Customer Reviews

Eric Bischoff: Controversy Creates Cash (Wwe)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Eric Bischoff makes a comment early in this book that goes something like this: books written by people involved in professional wrestling are usually either shameless self promotion or utter bull****. This is true. And while Bischoff isn't short on self promotion or bull**** himself, this book is much more compelling than I thought it was going to be when I picked it up.

Bischoff (through his ghost writer) is amazingly honest about his failures and readily admits to mistakes he made with storylines, talent, the executives at Time Warner and his own staff while running WCW. This is a rarity in any kind of autobiographical tome, but it is down right amazing coming from someone with ties to professional wrestling. Usually what you get is a lot of "it wasn't my fault" "they wanted to hold me down". And while Bischoff takes no prisoners with his flat out disrespect for the way things went after the big AOL Time Warner merger that left WCW out in the cold, it was refreshing to read Bischoff admit to making his own mistakes in how he dealt with talent like Steve Austin, and how utterly stupid he was to take on the production of another two hour live show (the forgettable Thunder) and by pushing Nitro to three hours when he knew he didn't have the money or the people to sustain it. He explains in the book why he did it, but admits it buried WCW.

There are candid accounts of his ties with wrestlers like Randy Savage, Lex Luger, Hall, Nash, DDP, Bret Hart and especially Hulk Hogan. He even casts his own light on the Montreal Screwjob and is very candid about Vince Russo's contribution to WCW which made me laugh.

Bischoff has an ego that's hard to miss - he congratulates himself a LOT on what he did well, and the reader gets the impression that if the merger hadn't taken place and if Bischoff hadn't had WCW snatched from him at the 11th hour by Vince McMahon and the WWE when Time Warner finally put it up for sale, he would still be running a successful profitable WCW. Interesting. One thing that is very obvious, though, is that when Bischoff was running WCW he was really running by the seat of his pants, making it up as he went along, which makes what he achieved with WCW in its heyday all the more impressive.

This book is a must read for anyone who remembers the Monday Night Wars back in the mid to late 90's. While Bischoff is better known by today's fans as an on air talent, he once ran the most successful wrestling company in the USA and almost put Vince McMahon out of business which is something no one else has ever - and probably will ever - come close to doing. For that reason alone, one sort of has to respect him and his contribution to professional wrestling.

Eric Bischoff: Controversy Creates Cash is the autobiography of Eric Bischoff, who rightfully self boasts himself as the second most influential man in professional wrestling history, behind Vince McMahon. In his autobiography, he attempts to cover his side of the things. Although he does tell an interesting story, some things just seem to be missing.

He begins his story like most biographies, about his childhood. He does not dwell on this for long as he knows the audience of the book is more interested in other things. He talks about his early days as a salesman for AWA, before starting out as an awful interviewer and commentator. He moves onto his early time in WCW, denying completely lacking any management experience at this point, until he decided to toss his name in as a replacement for several unpopular other heads of World Championship Wrestling.

As he gains control of the company, he speaks of his early attempts to turn the company around, to varying degrees of success. He talks of his early politicking as he brought in Hulk Hogan, and other former WWE stars he brought in. He speaks of the Early days of the nWo, and how he first started to make WCW profit. But he finally starts to admit defeat to the greatest opponent to WCW's success- not the WWE, but Corporate Big Wigs as Ted Tuner slowly lost control his company. And lastly, losing WCW to the WWE, and finally returning to WWE as an on screen character.

While Bischoff covers a lot of things, the book seems a bit sparse in some details, and he doesn't seem to address his bigger blunders, such as bringing in the Ultimate Warrior, or having David Arquette become WCW Champion- and seems to obviously skewer the truth in his favor at times. He also seems to go out of his way to avoid hurting anyone's feelings at times, seemingly trying to make himself look like the good guy.

