Eric Bischoff On Which WWE HOFer Was The Most Difficult To Work With
On a special Q&A episode of the 83 Weeks Podcast, Eric Bischoff spoke about the most difficult person he ever had to work with during his career in the wrestling business. Being the President of WCW during the height of the wrestling business in the 1990s, Bischoff named one of his biggest stars in WCW during the Monday Night Wars.
"On a consistent basis it would've been Bill Goldberg," Bischoff said. "Not necessarily in a bad way, just that Bill was a very intense person, emotional and didn't have a lot of experience and was pretty uncomfortable in a pro wrestling environment when he first got there. As a result, you take somebody who's an intense personality, a very intense personality, a bit of a perfectionist who puts a lot of pressure on himself. Also, lacking a lot of the experience and comfort that comes with experience, you get a guy who's a little hard to handle or sometimes a lot hard to handle. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just a thing."
During a previous episode of the podcast, Eric Bischoff stated that he believes CM Punk has "sh** the bed" since joining AEW, mainly criticizing Punk over comments he made about AEW stars signing with the company having a bigger impact than Scott Hall and Kevin Nash did with WCW. The WWE Hall of Famer spoke about whether or not he believes Punk should turn heel as he did in WWE and if that would make his AEW presence feel different.
"I don't really have any thoughts on that," Eric Bischoff said. "I didn't watch Punk a lot in WWE because I just wasn't watching WWE a lot in the period of time that he was there. Not as familiar with the peak of Punk's WWE persona or character so I can't really comment on it. I think what we all want as fans is to feel connected to a story and a character and generally the more intense that story or character is, the more appealing it becomes to the wrestling audience.
"I would agree that a level of intensity [is what Punk needs] but that could apply to just about anybody and any character so let's just wait and see. Punk's only been around now for a relatively brief time and I think I've mentioned, so far, not impressed. Not disappointed but not overly impressed either. The ratings would suggest the vast majority of people feel the way I do. Not pissed off, not elated, just waiting for something to happen so let's see what happens."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.