– Eric Bischoff appeared on the latest episode of Steve Austin’s podcast, The Steve Austin Show – Unleashed!, which you can listen to below. During the episode the two discussed Bischoff firing Austin from WCW in 1995. Austin had suffered a triceps injury while wrestling on a Japanese tour, and was fired over the phone by Bischoff.
Austin and Bischoff both gave their take on the firing on the show. Austin noted that he was about 3/4 healed when he was fired. Austin acknowledged that they wanted for him to appear at a TV taping and cut a promo, and that he had volunteered to do something prior to that but was told not to worry about it, which “got up his crawl a little bit.”
Bischoff noted that he wanted Austin to stay on with the roster despite his injury, and felt that they could work around the issues. Bischoff wanted Austin on television to keep his character alive and wanted him to cut a promo. Bischoff admitted that WCW was “a bit of a clusterf-ck” back then and there could have been miscommunication, but he told Tony Schiavone to tell Austin to appear at the tapings. Schiavone called Austin, and told Bischoff that Austin’s wife answered, and he could hear Austin in the background saying that he wasn’t there.
“He ain’t coming,” Schiavone said. Bischoff said he felt that “it was kind of bullsh-t,” which caused him to make the decision that he did. Austin didn’t remember the phone call, but admitted that it was probably true and he probably would have made the same decision that Bischoff did in his shoes.
