Eric Bischoff On Seeing Referee “Tortured” By The Steiner Brothers

Former WCW President Eric Bischoff has recalled one of his early backstage moments in the company, where he saw a pair of WWE Hall Of Famers “torturing” an official.

Having originally joined WCW as an announcer in 1991, Eric Bischoff went on to head up the company and would therefore work extensively with all the talent. This included The Steiner Brothers, who has a very unique first memory of.

Rick and Scott Steiner were known for having plenty of fun outside the ring whilst being as tough as they come inside it. It was backstage on one of Bischoff’s early nights where the pair left a lasting impression on their future boss, as well as a referee.

Speaking on After The Bell with Corey Graves, Eric Bischoff discussed The Steiner Brothers being inducted in to the WWE Hall Of Fame Class Of 2022, whilst also recounting his first meeting with the pair and instantly knowing what it would be like to work with them.

Shortly after I joined WCW in 1991, it might have been my very first pay-per-view actually, and I showed up, everything was new to me,” Bischoff said. “I didn’t know any of the talent. Everything was new and exciting and I was intimidated by most of it, and at that pay-per-view, we had to use that wrestling mat room as our dressing area. I show up, I find a cornerback away from everybody because I was intimidated, just wanted to keep my head down, keep my job, not upset anybody.

I’m in there in the corner dressing getting ready and I look over, and the Steiner Brothers are torturing this referee, I mean, torturing him. Stretching him, bending him, squeezing him, breaking him until they got tired of it, and they wrapped him up like a mummy in gaff tape and left him in the corner. I’m thinking to myself, ‘this is going to be fun. I can’t wait to work with these two guys.’ That was my first impression of the Steiner Brothers.

Eric Bischoff went on to talk about how he became good friends with Rick, however he never got quite so close to Scott Steiner as it felt like being around him was like waiting for a hand grenade to go off.

Subsequently, I went on to become really good friends with Rick,” Bischoff said. “Rick and I took a real and very special hunting trip up to the Yukon, just south of the arctic circle. We were up there for 10 days and 2 weeks, it was just amazing, I’ve had a lot of great experiences with Rick. Scott, I didn’t hang out with so much, personally. Scott was always a little different, it’s kind of like hanging out with a hand grenade, eventually, it’s going to go bad.

Rick Steiner has recently been appearing on NXT 2.0, being abducted by Joe Gacy to try and get inside the mind of Steiner’s son and NXT Champion, Bron Breakker.

With thanks to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.