During a recent edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed finding out about Mike Tyson doing an angle with WWE in 1998 and the impact that storyline had on WCW.

On finding out about Mike Tyson doing an angle with WWE in 1998:

“I’m gonna be honest, when I found out about Tyson, that was the first time ever I was actually concerned about WWE. I was so confident going into 1998. I had every reason to be. The Tyson thing changed everything. I’ve told the story before, and I’ll keep it short. I was down in Kissimmee, Florida, and I was finishing up some flying lessons. I was getting my private pilot’s license and went down there for a week to focus on nothing but flying and taking care of business at night when I had to. I had just come back from a training flight and touched down, and I got a page because I still kept a pager. I got paged to call Zane Breslov. I said, ‘Man, what’s up?’ I called him back, and he goes, ‘You’re never gonna guess, but they’re bringing in Mike Tyson for a program.’

“Usually Zane would call me and tell me what WWE was doing, and I was like, ‘Fuck, whatever. Cool.’ I would engage in the conversation and have fun with it, but from a business perspective, nothing they were doing mattered to me because I was focused on my own shit. By that time, I didn’t have to beat them up anymore. I didn’t have to be up in anybody’s face or give up anybody’s finishes or the stuff I did when I started out because I got the audience to sample me, and they stuck around. But when I heard about Tyson, I thought, ‘Oh man, that’s gonna change. We’re gonna reverse the polarization of the dynamics of WCW and WWE.’ They were about to shift with Tyson. Definitely.’