Eric Bischoff On Scott Norton Being Interrogated by North Korean Police During 1995 WCW/NJPW Show

– Eric Bischoff recalled the now infamous story of Scott Norton being interrogated by North Korean police during the Collision in Korea show on his latest 83 Weeks podcast. Norton himself gave his own account in an interview last month, calling the tour “the craziest thing I’ve ever done or ever been apart of.” Highlights from Bischoff’s discussion of the incident are below:

On his relationship with Norton: “I knew Scott before I got into professional wrestling. I worked with him in AWA, so we had a long-term relationship at this point. Scott is one of the most gentle, lovable people you’ll ever meet, that could crush you in a heartbeat, especially back then. He also couldn’t stand to not be in control of whatever environment he was in. For example, I used to fly, we used to charter a jet to leave Atlanta to go to Nitro. It’s kind of off-topic, but I want to paint the picture of what Scott was like. And Scott loved being on the jet, because that meant he got home after the show was over. And he lived close to me in Atlanta, so I wouldn’t fly on a jet by myself, it made no financial sense. But I would have Jenny Ingle figure out who’s on the card, how many of them lived close to me in Atlanta, and we would just do the math. We would fly these guys first class and there’s six of us, what would that cost vs. what would it cost to charter a flight? And if it came close, I would charter the flight. So I often times recruited guys like Scott who were friends of mine and who lived close to jump on the flight with me. And Scott would always do it, because he wanted to get home to his wife. But he hated being in a small plane. Because we’d charter either King Airs, or occasionally a Lear jet which is the worst, because they’re the smallest. And once the plane took off, he would start sweating like a pig. I mean, beads of sweat were just pouring off of him. And his head would start swelling up. You could kind of see his head beating to the rhythm of his heart his blood pressure would go up so high. He’d start getting into a panic attack.”

On Norton’s poor experiences on the trip: “So there was a lot of things that caused Scott to be unnerved from the moment he got off the plane and lost his passport, to the indoctrination of the propaganda, to the Korean news crews, documentary crews following. All of a sudden, Scott is starting to elevate his blood pressure, and he is not a happy camper. And once Scott started to lose control, it was like a freight train going downhill.”

On the call to his wife that got Norton in trouble: “Evidently Scott was desperate to call his wife, and somehow managed to get a Korean operator, a North Korean operator, to put a call through to his wife. Because his wife thought that, ‘Ohh, he’s out with all the boys, and their partying and their having all this fun, and there’s strippers and there’s this and there’s that. She thought Scott was having the time of his life while she was stuck at home. And his wife was a really, really super-cool lady, but she’s a very colorful character. Especially back then. She was just like Scott, let’s put it that way. So Scott, not wanting to get yelled at and beat up when he got home, gets this call through to his wife. And she starts accusing him of partying and chasing strippers and all this crazy s**t. And Scott’s trying to explain to her what it’s really like. And in the process of explaining to her what it’s really like in North Korea, the North Koreans who are listening in on the other end of the phone were like, taking severe notes. So his call got disconnected in the middle of the conversation. They came and got Scott. Now I can’t do a good job telling this story because I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it. So I’m telling you what I remember hearing anecdotally … But evidently, North Koreans came to Scott’s room, arrested him at gunpoint, took him down to the basement of the hotel and started interrogating him. And letting him know in no uncertain terms — I don’t know how they did it, if they had an interpreter. I’m sure they did, but speaking ill of the North Korean government is just not cool. I’m sure it didn’t come out that way. Scott was panicking. He thought he was gonna get shot, thrown in the corner of the basement and we would never see or hear of him again. He really, really got uptight about it.”

On Norton being confined to his room afterward: “So, while he was downstairs being interrogated, the Koreans went up to his room, and stripped his room. Took off all the sheets, took the phone out. No soap, no anything. He basically had a room with all comforts as they were stripped out of the room. And he was confined to that hotel. And he was not a happy camper. But there was nothing he could do about it.”

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