WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President Eric Bischoff took on an episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including is he thinks AEW is losing goodwill with the fans.
Bischoff said, “I don’t think it’s waning. I think what’s happened is it was so much goodwill early on. Everybody wanted AEW to be successful, everybody wanted a fresh alternative and there was a lot of promise. Tony convinced people in the very beginning that this was going to be an alternative, and it was going to be a sports-based wrestling product. And there were a lot of things that Tony hyped that they gave everybody a lot of optimism and excitement and goodwill. The problem with goodwill is once you crap on those people — once you fail to deliver on your promises — and then over the last couple of years produce such horrible television, that goodwill doesn’t just fade away. The viewers do, and we’ve seen that, but the goodwill comes back to bite you in the ass, because then people are pissed off. It’s like you promised somebody something, and then you didn’t deliver and all you’re doing is making excuses for it. And that that goodwill can really come back and bite you in the ass if you’re not careful.”
On what he believes is AEW’s biggest problem:
“There’s so much inherently wrong, and it starts with Tony Khan. It starts with the lack of vision, absolute lack of understanding, and zero comprehension of what the wrestling audience — the three to five million active wrestling fans, depending on who you believe, that do tune in to wrestling each and every week. That’s your audience. It’s not Dave Meltzer’s f**king Figure Four Online dirt sheet universe, but that’s who Tony Khan is booking to. Everything that’s done in AEW is done from the perspective of Tony Khan’s fandom. And unfortunately, Tony Khan’s fandom doesn’t represent the other 98.8% of people that joy professional wrestling. Tony is booking for himself in his own fantasy. There’s no there’s nothing resembling a thought process, creative or otherwise.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
