Never the types to hold back their thoughts, Bret Hart and Eric Bischoff have shared many colorful words about each other over the years!
Bret Hart on "Loser, Maggot" Eric Bischoff:
On the Sam Roberts Podcast, Bret Hart made disparaging comments about Eric Bischoff.
"WCW killed any kind of joy in your life. I think I started to hate money, and everything good was just bad.
"It was like, โOh, I made only $100,000 this week, those bastards!โ
"The money they paid me was insane. Iโd be off and then fly all the way down [to a town] first-class airplane, first-class luxury car, and first-class hotel, and have Eric Bischoff come up to tell me about 5 minutes after 6 oโclock, โI gotta tell ya, youโre off tonight!โ
"Iโd say, โI flew all the way down here, for what?โ
"Heโd say, โDonโt worry. Itโs a day off!โ
"You had so many days you had to work. While it would count as one of my contracted days, I didnโt go all the way down there to dog it. I went there to work. I wanted to tear that place apart! I wanted to give them- I wanted to wrestle! Give me something, you know? They were so bad. They would kill any hope in anybody. They would destroy anybody.
"I donโt have a good thing to say about Eric Bischoff or anything he ever did. That guy was, talk about the Midas Touch; he was the opposite. He could kill your career.
"He was too stupid to know what a career was that had actual passion. If you had a passion for your matches and had a genius for wrestling talent, it didnโt mean anything to Eric Bischoff.
"He was the worst loser, maggot that ever got into wrestling. He was just the worst. I have nothing- he was a nice enough guy, but he was just the worst.
"I feel so bad because I went to WCW to really make a difference, and I think if you look at WCW and all the names that they had and all the wrestlers and all the other things, they had everything. They just needed somebody who knew what to do, somebody with half a brain.
"I have heard his quote, which is why I probably get pretty hostile about Eric Bischoff. He said, โOh, Bret Hart came here, and he was like a broken toy. He didnโt have the same fire.โ
"I could strangle him when I hear that because that is so not true! I was on fire wanting to take the world on; I wanted to take that whole company; I wanted to kick Vince right in the teeth by giving them the best matches. Give me Booker T. Give me Benoit. Give me Sting. Give me Hogan. Give me all these guys, and weโll get this thing really rocking here.
"But he was such an idiot. I would say all that right to him if he were sitting here. โYou are an idiot, and you cost everybody!โ
"When you look at how wrestling is today, itโs a monopoly. The wrestlers have no leverage of any kind. They canโt go, โIf you donโt pay me, Iโm going to go to WCW!โ like the old days. That was so much better for the wrestlers because then we had a bargaining table.
"But today? No. And thatโs all Eric Bischoffโs fault. He killed the wrestling business. He was the worst."
Bret Hart went on to admit, "I like Eric. He was always nice to me. He had done some nice things for me, such as flying me home after my brother Owen died.He got a Learjet, and he flew me home, paying me the whole summer and winter at a ridiculous wage. He did a lot of good things like that.
"But at the same time, he lied to me and just killed my career. Like, โSign this contract and join us, and weโre going to kill your career! Thatโs what weโre going to do!โ"
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Eric Bischoff – "Bret Hart is full of sh*t and needs a dementia check!"
A few weeks later, after Bret Hart made those disparaging comments, Eric Bischoff also was a guest on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast and took the opportunity to respond.
While he didnโt personally hear Hartโs comments, he explained his own difficulties working with "The Hitman."
"I didnโt listen to your show with Bret. Iโm generally aware of the kind of things that Bret says because he has been saying them for years, so itโs nothing new there. Iโm sure he didnโt break any news. Heโs just a miserable guy.
"Heโs the type of guy–and I said it in one of my responses on Twitter; he has a giant hole in his soul, and heโs going to have to fill it with hate for somebody.
"When he came to work for me, he hated Vince McMahon. He hated everybody in the McMahon family; he hated Shawn Michaels; he didnโt want to work with Hulk Hogan. He hated Ric Flair, he hated Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, he hated everybody, and I had to listen to that. It was a major effort to get him and Flair on the same page, which wasnโt because of Ric. It was because of Bret; he just hated everybody."
Bischoff maintains that he treated Hart well while he was in WCW, even though Hart wasnโt in the best condition of his career. He said Hart didnโt make much of an effort to mix into his new promotion.
"If you just watched him or listened to him over the years, he was able to get into the WWE Hall of Fame, so he buried the hatchet with Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. Of course, he did. But, you know, Bret showed up in WCW- it makes me laugh when he says he didnโt like how he was treated because we paid him a lot of money and treated him extremely well.
"Here was a guy that would show up 45 minutes before television started, before a live TV show and he would show up looking like he was asleep in the gutter the last three days; and he had no energy, no real desire to integrate himself and insert himself in the process. He wasnโt at all passionate about anything he did from day one."
Not long before the above-quoted interview, Bischoff took a less gentle approach on Twitter, calling Bret Hart "full of s***" and saying that he "needs a dementia check."
Eric Bischoff may have regretted those comments as he soon later deleted them from his social media account.
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