On a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff analyzed AEW’s decision to air the All In 2023 footage of the backstage altercation between CM Punk and Jack Perry on tonight’s episode of Dynamite.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On AEW airing the All In footage: “There’s no upside here. There’s nothing that’s going to happen that’s positive. You’re living in the past and reliving an incident that is a reflection of your horrible leadership and lack of management, Tony. You created that backstage environment by not being a leader. By not having management in place and allowing this kind of thing to go on. Because this isn’t like the first and only time.
“It’s just — [sighs] I don’t know. It’s the most bizarre thing. I don’t know that — you know, I’ve said, as hard as I can be on an AEW. I point out their lack of storytelling ability or lack of ability to even format a television show, just fundamental s**t. You know, I talk about those things all the time. In the back of my mind, I’m hoping that eventually somebody’s going to go, ‘Okay, let’s just try what he says. Let’s just put a little more emphasis on the story. Let’s go buy a book and read about what it takes to build a great story and see if we can do it.’ Now I’m hoping that a light bulb is gonna go off in somebody’s head and they’re gonna, ‘Huh, maybe we can — I got an idea. Let’s try this. Because what we’re doing here at AEW is not working.’”
On interest in AEW falling: “You’re not only not growing your audience, you can’t hold on to the one you started out with. They’re leaving in droves. We had on Wise Choices, Ant Evans, a YouTube expert. The guy that built a UFC’s YouTube channel, as well as others. A guy that knows his s**t. We talked about where AEW is on YouTube and where it’s been over the last six months. You know where it’s been? It’s been falling off a f**king cliff. So Dave Meltzer likes to say, ‘Wow, you can’t judge by ratings that a company is way more successful than a ratings reflect. Because fewer and fewer people are watching television.’ No s**t, Sherlock, that’s been a conversation that’s been going on in the television industry for oh, I don’t know. 12 years or more? It’s not news, Dave. You don’t have to study anything, Dave. It’s right there in your f**king face.
“But guess what, even if that was the excuse that people want to buy into? Because when it comes out, AEW, a lot of people want to buy into excuses and spin, and ridiculous ways of doing math. But even if you want it to believe it’s true and, ‘You know, those ratings are going down because fewer people are watching television.’ Okay, well, what about YouTube? Is that a dying medium, Dave? Is it an outlier for some reason? It’s not, it’s just another indicator like live ticket sales. AEW is having a hard time selling 3,500 tickets for Dynamite. I mean, come on. It’s impossible for me to think of ways that he could do things more incorrectly and miss the mark any more than they already have. But they keep coming up with s**t. Like, I don’t know, ‘Let’s show footage from the security camera at Wembley that happened what, was it six months ago?’ How long ago was that? Who cares? It’s history. And all it’s going to do is make you look bad. The question is, how bad is it going to look and how many different ways? It’s just bizarre to me.”
