Eric Bischoff opens up about Ultimate Warrior's WCW debut

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed the Ultimate Warrior's WCW run and well as his infamous debut. The former WWE Champion cut a promo that lasted over 20 minutes and Bischoff revealed that originally it was supposed to be much much shorter.

The POWER from beyond the cosmos, between the moon and stars, soaring through the Milkyway has descended upon WCW! Now sit back and enjoy @EBischoff & @HeyHeyItsConrad discuss #Warrior WCW debut available now to everywhere! It’s also available on https://t.co/aJWcYgRV3i pic.twitter.com/dnNBcttvwc

— 83 Weeks (@83Weeks) August 17, 2020

Bischoff said was that the plan was for the promo to last around 7 or 8 minutes. According to Bischoff, the promo ended up lasting a whopping 27 minutes:

A five to seven minute promo, unless you’re really good at them, you can lose a lot of audience unless there is something really compelling going on, or the person who is cutting that promo is a great storyteller and has a big audience. You can have a great five to seven minute promo with certain people, under certain circumstances, but generally, you don’t want to go beyond that, even for something big. This one, and I’ll look it up, I remember looking at it a year or two ago, I think this one could have gone as long as 27 minutes. I don’t know anybody who can be out there for 27 minutes and hold an audience. I don’t think The Rock could do it. If anybody could, he could. H/T: 411Mania

Eric Bischoff on why he didn't cut Warrior's promo in WCW short

Feel the POWER of The Warrior by reliving ALL of The @UltimateWarrior's legendary @SummerSlam performances! ⤵️WATCH ▶️ https://t.co/YlRioFbdGL pic.twitter.com/txZjlxeyMZ

— WWE (@WWE) August 17, 2020

Eric Bischoff then spoke about why he didn't just cut the promo short. Bischoff said that as President of WCW his hands were tied. If he had stopped Warrior midway through his promo, it would have destroyed whatever chance he had of getting over with the WCW fans:

If it would have been anybody else, under any other circumstances, I could have improvised and made it work, but what was I going to do? Was I going to, you know me, as the President of the company, was I going to grab his mic and cut him off? That would have killed whatever chance he had of getting over if I had cut him off. Hogan was as shocked as I was. Brutus was too ****ing stupid to think of anything to do.

Ultimate Warrior signed with WCW in May 1998 but his run in the company was largely unsuccessful. He made his last WCW appearance in November of 1998 and proceeded to retire from wrestling shortly afterward.