< Continued from page 1
Eric Cohen: Why is professional wrestling the only scripted television show I can think of that does not have credits roll at the beginning or end of the program?
Eric Bischoff: Well, professional wrestling isn’t necessarily scripted in the traditional sense. It’s lightly scripted, or loosely scripted. It’s not written by union writers. Usually shows where you see credits roll are typically, but not always, shows that have union associations, and that is not the case with professional wrestling.


I think that more than that, traditionally, going back to the early days of television and the early days of professional wrestling, the goal was to try and convince the audience that what they were seeing was real. The last thing that a producer of professional wrestling back in the day before everyone realized it was loosely scripted entertainment, the last thing that a promoter or producer would want is to have a credit roll that would remind people that what you are seeing is just like I Love Lucy. So I think it is partly tradition and partly the fact that the people who are associated with the product really don’t care about credits.

Eric Cohen: There are rumors circulating that you might be starting up a new wrestling promotion in the near future. Is there any truth to these rumors?

Eric Bischoff: Yes and no. I mean, we’ve been talking about it for a long time. I’ve said in numerous interview in the past couple of years that I’ve been approached a number of times by people that wanted to start a wrestling company.

Jason and I have talked about it in the past but we’re realistic enough to know that unless we create a wrestling company that has a unique business model and has a unique approach to the marketplace, it doesn’t make much sense. But with this show and with our relationship to CMT and with Hulk Hogan as the anchor to our brand, we recognize that there is an opportunity, depending on the success of the show, to step into that area. I think we’re taking a little bit of a wait and see. We’re certainly in discussions. We’ve had conversations about it. We have kind of an idea of how we would go about it should we decide to pull the trigger. But, I think that any further discussion of that would be a little premature at this point.

Eric Cohen: What are your thoughts about the current WWE product?

Eric Bischoff: Obviously, they are very successful. There is no denying their success. They dominate the market. If you look at the television landscape across the board, you have to acknowledge that the WWE is an incredibly stable product. It delivers a great audience week in and week out and it has for a long time. I think that when you compare it to other forms of cable television, it is probably one of the most solid programs out there.

That being said, I think that the product is incredibly stale. It’s not necessarily a criticism, although it certainly sounds like one. It’s extremely difficult, and I’ve been saying this for a long time, with the number of hours of television that the WWE produces, and it’s all fresh television, there are no repeats. The WWE doesn’t have the advantages of scripted television like Grey’s Anatomy, Boston Legal, and CSI where they’re on for 8 weeks or 13 weeks and then they’re off for a long time so they can regroup and come up with fresh ideas and storylines.

The WWE cranks out programming 52 weeks a year and they crank out a lot of it. They crank out a lot of programming 52 weeks a year utilizing, for the most part, the very same talent at the core, I mean the meaningful wrestlers that everyone knows and recognizes. After a time, and particularly in the WWE’s case, you’ve got guys like Triple H, the Undertaker, and even Chris Jericho, a lot of these guys that people know as household names, these guys have probably been involved with each other 300 ways to Sunday.

As a creator, as a producer, it is really, really challenging to come up with ideas and storylines that feel fresh and exciting because we’ve all been there and done that with them for the last 10 years or more. Because of that and combine that with the fact that the creative tone of the show is dominated by the creative input and vision of one person, Vince McMahon, and the people around him are working hard to create the type of show that Vince McMahon wants and likes and appreciates, what you end up with is a show where one episode feels so similar to the next episode that from my point of view at least, it is really hard to watch. They do a great job with what they do, but unless you give me something new and fresh at some point, I get real bored real quickly watching the same people doing the same thing, the same type of storylines, the same creative elements, the same creative tone, the same types of finishes, it just gets old. And I think that is where the WWE is right now. It’s just a very old, kind of stale. There’s a sameness to it.

Again, I don’t want to sound critical because I not sure that I could figure it out if I was there. In fact, I’m sure I couldn’t. But that is one of the reasons that we produced our show the way that we wanted to produce it. It is so much different than what the WWE is doing that we felt by virtue of the fact that it so different that the wrestling audience would go “Wow, that’s cool”. We’re not trying to compete against the WWE. We’re on Saturday night at 8:00 Eastern. We’re nowhere near the WWE. But we want to provide wrestling fans with an alternative, a real alternative, not just using the word alternative like some promotions do, but we want to provide wrestling fans with a wrestling product that is a true alternative and highly entertaining.