During a recent edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff spoke on if he thinks AEW should have saved Kenny Omega v. Bryan Danielson for a PPV event. Here’s what he had to say:
Let’s move on to the ‘they should’ve saved it for pay-per-view’. Where did that start? It certainly didn’t start with Turner Broadcasting. It certainly didn’t start in WCW. It started in the internet wrestling community, driven primarily by people like Dave Meltzer……that’s where all of that started and it built over the years, where everybody went ‘yeah, they should’ve done that’ and it’s been a thing. ‘You gave away Goldberg vs. Hogan on free TV, and you’re the reason why WCW died. That was a perfect example of why it died.’ Now, fast forward, and it fucking worked. Yes, we were a television company. Turner’s primary goal was television. They wanted to make money in the process, but when given a choice – pay-per-view or TV – 99 times out of 100, it’s gonna be put it on TV. That’s the driver. That’s why WCW existed from the very beginning was because Ted Turner believed wrestling would bring eyeballs to the network. That’s one of the reasons he believed in wrestling. He understood it would attract eyeballs, and early on, that was his first and foremost goal.
Here we are in 2021, you’ve got a new company in AEW, you’ve got Turner – this is Warner Media and everything is different, except for one thing. It’s still a television company. Television rights are the largest line item in WWE’s quarterly SEC statements. That’s where the majority of their money is coming from is television rights. In AEW’s case, that’s definitely the case. Nothing has changed, folks. I think it’s a great move, by the way. Congrats, Tony Khan, for having the balls to do it. The template was built – here are some of the mistakes, here are some of the downfalls, here are some of the things that shouldn’t have happened. Great, let’s take those things out of the formula. Right now, Tony Khan is doing a great job – team AEW is doing a great job, and they’re making great decisions. They’re building anticipation, and then delivering in their execution.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: 83 Weeks. H/T 411Mania.