Eric Bischoff | WWE

WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed his experiences flying into Moscow on an episode of his podcast, 83 Weeks.

Bischoff said, “First of all, right now Saudi Arabia — at least according to that post — was a level three. When I went to Moscow a couple weeks ago, Russia was level four, and we experienced the issue on our arrival into Moscow. We ended up in a holding pattern of about 90 minutes or so, maybe a little longer. Because I used to be a pilot, I can kind of follow along and figure out what’s going to happen before it actually happens in terms of navigation. If you have that electronic map, I’m looking at the holding pattern this jet was on, and it was very, very irregular. Usually when you fly a holding pattern, it’s a circle, or maybe a figure eight or an oval. This one was just random. It was like a kid with a crayon. So I thought, ‘Man, this seems a little weird.’ Well, what it was for us was a warning that there were drones in the area — Ukrainian drones trying to bomb Moscow. There was a little bit of that chatter before we went over there, which of course made people nervous.”

On the real risk for a show Like Crown Jewel:

“Now, can you still go? Yes. Are the flights still operating? Yes. The real risk is drones and missiles in this case, and that’s something that — who knows? All it takes is the threat of it, and you’ve got airspace being shut down. In the case of the Strait of Hormuz, you’ve got carriers who are insured because they’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and the insurance company says no. If you sail, you sail uninsured. We’re not covering you. So that freezes everybody. The same thing can happen in the air if those threats become serious threats. And how is that going to end up? When will that threat disappear? Next week? Maybe a year from now? We don’t know.”

On the strain of planning a backup event:

“That’s the hard part: how do you plan for something? Your plan A requires a tremendous amount of time and effort and focus and resources just to pull off, because it’s usually pretty big. But now you’ve got the added workload of developing a plan B. And it’s not like, ‘Well, let’s just write it down on a piece of paper, and if we need it, we’ll go to work.’ No, you’re probably already investing time and resources. Now you’re doubling up on your resources. You’ve got two major events that for the most part, you have to plan. Saudi’s kind of on autopilot because they’ve done it enough. Everything is in place. There’s very few unknowns other than missiles, but in terms of production it’s pretty turnkey and stable. But now you’ve got another one to do. Who’s that crew? If your A crew is over in Saudi, you also need a crew that will be able to work together. And that crew has got to plan for this show. So again, you’re doubling up on your resources. That’s the kind of stress I would be thinking about. And there’s a lot of travel. You’ve got to book your travel as far in advance as you possibly can. I don’t know what their deal is — they probably charter people over, so it’s not as significant — but you’ve got to make those arrangements. So yeah, it’s a lot of work, man. Glad I’m not in the middle of it.”

On whether moving the show to RAW would make sense:

“I don’t know. That doesn’t seem logical to me. There’s so many cause and effect scenarios you have to walk through. I’d have to spend a week thinking through that to even begin to have an idea of how to manage this best. It’s a mess. It’s really unfortunate.”

You can check out the complete podcast below.