Remember When…The Honkytonk Man Went to WCW Briefly

Brian Damage

A recent inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame, Wayne ‘The Honky Tonk Man’ Farris was a top heel for the company in the 80s, including a lengthy run as Intercontinental Champion. But in 1994 he had a cup of coffee run with WCW – it’s that run that we look at in this latest piece.

Love him or hate him, ‘The Honktonk Man’ Wayne Farris was a top heel during his time with the World Wrestling Federation in the mid to late 1980’s. Honky feuded with many of the top babyfaces of that era including Ricky ‘the Dragon’ Steamboat, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage and Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts. By 1991, Honky’s WWF contract expired and the self proclaimed ‘Greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time’ was looking elsewhere for work. After some time off and wrestling independently, Honkytonk Man reached out to his former WWF manager Jimmy Hart, who was now employed by World Championship Wrestling in 1994. As a favor to his former protégé, Hart went to WCW’s newest boss Eric Bischoff and asked him if he would hire The Honkytonk Man.

Bischoff was apparently reluctant to do so, because he was never a fan of Honky’s work and didn’t think he could add anything as a wrestler on WCW’s roster. The thing was, Honky was good friends with Jimmy Hart and the newly signed Hulk Hogan. WCW had a lot of time and money invested into Hulk Hogan and if Hogan wanted or needed anything, Bischoff was going to make sure his large investment was happy. According to the Honkytonk Man, when he was first brought into WCW’s offices in Atlanta, Georgia, Bischoff was very cold to him. Honky claims that Bischoff made it clear to him that the only reason he was signing Honky was to make Jimmy Hart happy. Eric Bischoff denied those claims and said that while never interested in Honkytonk’s services, he never bothered to meet him.

The Honkytonk Man was given a contract that paid him one thousand dollars per appearance. It didn’t matter if he wrestled a match or was flown in to do a 30 second promo and nothing else, Honkytonk was paid $1,000 each time. This agreement didn’t sit well with Honkytonk as he saw other wrestlers on WCW’s roster be handed guaranteed contracts like they was giving out candy. Honky first approached Bischoff about signing a contract and Bischoff allegedly promised him a contract after he got rid of some bad contracts that were done by the previous management.

When WCW asked Honkytonk to do a job for Johnny B. Badd at Halloween Havoc ’94 in Detroit, Michigan but Honky refused. He felt that he once sold out main events in Detroit for the WWF and wasn’t about to job to a relative unknown Johnny B. Badd. Honkytonk went to his buddy Hulk Hogan to complain about the outcome and sure enough, Honkytonk went to a time limit draw with Badd instead of losing to him. Honkytonk Man’s relationship with WCW only got worse from there.

The following month, Honkytonk Man was booked in a rematch with Badd for the WCW world television title at Starrcade in Nashville, Tennessee. Once again, Honky was approached to do the job and lose to Badd. Honktonk once again refused to lose to Badd, especially in a his former home area of Nashville, Tennessee. Also, Honkytonk was fed up with his pay per appearance contract. He wanted guarantees. Honktonk approached Hulk Hogan again and asked Hogan to go to bat for him and try to get a contract out of Bischoff. Hulk refused and Honky said that was the beginning of the end of his friendship with Hogan. Honkytonk Man claimed that he went to Bischoff’s office the night of the pay per view and demanded that either he get a contract or he wasn’t going to do the job for Johnny B. Badd. Honkytonk felt that what would prevent Bischoff from firing him after he did the job. Bischoff apparently refused to offer Honkytonk a contract and so he walked out of the arena and quit the company.

Eric Bischoff denied that ever happened and insists the story is a bit different. Bischoff claims that there was never a meeting in his office, but at the loading dock of the arena in front of several television crew members and other wrestlers. Honkytonk Man apparently wanted to hold Bischoff and WCW hostage to renegotiate his contract. Bischoff responded by firing him on the spot and kicking him out of the arena right then and there. According to Bischoff, of all the wrestlers he has ever fired in his career, firing the Honkytonk Man was his all time favorite. To this day there is still bad blood between Wayne Farris and Eric Bischoff as the two have gone back and forth trading insults on social media and bad mouthing each other in interviews and appearances. This was clearly an instance where Eric Bischoff regretted letting others convince him to hire a friend just for the sake of appeasing someone.