Eric Bischoff Discusses Hulk Hogan’s Issues with Vader

On the latest edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about the plans to have a Hulk Hogan vs. Vader match at WCW Starrcade 1994, instead it ended up being Hogan vs. Ed Leslie at Starrcade. Highlights are below.

On why Hogan vs. Vader didn’t happen in 1994: “There was discussions about Vader/Hogan right off the bat. Everybody saw that as a marquee matchup, we all knew that it was going to happen at some point, but there were issues with Vader. Vader was, I’ll be careful how I talk about Leon, he wasn’t always the easiest person to deal with when it came to doing business. He was emotional, he was temperamental, he would sometimes be very, very manipulative, and it took a long time for Hulk to gain confidence in him. He didn’t want to work with somebody like that. Again, go back and talk about this all the time, that’s why Ric Flair was such an integral part of getting Hogan to come to WCW because Ric Flair was the one guy that Hogan knew he could trust to be business 100% of the time, from beginning to end, with regard to Hulk. Vader was the antithesis, he was the opposite of that. It took a long time to get Hulk comfortable with Vader. It had nothing to do with the physicality or any of the things that people presumed were the issues. Just, Leon, Vader could sometimes be a very, very difficult guy to do business with.”

On if there were discussions for Hogan vs. Vader in 1994: “Yeah, it was something that we had talked about, Vader/Hogan, there was never any definitive, ‘OK, let’s do it for Starrcade.’ That wasn’t the issue, it was more of a general concept and strategy, not a very specific one as it related to dates.”