Eric Bischoff rebutts Jericho’s criticism that he was misused in WCW

Jun 21, 2018 - by Steve Gerweck

=”Man, I’m surprised to hear him say that. Look, he felt the way he felt. I can’t get into his head back in 1996 or 1997 and comment on how he felt. It’s disappointing that he would write that because the Cruiserweight division, until this day, it was then, he may not have felt that way – this isn’t really specific to Chris Jericho, although it is to a degree because it was an issue later on to Chris. When I first created that Cruiserweight division and I sat down with Malenko, Guerrero and Benoit, even later on Chris Jericho, those guys were excited as can be. It was the first really big opportunity that they had. It was also the first time they were ever consistently on a television platform that they could get themselves over. That is a fact. They were thrilled to death that they could have gone out there and showcase their athleticism and their abilities. That Cruiserweight division was over and is still over until this day. When I go to autograph signings and when I am out among Pro Wrestling fans, they want to talk about the nWo and most things that were obvious, but almost always if I am talking to them for 5 minutes they want to talk about the Cruiserweight division, and that Cruiserweight division allowed Chris Jericho to get over. We built that division, we built that division where not even until this day WWE can figure out how much excitement for that division that I did, and we did as a team. It never happened before and it’ll never happen again, so to hear Chris, who got his opportunity to move on and springboard to WWE as a result of that has a bad taste in that, I have to be honest with you, I am disappointed. Look, he feels the way he feels, or he needed to write what he needed to in order to make himself feel better, I don’t know. I don’t regret how I built the Cruiserweight division. Could I have done better, sure? Absolutely. I’m sure I could have, especially with 20/20 hindsight. I just don’t know of anybody that I talk to that looks back at that division and says, oh man, that sucked.”

source: 83 Weeks

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