Speaking on the latest episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff has recalled receiving a phone call from Rick Rude just 15 minutes after the Montreal screwjob.
During the episode which looked back at the life and career of Mr Perfect, Kurt Hennig, Bischoff was asked whether “Ravishing” Rick Rude’s return to WCW in 1997 had anything to do with Hennig. WCW’s former president went on to explain that it didn’t, and in fact came out after receiving a phone call from Rude, just 15 minutes after the infamous Montreal screwjob.
“No, no, that was Rick Rude calling me 15 minutes after Montreal went down. That Sunday night, I’m sitting in my house, with my wife and my kids… That was Rick. Rick called me. The phone was right next to the couch where I was sitting and Rick called me and he said ‘Man are you seeing this?’ I said ‘No.’ And he started explaining it to me, and he said ‘Man is there room for me there?’ ‘Oh absolutely.’ By that point I was pretty good friends with Rick, I said ‘If you’re free there’s room for you brother, come on down’, and he was there the next day.”
While Rude had returned to the then WWF in August 1997, he wasn’t signed to a long-term contract. This enabled him to leave the company immediately in the aftermath of Survivor Series.
Earlier on in his career, Rude had appeared for Jim Crockett Promotions which would become WCW, and WCW itself, with a run in the WWF sandwiched in-between.
Rude’s 1997 return to WCW has gone down in history, as on 17th November, he appeared on both WCW Nitro and Monday Night Raw at the same time. The former Intercontinental Champion appeared live on Nitro, cutting a promo attacking his previous employers, while later in the same evening he appeared on RAW, which had been taped a handful of days previously.
Rick Rude stayed with WCW until April 1999. He sadly passed away just a couple of weeks after leaving the company on April 20th, Rude was just 40 years old.
“Ravishing” Rick Rude was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017.