Eric Bischoff Denies Narrative About Hulk Hogan In WCW

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about his strategic reasoning for bringing “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan into WCW in 1994, pushing back on the narrative that he only hired Hulk Hogan’s friends. You can check out some highlights below:

On the narrative:  “No, but I want to kind of reframe the context a little bit. My intention or my goal was never to eliminate any and all southern influence on the show. I think that’s overstating it. Did I want to balance it? Yeah, because we were far too unbalanced in terms of the brand position of our company, the most forward facing, consistently obvious parts of our show, that very southern vibe to it, Jim Ross, Tony Schavione, going all the way back to the Crockett’s and some of those announcers, certainly our big, bigger stars at the time, all came from that territory, And as such, kind of represented that regional southern style or approach to the presentation, because that style was much different. It was a weekly territory in the south, primarily, whereas Minnesota was a monthly territory. So it had a different type of presentation. Stories moved a little slower, for example, they weren’t as angle-intensive. As another example, when they did have angles in the south, they tended to be old angles because they had so many of them. In order to, you know, because of the weekly territory nature, your angles tended to try to top the one the week before it. And they had very, very colorful, not so much in Minnesota. So there were just presentation differences between North and South. It wasn’t necessarily personal preference or a bias one way or the other, as much as it was me having the presence of mind to go, Okay, we need to grow our audience outside of the audience we already have. We’re dominant the southeast because the presence had been so prolonged, established, right? But now I need to go outside of my congregation. So to speak, I need to preach outside of the congregation. How do I do that? I don’t know, bring in some characters that appeal to that audience because of the exposure they’ve had in WWE, it’s really simple.”

On Hogan not being involved in the decision: “It’s been made out to be Hogan, one of all his friends to work for bullshit. I was not influenced at all from Hulk Hogan about whether or not to bring in. So this is zero conversation about it until after the fact. And Hulk was really happy, because who doesn’t want to hang around Hacksaw Jim Duggan backstage. So there was a lot of that, but so much has been made of it now. Jimmy Hart came with Hulk. It still is with Hulk, and it travels everywhere with Hulk. So that was just part of the package. Brutus, yeah, I did cave on that one. But beyond that, sure, he suggested people. And from time to time, some of them I brought in, some of them I didn’t. Some I brought in. They didn’t stick around long, one reason or another.. Honky Tonk Man. So, yeah, I brought in because I wanted to appeal to the audience outside of the one I already had, because you can’t grow if you don’t. Here’s the other reason I brought in Hacksaw, or I should say, not the reason I brought him in, but one of the reasons why I felt so comfortable bringing him in is because his crop reaction was absolutely predictable. You could bet your mortgage on it. Absolutely bet your mortgage that when Hacksaw Jim Duggan came up, I don’t care what happened before it, I don’t care what happened earlier in the night. I don’t care what’s going on after the Jim Duggan match. I know exactly what’s going to happen when he walks through the curtain as a producer. That’s kind of valuable, comes in handy. It’s a nice little tool to have in your toolkit when you need it. That’s Jim. That’s because of the character that Jim built and created.”

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