Eric Bischoff on Dustin Rhodes big money WCW contract, thoughts on Scott Steiner as WCW Champion

This week on “83 Weeks,” Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thomson covered WCW Starrcade 2000. This was the final Starrcade event before WWE purchased the company.

Bischoff was not in power at the time but he gave his thoughts on the booking at the time.

Bischoff commented on the big money contract Dustin Rhodes had with WCW in this time period despite creative not having ideas for him. He started his contract in August of 1999. He got $500,000 the first year, $600,000 the second year, and $700,000 the third year and a $50,000 signing bonus.

Bischoff responded: “That contract, if it was August of ‘99, that may have been one of the last big money contracts I executed. I was there for 30 days after that. I got let go on September 10th of 1999, so that contract would have happened under my watch. That would have been my decision. You’re welcome Dustin. But the fact that WCW had nothing going on for him, the fact they weren’t using them, I have no explanation for it. I wasn’t there at that time. Yes, I executed the agreement. It was my choice and my decision. I thought a lot of Dustin and I still do. I thought a lot of him as a performer.

Forget about how I felt about him as a person because I’ve always been very friendly with Dustin and we were pretty close at one time. He was a great talent. Why they weren’t using him at this point in 2000, I have no idea. I’m not going to be as critical of this show as I would be if it were something under my watch, but there was absolutely no direction here. Zero direction. This show is a combination of unconnected moments. There was no continuity in this show whatsoever. It was just there. It was a hot shot show. It was slapped together. I wasn’t there. I don’t know. That was probably consistent throughout WCW in terms of strategy and creative and direction at that point.”

Bischoff was asked to give his opinion on Scott Steiner as WCW Champion: “It worked for me. I liked Scott at the time. I liked what he could do in the ring. His in-ring abilities were nothing short of amazing. His larger than life persona was hard to compare anybody to. The challenges I had with Scott was consistency and his personality. He was volatile in and out of the ring. He was capable of doing things outside of the ring that could have brought great harm to the company’s reputations. So, that part of me, even though I like Scott, and liked hanging out with him, it was dangerous as your World Champion. It was dangerous for anybody on television, but as you World Champion, even more so. So, I liked it creatively, but from a business perspective, it was not without risk.”

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff with a h/t to PWrestling.com for the transcription