What’s the story?
WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko recently appeared on an interview with Hannibal TV where he revealed a number of interesting things about iconic WWE superstar, Hulk Hogan. He narrated an incident of Hogan desperately seeking advice from him during his early years and also spoke about how he manipulated Eric Bischoff in WCW.
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Zbyszko worked for the WWE, which was then known as the WWWF, from 1973 to 1981 and is remembered most for his epic feud against his mentor, Bruno Sammartino. After leaving the company, he kept switching between the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and the American Wrestling Association (AWA) for the next decade or so.
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He later joined the NWA-affiliated promotion WCW where he worked until the year 2000 before heading to the independent circuit for a brief period. Larry Zbyszko was also with TNA between 2003 and 2006 but went back to the independents. In 2013, he returned to the WWE after having signed a Legends contract and became a Hall of Fame inductee in the Class of 2015.
The heart of the matter
During the conversation, Larry Zbyszko said that Hulk Hogan had been hired by the WWE so that Andre the Giant can beat up a big guy like him. However, Hogan apparently got tired of being Andre’s whipping boy and sought advice from him about what he should do.
Zbyszko told him to leave the company and head out to a different territory. According to the WWE Hall of Famer, ‘The Hulkster’ took his advice and joined the AWA, where he was given a break and made a ‘baby face’ thereby transforming his career. This is what he said:
“They brought Terry in because they needed a big guy for Andre to beat up. So after about six, eight months of Andre beating the snot out of Hulk, he came up to me one day and said ‘You're my hero brother, give me some advice I'm getting tired of getting beat up by Andre every night. Because I'm just his whipping boy’.
And I gave him the advice, I said, ‘Hey you've been here in the WWWF, getting beat up by Andre every night. The best thing for you is you're a big guy, you can move -- just get the hell out of here and go to a different territory’. He listened, he left, and he went to the AWA and that's where they gave him a break, turned him into a baby face and people -- things were changing.”
The former 2-time AWA World Heavyweight Champion said that he never dealt with Hulk Hogan during his WCW days but recalled how he manipulated Eric Bischoff. He claimed that Hogan made Bischoff give out big money contracts to several superstars with clauses which allowed them to whatever they wanted. Zbyszko stated:
“I didn't really deal with him... Hulk we were getting him ready for the Goldberg transition thing. I never really dealt with Hulk, Hulk was a good manipulator and [Eric] Bischoff kinda fell for it.
Unfortunately Hulk kind of swerved Bischoff into giving the farm away where too many guys got not only a big contract, but the clauses were they could do whatever they wanted. So they killed the programming.”
Sportskeeda’s Take
It is said that there is no smoke without fire so it is highly possible that there may have been some situations which have led to Larry Zbyszko to make such claims about ‘The Immortal’ Hulk Hogan. That being said, one would have to agree that the biggest names in any field have perhaps the most detractors.
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