Eric Bischoff spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam ahead of his appearance at C2E2 in Chicago. Bischoff spoke the success rate of pushing the envelope in professional wrestling, saying it’s a tried and true formula that has always worked, and we’re seeing it again with Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch, who will main event Wrestlemania 35 with Charlotte Flair:
“A perfect example is Becky Lynch in WWE right now. Ronda Rousey, great story. There’s an edge to the way they are getting their characters over in public. There’s an edge—almost a dangerous edge—to the way Becky attacks on social media, or uses social media. I think that edge, or intensity as you put it, that little bit of danger is always going to be a driver for professional wrestling. Think about it—what is sports entertainment, or professional wrestling? It’s two people, sometimes more, that have a personal issue and they battle it out in a physical story. If you go to a play on Broadway, you see actor and actresses and they use the written word or the spoken word as a way to convey their story. Professional wrestling is physical. There’s a little bit of the spoken word in there, but it’s a physical dialogue and I think the edgier it is, the more dangerous it is, the more it pushes the envelope, the more it will be successful. That formula has always worked in professional wrestling.”
Read More: Ronda Rousey vs Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair Confirmed To Main Event Wrestlemania 35
Bischoff was also asked how much pleasure he takes in seeing the nWo being so engrained and connecting with the audience, to which he said he can enjoy things now, but didn’t do enough reflecting on it in real time in WCW:
“Not enough. I was young and it was all new to me, and one of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that you really have to enjoy the moment. While you might think that moment is going to last a long time—if you’re really successful in your career, or your relationship, or whatever it is—I think human beings tend to think ‘here we are, this is going to be like this forever.’ It never works out that way, but in the midst of it all, It all happens so fast, and so many things happened as a result of it, great things financially and otherwise, that I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I do now. I look back at it now and go ‘wow, that was pretty fascinating.’ In the moment, it was like ‘we did this today, it’s Monday, we have to go do it again next week. Let’s get to work.’”
