Eric Bischoff Thinks The WCW Cruiserweight Division Legitimately Changed Wrestling

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about the importance of the WCW cruiserweight division and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On the WCW cruiserweight division: “I think what I’m most proud of was the creation of the cruiserweight division and the commitment that we made to that. Because I think that’s one thing that’s changed the wrestling business in a legitimate way, not in a way like others have suggested that they’ve changed the wrestling business. But I think so many of the talents that we’re seeing today, both in WWE and primarily in AEW, are cruiserweight talents. Or they would have been considered cruiserweight talents in WCW back in the day. And I think we kind of blew the door open for so many great things, led by Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero. And I’m naming those two, but there are so many others including Chris Jericho, including so many of the great luchadores.

“I think we blew the doors off the building that allowed so much of so many talents that you might not otherwise have heard of during that era, which also opened the door for what we’re seeing now. I am really — aside from the Nitro format as a whole, cruiserweight division, obviously the NWO story. But if I take those elements out, because the cruiserweight division wasn’t really a story. It was a tactic. It’s part of a strategy, it’s effective.”

On what would have happened if Sting was the third man in the NWO and not Hulk Hogan: “Well, I wouldn’t have gone Crow Hogan, because the crow character evolved long after the NWO and the turn started. It was a Scott Hall manifestation, it wasn’t anybody else’s. I don’t think that that same idea would have been on the table initially, because it just wouldn’t have fit. Circumstances wouldn’t have been there.

“The circumstances for Hogan leading the WCW charge, I think would have probably — in some way, shape, or form that would have been it. Of course it would. You’re gonna take your biggest star, just like we did with Sting, and we’re going to position that star to be the protagonist to the antagonistic characters. That would have been obvious. How we would have done it? I don’t know. I just don’t know. Because we didn’t consider it, never had to.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.