On the latest 83 Weeks podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff commented on some of the big news stories of the week, including the disturbing Vince McMahon allegations.
Eric Bischoff disagrees with AEW’s upcoming approach to running bigger markets:
“I understand the math. More people, more opportunity to put them in the building. But in this case, it’s not going to work. The idea that instead of going to Savannah, Georgia, and places like Charleston, where they’re obviously having a great turnout, right? We’re talking about some 20,000 tickets. That’s a small market. The challenge isn’t the market. The challenge is the content that’s driving people to the market or the concept that’s not driving people to the market. Sting is an outlier because of who he is, because of how long he’s been in the industry, because of the respect that Sting has from the audience. He is an outlier. I get that, but to suggest that, ‘Well, we can’t really draw in these small markets where there’s no competition, so let’s go to a big market where there is.’ Good luck with that and by the way, not only is there more competition for the entertainment dollar, it’s a lot more expensive. Those bigger markets charge higher prices for venues. Everything is more expensive. When you go to markets where there’s unions, ‘Yea, you can have your own cameraman as long as our cameraman or a union cameraman shadows. Yeah, you can have your own production staff bring in the lights as long as there’s one of our union members for every one of your direct employees overseeing that.’ It’s so expensive. I hope I’m wrong and I could be. I mean, things have changed since I was involved in the business. I’m really hoping for AEW’s sake that this is one of them, but in the 30 plus years that I spent in this industry, this strategy is exactly the opposite of what I’ve seen work.”
On the Rock being an official board member of TKO:
“I guess I wasn’t surprised because it just felt authentic and organic. By authentic, I mean it seemed like the natural course of evolution. Rock has become in the entertainment industry one of the biggest names, if not the biggest in terms of his success in films and television. When you’re putting together a board, you want the best you can find in various categories that apply to your business mode. For someone like Rock who has had so much success outside of wrestling, it all started with his success inside of wrestling.”
On hearing the recent allegations about Vince McMahon:
“It’s evil and even that word doesn’t really do it justice. It’s just sick, and I mean mentally, emotionally sick, and evil. The victim, because I know all the haters are gonna say, ‘But he didn’t say enough about her.’ I can’t imagine what she’s going to go through for the rest of her life. I’ll pray for her that she finds the right spiritual guidance and mental health guidance because this is never going to leave her. She will be carrying this memory around for the rest of her life, and I can’t imagine that. I can’t even try to imagine it because self-preservation kicks in and I force myself to stop thinking about it. I feel so bad for the people that are innocent because this is such a dark cloud over everything that’s WWE right now. I do believe that’s going to change, not sooner than later. It’s going to change, but it’s going to take time, but there are so many innocent people that are affected by this and at the epicenter, obviously friends and family members, like close friends, close family members of the victims as well as the McMahons. I’m friends with Shane, I think of Stephanie in a very high regard right now and Linda McMahon. I mean, these are people that I’ve met and have worked with and I’ve seen how they’ve treated others. They’re having to bear this as well. The people that work there, there are so many people that we know that are working hard every day, that are good family people, honest people, contribute to society, help others, I mean really good people that I know there personally, and they’re affected by this.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit AdFreeShows.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Quotes were transcribed by Jim for WrestlingNews.co.