the huge contract that he had. JR said that WWF could not afford to keep some of these superstars. Foley asked Bischoff if it weren't for the Monday Night Wars, would talent now be getting guaranteed contracts? Bischoff said probably not. Foley said that he was bothered when he came in to WWF with his contract and then Marc Mero was brought in a couple of weeks later with a 6 figure contract. Foley says that Vince admitted in 1997 that maybe he had dropped the ball and that they needed to work on developing new characters. There was less goofy kid gimmicks after that. Bischoff said that WWF started doing stuff that WCW was doing to get competitive. My first thought on that Bischoff comment was, well, you were stealing ideas from ECW as well. They all took ideas from everyone. Hayes talked about how genius that the nWo promos were with the black and white quick cut deals. Bischoff admitted that it happened by accident cause when you have three guys such as Hogan, Hall, and Nash that it's hard to get all of them to work together on what they say so they cut it up that way so it worked. Foley said that he would watch the WCW product and realize just how much on a roll that they were. Foley does point out that he thought the WWF product was better before it started showing in the ratings when I agree with too. JR says that one thing that got WCW ahead was that they hired guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and some of the smaller guys. Foley felt that the difference at the time in the two products was that WCW had the weak main events but strong undercards while WWF had the strong main events but a weak undercard. Yep, that has been talked about for years and was very true at the time. Bischoff takes Hayes to task over the thing he has always heard and that the talent had creative control on their character. Bischoff said it was garbage and that there was only one guy that had creative control and it was Hogan. JR asks Bischoff how serious the Bret negotiations were and if he knew that Vince was about to become an on air character. Bischoff said that the negotiations were very serious and that he liked Bret a lot. They hit it off on a personal level. He said that he didn't see the potential of the Vince character until several months after Survivor Series 1997. Undertaker, Foley, and many talents refused to go to the next show after Survivor Series with what happened with Bret, Shawn, Vince, and Hebner. JR said that he was head of talent and he got a TON of phone calls about what happened and had to try and straighten it out. Hayes says that he was shocked on how long it took for Bischoff to debut Bret on WCW TV. JR asked if Bret's contract was in the millions and guaranteed to which Bischoff confirmed. Hayes said that they took Bret away just to do it. Bischoff got annoyed saying that isn't true. The reason that he brought in Bret and a lot of other talents at that point was that he was called by Turner people saying that they were going to get another 2 hour primetime show which was Thunder. Bischoff did NOT want to do that show and knew it was going to over saturate the talent and the creative end. He said that he had to get some new talent to keep it fresh and said that was why they got Bret and held him off TV for so long to help launch Thunder. Foley asks Bischoff at the point of WrestleMania in 1998, was Bischoff wanting to be a top company or beat WWF? Bischoff says to beat WWF. He says that if you beat WWF then you are the top company. Bischoff talks about how he was getting fried at this point with having to do so much TV. Lawler asks if he had help? Bischoff said that he did but that no one he could really trust. They all talk about how bad of an idea that it is to have talent wanting to dress in separate dressing rooms like what happened in WCW. Bischoff said that is one thing he would absolutely change is that when you separate talent like that, it makes the playing field not seem level cause groups start forming. Foley talks about how shocked Eddie and Dean were when they came over to WWF and saw that the talent all dressed together. JR says that if you own a company and have talent have separate locker rooms that "you are BEGGING for problems". JR points out that he was one that really pushed WWF to get rid of the separate locker rooms. JR questions the idea of Tony Schiavone spoiling the Foley title change and how Foley winning was run down on TV. Bischoff says that it wasn't a shot at Foley and that he did that to everyone with the spoiler stuff. He said it wasn't about the comments but the tone in how he said it. He said he wanted to make the title win seem irrelevant and that it wasn't personal. Foley asks if he had any idea that he was making his viewers change the channel to Raw. Bischoff laughed and said "clearly not or I wouldn't have said it. I'm not an idiot". Foley said he knew that he wasn't going to be a long term champion and would lose it quickly but took it more of as a lifetime achievement award. Foley said that he was home watching the shows on TV and said he was so excited knowing his title win was about to air. His kids didn't know that he was about to win. When he heard Tony's comments, his mood went from way up to way down and was furious. He said that he called Tony and left a message saying how low class the comments were. Tony did call later in the week and apologize. Bischoff says that he didn't know if he was producing Tony that night on the head sets or not but that he normally didn't. He wasn't hands