Larry Zbyszko Claims Hulk Hogan Is a Manipulator and Eric Bischoff Fell for His Act in WCW

– Hannibal TV recently interviewed WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko, who shared his thoughts on Hulk Hogan. He claimed Hogan is a manipulator and Eric Bischoff fell for Hogan’s act in WCW, and it ultimately ruined programming. Below are some highlights (transcript via WrestlingInc.com).

His thoughts on Hulk Hogan and his lawsuit win over Gawker: “In 20 years he’ll start collecting and if they have any money after all the appeals, he’ll probably be dead. To be honest with you, I never think about the Hulk. When the Hulk came around, I was doing my Bruno thing. They brought Terry in because they needed a big guy for Andre to beat up. So after about six, eight months of Andre beating the snot out of Hulk, he came up to me one day and said ‘You’re my hero brother, give me some advice I’m getting tired of getting beat up by Andre every night. Because I’m just his whipping boy.’ And I gave him the advice, I said, ‘Hey you’ve been here in the WWWF, getting beat up by Andre every night. The best thing for you is you’re a big guy, you can move — just get the hell out of here and go to a different territory.'”

On how his advice helped Hogan and Hogan went to AWA: “He listened, he left, and he went to the AWA and that’s where they gave him a break, turned him into a baby face and people — things were changing. Then our paths never really crossed after that, and I think in the beginning Terry was a nice guy, but I think as years went by, I think he got a little too big in the head for a while. It bit him in the ass. Some other guys did that too, Lex Lugar was kind of a narcissistic ego kind of guy, then when something bad happened to him you kind of laugh and are like, ‘Hey, karma brother.’ Not that they’re bad guys, he’s probably a much better person now because he brought hell upon himself when he got a real prima donna head. But I didn’t deal with guys like that.”

Zbyszko on how Hulk Hogan was a good manipulator in WCW and Eric Bischoff fell for it: “I didn’t really deal with him… Hulk we were getting him ready for the Goldberg transition thing. I never really dealt with Hulk, Hulk was a good manipulator and [Eric] Bischoff kinda fell for it. Unfortunately Hulk kind of swerved Bischoff into giving the farm away where too many guys got not only a big contract, but the clauses were they could do whatever they wanted. So they killed the programming.”