When news broke that Mercedes Mone was very likely coming to AEW with a special show at the TD Garden in Boston, dubbed Big Business, specially booked to celebrate the arrival of the “CEO,” it generated more questions than answers.

Sure, Mone has long been considered the sort of talent who could completely transform the AEW women's division, a certified tone-setter the likes of which AEW hasn't landed since FTR in 2020, but just because she's on the roster doesn't mean Tony Khan will book her correctly. Even if the initial moment hypes up fans and gets more eyes on the product, those short-term gains only really matter if they're backed up with long-term storytelling that everyone has bought into.

Fortunately, Mone isn't coming to AEW alone, as the promotion also signed one of her long-term WWE writers, Jennifer Pepperman, to help ease that transition and make the AEW women's division a fixture in the same way the Ring of Honor women's division has been since Athena came to power as the entire promotion's focal point.

Discussing his experience working with Pepperman on his Strictly Business podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff complemented the Emmy-winning writer for her sweetness and toughness, an important mixture in the professional wrestling business.

“Well, I worked — I shouldn’t say I worked, I didn’t work closely with Jennifer when I was in WWE in a minute back in 2019. She was not a part of my team, although that didn’t really mean much because nobody really knew who was on which writing staff, there was so much discussion and transition,” Eric Bischoff said via 411 Mania. “But I got to know Jennifer and really, really liked her. I respect her work, she’s got a tremendous background. She understands storytelling. She’s tough, like — she’s a very sweet person. She’s easy to get along with, has a great personality, and is very outgoing. But she’s also tough. She’s not gonna be intimidated. And I watched her interact with Vince, and Vince can be very, very intimidating, right? And I watched her stand up to Vince, I watched her react to pressure that a lot of creative people that I’ve worked with in the past would’ve probably take pretty hard. And she digs in and does the work.”

So, if Bischoff believes Pepperman has what it takes to be a successful creative in professional wrestling on a macro-level, how does he think she will fit into AEW specifically? Well, the WCW personality commented on that, too, and needless to say, he's very excited about the prospects.

Eric Bischoff believes Mercedes Mone is in good hands in AEW.

Continuing his comments regarding the hiring of Jeniffer Pepperman, Eric Bischoff celebrated Tony Khan's decision to expand his creative team, as he believes her addition could help to build the AEW audience well into the future.

“This is the most exciting thing I’ve heard out of AEW in the last three years, maybe longer. Because I think it indicates a couple of things to me. One is that Tony recognizes he has a problem. You can’t fix a problem or come up with a solution if you don’t recognize what’s wrong with it first. And the fact that Tony is bringing in Jen at a high level suggests to me — now, part of this is wishful thinking on my part, but I do hope I’m right — that Tony is recognizing that his creative, his fantasy wrestling matches and dream match nonsense, and creating wrestling that appeals to the internet is not working.

“And I’ve been banging on that drum for over two years now. I’ve gotten a lot of hate from it… the fact that Tony recognizes that he has a problem and that he needs to bring somebody in as I’ve been saying for years now. You need somebody who understands a disciplined storytelling structure. Not only a beginning, middle, and end, but understanding the plot points along that arc that need to happen. It’s almost like a checklist, that need to happen over the course of an arc in order to have any chance of building or retaining an audience. And that’s what Tony has had a hard time doing: building and retaining an audience. He’s gone from a premiere of 1.4 million viewers down to averaging around 800,000. That’s a problem, especially when the overall audience for wrestling is growing because of WWE and their success. So I think the fact that Tony recognizes he has a problem, hopefully, and brought somebody in who absolutely has the tools and the experience, and I believe the personality — Jen brings all of that to the table.”

Will Pepperman be the magic bullet that fixes the women's division, elevates the stars AEW already has, and helps to elevate new stars like Mercedes Mone now that she's multiple years removed from her WWE career? Only time will tell, but after being accused of stagnant booking for years, this is a notable change that may or may not change the promotion for the better moving forward.