Despite the beef previously believed to be dead and buried, Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair have once again found themselves at odds.
Speaking on a recent episode of his podcast To Be The Man, Flair branded Bischoff an “arrogant pr*ck,” who “f*cked him” every time he turned around. In a recent post of social media, Flair shared a clip of a promo from their rivalry in WCW. The promo took place on the September 14th, 1998 edition of WCW Monday Nitro. This was the first time that Flair had appeared since no-showing a taping that April. On the episode, the Nature Boy reformed the Four Horsemen and lambasted Bischoff, calling him an “a**hole,” a “liar, cheat and a scam” and finally a “son of a b*tch.”
Bischoff replied by saying that he “made” Flair, before addressing the situation in more depth on his own podcast.
Eric Bischoff Claims Ric Flair Should Be Thanking Him
Speaking on 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff said that his response to the tweet was merely him pointing out that he brought out the best in the Nature Boy.
“I just pointed out this is some of Ric’s best work and he should thank me for that. I brought that out in him. I brought that level of emotion and I brought out what became, really, the best Ric Flair. I brought that out of him. He should be thanking me for helping him to get over instead of just being a whiny baby about this whole thing. I don’t get it.”
Bischoff then went on the attack and said that WCW could never make any money with Flair, which is why he left for the WWF in the early 90s. Then when the WWF couldn’t make any money with him so he came back, only for history to repeat itself. This failure meant he had to sign Hulk Hogan.
“If you think about it, and I’m not joking around here, this is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to get started in this thing because it just escalates and escalates and escalates, and I really hope it all goes away, but I do have to kind of defend myself or at least offer a different perspective. You know, Ric was in WCW right after Ted Turner bought it. It was great for a lot of people, but the truth is WCW couldn’t make any money with Ric Flair.
So what did Ric Flair do? He went to WWE, and guess what? Couldn’t make any money with Ric Flair in WWE. So guess what? Ric comes back to WCW and WCW still couldn’t make any money with him in ’93 and ’94, which is why I had to go out and get Hulk Hogan. Ric’s a great performer. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a legend. But when it comes to business, I had to do what I had to do, and apparently, that just rubs Ric the wrong way and he can’t let it go. I’m really sorry about that, but my God, let it go.”
The former Raw General Manger added that the Four Horsemen were never a “national act.”
“Why is it that people that are fans of Ric and fans of The Four Horsemen just get all bent out of shape when you present just facts? I mean, I wasn’t being critical of the Four Horsemen. I put them over. They were very, very popular amongst a small regional group of fans that when you are in the business of entertaining the entire country, that small pocket of fans in North Carolina and the Southeast in particular that dug The Four Horsemen, well, that’s cool, but that’s not the whole country. The Four Horsemen were great during their era, but they certainly weren’t a national act.”
There has been bad blood between Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair going all of the way back to the 1990s. The problems began when Flair requested time off to attend his son, Reid’s amateur wrestling tournament. As he wasn’t in a high-profile storyline at the time, Flair didn’t think his absence would be an issue. Bischoff was said to have declined Flair’s request, but the Nature Boy missed the episode of Nitro anyway. This coupled with Flair already feeling devalued by Bischoff, tipped the tension between the pair to a whole new level.
In the aftermath Bischoff threatened legal action against Flair and the bad blood continued for years, with the pair reportedly coming to blows while working for WWE.
H/t to WrestlingNewsCo