WWE News: Eric Bischoff Explains Why Company Has Struggled To Create New Stars Since Steve Austin
Eric Bischoff was a guest on the latest episode of Busted Open Radio, where he discussed why WWE doesn’t have any star power these days. According to the former WCW president, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin walking out of the company back in 2002 may have something to do with it.
As quoted by WrestleZone, Bischoff believes that the company is resistant to building the company around a single performer in case something unexpected happens again.
“Imagine the position that put WWE in. You’ve got your whole company built up around one guy – all your marketing, all your promotion, all your plans built up around one guy, who decides for whatever reason, justifiably or not, he’s going home, or he gets hurt or he joins a monastery or whatever. You know, when you build your entire company around one guy and that one guy is no longer available, it does take a while to rebuild and it’s a problem.”
Austin walked out of the company in 2002 after being told that he had to lose to Brock Lesnar on an episode of Monday Night Raw. While the legendary superstar eventually returned to the company and redeemed himself in the eyes of Vince McMahon and WWE management, they were unhappy with Austin for a long time.
Bischoff also noted that WWE, as an entity, is the star these days, which is another reason why the company might not be inclined to go above and beyond to create top stars. Since the company is no longer reliant on marquee names to sustain itself, the role of individual wrestlers isn’t as important as it used to be.
According to Bischoff, this approach makes sense from a business standpoint. However, he also criticized this method as it means that no one on the roster stands out. Bischoff stated that there are a lot of “talented people” in WWE, but they find themselves in a challenging position right now. Bischoff also claimed this has been the case in WWE for over 10 years.
WWE has been reliant on part-timers such as Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg to fill the gap in recent years, which is perhaps why they haven’t felt the need to build new talent. The company has also found plenty of financial success by promoting the brand worldwide.
As noted by Forbes, WWE’s stock price and the market gap has increased significantly in recent years, thanks to some prosperous deals with Saudi Arabia and television networks.
