Former WCW President Eric Bischoff recently discussed the WWE departure of Hall of Famer Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart back in 1997, which saw the “Excellence of Execution” join WCW.
Bischoff talked about how he didn’t care about Hart bringing the WWE Championship to WCW, among other things, on his podcast, 83 Weeks, with Conrad Thompson.
“There were probably two or three different conversations about that” Bischoff said.
“The one conversation that I distinctly remember, I remember that I was in Wyoming. I remember it because my cell phone went off and I was in a cell area that was really sketchy, where I was around a post office, in the middle of nowhere” Bischoff continued.
“I remember going inside the post office to use a pay phone and I remember standing there thinking, why am I having this conversation again? It is not that important of a deal.
I convinced Bret Hart, one last time, do not worry about the [WWE] Championship belt.
In my mind, I remember thinking this at the time, what I thought Bret Hart should do is given the fact that he is Bret Hart, and you know, Stu Hart and the Hart family legacy, the tradition of the business, what I wanted Bret to do is just pass the belt on.
“Do the right thing, shake Vince McMahon’s hand, leave on good terms. The business; the audience would have had more respect for him than to hold on to the belt because he didn’t want to lose in Montreal, Quebec Canada because he is a Canadian. That, to me, didn’t make any sense.
“Worrying about it didn’t make any sense to me because Bret Hart was coming to WCW. The fans were sophisticated enough to know that if he lost a match it wasn’t going to diminish who Bret Hart was. That logic from talent never made any sense to me. That is when you get sucked in to the work where you work yourself. I tried to explain that to Bret Hart. It just didn’t matter to me”.
