Eric Bischoff Explains Strategic Reasons For Launching WCW Cruiserweight Division

Former WCW executive Eric Bischoff has explained the reasons why he created the Cruiserweight Division and how it became a success.

The Cruiserweight Division in WCW shone a spotlight on the smaller-sized stars in the promotion, and Bischoff, during a recent edition of his "83 Weeks" podcast, detailed why he chose to put it on air during a time when bigger men dominated pro wrestling.

"When I finally pulled the trigger and launched the Cruiserweight — announced the Cruiserweight Division, my thinking had evolved quite a bit from when I first started thinking about it a year previously in Japan because now I have a two-hour show which I didn't have in '94," began Bischoff.

Bischoff explained that despite having a bevy of top talent — many of whom already had Hall of Fame careers by the time they joined WCW — several of them were similar to each other in size and in-ring moves.

"I had a one-hour show, but now in '95, I've got a two-hour show. I've got a stacked roster of some of the biggest names in the history of the industry at that time and since, between Hogan, Savage, and Sting, and Flair, and Luger, and on and on and on. And we had so much top talent but they all — although their characters were different and their stories could be different, their presentation in the ring, what we saw physically with the volume turned down, was very similar. Pace was similar, a lot of the moves were similar, obviously, you still see that today. There was a sameness about our top talent, not that it was bad, but it was just all kind of the same, in terms of the visual representation."

Eric Bischoff emphasized the importance of formatting a pro wrestling show, highlighting how that played a role in the creation of the Cruiserweight Division. He explained how the beginning of the show was important, but the crossover period at 9 PM was equally important, detailing how people usually channel surf at that time. 

"So I decided that I'm going to create this Cruiserweight Division, now it started taking shape late '94, early '95, or whenever it was, it started taking shape, and I thought what an ideal way to use this Cruiserweight Division, so that at 9 o'clock ... because here's what happens and it still happens to this day — when you go back and you look at whether it's WWE, AEW, anybody else you can get the hour ratings on, you'll see that 9:00 hour always spikes," said Bischoff.

Bischoff added that when people are channel surfing at that hour, networks get an artificial bump for 7-8 minutes, which he decided to capitalize on by putting the Cruiserweight Divison on at that time.

"It's kind of an artificial bump, in a way, unless you make it work for you so that when those people are passing through and they're seeing fast-paced, super dynamic you know sh*t happening in air, things that look different than they typically see with our 250- and 300-pound, you know, larger-than-life characters, there's a good chance they'll stick around — and they did," the Hall of Famer stated.

He also added that it was key for them to format the show in a manner to hook the audience till the end, due to the stiff competition that they had from WWE.