WWE Hall Of Famer Always Reminds Eric Bischoff Of Backfire Moment

AEW

For 83 weeks, WCW outperformed WWE in the television ratings until a single line of commentary helped tip the scales.

On the January 4 1999 episode of WCW Nitro, Eric Bischoff instructed Tony Schiavone to spoil the ending of the pre-taped episode of WWE Raw for that evening.

Schiavone would make his infamous dismissive “butts in the seats” line about Mankind defeating The Rock to win the WWE Championship.

And, put “butts in the seats” it did, with nearly 600,000 people switching from WCW Nitro to watch what they’d been told was happening on WWE Raw.

Eric Bischoff was asked about the moment and whether it had backfired on a recent episode of 83 Weeks.

Reflecting on the moment, Bischoff said:

“It did backfire, and Mick Foley, every time I see him, he’ll usually wait about three or four minutes after greeting before he reminds me. Every time.”

That moment wasn’t the first time that Bischoff had spoiled what was happening on WWE Raw during live broadcasts of WCW Nitro.

He would explain the reason for keeping the strategy going by stating:

“You gotta remember that was a move I was doing.

“The truth is, that strategy worked really, really well for a long time until it didn’t.

“This example is probably the first time it didn’t work. And not only didn’t it work, I got spanked.”

WWE had slowly been making gains in the ratings but was still tailing behind WCW with January 4 moment being the first major shift in the audience towards WWE programming.

Transcript from Wrestling Inc.

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• wwe
• Mick Foley
• WCW
• eric bischoff

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