Eric Bischoff Recalls Huge Promo Mistake WCW Made With Sting

In hindsight, Eric Bischoff would have kept Sting a little more silent in 1998. By that point, "WCW Nitro" was riding high on its 83-week run of dominating "WWE Raw" in the ratings, and that was primarily due to the NWO's ongoing feud with WCW's resident anti-hero, Sting. One of the intriguing aspects of Sting's character was that he didn't speak for nearly 18 months, but on the March 2, 1998 "Nitro," that pattern was suddenly broken.

"This was a huge mistake on my part, huge mistake on my part," Bischoff said on "83 Weeks" as he and Conrad Thompson did a watchalong of that specific episode. "I left a lot of money on the table right there with Sting because we didn't make a big deal out of it. We didn't create anticipation for it." Bischoff said if they did, WCW could have capitalized on a star fans hadn't heard from in over a year. Bischoff agreed with a fan's suggestion that Sting would have benefited from having a mouthpiece, followed up by a few chilling words from "The Icon" himself, but instead they let him go out and cut a standard wrestling promo. It was a self-admitted lack of discipline on the former WCW boss' part.

"I'm almost embarrassed, I mean I'm not, but I should be I guess," he said. "The fact that we let Sting go out there and cut that promo it was so wrong. It was so freakin' wrong, but it wasn't because I was cocky it was because I just didn't have the discipline to stick with what was working to the extent that I could've or should've."