On a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff discussed working with NBA legend Dennis Rodman in WCW in the late 1990s.
In 1997, Rodman wrestled his first match by teaming with Hulk Hogan in a losing effort against Lex Luger & The Giant on Nitro. A month later, the team again lost to Luger & The Giant at Bash at the Beach 1997.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Hulk Hogan asking him to call Rodman after WWE showed interest in him: “I didn’t pick up WWE’s idea. I don’t know what their idea was. If an idea is bringing someone in, I didn’t — I mean, Dennis called me. I didn’t hear about the WWE conversation. I didn’t even know about the WWE conversation until actually — yeah, it was Hulk or Dwight that told me it was a real thing. I wasn’t aware of it. So it was just an opportunity. It’s not stealing an idea. It’s an opportunity. And the conversation went — I mean, when I hung up the phone, from what I remember; it was a minute ago. I think I called Hawk back right after talking to Manley and said, ‘Yeah, we got it done.’ You know, it was not a hard deal to do. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my gosh, WWE offered him this, and I have to offer them that.’ I don’t even know if there was a formal offer to Dennis. I don’t think there was. If there was, it certainly didn’t come up in any conversations I had with Dwight Manley. It was, ‘Dennis is interested. Would you be interested in Dennis?’ And I immediately started doing the math in my head, just thinking about all the press that would come with it. And that was a pretty easy deal for me to do. It fell within my authority at that point in time. I could commit up to $1 million, but not $1 million and one. So I had the authority to agree without having to get it approved by anybody as long as I was working within my budget, and I had enough money at the time to afford it. So I basically cut a deal with Dwight over the phone on the first phone call. It was pretty — it was one of the easier deals I’ve ever done, to be honest.”
On the motivation for the deal: “It came from out of nowhere. I knew there was urgency on it. Hulk made it clear to me that there were ongoing conversations with WWE. And Hulk saw the opportunity immediately. And when I say ‘pressured me,’ it’s not like he leveraged his Hulk Hogan-ness and pushed me into the deal. But the enthusiasm in his voice alone, I caught that. It was contagious and I got a case of it. And again, Dennis was so hot, it was obvious to me that it was the latter of your two scenarios where I went, ‘F**k, this guy is hot as he is. The media loves him. I’ll find a way. We’ll find a way. I’m not worried about it.’ And I was a little bit involved. more so involved in creativity than in ’95 when Dennis showed up.
“But yeah, it was no question that we could figure out what to do. And I think in the conversation I had with Dwight is, ‘What does Dennis want to do? Does he just want to stand at ringside and be kind of like Jimmy Hart and a manager and, you know, do a couple of media things? Or does he want to get involved?’ And Dwight made it clear, ‘No, he wants to get involved.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, we’ll figure that out when the time comes.’”
On Rodman’s first match being long: “Twenty-two minutes for a tag match seems about right. And Hogan in particular — You know you can argue this I guess or have a different opinion. That’s fine. But one of the most common things that you’d hear out of Hogan after somebody else had a match. Or if he was watching and giving notes, would be to ‘Slow it down. Let the audience feel it, enjoy it, anticipate it.’ Hogan liked a slower pace. He just felt like that’s how characters get over. And most of the time, he was right. Some of the time, he was wrong. Nobody’s right 100% of the time. But Hogan liked to control the pace. He didn’t like things happening so fast that the audience didn’t really get with it, they didn’t have time to get with it, register it or feel it.
“So I think between that and the fact that you know, one of the mistakes — especially somebody who’s brand new, who’s never wrestled before. Especially a celebrity, particularly if they’re good at another sport, is even though they’re professional athletes and have all the other a lot of the gifts that come with being an athlete? The nerves still get to them. And anytime people get nervous whether you’re public speaking, or wrestling, or doing anything, is you rush. You rush everything. Dennis, I don’t think, gets excited about anything. I mean, to the point where he rushes, where his nerves get to him. He gets excited, obviously. But not to the point where his nerves get the better of him, and subconsciously forces him to rush things. He is literally so chill and so relaxed that even when he steps into the ring for his first match, he’s just doing what he was told to do. And stays in his head, and he gets it done. He didn’t have that same first-match jitters that cause people to rush like most people do. And I think that had a lot to do with it.”
