In professional wrestling, few performers are as connected to a single promoter as Eric Bischoff is to Sting.

The Vince McMahon to “The Crow's” Steve Austin, Sting worked for Bischoff for the entire time he was in charge of WCW, and even after the company formerly known as Jim Crockett Promotions shuttered its doors for good and its owners, the Turner Broadcasting Company, sold off the rights to WWE for pennies on the dollar, the duo reconnected in TNA, where Bischoff helped to oversee his time in the Impact Zone as “Joker Sting.”

Discussing his relationship with The Stinger on his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff noted that he still has a great relationship with Sting and considers him a friend to this day.

“It was very good. You know, Sting and I became pretty good friends. And when I say that, define friends, you know?” Bischoff said via 411 Mania. “We would do things socially outside of wrestling. Steve and his wife came out here to Wyoming. He was actually looking at a really nice piece of property just down the road from me and was really considering moving out here for a minute, I guess. We got very close. Obviously, you know the Sturgis stuff. We rode a lot together and all that.”

Discussing how his standing in professional wrestling changed following the end of WCW, Bischoff noted that he lost touch with many of the performers he once worked with but did reconnect with Sting many years later and even ran into him on a plane heading to Dallas before the long-time promoter sign on the dotted line and joined TNA.

“I don’t want to make it sound like we got into an argument or anything but you know, after WCW went down, I just kind of removed myself from the world of wrestling. And anybody that knows me really well, including my family, knows that I’m just not very good on the phone. It’s really hard for me to have meaningful conversations, personal ones, on the phone for more than a couple of minutes. This kind of stuff I could do, I can talk to my computer all day long. But just holding that thing up to my ear and listening to it, it’s just — I don’t really like to be on the phone any more than I have to,” Bischoff added.

“So I kind of lost touch with Steve, and not over an issue or anything like that. We just kind of went our separate ways and did our things until I actually saw Steve on a plane about six months before I went into TNA, or even had a discussion about going into TNA. Steve and I just happened to be on the same flight going into Dallas and talked to him on the plane. You know, it was very cordial, and we’re both excited to see each other. And then you know, ‘I’ll stay in touch.’ And of course, we didn’t until I arrived in TNA.”

While Bischoff and Sting took very different paths following the end of their careers in WCW, with both performers taking their talents to TNA and eventually WWE, though not at the same time, it's nice to know that the two men, or at least Bischoff, still thinks highly of his former standout performer, especially as he's still going strong in AEW to this very day.

Eric Bischoff names the biggest regret of his WCW career.

Sitting down for an interview with Ariel Helwani to discuss his wrestling career, Eric Bischoff was asked about the biggest regret of his career.

Though once he would have said he didn't have any, in hindsight, Bischoff now wishes he'd spent more time with the legends of the business he routinely worked with in order to pick their brain about the business.

“I think now, I wished while I was working with Dusty, because Dusty Rhodes was kind of a mentor to me. I don’t want to say mentor that’s overstating it but, he really did take me under his wing… But I never really got enough time with him to really appreciate just how talented he was. I wished I would have. I wished I would have asked more questions. I wished I would have dug a little deeper beyond the surface with Dusty because he was just a wealth of experience and knowledge and vision. That's the one thing. He had that vision. It wasn’t just a word that he threw around, he really had it,” Bischoff said.

“Same with Roddy Piper. I regret the people that we’ve lost and I had access to. I regret not taking the time to get to know them better. That’s the only thing I regret.”

Suddenly an elder statesman of professional wrestling, fans of WWE, WCW, and beyond tune into Bischoff's stories about his glory days in the business to both relive a bygone era and get some insight into what was going on behind the scenes. In a way, Bischoff wished he received that opportunity too, only many of his mentors are no longer with us.