'I fired Steve Austin'... Eric Bischoff reveals the truth behind his real life feud with 'Stone Cold'

EXCLUSIVE: Eric Bischoff has opened up about how his real-life feud with Steve Austin turned into a truly remarkable storyline.

After the genius behind WCW fired the legend, the pair blended the lines of reality and fiction, which resulted in a clash at WWE No Way Out, in which the then Raw General Manager succumbed to a defeat after being on the receiving end of three ‘Stone Cold Stunners’.

Eric Bischoff reveals what really happened with Steve Austin

When it comes to wrestling, very few can claim to know the business as well as Eric Bischoff and Steve Austin. Therefore, when the opportunity to work alongside each other came up at WWE, the icons put their differences aside and delivered something very special for the audience.

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In an exclusive interview with Sporf via Wiz Slots, Bischoff reminisced: “I had known Steve a long time and famously fired Steve around 1994-1995. I sent him a FedEx letting him know he was fired. Of course, that created a lot of heat between Steve and I, behind the scenes in real life, and Steve was smart enough to use that to get himself over when he went to ECW. So, Steve integrated the fact that I fired him via FedEx, which was true; it was a real thing, but he used that real-life situation, wove it into his character, and really helped get a lot of attention for himself in ECW with that heat that he brought, using me and the fact that I fired him.

“Now, what was fun about working with Steve was fast-forward from 1994-1995, whenever it was when Steve left and went to ECW before he ended up going to WWE, while Steve was there, obviously, Nitro was taking off and my character was getting more and more heat, on and off camera, but by the time I got to WWE and now Steve is coming back to WWE, having been gone for a long time, we were able to take that real life story that started back into 1994, and weave that into a fictional storyline that we played out on camera.

“Steve was such an amazing performer. Steve and Mick Foley are probably the two best people that I’ve worked with in terms of improvising. You go out there with a pretty basic idea of what you’re hoping to accomplish, but you’re kind of figuring it out as you go based on the audience’s reaction, what they’re responding to, and how your counterpart is responding, so there are a lot of variables if you like to improvise, which I do. When you’re in the ring with someone like Steve, who is a master of improv, it can be a whole lot of fun. That’s what Steve was: he was a lot of fun. The fact that we had a built-in storyline with ten or 12 years of age on it, made it that much easier.”