Eric Bischoff Denies NWO Storyline Was Copied from Japan; Refutes Knowledge of Invasion Angle

Eric Bischoff recently addressed the allegations that the NWO storyline was copied from a group in Japan during an episode of his podcast, 83 Weeks. He vehemently denied the claim and provided a detailed explanation of the timeline leading up to the revelation of Hulk Hogan as the third member, dismissing it as a false narrative perpetuated by individuals who failed to recognize the success of his creative idea.

Bischoff refuted having any knowledge of an invasion angle in Japan and stressed that he was not involved in their creative discussions. He also highlighted the challenges he faced in rebuilding a relationship with New Japan after a previous fallout with WCW and Turner Broadcasting. In his statement, he said:

"That’s Dave Meltzer-ish. I don’t know if he’s responsible personally for it, but that’s where that narrative goes. Oh, he didn’t; he didn’t do that. Somebody else did that. You know Vince McMahon? Oh, that’s not really Eric Bischoff. That’s Ted Turner. You know it. People who just never saw it coming. People who were in my position and failed miserably. You know, people who disagreed with what I was doing because they felt it was the wrong way to build a wrestling business creatively. I never wanted to admit that that was just a f***ing great idea, and it worked really well. It’s always, yeah, but he didn’t do that.

He didn’t really come up with that idea because it makes them feel better about themselves by minimizing somebody else. I had no f***ing clue what invasion angle existed in Japan, and if you put $10 million in cash in front of me today and said, that’s what I wanted to ask you about because there’s a narrative out there that you attended a New Japan show at the Tokyo Dome on April 29th, 1996. As a reminder, Scott Hall comes down the steps on May 27th, so this would’ve been right about four weeks ahead of time, a month ahead of time. We’re talking about April 29th, 1996. It’s at the Tokyo Dome Show. It is taped for TV. There are 65,000 fans in attendance. And man, this card is loaded with great talent. How about this one on your 20-minute match for the junior heavyweight title match with great Sade beating Juice and Thunder Liger? Randy Savage is on this, picking up a win over ten zones. Uh, Tomasa Hirono beats Lex Luger. How about a six-man tag match with Power Warrior and the Road Warriors taking on Yo being one Fuko OCA being another in the southern part of Japan? So, I likely was, but that’s not the point.

Whether I was there or not, I ain’t no f***ing clue what the storylines were going into that, right? I wasn’t watching their weekly television. I didn’t sit down with somebody from Japan’s creative side and say, okay, what’s the angle here? What’s the story? How did you build that? I’d show up the day before an event. I would take care of business. I spent most of my time with Mr. Bajo, the business side of New Japan, and then I spent a lot of time with MAs, who is New Japan’s representative, who brought in American talent. That was the extent of my conversations, and it was more social, except for Bajo. It was more social than business, but I never sat down and said, how is this work? What are you guys doing here that I’m not doing? What, what could I lift from you guys? That is the most obvious narrative from the least educated people that watch professional wrestling and comment on it or write about it because it’s absolutely false. I had no idea. I didn’t; here’s the truth, and I think this goes to question more specifically. When it came to talent and storylines, one of the biggest issues I had to overcome was going back to reestablishing a relationship with New Japan after Bill Watts screwed ’em over famously, and New Japan didn’t want anything to do with WCW or Turner Broadcasting. I had to fix that."

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