Eric Bischoff On Steve Austin Pitching Storyline To Work With Hulk Hogan In WCW, Austin Wanting To Be Revealed As Hogan’s Family Member

In a new edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed Steve Austin pitching a storyline to work with Hulk Hogan in WCW, Austin wanting to be revealed as Hogan’s family member, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Eric Bischoff on Steve Austin wanting to work with Hulk Hogan in WCW: “I’m giving you my assumption, not the conversation that I had with Steve. Let me make that very clear. Steve saw the handwriting on the wall with Hogan. Steve being a professional – meaning wanting to be at the top, wanting to be as significant and important as he could possibly be and reaching his potential – saw an opportunity to work with Hogan. Wanted to work with him. I never got the sense that Steve was desperate or it was the most important thing for him even at the time.”

On the storyline Austin pitched for working with Hogan: “He did come to me with one idea where the audience would find out that Steve was Hulk’s – I can’t remember exactly – his son or his brother. He came to me with the idea that somehow he would be related to Hulk Hogan and tag with him. Now Steve may not remember it – I remember where it happened because it was an awkward conversation for me to have in front of other people. We were at Center Stage in the main locker room area. I think he and I or maybe a trainer or two would have been the only people in the room and we passed each other in the doorway and he stopped me and laid this out and wanted me to pitch it to Hulk. The reason I was concerned about what I was hearing wasn’t because I thought it was a bad idea at all – actually, I may have even liked the idea. But I knew with having talked with Hulk and Ric [Flair] for the months leading up to Hulk Hogan signing with WCW, how reticent Hulk was to work with anybody that he didn’t really know or hadn’t worked with in the past. And Steve was one of those guys. So I was hearing an idea I probably dug or even liked, and Steve and I got along pretty well up until the day I fired him. We got along well. I kind of dug the idea but also knew it would be swimming upstream.”

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