Eric Bischoff has caught plenty of flak from fans who like to theorize on the reasons for WCW's going out of business. For instance, you've no doubt heard that he foolishly let many huge stars slip through his fingers. None of these missed opportunities were as big as Stone Cold Steve Austin, who revolutionized the business in the WWE but wasn't given much of an opportunity down south. His story is well known - Austin was monumentally pissed off after he was released from the WCW in 1995. At the time he was shelved with a triceps injury, and he received the news of his firing not in person, but over the phone. The Texas Rattlesnake would first unleash his venom on ECW in the same year, where Paul Heyman recruited him to cut promos on the whole situation. The interviews were bitter, sharp and powerful, and would be the precursor to the Stone Cold character we all know and love. Fast forward almost 20 years and it's all water under the bridge, as Austin says he now understands why Bischoff did what he did, but that doesn't erase the years of tension between the two.
Journalism graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney.
As a child, when I wasn't doing typical Australian things like fending off dingoes while riding in the pouches of kangaroos, I was watching wrestling.
