Eric Bischoff Discusses Being Confronted By Hootie of Hootie & The Blowfish Over His Treatment of Ric Flair

On the latest edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about how personal and social Ric Flair was with fans, and how he once got confronted by Hootie of Hootie & The Blowfish over his treatment of Flair. Highlights are below.

On how Flair liked to engage with fans: “He was so personable and unlike a lot of celebrities who kind of lay low and don’t really engage with the local community and don’t go out much and aren’t seen regularly, Ric was the opposite of that. He was out and about, he was in the restaurants having a great time, he was happy to meet engaged fans, he was happy to interact with people wherever he went.”

On being confronted by Hootie of Hootie & The Blowfish over Flair: “I’ll tell you one quick story. When we were in Charlotte, I don’t remember what Nitro it was or what the event was, but we were in Charlotte, and I remember after the show, we were all going to meet at a local bar downtown and celebrate after the show, and I walked in, and this is when Ric and I on camera were having our storyline so there was some heat between us, part of it was real that we turned into a storyline, and a lot of the people knew about it. I walked into this bar, and I was by myself, I walked up to the bar, it was pretty crowded after the show, everybody knew we were going to go there, and this guy comes up to me, standing right next to me, I didn’t make eye contact with him but I could feel him just staring a hole into me. Finally I looked over to him, I said, ‘What, do I owe you money, or what’s the deal here?’ And he just, I don’t remember what he said, but he just lit into me, and giving me all kinds of a hard time about how I was treating Ric Flair and what a piece of garbage I was, I’ll clean up the language a little bit out of respect for who this person ultimately ended up being, and this guy’s going on and on and on and he’s eyeballing me like, I’m thinking I’m not going to grab this beer quite yet because I may need both hands until I figure out where this conversation is gonna to end up, I’ll just leave my beer on the bar. I’m half preparing, looking around me, seeing how much room I have to work, and I find out it’s Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish. Darius Rucker, but he was Hootie back then. Obviously we became friends after that.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.