During the latest episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff commented on AEW giving away the Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson match for free on tomorrow night’s episode of AEW Dynamite, AEW’s debut in New York at Arthur Ashe Stadium, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On AEW’s upcoming New York debut at Arthur Ashe Stadium: “I was completely unfamiliar with the Arthur Ashe Stadium up until recently. Obviously, never been there and I didn’t even know it really existed, to be honest with you. I’ll watch the US Open and there are certain tennis events I like to watch. But I never pay attention to the venue. Then when I heard AEW was going to Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, I was like it’s frickin’ New York and they’re gonna do a big event in New York and that’s gonna be a good move because it’s New York. It helps brand the product in a good way. And then I saw the stills of Arthur Ashe, and I was like this place is perfect for wrestling. It’s got that deep kind of bowl look, so kudos to the team for choosing that venue because it was a brilliant choice.”
On AEW putting Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson on free TV instead of pay-per-view: “Let’s move on to the ‘they should’ve saved it for pay-per-view’. Where did that start? It certainly didn’t start with Turner Broadcasting. It certainly didn’t start in WCW. It started in the internet wrestling community, driven primarily by people like Dave Meltzer……that’s where all of that started and it built over the years, where everybody went ‘yeah, they should’ve done that’ and it’s been a thing. ‘You gave away Goldberg vs. Hogan on free TV, and you’re the reason why WCW died. That was a perfect example of why it died.’ Now, fast forward, and it fucking worked. Yes, we were a television company. Turner’s primary goal was television. They wanted to make money in the process, but when given a choice – pay-per-view or TV – 99 times out of 100, it’s gonna be put it on TV. That’s the driver. That’s why WCW existed from the very beginning was because Ted Turner believed wrestling would bring eyeballs to the network. That’s one of the reasons he believed in wrestling. He understood it would attract eyeballs, and early on, that was his first and foremost goal.
“Here we are in 2021, you’ve got a new company in AEW, you’ve got Turner – this is Warner Media and everything is different, except for one thing. It’s still a television company. Television rights are the largest line item in WWE’s quarterly SEC statements. That’s where the majority of their money is coming from is television rights. In AEW’s case, that’s definitely the case. Nothing has changed, folks. I think it’s a great move, by the way. Congrats, Tony Khan, for having the balls to do it. The template was built – here are some of the mistakes, here are some of the downfalls, here are some of the things that shouldn’t have happened. Great, let’s take those things out of the formula. Right now, Tony Khan is doing a great job – team AEW is doing a great job, and they’re making great decisions. They’re building anticipation, and then delivering in their execution.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
