All Hulk Hogan had to say was, ‘No, I don’t want to work with Bret Hart’

On the latest edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed the conspiracy theory that Hulk Hogan pushed WCW to bring in the Ultimate Warrior in 1998 so that he could avoid having to work with Bret Hart.

Bischoff shot down the theory, saying that if Hogan didn’t want to work with Bret, all he had to do was say so. Bischoff also commented on how much Warrior was paid in WCW. His comments are below.

On the conspiracy theory that Hulk Hogan pushed for WCW to bring in Warrior so he could avoid having to work against Bret Hart: “It was Hulk who came to me first, but I think the narrative about Hulk reaching out and convincing me to bring in Warrior so Hogan didn’t have to work with Bret, I mean look, the people who live in that world that believe that, that want to be on the ‘I Hate Hogan’ team so much that they’ll believe any kind of nonsense that fits that narrative, look, all Hogan would have had to have said with regard to Bret is, ‘No, I don’t want to work with him.’ That’s it.

It wouldn’t require that Hulk do a duck and weave or a bob and weave move to bring in Ultimate Warrior to avoid me pressuring him to work with Bret.

All Hulk would have had to say was, ‘Nah, not feeling it, brother.’ And that would have been the end of it. He wouldn’t have had to bring in another head case, not another, sorry Bret.

Well. Ehem. He wouldn’t have had to bring in someone as challenging as Warrior, and with the reputation of Warrior, simply to put off or avoid altogether having to work with Bret Hart. That’s silly.”

On how much Warrior was paid in WCW: “I’m guessing, $250,000 a pop, maybe a little more, but it would have been under $500,000, and at that rate, and that’s a lot of money, I get it, we throw these numbers around sometimes like, ‘Eh, it was only a quarter of a million dollars to show up at a PPV.’

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That’s a huge amount of money, but keep in mind, PPVs, the profit margin on PPVs were really high.”