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When AEW does something wrong, weird, or questionable, you can bet your bottom dollar that WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff will have something to say about it.
CM Punk's firing? He hated it. The promotion's declining viewership numbers? He has a million fixes for that, too. And the acquisition of Ring of Honor? Well, goodness gracious, you'd best believe the WCW legend had plenty to say on that subject as the promotion prepares for its final Pay-Per-View of the year, Final Battle.
Discussing Tony Khan's other brand on his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff put in no uncertain terms that he thinks the acquisition of Ring of Honor has been a disaster and if he was in charge of AEW as a whole, he would “put Ring of Honor out of its misery.”
“No. It was a bad decision to buy it in the first place, and there's nothing anybody's going to do to make it interesting or important, outside of the hardest of hardcore Internet wrestling community fans. That's it. There is no solution. If it was a horse, I'd put it out of its misery and move on,” Eric Bischoff said via Fightful. “I would take the resources that are going into Ring of Honor, which is never going to be viable, ever, I would take the resources that are being dumped into that, and put it into my core product, Dynamite. By putting Bryan Danielson and the rest of the people that they put into this thing, you're diluting their characters. You're making them look like independent wrestlers. You're not elevating their characters in any way, shape, or form. In fact, you're doing exactly the opposite. It's really unbelievable to me, and I don't know what the drive is. Is it ego? Is Tony [saying], ‘I did this, and I'm gonna prove I can make it work'? It's certainly not because it's a great revenue opportunity. It dilutes the core product. It's being shoved down the audience's throat, and they're gagging on it.”
Dang, now that is brutal. But wait, it gets better, as Bischoff decided to continue his conversation further, noting that, in his opinion, AEW is already having branding issues that are preventing the show from reaching its potential, so committing resources to a brand no one cares about actually makes Dynamite, Collision, and even Rampage look worse in the process.
“AEW did what, 850,000 viewers with Christian and [Adam Copeland] last week? After they did their best to build it up, and that's all you can bring in? You gotta ask yourself why. Why aren't fans spending more time with the AEW product? Why is Dynamite unable to break a million viewers more than once or twice or three times a year? What is it about this brand?” Bischoff asked.
“It the product. It's the way characters are being developed or not being developed. It's focus, it's vision, it's a lot of things. But Ring of Honor is just a distraction, and it dilutes the core business, it dilutes the characters that are part of it. It's almost embarrassing that it's happening. I don't understand it all. I hope it works. I hope a year from now, ‘Remember when you said,' and I'd have to admit that I was wrong. But so far, when it comes to AEW, I've been right far more often than I've been wrong, and for two years, it's, focus on the core product, focus on Dynamite, not all these other shows. You don't have the creative infrastructure or a formula or a vision that's working. So if you don't have a formula or a vision that's working, and you don't see any kind of upward growth in your product, why would you expand it? I don't want to hear about the money because I hear Dave Meltzer talking about, ‘Oh, AEW's grossed all this…' Gross doesn't mean s**t. That's such horse s**t. Net revenues, yeah. Let's talk about those numbers. They can't possibly be making money. How's that video game doing? Have you heard? Yeah, neither have I. Neither has anybody else.”
So, if AEW is down bad, what can they do to get better? Well, Bischoff had some idea on that subject, too, even if it's hard to know if it would actually fix any of the promotion's actual problems.
Eric Bischoff reveals how he would try to fix AEW.
So, if Tony Khan called up from AEW and offered to pay the former WCW standout to serve as a special advisor, what would he suggest in order to get the brand back on track? Well, in Bischoff's humble opinion, it all comes down to building a sound foundation, which he doesn't believe AEW has.
“It's, focus on the core product. Get your foundation underneath you. It's like Tony Khan's trying to build a mansion on sand with no foundation. Find the right property, find solid ground, build a solid foundation. Then build your house. Tony's trying to build a mansion, and he hasn't put the basement in yet, or he hasn't put the foundation in yet. It's crazy to me. But hey, he's got all the money in the world, so I guess it's doesn't matter. But it does matter to the talent that are padiiirticipating in it because their lights are being diminished. The shine on their stars are being dulled by being involved in things like Ring of Honor. Bryan Danielson in Ring of Honor? Excuse me? So often, you hear the Internet wrestling fanbase talking about how someone is used right or not used right. Here you got a whole collection of top-tier talent that are recognizable just about anywhere in the world to wrestling fans, and you're putting them on Ring of Honor? By the way, you sold 1,000 tickets? What does that tell you? More importantly, what should that tell you?” Eric Bischoff said.
“You have to build the brand. It has to stand on its own, it has to perform on its own, without diluting the core product. Right now, Ring of Honor is like a giant freaking parasite on the AEW brand, and the more focus they put on the parasite, the more that parasite is going to diminish or harm the core brand. Maybe there'll be a time down the road when that makes sense, but I just think they bumble-f**ked it up so badly that we won't really see a successful Ring of Honor any time in our lifetime.”
So, excluding the fact that performers like Bryan Danielson have an incredible history in Ring of Honor, with the “American Dragon” arguably one of the signature ROH wrestlers of his era, who does Eric Bischoff believe is a “foundational piece” of the AEW house? While Bischoff never said, it's hard to imagine any brand being viable if they can only pull 1,000 or so tickets to a premier Pay-Per-View, especially in the minds of a media company that doesn't know TNA from Impact wrestling.
