Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
During the Monday Night War between the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling, there were quite a few wrestlers who jumped from one promotion to another. Money and guaranteed contracts were given out like candy. It was certainly a ‘wrestler’s market’ where they could dictate where they wanted to be and pretty much for how much. While we all know of wrestlers like Hall and Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Rick Rude and Brian Pillman all jumping from one place to another…one that isn’t talked about much is the WWF defection of ‘Mr. Perfect’ Curt Hennig to WCW. It involved backstabbing, deception, legal threats and a lot of personal bitterness.
The year was 1996, and Curt Hennig was pretty much retired from pro wrestling due to a back injury. Hennig was content sitting on the sidelines as a color commentator/manager/part time competitor. Hennig had a Lloyds of London insurance policy which guaranteed him a lump sum of $300,000 for doing nothing. While Curt Hennig was planning on using that money to permanently retire on…Vince McMahon was very interested in putting ‘Mr. Perfect’ back on the road on a full time basis.
For reasons that were unclear, Lloyds of London refused to pay Hennig the money he was anticipating. With no solid proof, Hennig believed that McMahon was in some way responsible for not getting his money. Curt Hennig had no choice, but to return to wrestling without that nest egg to lean on. Instead of going back to Vince and the WWF, Hennig secretly reached out to his friend Ric Flair who was in WCW at the time. Flair, in turn, reached out to Eric Bischoff to see how much interest there was for Hennig to join McMahon’s opposition.
There was a lot of interest, but Hennig was still under contract to the WWF until February of 1997. According to Eric Bischoff, talks between him and Curt Hennig took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Curt’s father Larry Hennig was present in the meeting and was the negotiator between the two sides. After the two parties talked, they all went to a bar and drank a few shots together. It turned out, unbeknownst to everyone, that Eric’s wife Loree, went to the same high school…Robbinsdale High that Curt attended. The two men hit it off and Bischoff said it was like he knew Hennig for years, even though they never really met and talked before this meeting.
Hennig began no showing several WWF shows and tapings. He was to guest on WWF Livewire, do commentating for the WWF’s syndicated shows and was scheduled for the Survivor Series ’96….all of which he no showed. By this time, word had gotten out that Curt was jumping ship to WCW and Vince McMahon had his attorney send out a threat of a lawsuit for contract tampering. Eric Bischoff vehemently denied any wrong doing.
Vince would have a meeting over the telephone with Curt and it was reported that the two sides agreed on some sort of new deal. Curt agreed he would not join WCW and would sign an extension on his expiring contract. That, apparently, was just a ruse, as Hennig once again no showed another scheduled appearance. More legal threats were thrown at WCW from WWF lawyers. Bischoff insisted that Hennig would not join WCW before his contract ran out in February. Curt would eventually leave the WWF and would not debut with WCW until June 30, 1997.