All in all, it's worth a read, just to get another side of the story- even if it isn't the total story. His insights on such moves as firing Steve Austin and Sean Waltman by Fed Ex are worth hearing straight from the horses mouth. It may not be the entire truth, but you can make yourself all the wiser if you read this book in tandem with R.D. Reynold's Death of WCW- The truth may not be either or, but the key to it lies somewhere in the middle.

I was expecting to read about Bischoff criticizing many WCW and WWE wrestlers because, if you've ever seen WWE Raw during a commercial break, Bischoff runs down a list of people in the wrestling industry who he believes will be angry with him when these certain people read his book. I don't think so. His opinions on the wrestlers are pretty brief and he doesn't do much in the way of putting down anyone. Disappointing.

The book does give you information on his career in WCW and WWE that you've probably never heard before so the book is certainly worth reading at least once. But putting the word "controversy" in the title isn't accurate, in my opinion.

Just got done reading Eric Bischoff's new book titled "Controversy Creates Cash". The book is defiantly a good read and has a lot of inside information to it. Bischoff goes over his early years a kid, getting his first breaks in the business, early times in WCW before he took over, his ideas when he took over, the Hulk Hogan signing, Monday Nitro, nWo, DX, WWF and much more. Lots of very interesting information on planned storylines that never went through and his ideas behind decisions he made. There is a lot on Hulk Hogan, nWo, and the monday night wars in the book. The one area where I was very dissapointed was his views on many of the wrestlers. He briefly talks about Lex Luger, Randy Savage, Sting and other big stars and his opinions of them. He doesn't go into much detail besides that on his relationship with wrestlers, most of the book is on big events and storylines. The Honky Tonk Man and Vader firings are not even brought up. I would have really enjoyed the book better if he would have shared more behind the scenes views of the wrestlers in one chapter. Good book, defiantly a read. But not in the same league as Mick Foley's books.

I enjoyed the book. If you wacthed wrestling back during the Monday night wars it is a must read. It gives you insights to what they were thinking during the shows and how some of the angles came together. It also gives you a sense of what kind of a person Eric Bishoff is. It makes you wonder what todays wrestling would be if the AOL merger with Turner had never happened. I believe we would have a better product on the air than we have today.

After reading Controversy Creates Cash, I concluded that Eric Bischoff really isn't that bad of a guy. It is easy for pundits and bloggers to criticize and Tuesday morning quarterback, but that is why they are observers and critics and not leaders and trailblazers.
Unlike the McMahon's, Eric had corporate bosses to answer to. He also had the usual assortment of rogue professional wrestlers who did not always play well together. But under Bischoff, the WCW had an extraordinary run during the second half of the 1990's. Nothing lasts forever, wrestling popularity comes and goes in cycles anyhow. But the Bischoff imprint remains on what wrestling is today.

I was very excited to read this book. The Monday Night Wars were a fond memory, and I was immensely interested in Bischoff's take on the rise and fall of WCW. Overall, this book came up short in a number of respects.

First, I REALLY wish Bischoff had written this book before he began his relationship with the WWE. Sadly, like Ric Flair's book (also published by WWE, of course), far too much of this book seemed to be written simply to stroke Vince McMahon's ego, which is especially ironic given that it was promoted on WWE television as if Vince and company would be enraged by its contents. In reality, the worst thing Eric says about WWE is that for a period in 1996-97, they were behind the times. Why Vince would be upset by this is anybody's guess, since WWE has said this numerous times themselves in their own telling of the history of the ratings war with WCW. But then, because of Vince's brilliance and hard work (Eric, like others who clearly want to maintain a good relationship with WWE, points out that Vince is quite possibly the hardest working man alive), WWE caught up to WCW and ultimately passed them. In fact, Eric mentions NUMEROUS times throughout the book what great people all of the McMahons are, how hard they work, how the atmosphere at WWE was so great compared to the Hell that was WCW. The "Easy E" we knew and loved to hate from 1996-99 would NEVER have written it this way. The old adage is true -- the winners do write the history, even when they get the former Executive Vice President of the losers to put his signature at the end.

