Who is better? Bischoff or Heyman?

[SOR]

Hi guys.

I've always felt Paul Heyman is incredibly overrated as an ideas man and booker and that Eric is rather underrated. Just to refresh all of our memories I've decided to post 5 of the best idea's each man had (In my opinion and in no particular order) before I ask you guys the simple question of who's better.

Eric Bischoff:

1. Doing what the WWE had done years before and stealing WWF talent. He took Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, Bret Hart and a number of other big name stars from the WWE

2. Had unique and originals idea to compete with the WWE for the better part of 4 years. To this day nobody has been able to repeat that (Including Bischoff himself)

3. nWo. The most famous group in all of pro wrestling. So famous that even B Members can still get a pay day doing nWo fan photos. This angle basically made WCW what it is and it was so original and well done that it should go down as the greatest angle in the history of wrestling (But it wont because it was WCW)

4. The rise of guys like Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page, Scott Steiner and completely making new characters and drawing more money from guys like Hogan, Nash,Hall, Sting, Flair, Savage etc

5. Cruiserweights. Yes people may try and correct me and say Paul Heyman is the one that brought the real attention to the Cruiserweights but Bischoff was the one who put them on National TV and PPV. In reality Eric Bischoff is the man to thank for getting wrestling away from the "big guys" and letting the small guys have their chance to compete also


Paul Heyman:

1. Making a completely different market for wrestling with the extreme style that is still so popular that the ECW guys still get indy dates all around the world because of the ECW value.

2. Rise of fantastic performers nobody wanted. He made guys like Sandman, Dreamer, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Taz and others famous in the United States and a lot of them were really really generic starting out so he should be commended for that.

3. More adult story lines. This was a big thing and incredibly smart. He recognized both WWE and WCW were aiming towards families and he went the other direction and aimed towards adults. He basically showed that wrestling could be geared towards adults and it could still work.

4. Sexualization of women in wrestling. He's definitely responsible for this and was the first guy to do it. It's a really big draw and something WWE, WCW, TNA and a number of promotions have/have used.

5. The pushing of the envelope. ECW did this before anyone else and it was all Heyman. WWE eventually tried it and made it work on an international level but Heyman created that always.


So guys, who's better? I rate Bischoff over Heyman although it's quite close. What about you?

[mcmahonfan85]

Heyman

[celticjobber]

Heyman without question. Bischoff had one good idea and beat it into the ground.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I agree that it is close, but I feel what tips the scales in Heyman's favour is that he managed to do what he did without Time/Warner money behind him.

[mcmahonfan85]

Jun 15, 2013 0:45:37 GMT -5 celticjobber said:

Bischoff had one good idea (which he copied from another promotion) and beat it into the ground.

corrected

[RowdyRobbyPiper]

Heyman, and it's not even close.

[Deleted]

Better mind for business: Eric Bischoff.
Better mind for THE business: Paul Heyman.

They excel in two different areas.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

One's biggest flaw is the other's biggest strength, if you could somehow get the two to work together they would be unstoppable. Very few people in wrestling can keep a network happy and get money from backers like Eric Bischoff and his ideas on the production side are second to none, while there are very few creative minds on the level of Heyman when he's genuinely interested and isn't having to worry about finances and keeping hold of the roster.

As for who is better, well, they're both equally flawed in my opinion, but people will inevitably give Heyman a pass because he booked a few entertaining years of Smackdown, ignoring the fact ECW was like Monty Python, when it was on form it was amazing but there was a lot of stuff that wasn't memorable or good... And I won't get started on the long term damage ECW did to wrestling.

[Deleted]

If I had a wrestling company and those two applied.... I wouldn't even consider Bishoff. He is a one trick pony, and the trick is very old and very stale.

[Madagascar Fred]

lol really? on a smark forum? Heyman by a landslide

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

I always get slightly confused when Bischoff is dismissed as a "one trick pony" when that one trick nearly put the largest wrestling promotion ever out of business. I enjoy Heyman's ideas much more and Bischoff's TNA run has been nothing worth writing about at all, but to just dismiss Bischoff as some buffoon who got lucky is completely underselling how strong he made WCW for a few years.

[jimmyjames]

They're both great, but in different ways. I think Easy E is seriously underrated for what he did in WCW, while I think Heyman is slightly overated for ECW because it was the darling Indy fed. The things that make both gf them great, is also the thing that tends to hurt them in the end. There seems to be a pinnacle for each, at which it's downhill afterward.

[SOR]

Jun 15, 2013 5:48:42 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

I always get slightly confused when Bischoff is dismissed as a "one trick pony" when that one trick nearly put the largest wrestling promotion ever out of business. I enjoy Heyman's ideas much more and Bischoff's TNA run has been nothing worth writing about at all, but to just dismiss Bischoff as some buffoon who got lucky is completely underselling how strong he made WCW for a few years.

