During the latest edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff commented on the Firefly Funhouse and Boneyard matches, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how the Firefly Funhouse and Boneyard Matches give him hope for the future of wrestling: “These are two very unique ways of storytelling. Very, very unique. And if we’re going to see more of that, I really have a lot of hopes for the industry. Because I think wrestling needs something different. I’ve been saying that for now for five or ten years. It’s the same formula, it’s the same presentation. I don’t care who you are, what the name of your company is, you’re really not doing anything different from anybody else, for the most part.”
On how WWE took big risks to do those matches at WrestleMania: “At WrestleMania this past weekend, the Boneyard match was such a, again I hate to use the term outside the box, but that was so, in fact I said an email to somebody I’m not gonna name this morning, it wasn’t Bruce, it wasn’t Vince, but just putting him over because the risk that they took, they meaning WWE, they took to present the Boneyard match as well as the Firefly Funhouse, was such a big risk. Because the wrestling audience is what they are, they like change, they like innovation, but they really don’t. It’s a very, very fine line as to what the wrestling audience will tolerate. The risk that they took, they meaning WWE, with the Boneyard match and the Firefly Funhouse were so enormous, particularly given that it was in WrestleMania, the biggest event of the year, the Super Bowl, and they decided let’s do something completely different than has ever been done before at that level. I thought it was fantastic.”
On how the Firefly Funhouse made sense and was rooted in Wyatt’s character: “I thought the Firefly Funhouse, the way Bray, because that’s his character, it wasn’t just a cool match or presentation of a match for the sake of having a cool presentation of a match, it was a cool presentation of a match that was very organic to the character of Bray Wyatt. He was getting into Cena’s head, and they affected that story in such a phenomenal way, I thought it was so compelling.”
On how he got a big kick out of the NWO stuff: “When they started introducing the NWO stuff, like time stopped for me, it was such a bizarre, it was like I was in this suspended state of animation. I was like frozen in time for a moment, it was almost an out of body, kind of out of my head experience. I just got such a big kick out of it.”
On how the Firefly Funhouse and Boneyard matches may be the catalysts for the next evolution in wrestling: “I think the Firefly Funhouse and the Boneyard match probably are the catalysts for next evolution of storytelling in wrestling. We’re not gonna see it all the time, you can’t, I mean that was very expensive, time consuming stuff to produce, I can assure you of that, it took a ton of production to present that the way that it was, at such a high level. And as a result of the time and the expense, you’re not going to see it every week, I don’t want to see it every week, but if I can see it once a month, or once every couple of months, as a way to elevate story and characters, I think the business, as a result of this past WrestleMania and the challenges created, I think this WrestleMania may have probably as much or more of an impact on the business, at least I hope, on the business going forward, than perhaps any WrestleMania in a long, long time.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