However, let's get to the real content of the book -- the downfall of WCW. Bischoff tells this story in a way to minimize his own mistakes and place the blame on others to the greatest extent possible. The narrative is straightforward. Bischoff was the creative genius behind WCW's rise to success in 1996 until he was stymied by two mergers (first with Time Warner and then with AOL) and lecherous employees (Sharon Sidello, Gary Juster, among others). Bischoff contends that the merger with Time Warner caused on unbearable obstacles to his ability to produce a successful wrestling program, especially due to the rigid guidelines put in place by TNT's "Standards and Practices." McMahon was able to push the envelope with profanity and partial nudity, while WCW was shackled. Bischoff contends that, unlike Ted Turner, the higher-ups at Time Warner had no appreciation of what the wrestling business involved and ultimately had no use or care for WCW.

In fairness, I write this review as a fan. As far as I know, everything Bischoff writes about his corporate troubles is true. All I can intelligently comment on is what took place on my television screen and what turned me and the people I know off from WCW. It was not that WWE had cursing and fake breasts while WCW didn't. It was that WWE had a quality show with entertaining wrestlers and a solid core storyline (Austin/McMahon) while WCW was rehashing the same core idea from 1996 (the nWo) and was putting on a stale program. WCW made creative and booking blunders of gigantic magnitude that appeared to this fan to be completely unrelated to the troubles Bischoff described. In fact, Bischoff never really explains the reasoning behind his assumption that it was impossible to put on a quality program with decent storylines and great matches, even with the obstacles he had in place.

This book's biggest failing, in my opinion, is that Bischoff tremendously downplays (and, in at least a couple of cases, completely ignores) the creative blunders he and those in charge of WCW's booking made that eroded the quality of the product. A couple of examples: Bischoff devotes maybe a couple of paragraphs to his April 1998 decision to banish Ric Flair from WCW television for months, which tremendously angered the fan base. By the time Flair returned in September, WWF was winning the ratings on a regular basis. Bischoff incredibly makes no mention of the ludicrous decision to split up the nWo into the "Wolfpack" and "nWo Hollywood," which creatively made little sense and probably did more than anything to kill the entire nWo concept. Even more surprising was Bischoff's failure to make any mention of the infamous "Fingerpoke of Doom," a disastrous decision that enough fans, at least, consider to be important that it has its own Wikipedia page. One of the major motivations I had for buying this book was to get Bischoff's reasoning behind these and many other decisions. Bischoff's refusal to give them the attention they deserved was a major disappointment. But that would have required actually taking some responsibility for the downfall of WCW, and it seems that the purpose of this book in large part was for Bischoff to pass that buck to others.

Instead, Bischoff decides to spend pages upon pages maligning those that worked with him, especially Vince Russo. Now let's be clear, russo deserves his share of maligning, but Bischoff took it to a new level, writing some things about Russo that were downright vile. Oddly, Bischoff made a point of stating that Russo REPORTED TO HIM when it came to making creative decisions, but then proceeded to blame Russo for all of the bad decisions made in the spring and summmer of 2000.

All in all, this book was disappointing.

With all these wrestling books you just never know who is telling the truth. They make their living lying to us, so you can never trust what they say. Basically, the way I see it, Bischoff did a lot more for the world of wrestling than Vince McMahon will ever give him credit for, but not as much as he thinks.
DX is a rip off of the NWO? Maybe but the NWO is a rip off of the 4 horsemen.

I can tell a lot of people will be disappointed by this book. Many wrestling books, especially those written by performers, tend to be mud-slinging trash-fests (a fact mentioned in this book). Bischoff, however, never goes into full-on negative attack mode. The end result is that the book comes off as much more real than other one-sided tales you might read.

