Eric Bischoff Describes The Tough Decision WCW Made About Sting's Gimmick After Owen Hart's Passing

The latest episode of former WCW President Eric Bischoff’s podcast Bischoff on Wrestling was released this past Wednesday and featured WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts. The latest episode featuring part two of Eric’s interview with Jake will be released this Wednesday.

You can find some of Eric’s comments from the #BischoffOnWrestling Mail Bag portion at the end of the show transcribed below.

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On how Owen Hart’s tragic passing affected the WCW locker room and Sting in particular who was also doing entrances from the rafters:

EB: Shock. People felt horrible. A lot of the people in WCW, especially on the talent side, knew Owen and Bret. For them it was more personal. Just remorse and the natural feelings you would expect. Even the people that didn’t know Owen or Bret, that was a horrible thing and it happened in the ring on PPV. It kind of made us all feel like, “Wow, there for the grace of God go I.” Even more so with Sting. As you pointed out that gimmick was Sting’s gimmick. The truth is, as I remember it, you can’t hold me to this, but there was one of the guys who was on the WCW stunt crew. It was headed up by a guy by the name of Ellis Edwards who was a friend of Hulk’s. He worked on Thunder In Paradise. He knew Hulk really well. Ellis came over to work for WCW and he did all of the backstage car stuff that we did. If we wrecked cars or blew stuff up or had Sting coming down from the rafters all of that was coordinated and overseen by Ellis Edwards. One of the guys in Ellis’ crew or someone associated with Ellis with that Sting drop stunt ended up going to WWE to do the same thing with Owen. There was a little bit of a dotted line kind of connection there which made it even more intense. It resonated even more with us. It was tough. There was the obvious question, “What’s the right thing to do? Do we react to it and acknowledge it?” I don’t mean creatively but do we look at that and go, “Wow, that’s a message to the industry and we just have to stop doing that because it’s too risky.” Or do we double down and make sure we go the extra mile? Make sure that couldn’t happen here? There was a period of maybe a week or however long it was where there was a pretty intense debate about that. Ultimately we decided we knew what we were doing. We had the right people doing it. Ellis was confident. It was ultimately Sting’s decision but we kept on.

This week’s episode of Bischoff on Wrestling starts with Eric giving his take on a couple of stories from around the business of pro wrestling from this past week including:

The announcement that former WCW World Champion Diamond Dallas Page will be joining the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017
The passings of George “The Animal” Steele & Ivan Koloff
The New Day hosting WrestleMania 33
The Rock’s in-ring phone call to CM Punk this past Monday after RAW
Kendall Jenner rocking an NWO Wolfpac shirt
More…

Eric then welcomes his guest for this week WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts! During his appearance Jake speaks candidly to Eric about:

Getting to work with Stu Hart and Stampede Wrestling in Calgary
Bill Watts being hard on him in Mid South Wrestling
Where the idea for Damien came from
Vince McMahon’s vision for the Jake “The Snake” Roberts character
Working with Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat
Being asked to do a move to Ricky that he was uncomfortable with
Piper’s Pit vs The Snake Pit
Working with Hulk Hogan
A bad joke he played on Rick Rude
What about Andre The Giant’s drinking surprised him
Why he made Miss Elizabeth’s family angry during his feud with Randy Savage
Working with Randy and an actual cobra
Almost taking over creative for the WWF in the early 90s
His leap from WWF to WCW
What tease he’d like to leave for part two of his interview next week on Bischoff on Wrestling
More…