Bischoff had the hottest free agent in the world and he brought him in as a last second ref...and within two months, was in nowhere land.
PS, if Bischoff didn't offer Bret Hart a stupidly high contract in 1996, why would Vince have given Bret a 20 year contract? Because Vince is a nice guy???
Also, Nash and Hall both have gone on the record stating that Bret was a possible member of the NWO. Straight from Hall, who has always been a straighter shooter than Nash and far more than Bischoff:
"We had no idea who it was going to be. The whole third guy thing came up by accident. I remember Kev and I called Bret and I spoke to him, Kev spoke to him and we told him it was really fun working at WCW. It was really laid back, guaranteed money, it was easy. We were so used to being in a shark tank in New York. Coming to Atlanta was like being in a country club. It was really tame in the locker room in WCW compared to New York. We told bret he should come down.
Bischoff was interested, he was offering him a pretty sweet deal but Bret wasn’t interested. We wanted it to be hulk, but Hulk had creative control in his contract so he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do. We went to the ring, we hadn’t even met Hulk yet, I met him briefly at WrestleMania 9 but I didn’t know Hulk, we actually went to the ring in Daytona and Hogan wasn’t even there yet. He was on a jet, flying cross country from shooting a movie. Bischoff wanted it to be Hulk but before we went out, Bischoff told us 'If Hulk doesn't show, I’m gonna send out Sting.'"