If you approach the story objectively, you'll come away with a greater knowledge of not just how a wrestling business operates, but how a major corporation can shoot itself in the foot. On the other hand, if you come ready with the typical "fanboy grudge" eye, you aren't going to like what you get here.

This covers Bischoff's childhood as well as his early work in the AWA, which resulted in him getting a job at a struggling WCW. It then goes on to chronicle the rise and eventual fall of WCW amidst the Time-Warner takeover of Ted Turner's company. There's a very few tidbits about more current events, as well as some thoughts and opinions on the current state of wrestling, but the main course is WCW.

As stated before, Bischoff never really pulls a hatchet job on anyone. He has some harsh criticism of certain individuals, but nearly all of the criticism is tempered by at least a passing mention of those individual's better talents or attributes. He almost always cushions the blow. The only people that don't get an out are a few executives in WCW/Time-Warner (none of whom even hardcore fans will be familiar with) and what Bischoff calls internet "dirtsheet" writers. Internet writers crop up several times during the book, and never in a positive light. They are the only group that he definitely has no love for, but most wrestling higher-ups feel the same way, so no big surprise there.

Just as he doesn't bury anyone, he also doesn't whitewash his involvement with WCW. While he doesn't come right out and outline many specific decisions that should have been made differently, he does admit to not handling personnel properly and getting too full himself, among other mistakes. He does not, however, point the finger at one person or one incident as the catalyst for the end of WCW. His ability to point to both failures and successes grants his version of events much more plausability than other books about the subject (which were often written by outsiders working on assumptions).

On the technical side of things, there are a few flaws. I noticed at least three typographical errors, but they aren't nearly as bad (or as frequent) as other reviews make them out to be. Also, one photograph is mislabelled, but it deals with a very minor part of the story, so it is easily overlooked. My main technical beef with this book was its use of headings. Chapter headings, sub-chapter headings and sub-sub-chapter headings...it was as if this book was written to be read three or four paragraphs at a time. I don't know if the sub-sub-chapter headings were added to pad the length of the book, but they interrupt the flow of the narrative much too often. It would have been better off without them.

In the end, this is a fine addition to the growing collection of wrestling literature. If you are one of the people that has no problem seperating the human beings in wrestling from the characters they play in the ring, you will enjoy the unique point of view from the man everyone loved to hate, Eric Bischoff.

I found this book to be quite an interesting read. For years, I had heard nothing but negative things about Eric Bischoff, so to see it from his perspective was refreshing. As a longtime wrestling fan who was engrossed in the Monday Night Wars during my teenage years, I enjoyed reading about how it all played out behind the scenes. Bischoff's vision of blurring the line between kayfabe and reality was, in my opinion, the perfect jump-start that wrestling needed, and it certainly kept me coming back for more. Say what you want about Bischoff, but there is no question that the changes he made to WCW, and WWE's response to them, created a period of great prosperity for both companies and enjoyment for the fans.
I admired how Bischoff was willing to admit some of his own faults, as well as his (mostly) balanced assessments of other wrestlers, bookers, promoters, etc., although some seemed a bit sketchy. And while I understand that the Time Warner/AOL merger was very detrimental to WCW from a creative control point of view, Bischoff doesn't touch on the negative aspects of the product itself. He doesn't really talk about how bad of a decision it was to split up the NWO into factions, nor does he mention the fingerpoke of doom. He also doesn't talk about the truly troubled aspects of his relationship with Ric Flair, such as how Flair basically assaulted him when both were in WWE. There are also parts of the book that have to be taken with a grain of salt, such as his constant praise of Vince McMahon. While I'm sure some of it was genuine, one cannot also discount the fact that McMahon was Bischoff's boss at the time. I have heard plenty of negative things about Vince, and one would be inclined to think that Bishcoff would give a more frank opinion of him had he not been under contract to WWE at the time.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Whether you love him or hate him, I believe that most wrestling fans should read this book and then come to their own conclusions. Recommended.