Ric Flair Calls Working For Eric Bischoff In WCW “The Worst”
Ric Flair doesn’t have fond memories of working for Eric Bischoff in WCW in the 1990s.
When Eric Bischoff took over WCW in the mid-1990s he did so after working as an announcer in the company. Bischoff rose up the ranks to become a Vice President and eventually the President of WCW during the company’s rise. Bischoff was also fired during the company’s fall as well, which saw WCW get sold to WWE in March 2001.
By the time Bischoff took over WCW, Ric Flair was already established as a wrestling legend due to an incredible run in the late 1970s, throughout the 1980s as arguably the best pro wrestler alive and in the early 1990s, Flair was still performing at a high level.
In a recent interview with Theo Von on This Past Weekend, Ric Flair spoke about how much he hated working for Bischoff.
“Hated it. The worst. Well, I was out of sight, out of mind. It didn’t work. He kept trying to lose me. He thought if he could take me off TV and bury me, he forgot where I’d been for 20 years, 25 years before I met him.”
“You don’t lose 25 years of being a man and then all of a sudden have some dips**t try and put you in the back of the pack. He beat my brains out, though. That was a big-time loss of self-confidence, period, in my life.”
Ric Flair Faced Eric Bischoff At WCW Starrcade 1998
The backstage animosity between Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff led to a match at WCW’s Starrcade 1998 pay-per-view. Bischoff wasn’t a wrestler, but as a heel character running the show, he was hated by the fans. After suspending Ric Flair for missing a taping due to Ric being at his son’s wrestling meet, their personal issues became part of a storyline. Bischoff actually won that match by cheating, but there would be other matches.
After WCW died, Flair and Bischoff worked together in WWE for several years when Bischoff was the General Manager of Raw for three years while Flair was on the Raw roster.