Eric Bischoff Says Dennis Rodman Made Over $1 Million In WCW, Recalls Pitching Segment to Jay Leno

– Eric Bischoff discussed Dennis Rodman’s infamous and brief run in WCW and his angle with Karl Malone in the latest After 83 Weeks podcast. Video is below, plus highlights per Wrestling Inc:

On how much Dennis Rodman got paid for his WCW run: “The total fee was just a little over $1 million, like a million and change. But that was for a number of different appearances. It wasn’t just for one appearance. I know that sounds like a ton of money, and it is a ton of money…But in the big scheme of things you know, Mike Tyson probably got three times that much. Other performers in WWF get much, much bigger numbers. I had a number in my head, because in my mind getting Dennis Rodman would create a certain amount of buzz that if I had to pay for would probably cost me three times that much money…The press that I knew I would get from that I really wouldn’t even be able to buy.”

On getting ROdman and Karl Malone to feud in the NBA: “I got ahold of Dennis through his manager at the time, Dwight Manley. I said ‘Look, nothing during the game. I don’t want to be accused of screwing up a game, be it playoffs. But if there’s any chance when you guys are kind of in between, or if you’re off court you know near the court there’s cameras running, if you guys could like push and shove each other a little bit, you know kind of raise the heat, raise the temperature just a bit. I wouldn’t be disappointed if something like that were to happen. I’m not telling you to do it! I’m just telling you if something were to happen like that, I’d be pretty happy about it.'”

On pitching Jay Leno’s WCW appearance: “I’m literally booking this whole thing on the fly. I said, well I don’t know maybe Hogan and I come down and we throw you off your set, take over your show. You tell a couple jokes about him which will piss him off and that’s why we’re going to come down and throw you off your own set. Jay went, yeah, I can see that, yeah. I went, holy s*** he’ll do it! I didn’t think he would do that. I thought it was going to be like, yeah I’ll work Hulk Hogan’s corner, or you know some peripheral celebrity kind of typical formula. Nope, he wanted to get in the ring. He wanted to have a match and he didn’t care if we threw him off of his own set to do it! So that was pretty cool.”

https://youtu.be/gRyxFYVis5s