Eric Bischoff shared his opinion on AEW President Tony Khan and their friendship while doing a media scrum over WrestleMania weekend in Dallas, Texas.
The two have praised each other and criticized one another in the past regarding what Bischoff did in WCW and what Khan is currently doing in AEW.
“It didn’t change at all for me,” Bischoff said. “What changed in the discourse between Tony Khan and I was that Tony felt whenever he felt it necessary to come out and say that, you know, Dynamite is where WCW was in 1996. Well, come on, is there anybody here that buys that? You know, WCW was beating the WWE at that time. WCW was an extremely profitable company at that time. WCW was promoting massive pay per views at that time. Many of them not just one or two or three or four a year. You can’t compare WCW to AEW but he felt like, yeah, he’s got to try to get himself over. So he threw that out there, which was fine. That part didn’t really bother me.”
Bischoff noted that Khan’s comments about Ted Turner is what upset him.
Bischoff said, “What really bothered me was when Tony Khan said, ‘Well, if Ted Turner knew as much about booking as I do WCW would have never failed.’ That pissed me the f**k off. That was so disrespectful. And I gave an honest response to an honest question. And that honest response kind of created an opportunity for Tony to feel his need to respond, which I understand. I don’t hold him against it for that. But that’s where it kind of escalated. But it doesn’t have anything to do with my feelings about AEW.”
Bischoff stated that despite his differences with Khan, he is still a fan of AEW.
He said, “I’m a fan of AEW. I’m excited about AEW. I want them to succeed. I see a lot of great things. I said that long before our little dust up. You know, Conrad [and I] we talk about Dynamite on 83 Weeks podcast and I would point out the things I enjoy about AEW more than the WWF. But at the same time, if I’m asked a question, I’m gonna be honest in my critique of that, but it’s not meant to be a shot. It just gets interpreted as that and I think Tony’s a little thin skinned and he took it a little hard.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the interview and transcript
