During a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff spoke on Bad Bunny and how he might have paved the way for other celebrity influencers to jump into the wrestling world. Here’s what he had to say:
Look at AEW, they’re using Mike Tyson a lot. As we just talked about, WrestleMania and Logan Paul. What a phenomenal impact Bad Bunny had. I wouldn’t be surprised because of the success that a lot of these pay-per-view companies are having using this new technology and generating hundreds of thousands of buys and probably hundreds of millions of dollars if we see a lot more social media influencer stunts. Gone are the days where you’re gonna take somebody that’s a movie or television star – not that I don’t think it’ll happen from time to time. But I think with the way the world is shifting and how pop culture has evolved, don’t be surprised if we start seeing more and more huge social media influencers and people you would never expect to get involved in professional wrestling stepping into the arena.
They’re a bigger draw. They’re going to make more money. Go back to Bad Bunny again. Some wrestling experts thought nobody even knew who he was. That guy didn’t know who he was. He was dumping all over Bad Bunny because he didn’t know who Bad Bunny was. Wow, reality proved that perspective very, very wrong. Bad Bunny uses his WrestleMania performance, which was a hell of a performance, and leverages that to sell out his tour. I don’t know how fast he sold it out, but I know he shut down Ticketmaster not long after he went on sale. Not bad for a guy nobody knows, right?
I think with what we saw with Bad Bunny in particular, just step back from what he did in the match which was phenomenal. Just think about it from a business and marketing strategy. If you’re a young talent and you don’t mind getting physical like Jake Paul, Logan Paul, Bad Bunny – there are others and there will be even more – once those individuals realized that hey, if I leverage my social media following into an opportunity to have a great performance like Bad Bunny did, I think what he did by taking advantage of that opportunity at WrestleMania and leverage that opportunity by reaching an audience he might not have otherwise reached and did it so successfully, that is a model that other people will try to follow. There will be more and more people that are going to be going, ‘Hey Bruce Prichard, Vince McMahon, over here. I’ve got 18 million followers, and I’ll really commit like Bad Bunny did.’ Because Bad Bunny did. He created a template for celebrity, non-wrestling performers to step into that world and do it successfully.
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Credit: 83 Weeks. H/T 411Mania.