To be honest that's how the WWE makes him look in their DVD's and stuff. Bischoff really wasn't a one trick pony people can believe Heyman was better and that's fine but to call Bischoff a one trick pony is silly.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Jun 15, 2013 8:22:39 GMT -5 SOR said:

Jun 15, 2013 5:48:42 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

I always get slightly confused when Bischoff is dismissed as a "one trick pony" when that one trick nearly put the largest wrestling promotion ever out of business. I enjoy Heyman's ideas much more and Bischoff's TNA run has been nothing worth writing about at all, but to just dismiss Bischoff as some buffoon who got lucky is completely underselling how strong he made WCW for a few years.

To be honest that's how the WWE makes him look in their DVD's and stuff. Bischoff really wasn't a one trick pony people can believe Heyman was better and that's fine but to call Bischoff a one trick pony is silly.

The problem with Bischoff is his personality plays right into the caricature that the WWE created, they made him into a snide heel who stole ideas and talent and got incredibly lucky, once.

Bischoff's biggest achievement in wrestling was Nitro, which really did drag wrestling from the doldrums and made every show into an event. Nitro was unlike any other wrestling show at that time, the production was top notch and the action was lightyears ahead of what the WWF was offering at that time with Pillman v Liger, Sting v Flair and so on... While the WWF was offering Isaac Yankem versus Scott Taylor and the smoking Gunns versus Rad Radford and the Brooklyn Brawler. Even if you didn't care for the top of the WCW cards, Bischoff managed to book shows with something for everyone at a time the WWF was utterly stagnant. From day one, Nitro got similar ratings to Raw, which had been on for years to build up an audience and had beaten them more than once in the ratings before the NWO angle had even begun.

As for stealing talent and ideas goes, WCW had cruisers when ECW was still Eastern Championship Wrestling, it had the Light Heavyweight division and had always used international stars. Rey Sr. and Konnan appeared at Starrcade way back in 1990 and Bischoff promoted the AAA show, When Worlds Collide in 1994. That show featured the likes of Chris Benoit, La Parka, Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr, Eddie Guerrero, Psicosis... People Paul Heyman discovered the following year, that Eric Bischoff would 'steal' years later to be the cornerstones of his cruiserweight division. I will never understand why trying to sign the best talent available is painted as some sort of cruel trick designed to damage his rivals, something only a diabolical mastermind like Bischoff was capable of, ignoring the occasions both McMahon and Heyman did it. As for borrowing ideas, well, if borrowing ideas and making them work makes you worthless as a booker, there have been no good ones in wrestling history.

I think fairer criticisms of Bischoff all revolve around his handling of talent. Bischoff deserves a lot of criticism for giving out huge contracts with creative control clauses, they ultimately led to the downfall of WCW as they made the place unbookable for everyone that came after him. Him buddying up with the 'cool' talent didn't help either, he lost sight of what worked on TV and what's good for the company and allowed what certain talents wanted to override common sense and let a hot angle drag on for too long, but he's not the first booker that has happened to, and he won't be the last.

[SAJ Forth]

Jun 15, 2013 4:49:56 GMT -5 @notoriousnd22 said:

Better mind for business: Eric Bischoff.
Better mind for THE business: Paul Heyman.

They excel in two different areas.

I've felt this way about Paul E. & Steph, & I share your sentiment here.

[dav]

I don't think it's fair to say Bischoff stole ideas when the violence from ECW was inspired by Japanese wrestling. If you're going to point out one, then do the other as well.

[Deleted]

Jun 15, 2013 0:45:37 GMT -5 celticjobber said:

Heyman without question. Bischoff had one good idea and beat it into the ground.

Revisionist history that will unfortunately continue to spread as long as WWE brainwashes fans across the world.

[mcmahonfan85]

Jun 15, 2013 12:49:10 GMT -5 @conebone69 said:

Jun 15, 2013 0:45:37 GMT -5 celticjobber said:

Heyman without question. Bischoff had one good idea and beat it into the ground.

Revisionist history that will unfortunately continue to spread as long as WWE brainwashes fans across the world.

the Finger Poke of Doom and the nWo Elite and nWo B-Team are not revisionist history for those of us that watched it happen and got sick of it. nWo 2000 was not revisionist history for those of us that watched it happen and rolled our eyes at it

[Deleted]

Heyman. It's closer than a lot of people think but Bischoff poached all of those guys from the WWF but didn't know when/wasn't able to say that enough was enough and let them run roughshod over WCW crippling it in the process. Whereas Paul E. took castoffs and nobodies and made the fans love them through the sheer force of characters and booking. Paul E. pretty much created the current WWE concept where no one wrestler is bigger than the company and if they leave they'll just plug someone else in and keep on rolling.

Of course there's no way of knowing for sure, but I believe that if Heyman had a financial backer like Time Warner(and a financial department that kept him far, far away from that end) he would have hurt the WWF badly and would probably still be competing today.

[Old Jack Burton]

At this point in the game I would much rather see Paul Heyman at the top of a promotion than Eric Bischoff. Bischoff has a lot of accolades, but I've never felt he really loved the wrestling business like Vince or Paul. At his age, and his bank account, I don't think he's got it in him to really deliver a powerful TV show. Heyman seems more greedy and self-conscious, more like Vince, and no matter how rich he becomes (he's already loaded) he'll continue to push the envelope because he just loves to do it.

Additionally, we've never seen a sober Paul E. run a promotion with a decent budget and creative control.