Eric Bischoff gave his thoughts on various topics on the latest episode of his 83 Weeks Podcast.
During it, Bischoff talked about how he used the Ultimate Warrior in WCW, Bret Hart, and more. Here are the highlights:
On protecting Ultimate Warrior with short promo segments.:
“I wasn’t too worried about whether he took it personally or not. It was just an obvious issue. And it’s funny. I chuckled when you said, you know, obviously you’re thinking about less is more, because right before you actually said it, I was going, Man, this guy defines less is more. And it became really apparent to me while I was standing in the ring after 6 or 8 minutes of listening to that 26-minute promo or whatever the f**k it ended up being, there’s just no way I’ll ever put a microphone in this guy’s hand again that I can’t live anything that he does when it comes to speaking. I’m going to do my best to make sure that it’s something we do backstage or can or can edit or otherwise fix. I was not going to give him a live mic, and I don’t know if I felt the need to explain to him why, or I may have. I don’t know. But I wasn’t concerned one way or the other because there was no way I was going to repeat that again.”
On whether he had a preference for Bret Hart being a babyface or a heel in WCW:
“No, I saw him as a babyface. That was the initial plan. The discussions I had with Bret. Just because of what happened in Montreal. I think he was a sympathetic figure amongst the wrestling fans. I think everybody felt like he was done wrong and it was just much easier for him to come in as a babyface. And that’s how I saw him in all my conversations with Bret about what we could do and where we might go. Him as a babyface was not that it wouldn’t have evolved into a heel turn somewhere down the road, but those were not the initial discussions.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
