10. Eric Bischoff Talks About His Starrcade 1997 Match With Larry Zbyszko, Says He Would Have Preferred A Bar Fight

A fan recently asked the following to Eric Bischoff: “What were your thoughts on the match at Starrcade 97 between you and Larry Zbyszko for the control of Nitro.” Below is what Bischoff said:

“It was fun. It was nerve-wracking for me. I think that might have been one of my first matches. I didn’t really have matches and I don’t consider what I did to be “matches” although that one probably looked more like a match more than anything else I had done up until that point or after. It was a lot of fun. The only nerve wracking part for me was two things. One, my left knee was fractured. I had fractured it working out and training with Larry in the ring. So, I had a vertical fracture in my left kneecap. My stability was not what I was hoping it would be and I didn’t get to train the way I wanted to train and all that kind of stuff. I was limited and disappointed in that. The second thing is something people will have a hard time believing or understanding or probably both. I was/am pretty good at kicking people in the head and knocking them out or kicking them in the body and really hurting them. I really sucked at making it look like I was kicking him in the head or the body and making that look good. I just wasn’t good at that. That’s the art of being in the ring that I didn’t have.

If it had been a bar fight I would have been fine with that but to get in there and work a kick… it’s hard. Kicks are hard to work because you have to put so much energy and speed in order to get them where they need to be to make them look halfway decent. There is a fair amount of velocity and if you aren’t really, really, really good at working it and having practiced that for a long time you can hurt somebody. I don’t like hurting people unless it’s my intention. I don’t like to hurt people by accident. It was awkward for those two reasons but it was fun. Clearly, it was Washington, DC with a hot crowd at a big event. It was really fun.”