During a recent episode of After 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff revealed that he isn’t sure that AEW will sign the majority of the WWE wrestlers that were released. Here’s what he had to say:
Theoretically at least, they can go to AEW, but how bloated can that roster get? They don’t do house shows, they don’t tour, they do a PPV once a month or whatever it is. Nobody’s really talking about it as opposed to WCW when guys like Dave Meltzer couldn’t wait to disclose internal information about WCW that was leaked to them by talent, you don’t hear any of that coming out of AEW. I have a pretty good idea what some of the talent is making and it’s astronomical sums of money compared to even what some of them have made at the peak of their careers in WWE or WCW. So there is a substantial talent budget there and it’s a talent budget for a roster that isn’t generating a lot of revenue other than television, and of course, PPV, so how many top talents, how many of those names from WWE, can AEW afford to hire? And if they bring in three, four, five, or maybe they only bring in one, that makes sense, one or two of the bigger names, I’m sure Rowan is a guy, I’d be surprised if they aren’t looking at who got released, super guy by the way, loved working with him in WWE. But there are a handful of talents that I’m sure AEW is thinking about right now, but to think that they will absorb eight or nine or ten people, it’s not realistic.
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Credit: After 83 Weeks. H/T 411Mania.