Anybody who comes along and wants to sell a wrestling show, guess who you are not gonna sell it to? You are not going to sell it to FOX and any of its affiliates, and,oh, by the way, you are not going to sell it to NBC Universal or any of its affiliates.
Here are the facts: when Eric Bischoff came to work for WCW as a 'clean up batter' on the announce team working alongside Tony Schiavone, I came with a guaranteed contract.
You know that Vince Russo... when Russo and I agreed to work together, one of his big ideas was that he wanted Lance Storm to be my son.
It was fun and something I could do together with my wife and kids. We were all hand-washing bottles, cleaning and bottling together. It was like families that cook together - we just happened to brew together.
Bumps often require giving yourself completely to the talent you're in the ring with, and that's what makes wrestling such a performance art that is different from every other.
Turner Broadcasting went from a very entrepreneurial, risk-taking company where I had a tremendous amount of freedom and autonomy to a corporate, bureaucratic nightmare.
You can't just run through a cookie cutter press and crank out a wrestler that looks like Bill Goldberg.
By the time my attempt to acquire WCW fell apart and Time Warner decided they didn't want anything remotely associated with wrestling near their networks, once that happened and really cut the cord, it was in my rear view mirror and didn't care or think about it too much.
When I hired the first group of cruiserweights - which consisted of Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, and Eddie Guerrero - I sat them down in my office, and I was very clear to them. I said to them, almost verbatim, 'You need to be my human car crashes at 9 P.M.'
The only reason TNA hired me was because they had no choice. Dixie Carter wanted Hulk Hogan - that was obvious - but Hulk Hogan didn't trust anybody in TNA. When I say trust, I don't mean to be devious or malicious or anything like that, but he didn't trust their judgment or their ability, nor did he trust Vince Russo in any way, shape, or form.
One of the advantages and disadvantages of WCW had to deal with was being a member of Turner Broadcasting.
Hulk will always be a part of sports entertainment/professional wrestling history, and there's nothing that's gonna change that. His relationship with the WWE, whether it's official or unofficial, is something that can't really be erased.
DDP was the common guy, the everyman, a blue-collar guy from New Jersey. He represented something that the average person could believe in, in a way that was a little unique.
We formatted our shows so that, at nine o'clock, we were in the heat of hard-hitting, fast-paced cruiserweight action, and it was so different from the WWE that it worked.
A lot of respect for Ric Flair; he's just a great guy.
WCW had its moment, and that's what it was: it was a moment. And we created some great stories and changed the industry to a large degree.
The reason we didn't acquire WCW is an incoming, rotating door, new head of Turner at that time, took prime time television literally out of the deal that we had already negotiated. Once that happened, there was no way to make any sense of it. It was really just a video library and some ring mats.
I couldn't pass a senior high school math test right now, but I could probably teach intellectual property and trademark law at Harvard.
I really like Braun Strowman. I would turn the volume down on him just a little bit. I think he is a little bit overly animated, and he doesn't have to be. He is already a larger than life character when he wakes up and has a cup of coffee.
Let me just say this, Dolce Maria Garcia Rivas: You are not 'sexy,' you are not a 'star,' and you are certainly not a professional wrestler.
