Review for Eric Bischoff: Sports Entertainment's Most Controversial Figure

Eric Bischoff is one of the most important people to have ever been in the wrestling business. In charge of WCW, he took the company from one losing around $6-10 million a year to one that was in profit by hundreds of millions. He kick started the monday night war by creating Nitro against WWE's Raw and almost put Vince McMahon out of business with his nWo phenomenon. That was until things started to go wrong...

Eric Bischoff: Sport Entertainment's Most Controversial Figure looked at his life from growing up in Detroit to his early days of business before getting into the wrestling business. His first company he worked for was AWA where he was an announcer, this is the role he would assume when he went to WCW.

He went from being a small announcer to the man who would run the company and make it successful. Once in control, he came up with many ideas that still go on today. The idea of the monthly PPV is thanks to Eric, the idea of recording multiple shows in one day was his and the live monday night show is his. It was also his idea to sign talent to multi-year guaranteed contracts which would help and hinder the company.

Bischoff signed Hulk Hogan which gave WCW one of wrestling's biggest stars. He then bought almost every star that WWE had ever created. He then got to go head to head against Raw with Nitro on Monday Night in 1995. This created the Monday Night Wars which saw both companies trade victories over the next year. Bischoff did things like give away WWE's taped results, he had talent like Lex Luger debut on Nitro when people thought he was contracted to WWE. He later did this again with Rick Rude who appeared on both Raw and Nitro on the same night?

This all came to be with the debuts of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and thr turning of Hulk Hogan as Heel to form the nWo. It brought the company massive success, though with the oversaturation of the group with almost everyone joining. The inclusion of celebrities brought both success with the likes of Kevin Malone and Dennis Rodman and failures with Jay Leno. Many stars who felt they were overlooked left WCW and this eventually hurt the company.

Eric Bischoff lost control, as did Turner with WCW and with that led to the downward spiral of WCW and its eventual buyout by WWE. (For more on this best to watch The Rise and Fall of WCW and The Monday Night War sets) With that, this should have been the end of Eric Bischoff's career... that was until WWE came calling.

As GM of RAW he was part of some entertaining moments, such as his work with Vince McMahon and co-GM Stone Cold Steve Austin. His feud with Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon was hugely entertaining too. Not much of this is shown, which is a shame, but it was a short part of his career, though Bischoff reflects that it was enjoyable.

After leaving the WWE, we see how he has gone on to media production and beer production. They ignore his time in TNA, which is understandable, but it is nice at the end to see that Eric Bischoff is happy with his time in the industry and what he brought to it. It would be wrong to say that it was all positive, but it would also be wrong to say that it was all negative. It was controversial, but it was also very memorable.

I will say that if you are a fan of Biscoff or WCW then this set is amazing. To the point where I would say this set is perfect. PERFECT. I cannot say that there is anything missed from this set and the fact that it isn't just the documentary and a few matches or promos (like I expected) is just great.

Over the two disks there are simply hours upon hours of extra footage. There are promos from the AWA, WCW and from WWE. We can see when Bischoff was a third string announcer interviewing superstars like Stunning Steve Austin and Vader and it is a nice trip down memory lane to watch them. Across the sets we get to see some of his best moments with the nWo. Granted some such as the Jay Leno/Tonight Show skits are awfully bad, but I can understand why they are included.

From WWE we have the embarrassing Billy and Chuck 'Committment Ceremony' which is only entertaining because of Bischoff's performance. Extra interviews have him explain the lengths they went to conceal his debut in WWE and I don't understand why this wasn't included in the main feature. The best part is a Highlight Reel between him, Chris Jericho and Stone Cold Steve Austin which is one of the best interactions between any of them I have ever seen.

What they also include is the Top Ten Most Controversial Moments show which is pretty good and Eric Bischoff's two part interview with JBL. If you feel that anything was left out of the main documentary then this will fill any gaps. I thought this could have easily been all that was needed for this set to be hugely enjoyable as an extra it is the icing on the cake.

Eric Bischoff: Sport Entertainment's Most Controversial Figure is one of the best, if not the best, sets WWE have ever put together. Unlike most, where I start complaining that they missed out this or that, this set includes almost everything. If you are a fan of WCW you will love how indepth they go into the rise and fall of the company. The two disks are brimming with extra footage to the point it would take a good day of watching to get through it all. I can't think of a better way to pay tribute to one of the most influential people in the wrestling business.