Ricky Starks made his highly anticipated WWE debut earlier this week on NXT.
Starks’ WWE NXT debut was a last-minute decision since he wasn’t free from his AEW contract until about 24 hours earlier.
During a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff praised the way WWE handled Starks’ NXT debut.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Ricky Starks’ WWE NXT debut: “I saw the clip. I was really impressed with the way they brought him in. I think bringing him down through the crowd as a surprise… Yeah, there were some similarities [to Scott Hall’s WCW debut], for sure. But it was really, really well done. And it made me think the next day — or later that day, I saw it yesterday morning —- it’s like, there are multiple ways of introducing a character. There’s no one right way, there are a lot of different ways you can do it. And of the different choices that they had with Ricky —- because obviously, they knew this was probably in development, at least, I don’t think anybody was surprised — they had a couple of choices to make creatively. As we saw with Penta, they had merch waiting for him. His merch got there before he did. That was one way of doing it.
“But I think the way they brought him in, down through the crowd first off the bat. Once that crowd recognized that they were part of the show, they realized that red light was pointing at them, they got into it. It took them a couple of seconds. Maybe 20, 30 seconds. And then all of a sudden, everybody realized, ‘Oh, crap! This is his entrance, and I’m on TV!’ That added enthusiasm and energy, made Ricky a bigger star before he said a word. Not because of the size of the audience. I’ve seen a lot of criticism: ‘Oh, there are only 600 people there. It’s not really big-time.’ It’s kind of moronic, but typical I guess. But to bring him down through the crowd as a surprise, it’s a bonus for everybody. They get to be on TV. I think it was absolutely the best way to bring Ricky in. It made it look like he was crashing the party, and people love that. They react to it, as they did. And I think it was a perfect way to introduce him.”
On talent showing up in a quick turnaround in between promotions: “Yeah, that probably hasn’t happened, right? I mean, talent has crossed back and forth. That’s not unusual. But usually, it comes with a fair amount of hype up front, and it’s no real surprise. This was like a 24-hour turnaround. He’s gone, he’s back. Probably a fair amount of people who aren’t die-hard internet wrestling people may not even know he was gone. So I thought it was really cool.
“But, yeah, that fast turnaround is just — you know, I don’t know how many internet wrestling fans show up at the Performance Center for their events. I would assume a good portion of them. So they were aware of Ricky’s situation in AEW. A good percentage of them were, I’m sure. So I think that made that reaction easier to get because they saw Ricky trying hard for the last several months to find a way out. And whether they knew about it in advance or not, he shows up 24 hours after his release is final. It’s perfect timing.”
