Eric Bischoff Recalls Bringing Rick Rude To WCW

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about bringing in Rick Rude to WCW after the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. You can check out some highlights below:

Eric Bischoff on bringing in Rick Rude to WCW: “I’m not really sure what the WWE contract status was with Rick. The only thing I knew is he wasn’t under contract, because that was the first question out of my mouth when Rick called me. But it goes back to the Montreal Screwjob. I was at home on a Sunday night, wasn’t watching the pay-per-view. I was just with my wife and my kids. Typical Sunday night, about 10 o’clock, nine o’clock, whatever time it was. And that was back when I had a hard line in my house. Had a regular phone, which I haven’t had in years. But the phone rang, and it was Rick Rude. And Rick had witnessed the Vince McMahon-Bret Hart confrontation. I don’t know if he saw the punch, if he was in the room or was outside the room.

“But clearly Rick knew everything that went down, and had a very strong opinion about it. He was livid at Vince. He was livid at the situation. I’m surehe didn’t have a lot of details, he didn’t know the nuance. But nonetheless, Rick was pissed. And he called me up, and he was the first person to explain to me what happened. Because again, I wasn’t paying attention to the internet. My didn’t have this damn [phone] thing back then, right? I’m just watching TV. And Rick called me and gave me pretty much a blow-by-blow in terms of overall what happened, his perspective at least. And he said, ‘Man, any shot I can come back to WCW? Because I don’t want to be here.’ And I said, ‘Rick, what’s your contractual status?’ ‘Don’t have one.’ ‘Come on down. Bring a razor.’ [chuckles] I didn’t say that, but said, ‘Absolutely.’”

On their connection: “I’ve known Rick for a long time. Rick and I were friends for quite a while. I knew of Rick back before I ever got into the professional wrestling business. We had a lot of mutual friends and hung out and some of the same some of the same bars, so to speak. So I knew of Rick and then when I got to WCW in ’91, Rick and I kind of immediately connected, because he’s a Minnesota guy. Just mutual friends, right? We had a lot in common.

“So we started hanging out. I’d drive to towns occasionally with Rick, we’d share rides and stuff. So when Rick called me and said, ‘Hey.’ You know, told me what happened. Didn’t want to be there. Asked if there was a spot, kind of like I did with Madusa. She went through the same thing, different circumstance, but same thing. She called and said, ‘Hey, any room?’ ‘Sure, we’ll make room. Come on down. We’ll figure it out.’ And same thing happened with Rick.”

On his motives behind it: “Although with Rick, I immediately was just like, Dr Evil. ‘Hmmm, how do I want to use this?’ You know, I wanted to stick it up Vince’s ass as hard and fast as I could. So the whole thing was really more — it was just as much about pissing off Vince and getting under his skin. Because I really believed at the time that if I could get him off his game, I knew he was competitive. I knew he had a big ego. When I say I knew, I had been led to believe that by people that did know Vince very well, who have kind of consistently all said the same thing at different times and different conversations. So you got to get a sense of what you’re dealing with, even though I didn’t know Vince personally.

“So I thought, ‘All right, if he’s got a big ego. If he gets pissed off easy, I’m going to keep him off his game by keeping him pissed off.’ So that whole thing with Rick, and me kind of back there with the s**t-eating grin on my face, that was all intentional. And it was really designed more to piss off Vince McMahon than it was to entertain the audience.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.