On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff talked about AEW holding All In Texas next year at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and why he thinks it’s an insane idea to do. You can check out some highlights below:
On AEW running All In: Texas: “Yeah, I think it’s insane. I think it’s, in my opinion — and again, no inside information. Just looking at all the various dots that come our way via AEW and their surrogates. I think this is as much about hype in the face of renegotiation or television rights, or in some cases, new negotiations. Because after all, the exclusive window is gone, we’re not hearing anything about AEW shopping their show. By the way, I have enough people on the ground in LA with whom I still have relationships with that if that were the case — I’m not guaranteed I’d hear about it, but I’d have pretty good chances I’d hear about it pretty quickly. And I’ve not heard about it yet. Again, something could be going on that I’m not familiar with. That’s certainly could be the case.
“BNut kind of interesting that all of these big Australia and stadium shows, all this great news leading into television renegotiations or hopefully a new home for AEW, in contrast to actually what’s going on. Attendance is in the in the toilet. It has been trending in that direction for quite some time. Ratings are in the toilet and have been trending that way for the last two and a half, three years. So there’s no new good news in terms of reality. There’s lots of good news in terms of perception. So we’ll just see if perception does in fact become a reality, or if it’s just a lot of Dixie Khan hype”
On his belief AEW can’t fill the 50,000-seat baseball stadium: “Here’s nothing in the United States that would indicate there’s an ice cube’s chance in hell that AEW could fill a stadium, or even half of a stadium. They’re drawing 2,500 people to their live A-show. Where’s the connective tissue with reality that would make somebody think that here in the US — It’s not in the UK, it’s an outlier. It’s not reflective of anything that AEW is doing right or wrong, other than flying over there and taking advantage of the market. Here in the States where Texas Stadium is, they can’t draw flies if they rolled their talent in horses**t. So where’s the logic?
“And the only logic that I can find, especially given the pattern of Tony Khan, who loves to hype. Who loves to build up big announcements, ‘Big surprises, change the face of professional wrestling as we know it.’ And it’s just eh. So he has a pattern of overhyping and underdelivering. And my opinion, based on the context of this conversation, was that perhaps these announcements are more to persuade or get interest from new suitors for their television program, or give confidence to Warner Brothers Discovery. It’s just a possibility. Because there’s no reality, there are no facts on the ground that would suggest to even the most optimistic, die-hard Kool-Aid drinking AEW fan that they’re going to be able to fill an arena. I just don’t see it. I mean, I get the excitement and ‘Oh, we want it to happen so bad. We’re going to will it by just saying it over and over and over again. We’re going to change our destiny by repeating what we want to have happen,’ without doing anything to affect it and make it happen.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
