On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about his belief that AEW President Tony Khan should bring in Jinder Mahal after WWE released him due to the shot he took at Mahal earlier this year for getting a WWE World Title match against Seth Rollins despite not winning a single match in a full calendar year at the time. You can check out some highlights below:
On WWE’s momentum of late: “A Lot of energy, a lot of success, a lot of records being broken on a regular basis. Critically acclaimed, really good PPV. Amazing storytelling, new characters. This Tama Tonga character, what an impressive young man he is.”
On why AEW’s Tony Khan should hire Jinder Mahal: “Not sure what to make if it [WWE’s releases]. But first of all… if I was Tony Khan and if Jinder is available — and this isn’t a storyline. I’d hire him so fast. Going back to the comments that Tony made about Jinder, that started a whole thing. I mean, it sort of [set] the internet on fire for about three days, four days. It was awesome, it was fun to watch. People are nuts, man. People are nuts on Twitter, and I’m here for it all. It’s the most entertaining thing for me to sit down and watch some of these people go crazy.
“But I would take advantage of that. Take advantage of the fact, Tony, that you stirred up a bunch of s**t by throwing a grenade, so to speak. It wasn’t a grenade, it was a firecracker. A tiny little firecracker which didn’t even make much noise. But boy, did people react to it. Now you get kind of a built-in — I don’t know, at least an incident to start from. Something, a spark of an idea, to do something fun. Have Jinder come in, Tony, and make you fear for your life. No, seriously! Okay, I’m having a little fun with it with the ‘fear for your life’ s**t. But I’m actually serious about, you know, ‘Why not?’”
On turning Tony Khan into a regular TV character: “Oh f**k no. I would use Tony, because Tony is the one who lobbed the firecracker — I would use him as the part of the inciting incident. The thing that sparks what we’re going to see in terms of a story. And then I would have Tony being the chickenshit heel that he is, he’s actually turning into a heel right before our eyes. He doesn’t even realize it yet. But I would do Tony, ‘I’m the chickens**t heel,’ because this is gonna get Jinder over. If this storyline plays out, it’ll get Jinder over, he’ll be one of the biggest baby faces of the company. Kinda like MJF did it only a little more well planned and less spontaneous, I guess.
“But yeah, have Tony surround himself with whatever heels he’s trying to get over, and let them be Tony’s protector. And yeah, you may see Tony run. You may see him jump and leave his desk or something if somebody breaks into his office. But you’ll never see him — don’t ever give him a microphone. Oh my God, please. Don’t ever do that, it’ll ruin everything. But a storyline kind of like that, or anything remotely close to that, would be interesting. It would be kind of timely in a way. We’re talking about a couple of months ago, but still timely enough. People still remember. You remembered, you jogged my memory. So yeah, go for it, whatever.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
