Bischoff Believes The Warrior’s Inclusion Diluted the NWO Storyline

Eric Bischoff, the former executive producer and president of WCW, recently shared his thoughts on one of the major missteps in the NWO storyline – bringing The Warrior into WCW.

In a clip from the ’83 Weeks’ podcast, Bischoff reflected on the decision to involve The Warrior in WCW, stating that it was a significant mistake that took the focus off the ongoing narrative.

“Yeah, that was a big misstep. It was a big misstep. It’s funny people talk about the finger poke of doom and Sting, you know, and Hogan in ’97, whatever, that’s the reason why Goldberg and Hogan, you know, on free TV, that’s the downfall. That’s the reason for the downfall. There’ll be so much… But if there was one thing, it’s the number one thing, one of the things that really exacerbated the delusion of the NWO story was bringing Warrior in.

Bischoff explained that the introduction of The Warrior required a lot of attention and focus, which in turn detracted from the ongoing NWO storyline. He also mentioned that The Warrior was adept at coming up with ideas that would get him over, which he and others, including Kevin Sullivan, went along with.

“Took the focus off because you’re bringing Warrior in, you got to put a lot of attention on that. That’s, you’re going back, you’ve got a backstory, you’re trying, you’re trying to recreate or expand on, and that took so much focus off what we were doing at that time.”

Bischoff concluded by admitting that the decision was a mistake, not because of The Warrior’s long-winded promos, but because it caused them to lose focus on the ongoing storyline at a critical time.

“More importantly, we took our eye off the ball creatively. That was a big mistake and at the worst possible time.”