ROAD MILD
One of the strangest spectacles in TV history (never mind wrestling) took place in 1998 when Jay Leno of The Tonight Show did a cross-promotion with WCW, culminating in a match that pitted Leno and DDMe against Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff at the Road Wild PPV. This was when Bischoff parked WCW’s car at the corner of Stupidity and Insanity. How dumb was it? Let’s count the ways.
*Road Wild was a FREE show. It was at the annual motorcycle rally at Sturgis, South Dakota. NO TICKETS SOLD. NO LIVE GATE. Bischoff thought the show being at Sturgis would entice Leno, a noted motorcycle enthusiast. That’s a good idea if Leno would then work free. He didn’t.
*Bischoff spent $75K to build a talk-show set for use on Nitro with the idea of creating a “rivalry” between Bischoff’s "show" and Leno’s show. Why not just masturbate in public? Who IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would perceive any rivalry between some slap-ass nonsense hosted by an amateur on a WRESTLING SHOW and The Tonight Show, an AMERICAN INSTITUTION? Nitro’s audience didn’t. The ratings breakdown showed massive tune-out during Bischoff’s “show.”
