During the latest edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff revealed the idea behind Madusa “jumping ship” to WCW and throwing the WWF Women’s Championship in the trash live on Nitro. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On how he didn’t ask Madusa to bring the WWF Women’s Title belt with her to Nitro: “I’ve heard interviews, I’ve read quotes that are not exactly accurate, at least from the way I remember it. And one of the, I think the narrative that stands out the most that I kind of want to clear up here today, is I didn’t ask Madusa to bring the belt. Madusa called me, right, because we had been friends for a long time, she knew she was going to be let go, and she called me and said, ‘Hey, do you have anything for me?’ I said, ‘For sure ‘dus,’ I mean we’re friends, and she’s talented, it wasn’t just because we were friends, we were friends and oh by the way, she was a very talented asset to have, asset, and yes, it was a situation where I was hiring a friend but I said, ‘Sure, come on,’ she goes, ‘Oh by the way, I happen to be having the WWF Women’s Championship in my possession, shall I bring it with me?’ It was her idea to bring the belt, I didn’t ask her to, as the narrative that I’ve read over the years suggests. I didn’t ask her if she still had the belt. I didn’t con her or conjole her or tempt her or dangle money in front of her to bring the belt, it was her idea.”
On being excited about the opportunity even though he didn’t think of it: “Now, I clearly was excited about taking advantage of it, but I want to clear the air, and I have nothing to lose at this point, I’ve been to WWE and back twice now, there’s nothing to lose for me here by being dishonest about this. It was not my idea to bring the belt, however, once she threw that idea out there, I was more than happy to exploit the opportunity.”
On when the idea to throw the belt in the trash came up: “It was the day of [TV]. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, if anything. I wasn’t positive I was going to do anything with it. I knew it was on its way, I knew I had the opportunity. And keep in mind, this is just a couple of short months off the heels of me giving away finishes, and jump starting our show three minutes before their show, and creating the overrun phenomenon that nobody had ever seen before, and all the trickery, all the Sun-Tzu Art of War tactics that I had employed to really shake shit up and get people talking about our show. This situation, with her bringing the belt, happened just a few short months after all that really got started. I knew I was going to do something, I just didn’t know what until that day.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
