At the height of the Monday Night War, WWE and WCW were locked in a merciless battle to secure to top wrestlers in the industry. It was a huge deal when when WCW mainstay The Giant jumped to WWE, or when Bret Hart showed up on Nitro. The Undertaker was one of the performers most synonymous with WWE and a defection to the competition would have had seismic consequences.
During a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, former WCW President Eric Bischoff talked about how he would have booked The Undertaker, if they could have signed him away from Vince McMahon. Bischoff says he intended for the nWo to ultimately take over Nitro and secondary show Thunder would have been the new home of WCW. Since The Undertaker had worked for WCW as Mean Mark back 1989-1990, Bischoff envisioned The Undertaker being one of the top players in WCW.
“Hypothetically, the whole NWO/WCW storyline as I had it in my head, would have played out the way I wanted it. nWo would have officially taken over Monday Nitro, top to bottom, would have been an nWo show. WCW would have been over on Thunder, had we had it play out the way I hoped for. Because WCW and [The Undertaker] previously had a relationship, I would have probably tried to play off that. I would have probably tried to bring [him] in on the WCW side of the equation to be kind of a counter for Kevin Nash.”
Bischoff said he was never a big fan of larger wrestlers like Kevin Nash or The Giant, because it’s hard creatively to get sympathy on them.
“It’s hard for them in a believable way to sell, unless you take a chainsaw to them or a bazooka,” he explained. “It’s hard for them to be a good heel because it doesn’t make any sense for a guy that big to be a chickensh*t. It’s not believable. I just don’t know. I wouldn’t have been excited about hiring him, not because he’s not a super talented guy. But if you would have looked at our roster back then, where would he have fit?”
The Undertaker in WCW was not meant to be, but the Dead Man did eventually work with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, DDP and Booker T after WWE bought out WCW in 2001.
Listen to The Undertaker talking about how he would have booked The Undertaker in WCW:
