Former WCW executive and WWE on-air personality Eric Bischoff recently spoke with WSVN-TV Entertainment Reporter Chris Van Vliet while at the “Legends of the Ring” event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida this past weekend. Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On the fan response Roman Reigns gets in WWE: “Is he a fan favorite if that’s what you mean by over? No. Does he have the right kind of heat that is constructive and can be used in order to advance a storyline? Questionable. But I don’t think that that’s Roman’s fault. I think the way he’s been packaged and the way he’s been presented and dare I say it, because I don’t like to be critical but there’s no other way to say it, he’s been forced down everybody’s throats for two years. But no matter how good you are, I don’t care if you’re Vince McMahon or you’re Steven Spielberg or if you’re William freaking Shakespeare, it’s doesn’t matter. The audience is only going to go so far. You can only force that fish to swim upstream until it just gets tired as has to go the other way. I wish they would turn him heel. I wish they would embrace that.”
On pro wrestlers he still keeps in touch with to this day: “Hulk Hogan is still my best friend to this day. I stay in touch with DDP occasionally but I’m a horrible phone friend, everybody that knows me, even my family. My brother and sister who I love dearly, I only talk to on the phone once or twice a year but I stay in touch with text messages, it’s kind of impersonal. When I go to LA, I’ll call Steve Austin and we’ll go out and have a beer and a burger or something. Ernest “The Cat” Miller is another guy that I really dig. Sunny Onoo is still a friend of mine. There’s people I stay in touch with, but not many.”
On whether or not he feels he will ever be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame: “Probably never. I don’t see it. Everyone’s got opinions about that, I’ve got my own. I don’t think about it. People ask me about it in interviews and I have to respond. I personally don’t ever see it happening.”
Check out the complete Eric Bischoff interview above, or at YouTube.com.
