The vision of Eric Bischof when running WCW led it to pass WWE for 83 weeks during the Monday Night Wars. Bischoff is the only person that can say he was beating Vince McMahon in a wrestling rivalry over the past four decades. The controversial approach to business by Bischoff would see him breaking many unwritten rules to give WCW an edge over WWE in the ratings battle.

RELATED: 10 Most Desperate Things Vince McMahon Did To Draw Ratings

We will look at some of the most desperate ideas for Bischoff in his obsession with the ratings. Many of them worked out and helped WCW get to the top. Unfortunately, some would also play a role in the fast and sudden downfall. Find out just which concepts from Bischoff showed how badly he wanted to win. These are the ten most desperate things Eric Bischoff did to get ratings for WCW.

10 Giving away results to WWE taped shows

Eric Bischoff showed that WCW was ready for a battle when he got quite ugly with his references of WWE on Nitro. The commentary role of Bischoff would see him reveal the results to WWE’s Raw matches whenever the show was taped.

RELATED: 5 Worst Things Eric Bischoff Has Done In Character (& 5 As Head Of WCW)

WWE tried to cut costs by taping a second episode of Raw after the live one with two tapings per month. Bischoff wanted to take the temptation of changing the channel out of the viewers’ hands by letting them know who would win the matches in a disrespectful manner.

9 Booking The Giant as Andre's son

Big Show started his career in WCW as The Giant. Fans were in awe of his size when he debuted to challenge Hulk Hogan. WCW gave him the backstory of being Andre the Giant’s son, who came into the wrestling world to avenge his father by taking out Hogan once and for all.

The storyline was a huge mess and business did not improve with the angle referencing Hogan’s biggest rival. Luckily, this didn’t sink Giant’s career as he remained an upper card act after the failure. WWE eventually signed him as Big Show and never referenced the Andre storyline once.

8 Challenging Vince McMahon to a fight

Eric Bischoff made more references to WWE on WCW television than Vince McMahon did on the opposite side. One moment that stands out was Bischoff challenging McMahon to a fight on WCW television. Bischoff insulted McMahon with disrespectful comments for many weeks, hoping to provoke WWE's head honcho.

Most fans knew nothing would happen, since it made little sense for McMahon to help add more viewers to WCW’s product by dignifying Bischoff with a response. This moment showed how badly Bischoff wanted to be viewed as the superior company or at least a worthy rival. The advertising of a real fight between the two bosses showcased Bischoff’s desire to sling mud for ratings.

7 Splitting up the New World Order into two factions

The New World Order is what took WCW to the next level as a juggernaut in 1996. Hulk Hogan turning heel to form a hostile takeover faction with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash became must-see television. Eric Bischoff made a few mistakes like adding too many members, but otherwise nWo was the real deal.

But once the group started to grow stale, Bischoff booked the controversial concept of the nWo splitting into two factions. Now, Hollywood and Wolfpac each had their own groups. The fans did love the face Wolfpac version, but the idea of two nWo groups with no association was a desperate move.

6 Overpaying for celebrity appearances

WCW started to bring in more celebrities than WWE in the mid-90s. Vince McMahon was the first promoter to truly use the addition of famous people to bring new viewers to the company. Eric Bischoff took note of that and upped the ante for WCW.

Names like Jay Leno, Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman wrestled matches for WCW after receiving huge offers. Those weren’t as bad since it created huge interest. Bischoff however would get more desperate when the ratings started to decline. Master P and KISS were just two of the names getting paid huge money to contribute little all for the hope of a ratings bump.

5 Booking The Ultimate Warrior

Eric Bischoff made a great impact with signings like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage to get attention on WCW television. The additions of Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Roddy Piper all worked out as well as WCW continued to grow as a company.

However, one signing would stand out as showing that Bischoff went too far. The Ultimate Warrior joined WCW for a few dates on a huge contract. Bischoff brought Warrior in for a match with Hogan to reignite their old rivalry. Unfortunately, the match turned out to be an embarrassment with Warrior not contributing to any noteworthy success.

4 Making Madusa throw a WWE belt in trash

The former Alundra Blayze made the move from WWE to WCW to play her old Madusa character. Eric Bischoff talked her into having a memorable first appearance on Nitro for all the wrong reasons. At the time, she still had possession of the WWE Women’s Championship never losing the title.

Bischoff convinced Madusa to cut a promo on Nitro ripping apart WWE before throwing the belt in a trash can. The brutal shot towards WWE essentially ended their women’s division for a few years. As a result, Madusa was blacklisted from WWE for almost two decades due to this ratings ploy.

3 Offering massive contracts

The nickname of “ATM Eric” was given to Eric Bischoff by various wrestlers for the big contracts he offered. WWE was run and financed by Vince McMahon himself, making his decisions more important to him. In contrast, Bischoff was spending Ted Turner’s money and it was a bottomless pit for a few years.

RELATED: 10 Shocking WCW Contracts That Led To The Company’s Downfall

The contracts offered to names like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Bret Hart are still some of the biggest in wrestling history. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash even talked him into giving them a “favored nations” clause that improved their figures to match any wrestler that came in and made more than them. Bischoff would spend as much as he was allowed to for the ratings battle.

2 Spoiling Mick Foley's WWE Championship win

Eric Bischoff’s controversial concept of spoiling WWE’s results was already mentioned earlier, but one particular moment was more personal than the others. WWE already had a lead in the ratings battle in 1999, making Bischoff even more desperate to turn things around.

Mick Foley’s first WWE Championship victory had yet to air on Raw, but it was a historic moment that would blow fans away. In retaliation, Bischoff instructed Tony Schiavone to spoil it on Nitro in such a disrespectful manner. On air, Tony mocked WWE and sarcastically saying Foley would put butts in the seats. WWE would dominate in the ratings as Bischoff’s idea just backfired on him.

1 Putting Goldberg vs Hulk Hogan on free TV

The biggest WCW match in 1998 was Goldberg vs Hulk Hogan for the WCW Championship. Goldberg was on fire with his undefeated streak making him the hottest name in the company. Meanwhile, Hogan was still the top overall star as the leader of the New World Order and the reigning WCW Champion. Despite the stars' level of fame, WCW strangely booked the match for an episode of Nitro with hints of it just a few days before the event.

Goldberg won the WCW Championship on his first try in an incredible moment. However, it was criticized as a bad move by Eric Bischoff. The idea of putting a match that important on free television lost them a huge profit on a future PPV. Bischoff only cared about beating WWE in the ratings when executing moves like this, and this backfired spectacularly in the long run.

NEXT: 5 Former WWE Stars That Helped WCW (& 5 That Hurt It)