What does Eric Bischoff think of Mike Graham taking credit for the creation of the New World Order (nWo) and others like Greg Gagne taking credit for Hulk Hogan coming to World Championship Wrestling in 1994?
The former WCW Executive Vice President spoke about this at length during a recent discussion with Wrestling Shoot Interviews.
Featured below is an excerpt from a transcript of the interview where Eric Bischoff touches on these topics with his thoughts.
Eric Bischoff: Greg Gagne is a sad, sad human being. I mean, it’s funny how many people take credit for the nWo. Nobody fucking knew what the nWo was until Hulk Hogan came out and said it. Scott and Kevin didn’t even know [who] the third man was gonna be Hulk Hogan until shortly before… But yet people are crawling out of the woodwork, taking credit for the nWo because they need to.
I’m not gonna say anything about Mike Graham. Mike Graham’s not here to defend himself, but it is what it is. Mike Graham was an emotionally disturbed alcoholic and usually [with] emotionally disturbed alcoholics you’ve gotta take whatever they say with a grain of salt. I’m gonna let it go at that. I said more than I wanted to.
Greg Gagne, on the other hand, is a failed second generation entitled, ex-wrestler who felt, because he was Verne Gagne’s kid, he should have had my job. He should have been more important in the industry. He should have been Vince McMahon’s right hand man, because Greg grew up being entitled.He was a scrawny, somewhat athletic, but not a credible character as far as professional wrestling is concerned in that he looked more like a golfer than he did a professional wrestler, and everybody knew that. The only reason he was getting the push he was getting us because he was Verne Gagne’s son.
Well, when the AWA went away, and this guy [Bischoff] who used to work for AWA, this kid that came in with no experience at all worked for Verne, all of a sudden ascended up the ranks. And not only was in control of WCW, but created one of the most, the only company in so far in history that’s been able to outperform WWE and beat Vince McMahon.
…It was hard for Greg to deal with that, because he had this sense of entitlement and ultimately I had to fire Greg because his sense of entitlement got the best of him. And to this day he’s still taking credit for a lot of things that he should probably not take credit for.
But, you know, he’s old. He’s, you know, led a somewhat miserable life since AWA collapsed. He’s never been really good at anything other than being Verne’s son. So, you know, it is what it.
James Romero: Was one of the other things that he may have taken credit for bringing Hulk Hogan into WCW by any chance?
Eric Bischoff: Of course he did! And you know, one of the biggest challenges I had with Hulk Hogan initially is Greg Gagne, because Hulk didn’t trust Greg. Hulk wanted to make sure Greg Gagne was as far away from anything that Hulk Hogan did creatively as he possibly could. It was a legitimate concern for Hulk because he had, he just did not trust Greg and didn’t think Greg had anything to offer.
Check out the complete Eric Bischoff interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to WSI and WrestlingHeadlines.com for transcribing the above quotes.