on with that stuff like Vince McMahon is. Bischoff said that he wanted to always make the other show seem pointless to watch. Hayes puts over how proud he was that night when Foley won cause he was one of those guys that fought to get to the top. Foley talks about how there was no way that WWF should have gotten the higher ratings that night cause of Nitro having big matches live in the Georgia Dome but that was a bad show. Bischoff was asked on whether doing Hogan/Goldberg on Nitro was an attempt to get a ratings win. Bischoff said that he didn't regret doing that match on Nitro and felt that they could always do the match again on PPV. He also adds that it was Hogan's idea to put Goldberg over for the title when Bischoff got a call from Hogan while Bischoff was on the road. Lawler asks Bischoff what the major thing was that put WCW under. Bischoff said that they didn't overspend themselves like people think. He said it was a combination of factors. He also shoots down JR on the theory of whether it was because WCW was relying on older stars instead of building new stars. He says that they did develop stars but everyone points out that Goldberg was the only pushed to the top. He says that is part true. He brings up that when WWF turned up the volume with attitude in 1998 that he wasn't able to compete with that. He said that WWF took bigger risks and that Turner networks wanted family TV. He said that WCW had done the edgier product earlier but WWF went far and beyond what they had done previously. He knew WWF had decided we're doing attitude or we're done. Eric said that he was getting phone calls from people within Turner wanting scripts three months ahead. He said that they were told that they couldn't call people names even such as stupid cause they said that there might be mentally challenged kids' parents that would get mad and offended. He promises that this is true with how much he had to deal with corporate people over him. He went into a meeting with 15 people with Time Warner people and only knew one of them. One guy told him that this is what you're going to do with the company in the next six months. He asked one guy if he knew what night that Monday Nitro was on as a joke and the guy had to think about it. He said the guy had no clue about anything that WCW was doing. Bischoff was eventually sent home from the company and said yes and no on whether it hurt. JR then commented saying that he knew how it felt with how he left WCW and then rips the Turner executive named Bill Shaw for taking JR off TV for no reason. He was told by Shaw that they were moving him to syndicated TV. JR said that he told them he had 2 and a half years left on his contract and wanted to know if they were just going to pay him to do nothing. They were going to do it and said that Shaw was out for him. He said that now Bischoff had the same thing happen to him by entering a meeting that people were out for him on. Bischoff said that he was ready to quit when he was fired in 1999. He said that he wanted to quit in August 1998 and said that he wished that he would have tried, pointing out that he had more leverage at the time cause WCW was more of a success and he probably could have gotten more control of the company back. He could have had more leverage against all of these Turner corporate people. JR asked if Bischoff thought Russo and Ferrara were the saviors of WCW. Bischoff said he barely even knew who they were and wouldn't have recognized if he saw them. He didn't think they were the force behind WWF's revival like people were saying pointing out that they wouldn't have let them go if they were. He said that he turned on Raw one night and saw the Radicals on the show. He said he was furious that his guys were on WWF's show. He told his wife that he guaranteed that he'd have a phone call soon to come back and he did. He was asked by WCW if he could work with Russo which he didn't know cause he hadn't talked to him. He met Russo and said he's a charming guy on the first meeting. He decided to work with him and it lasted 60 days. He couldn't take it anymore. Bischoff talks about how he did not watch the last Nitro with Vince and Shane on it. He couldn't watch it. He said that Nitro and Panama City with Spring Break was his concept and said that made it hurt worse that the ending took place there. Bischoff talks about how it bothered him that he wasn't there when the end was announced. He didn't care for the most part but there was a part of him that did. Jamie Kellner is who he blames for WCW's demise when Bischoff talks about the Fuscient deal was about to go through and how they were locking up the deal to buy WCW. He went on vacation with his family knowing that it would be the last family vacation that they'd have for a while cause it would be back to work trying to fix WCW. He was on the beach when he got a call saying that it was over. Kellner pulled the TV rights meaning that they could buy WCW but then they wouldn't have TV which killed the deal. They don't mention it on the show but that deal was so locked that Bischoff was on Nitro on the phone one week talking about buying the company and what the plans were. That deal was done and it suddenly fell apart fast leaving people stunned. That was why WWF bought WCW at such a really cheap price. JR then jokes about how proud that he is that the final voice that was ever heard on Nitro was his own. LOL. This wrapped up the show. REALLY good show!! If you have access to this show, watch it. You won't be disappointed.