Eric Bischoff Expresses Regret For Firing Wrestling Legend In WCW
Eric Bischoff felt bad about firing a legendary wrestler while running WCW.
There is a famous story from March of 1995 when WCW fired Dustin Rhodes and the Blacktop Bully (aka WWE legend Demolition’s Smash) for blading during their King of the Road match. Blading is when a wrestler intentionally cuts themselves to make it look like they are bleeding to sell the idea that they are taking a physical beating in a match.
In Dustin’s case, it worked out well for him when WWE signed him, and he later became the iconic character known as Goldust that year.
As for the Blacktop Bully, he ended up getting re-signed by WCW about two years later, using his real name, Barry Darsow, and was used for the next few years. However, his greatest success in pro wrestling was as Demolition’s Smash.
Eric Bischoff was the WCW Senior Vice President who was told to fire Rhodes and Bully due to the blading incident. Bischoff would go on to become WCW’s President later in the 1990s.
On a recent episode of Eric Bischoff’s 83 Weeks podcast, Darsow was a guest, and he told his side of the story that led to his 1995 firing while working for WCW. The story picks up with Darsow recalling a phone call.
“The next morning, the phone rings, and it was Eric on the phone. And Eric says to me, ‘Barry, I got good news and I got bad news for you.’ I said, ‘Well Eric, what the heck? Give me the good news?’ He says, ‘You had one hell of a match last night.’ And I said, ‘What’s the bad news?’ He says, ‘You’re fired.’
“I said, ‘Fired for what?’ He says, ‘Well, you guys bled in that match.’ The office did not want that, and you guys did that. And I tried to explain to him, ‘Well, that’s what Mike Graham had us do.’ And my whole career, whatever the boss wanted me to do I did. So anyways, Eric said to me, ‘Please don’t give me any grief about this or anything. I promise I’ll hire you back.’
He says, ‘If you can just do this and leave on good terms and everything. I’ll hire you back later on.’ I said, ‘Eric, if that’s what you got to do. I said, I’m with you. Alright.’ So it ended up being later on he did hire me back. Did exactly what he said he was going to do. So that was how I seen it.
As mentioned, the re-hiring occurred over two years later, in October 1997.
Eric Bischoff Expresses Regret Over Firing And Blames Mike Graham
While looking back on firing Barry Darsow, Eric Bischoff spoke about how the WCW bosses forced his hand with the firing.
“I was excited to bring you back for a lot of reasons. But what I could have done differently, because I always — you know, when I go back, we have heard these stories. And I kind of think about both sides of the issue, right? And I always think about, ‘Okay, now that I know a lot more than I knew back then in terms of how to handle situations.’
Because I was learning on the job, quite honestly. [I was] faced with situations I’d never been involved with before, never seen anybody else be faced with. It was just — every day was something new. And this was one particular hot button that came from Corporate.
And one of the great things about WCW is for a long time, till about ’98, Corporate didn’t want anything to do with wrestling, so they left me alone. They didn’t even want to really know I existed. They didn’t want us in the CNN tower. So there was very little interference from Corporate.
But the one issue was bleeding. And it was primarily because every time we did it, Vince McMahon would go on some mail-in campaign. And not only bombard Ted Turner and other Turner executives, senior executives, like executive committee level executives. But also Congressmen and Senators. So it turned into this big thing. So when Corporate calls me and says, ‘Eric, no more blood,’ I didn’t get a chance to defend it or argue it or find a way to mitigate it. I just had to do exactly what you did.”
Eric Bischoff would go on to say he regrets not firing Mike Graham, who was the agent for the Rhodes-Bully match. However, as he said that, Bischoff was reminded that he had fired Graham, too.
“And then when Mike Graham — who really deserves the blame for this, because Mike knew better. I should have fired Mike. I regret the fact that I didn’t, because it was unfair that I didn’t. He should have been in the same conversation that you and Dustin ended up in. That was my mistake in terms of — [Bischoff is told he did fire Graham]. Oh, then I handled it like a pro.”
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