Scott Hudson on getting his job in WCW, working with Bobby Heenan, working for Eric Bischoff, the car ride with Tony Schiavone after the final edition of WCW Nitro

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Scott Hudson
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com

On getting his job in WCW: “I had become friends with a lot of the guys in WCW at the time. Page, Kanyon, Scotty Levy / Raven, Disco Inferno / Glen Gilbertti. And we would all get together on the pay-per-view nights at somebody’s house and watch the pay-per-view. In my shoot job, and this is a long story, I’ll make it quick. In my shoot job. I had been lucky enough in 1995 to be named Employee of the Year. I had done well. Leave it at that. We had our annual awards ceremony at a place called The Abbey in Atlanta. An old 18th or 19th century church that had been turned into a restaurant. Gorgeous place.

“I just got my Employee of the Year award. It was wonderful. The waiter, the maître d’, comes up to me and says, ‘Are you Mr. Hudson?’ ‘Yes, I am’. ‘There’s a phone call for you’. This is the days before cell phones. There’s a phone call for you at the front desk. So I’m thinking, working in the criminal justice system, that happens. So I go up to the front desk and I answer the phone and all I hear is, ‘Yo, Scooter, this is DDP.’ And it was Page, [who] I knew from going to the show. And he said, ‘I got somebody who wants to talk to you.’ It was Eric Bischoff. And Eric said, ‘We’ve got a spot open, and we think you’d be good. Everybody speaks highly of you. Can you come down and audition on Tuesday?’ And that was it.”

On working with Bobby Heenan: “He was fantastic. He was exactly what you think. He was fun, he was funny. He was a pro. And as I was doing the audition, when it was over, he was complimentary: You did good. You didn’t know it was coming. That’s excellent. It was everything you could possibly want.”

Thoughts on Eric Bischoff: “Great. I’ve been lucky enough in my shoot job and in the wrestling business to work for some fantastic supervisors and bosses, and I’ve said this at a couple of these conventions and stuff and Starrcasts, of all the bosses I’ve had in any career that I’ve pursued; criminal justice, radio, television; the best boss I’ve ever had was Eric Bischoff. And as we sit here today, I say the same thing. You look at the folks that came through WCW as the executive producer or the vice president, whatever title it was they gave Eric, like Bill Watts and Kip Fry, that came through and did good, bad, or indifferent, they couldn’t compete with the WWF. And then when Eric got there… who was the third team announcer that came in and convinced people that he knew what he was doing, and son of a gun beat him [Vince McMahon] for 83 weeks and made money hand over fist. You have to appreciate what the man can do.”

The car ride with Tony Schiavone after the final WCW Nitro: “Tony comes up to me and says, ‘What time is your flight?’ I said It’s like 5:00 in the morning, 5″30 in the morning. He said, ‘Cancel it, let’s drive back.’ Tony and I drove back to Atlanta, leaving at like 11:00 on that Monday night. So I got a five hour drive back to Atlanta from Panama City Beach and all we did was talk about wrestling, why we love the sport, how he got started, how I got started, which was completely different. He’s been around for a lot longer and a lot more than I had. I was just learning about who our favorite guys were, and angles we enjoyed. And for five hours, Tony and I, in the car, just cracking each other up and laughing and reminiscing about the sport that we both loved. And that was how Nitro ended for me. I don’t even think Nitro ended, when it’s comes to me personally, with Sting and (Ric) Flair, as great as that was, Nitro for me ended with that car ride back with Tony, and I’d give anything to have to do that again.”

Other topics include breaking into the business, the Global Wrestling Federation, WCW, Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden, The Monday Night Wars, WWF, Vince McMahon, the End of WCW, and more.

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