During the height of the Monday Night Wars, former WCW President Eric Bischoff pitched an over-the-top storyline that would’ve taken wrestling shock value to a new level: faking his own death in a plane crash to advance the NWO invasion angle. The plan, however, was ultimately scrapped due to legal concerns from Turner executives.
Speaking on a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff revealed the ambitious concept, which was designed to plug a “logic hole” in the NWO storyline—specifically, how the group consistently infiltrated WCW shows with no intervention.
“I really wanted to fake my own death,” Bischoff said. “I had my own plane at the time… What if I just made it known I was gonna go fly around the Grand Canyon… and then somehow the speculation would be that I must have gotten off course and flew into Mexican airspace. I was no longer being tracked by FAA—who knows what happened.”
According to Bischoff, the long-term payoff would’ve been the shocking reveal that he had been orchestrating the NWO’s rise from behind the scenes the whole time.
“The idea was to make my disappearance a mystery, build buzz in the sheets, and then shock everyone with the reveal that I was the mastermind behind the NWO.”
Bischoff even ran the idea past his wife before presenting it to Turner Sports president Harvey Schiller, who immediately vetoed the storyline. The reason? Serious legal risks.
“I was an officer with internal broadcasting of a publicly held company,” Bischoff explained. “If it’s revealed that this faked death for a wrestling storyline could be interpreted as somehow manipulating public stock, there’s exposure there… So I understood it. I just hated it.”
While the fake plane crash never happened, Bischoff would go on to reveal himself as the leader of the NWO in a still-memorable—but far less explosive—fashion on WCW programming.
Bischoff continues to share wild behind-the-scenes stories from WCW and WWE every week on his 83 Weeks podcast.
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more classic backstage stories and wrestling news.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
