Eric Bischoff Reflects on The Radicals' Move from WCW to WWE

In the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff shared insights about The Radicals' shift from WCW to WWE. He recounted an interesting moment while dining at a restaurant near an airport when he first saw their WWE debut on TV.

Bischoff recalled, “I didn’t hear it, I saw it [their WWE debut]. I was sitting in an Applebee’s — it was an Applebee’s or a Chili’s restaurant, right outside the Flying Cloud airport in suburban Minneapolis. I had been up in Wyoming with my brother, my sister and my wife. I flew from Atlanta, picked up my brother and sister in Minneapolis, and flew out here to the house. We watched the Super Bowl together, spent a couple of days, and I flew my brother and sister back to Minneapolis. Lori and I were going to spend the night there and jump in the plane and fly back home the next morning.

“So after we dropped my brother and sister off, Lori and I headed over to the hotel near the airport where I parked my plane. And across the street there was a Chili’s or an Applebee’s, whatever — I think was an Applebee’s. So we went over there, and I’m sitting in the restaurant, ordering my food. Probably nacho chips, I’m guessing, from Applebee’s at that time, or Chili’s. You know, it’s not really great food, but it’s not horrible. You can get it down, fills you up. Anyway, we’re sitting there, and they had TVs going on all around the restaurant. We were kind of in the middle. So I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see, and they had Monday Night Raw on. So I’m watching Monday Night Raw, and they cut to a shot of The Radicals sitting at ringside. And I — again, I couldn’t hear anything, so it was like, ‘What the f**k?’ And I — once sat in I looked at my wife, I said, ‘They’ll [WCW] be calling me soon.’ Swear to you, remember like it was five minutes ago. And sure as s**t, within about 10 days or two weeks, whatever it was, I got a call from Brad Siegel [about returning to WCW].”

Later, he discussed Ric Flair’s advice to Kurt Angle regarding his potential move to WCW. He acknowledged that while WWE has a strong track record for building stars, it raises questions about what could have happened had Angle joined WCW. Bischoff said, “There would have been a reason for us to believe we could do something with the guy — with Kurt Angle’s talents. It’s not like we hadn’t done it before [with Goldberg]. But I get Ric’s point./ And look, WWE has always had the reputation of being able to build stars, and justifiably so. So I don’t think Ric’s advice was necessarily wrong. Probably good advice, excellent advice, in retrospect. But it does kind of leave the door open as to what would have happened. Because we recognize that it is possible to create a superstar out of the Power Plant, because we did it definitively with Bill [Goldberg], but also with other people. You know, Diamond Dallas Page didn’t come out of the chute learning, you know, knowing how to wrestle. He learned what he learned in a lot of different ways, but the majority of it was in the Power Plant. And with Kurt’s background, there would have been a recognition and an effort to exploit that. What could have happened? I don’t know. But I think in Kurt’s case, it would be hard to look back and say he made the wrong decision, or he could have made a better decision with WCW because I don’t think that would have been true. I think he made the best decision for himself at that time regardless of Ric Flair’s advice, which I think is probably good advice at the time.”