Eric Bischoff was recently interviewed by Graham Matthews as he spoke about how social media would’ve affected the war between WWE and WCW in the 90s, along with AEW being in a much better position than WCW was.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Eric Bischoff on the difference between AEW and WWE fan reaction to his comments on both promotions: “I’ve been rather outspoken in regard to AEW on a couple of occasions. As a result, I’m kind of bombarded with AEW fanboy stuff. I don’t pick on anybody. I only respond to questions and don’t go out and talk about anybody else’s product unless I’m asked a question within the context of what I do. But I’m honest about stuff and don’t sugarcoat things. I’ve been very critical of WWE over the last several years. I was critical of them before I was hired back to be the director of SmackDown, and I’ve been critical of them since then. But I still maintain a great relationship with them because I’m not necessarily trying to just be negative for the sake of being negative – I’m just honest, and sometimes it comes off that way. I think with AEW, there’s a heightened sensitivity. The AEW fanbase is much more – I probably shouldn’t call it this but kind of a dirtsheet wrestling community, therefore, very defensive. But I’m a big fan of AEW, I’m cheering them on in many respects, and I see a lot of positive things. But man, if you say one thing that can be interpeted as negative, you get a pretty volatile backlash. But I’ve been in the business for over 30 years, brother. I’m pretty much used to that.”
On how social media would have impacted WWE vs. WCW and AEW being in a better position than WCW was against WWE: “No, it would have been the same, but the volume of feedback would have obviously been much higher. Keep in mind, when WCW, when I challenged WWE and went head-to-head and called out Vince McMahon and did all that crazy lunatic stuff I did, the WWE had an extremely loyal fanbase and WCW was looked at as the outcast. Now the roles are reversed where AEW is looked upon very favorably and WWE, although it’s a much more established brand, there’s a kind of anti-WWE emotion that runs throughout social media, again, because of the nature of the social media audience. So it’s actually reversed, there are more people cheering AEW on now than ever cheered WCW on. So, good for AEW and it’s an interesting dynamic for sure. But no, I think AEW is in a much better position, partly because of social media, than WCW was at the time.”
