Ric Flair “Not Going To Trust Eric Bischoff”
The issues between Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff continue with Flair giving his side of the story on his return to WCW.
Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff have been engaged in a recent public war of words that Bischoff seemingly had tried to bring to an end. However, Bischoff replied to Flair after hearing that The Nature Boy had repeated claims that he was instrumental in helping Bischoff achieve the top job in WCW in the early nineties. According to Bischoff, Ric Flair wasn’t even a part of the company when he ascended to being boss.
Now on his To Be The Man podcast, Ric Flair has hit back at Eric Bischoff and says that he negotiated his deal to return to WCW with the man heading up the company before Bischoff, Bill Watts:
“The truth never hurts, It’s when you’re bullsh*tting around. It’s like, it’s like this thing I’m reading on I just can’t help but pick it up, Eric, not to change the subject. I hate even to talk about it. But Eric is saying now that I wasn’t instrumental in getting his job. Well, I negotiated my deal. Here’s what I’m gonna do. I want to have Bill Watts on the podcast next week.”
“I negotiated my deal to come back to WCW from WWE with Bill Watts. So how was Eric in charge? Why would I negotiate? Why would I negotiate with Bill Watts if Eric was in charge? I’m gonna have Bill on the show. And you know, [he] reaches out to me all the time, Bill Shaw. I mean, that stuff with Eric is just I go on and on.”
Ric Flair then explained how Eric Bischoff had asked him to put his career on the line in a match to help sell tickets and that Flair had demanded a guaranteed deal to go through with the bout:
“One more story about Eric, you know, we’ll let it go, because it’s not worth it, he’s full of sh*t. So he and a guy named, the promoter for WCW, for years, Zane Bresloff. They called me and they said tickets for Halloween Havoc aren’t going well. I said why would they? I put Hulk over in Orlando. I put him over in Des Moines, Iowa. What would possibly make you think that we would sell out Detroit? If we had Mr. T and Tommy Hearns and Muhammad Ali, who gives a sh*t. It’s a third match. I’m not gonna win the title in this case.”
“And they go, Eric goes, well will you put up your career? I go, okay. I said, Yeah, I said, but I need a guaranteed deal, God honest truth that’s true. I made Bill Shaw bring me a guaranteed deal. I was supposed to be off for a year. So at least looked semi-legitimate. I signed it before I went to the ring, I’ll have Bill Shaw on the show. Before I went to the ring, I signed it, I’ve admitted it, I held them up.”
“I said I’m not gonna just retire, I said, not gonna retire and I’m not going to trust Eric Bischoff. And who would? Right? So guess what? Less than a month. They called me, we need you back at work. And I went down and got dressed up in a crowd and jumped in and wherever that f*cked up show was we did where Arn put over The Renegade in 13 seconds. I mean, it was just a debacle.”
If you use any quotes from this article please credit original source and then h/t with a link back to TJRWrestling for the transcription.