Eric Bischoff Explains Why WCW Never Saw Jeff Jarrett as a Main Event Star in 1996
- Former WCW President Eric Bischoff addressed Jeff Jarrett’s arrival in World Championship Wrestling during a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast titled Pure Soap Opera.
- Co-host Conrad Thompson asked Bischoff whether Jarrett should have debuted in Memphis, Tennessee, pointing to the October 14, 1996, episode of WCW Monday Nitro where Jarrett defeated Big...
- I don’t think anybody really looked at Jeff at the time as — I mean, Jeff obviously is, and still is, a phenomenal performer.
Former WCW President Eric Bischoff addressed Jeff Jarrett’s arrival in World Championship Wrestling during a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast titled Pure Soap Opera. Bischoff discussed why the promotion never positioned Jarrett as a long-term main event star in 1996 despite acknowledging his in-ring ability and the equity he carried from his time in the WWF.
Podcast Discussion on October 1996 Debut and Memphis Origins
Co-host Conrad Thompson asked Bischoff whether Jarrett should have debuted in Memphis, Tennessee, pointing to the October 14, 1996, episode of WCW Monday Nitro where Jarrett defeated Big Bubba Rogers at the Mid-South Coliseum. Bischoff explained that management did not focus on tying a performer’s debut to a local market unless it served a specific storyline, stating that he never subscribed to that booking philosophy.
I don’t think anybody really looked at Jeff at the time as — I mean, Jeff obviously is, and still is, a phenomenal performer. But he wasn’t someone that we would have taken particular time to try to position. I’ll just tell you how I feel. I never subscribed to the theory of trying to connect a performer’s match to his local market or his history. I just never thought of things that way. It was either story-driven or it wasn’t.
83 Weeks
Evaluating the Unmaterialized Ric Flair Feud
Thompson also raised the original creative plan for Jarrett to feud with Ric Flair upon entering the company. That program stalled when Flair sustained a shoulder injury, leading to a changed direction that put Jarrett in a match against The Giant at Halloween Havoc. Jarrett recalled on his My World podcast that Kevin Sullivan originally envisioned a storyline involving Flair, which Jarrett preferred over wearing a black jacket and courting association with the nWo.
It could have worked. There’s no question it could have worked, but at what level? At what scale? And I don’t want to say anything that sounds like we’re diminishing Jeff here, but we wanted Jeff to be successful. Obviously, he had his run in WWE, so his equity was fairly high. He was mid-card in WWE, honestly, and that’s kind of the way we saw it.
83 Weeks
Bischoff added that while the entertainment value of a program with Flair was evident, he remained unconvinced that Jarrett possessed upper-echelon superstardom at that stage of his career. He noted that although Kevin Sullivan may have had distinct ideas regarding Jarrett’s ceiling, the office viewed the incoming talent primarily through his established mid-card status in the rival promotion.
So I think it would have worked from an entertainment point of view. And I wasn’t a part of those discussions between Kevin and Jeff, to be honest. So I’m not sure what Kevin would have said or what Kevin’s thinking was. Kevin might have had a different point of view than I did at the time. I don’t know, I wasn’t a part of it. But from my perspective, it would have been a great match. I don’t know that I was convinced there was superstardom there, but it would have been a great match. It would have definitely been an important part of the show. I just didn’t see it as main event level, to be honest. Not for any length of time.
83 Weeks
Jarrett later departed WCW and returned in 1999 under different creative leadership, eventually capturing the WCW World Heavyweight Championship four times in 2000.