Eric Bischoff has responded to WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart.

Hart gained success in the professional wrestling business throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the WWE where he helmed The Hart Foundation faction. He left the sports entertainment company for World Championship Wrestling following the controversial "Montreal Screwjob" in November 1997 where he remained until October 2000.

He officially retired in October 200, shortly after his departure from the company. He returned to sporadic in-ring competition from 2010–2011 where headlined the 2010 SummerSlam event, and served as the general manager of Raw.

Hart recently made some disparaging remarks about Bischoff on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast. This led to Bischoff being a recent a guest on the same podcast and took the opportunity to respond (transcript courtesy of Wrestling Inc): 

"I didn't listen to your show with Bret. I'm generally aware of the kind of things that Bret says because he's been saying them for years, so it's nothing new there," Bischoff said. "I'm sure he didn't break any news. He's just a miserable guy.

He's the type of guy--and I said it in one of my responses on Twitter; he has a giant hole in his soul, and he's going to have to fill it with hate for somebody. When he came to work for me he hated Vince McMahon. He hated everybody in the McMahon family; he hated Shawn Michaels; he didn't want to work with Hulk Hogan.

He hated Ric Flair, he hated Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, he hated everybody, and I had to listen to that. It was a major effort to get him and Flair on the same page; which wasn't because of Ric, it was because of Bret; he just hated everybody."

Bischoff went onto to add that he treated Hart well when he was in WCW even though Hart wasn't in his prime condition. Bischoff added that Hart didn't make much of an effort to ingratiate himself into his new promotion.

"If you just watched him or listened to him over the years, he was able to get into the WWE Hall of Fame so he buried the hatchet with Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels, of course he did, but you know, Bret showed up in WCW, it makes me laugh when he says he didn't like how he was treated because we paid him a lot of money and treated him extremely well," Bischoff said.

"Here was a guy that would show up 45 minutes before television started, before a live TV show and he would show up looking like he would sleep in the gutter the last three days; and he had no energy, no real desire to integrate himself and insert himself in the process. He wasn't at all passionate about anything he did from day one."