• Eric Bischoff Reveals If He Consulted With Top WCW Stars Before Bret Hart’s Arrival
During a recent edition of 83 Weeks podcast, former WCW President Eric Bischoff talked about if he wanted Bret Hart to come to WCW with the WWF Championship, if he consulted with top WCW stars like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair before Bret’s arrival & more.
Below are the highlights:
On if he wanted Bret Hart to come to WCW with the WWF Championship:
“There were probably two or three different conversations about that. The one conversation that I distinctly remember. I remember that I was in Wyoming. I remember it because my cell phone went off and I was in a cell area that was really sketchy, where I was around a post office in the middle of nowhere. I remember going inside the post office to use a pay phone, and I remember standing there thinking, why am I having this conversation again?
It is not that important of a deal. I convinced Bret Hart one last time do not worry about the Championship belt. In my mind, I remember thinking this at the time, what I thought Bret Hart should do is given the fact that he is Bret Hart, and you know, Stu Hart and the Hart family legacy, the tradition of the business, what I wanted Bret to do is just pass the belt on.
Do the right thing. Shake Vince McMahon’s hand. Leave on good terms. The business; the audience would have had more respect for him than to hold on to the belt because he didn’t want to lose in Montreal, Quebec Canada [Survivor Series 1997] because he is a Canadian. That, to me didn’t make any sense. Worrying about it didn’t make any sense to me because Bret Hart was coming to WCW.
The fans were sophisticated enough to know that if he lost a match it wasn’t going to diminish who Bret Hart was. That logic from talent never made any sense to me. That is when you get sucked in to the work where you work yourself. I tried to explain that to Bret Hart. It just didn’t matter to me”.
On if he consulted with top WCW stars like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair before Bret’s arrival:
“I talked to Hulk Hogan. I talked to Kevin Nash, Scott Hall. I talked with Ric Flair It would have been kind of standard operating procedure to have conversations to pick the brains of the top guys that he would have been working with. To make sure there was no chemistry issues, or landmines that I needed to be aware of. If there were I would have to deal with them prior to him coming on board not afterwards. I would have probably listened to a number of people suggest best possible ways to take advantage of Bret Hart, including Hulk Hogan. Hulk had a long history with Bret Hart, as did Ric Flair.
They had a long history with Bret. They knew Bret Hart better than I did. I had never worked with Bret. Quite frankly, I never followed him much in WWF. He was never really my cup of tea. I appreciated and understood why fans loved him. I understood the qualities that he brought, but he wasn’t one of the guys where I watched him and thought to myself that I couldn’t wait to have that guy on the roster. I was interested in the perspectives of guys like Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, who did know Bret at a much different level than I could possibly know him.”
• Huge Update On The Rock’s ‘In-Ring’ Status For WrestleMania 35
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is undeniably one of WWE’s biggest draw, and we haven’t seen him in a WWE ring in a while. Could we then be seeing him soon?
The Rock will likely not appear in a wrestling role at next year’s WrestleMania 35 because he will be filming a movie called “Red Notice”, and the shooting for that movie is set to begin in April (and WrestleMania 35 is on April 7).
Movie studios invest a lot of money in his name, and due to insurance reasons, The Rock hasn’t been able to work a match in quite some time.
With that said, the chances to see The Rock in a WrestleMania match are slim. But a simple appearance wouldn’t hurt, so we can’t rule that out yet!
