In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Eric Bischoff spoke with Steve Fall’s Ten Count to promote his second autobiography ‘Grateful’ by Guy Evans. The book, available at BischoffBook.com, picks up where his 2006 autobiography left off and covers life, death, family, relationships, business and some things he has rarely talked about.
During the interview, Bischoff was asked if he feels it would be a good business decision for WWE to bring in CM Punk:
“I don’t think it would be. I think CM Punk shit the bed. When Tony Khan brought CM Punk into AEW, he still had that mystique, the pipe bomb mystique. He was this character that stood up to McMahon and then walked away. There’s a rebellious quality in that character that I think the average American admires. So Punk had this mystique and still had his fan base and Tony Khan was able to take advantage of that.”
Bischoff said that he feels that the Punk mystique dissipated over time and things started to “free fall” back to the levels they were at before Punk signed with the company.
Bischoff said, “Over a very short period of time, that mystique began to just dissipate. It was like letting the air out of the balloon a little bit more each and every week. CM Punk came in, and you know, great ratings, and then literally the next week, started in a free fall back down to pre-Punk levels. You look at where AEW is in terms of week to week ratings, which is the only thing we have to measure that’s public because the financial information is all private. We don’t really hear anything about the real financial information. We just get the top line stuff. But you know, ratings are the data that we have that we can go, ‘Okay, this is where this product is going.’ Flatline. Shortly after CM Punk got there, flatline to pre-Punk levels and I think that a lot of that has to do with, people came, they were excited because of the aura and the mystique, they saw, and they went, ‘Eh, not so much. A little bit, but nothing special.’ Then for Punk to conduct himself in the manner in which he did, I think it left a bad taste in not only the fans mouths, but why would anybody want to hire a guy that’s willing to, live, publicly disparage the guy that’s writing him a check every week?”
AEW has not commented on Punk’s status but it is believed that he is still under contract and there are/were talks about a contract buyout. You can listen to then entire interview with Bischoff by clicking below.
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
Eric Bischoff: “For CM Punk to conduct himself in the manner in which he did, I think it left a bad taste…why would anybody want to hire a guy that's willing to, live, publicly disparage the guy that's writing him a check every week?”
Full interview: https://t.co/HWnBEyFjGN pic.twitter.com/GItqUQTZpd
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) November 28, 2022
