Eric Bischoff Reveals Roadmap for AEW If He Were at the Helm

Tony Khan introduced the wrestling world to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a direct competitor to the global juggernaut WWE in 2019. While the promotion has garnered significant attention in the last five years, it also has its share of detractors, on the top of the list being former WCW President Eric Bischoff.

Despite Tony Khan showing his prowess as a corporate leader and a genuine individual helping out his roster personally and professionally, Eric Bischoff has not missed a single chance to berate him and his company.

On the latest edition of his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff laid out plans for AEW if he ran the show. He stated that their main issue was not talent, although there’s arguably too much of it, but rather a severe problem with compelling storylines, something that he would work on to connect with the audience. After addressing the story’s importance and clarifying the company’s vision, Bischoff mentioned that the focus should shift to aligning characters with it and put a lot of focus on their developments, not as wrestlers, which are fixable according to him, but as compelling characters.

“Well, the biggest issue is — they don’t have an issue with talent, although they have to way too much of it. But that’s more of a business problem, financial problem. The core of their issue is story first, like really bad. Like the patient’s on his way out or her way out, and you got to fix this because it’s — from a storyline point of view, that company is bleeding out on the table. And it needs to triage. But after I triage the story, and what the story means for that company and try to explain the vision for the company, and what the company really represents. Then I would focus on the characters so that they fit into that vision, and fit into the type of story. Because right now, your characters are all over the map. There’s some good ones. Toni Storm was a great character. A very mediocre wrestler, but a great character. Well, you can fix the wrestling part. It’s a lot easier to get somebody up to speed technically, or work around whatever their weaknesses are, so that you focus just on the character as much as possible.”

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Furthermore, Bischoff also pointed out that many wrestlers lack distinctive personas, with the majority resembling everyday workers rather than professional wrestlers, diminishing the overall product.

“So there are some great characters there, but there are some that aren’t. There’s a lot of them that aren’t. Theres a lot of them that are the same. It’s like, 75% of their roster looks like they’re there to f**king change your tires. I mean, it looks like somebody you — if you pull around the back of a Jiffy Lube at lunchtime, everybody’s back there smoking a cigarette having a sandwich? That’s what half the roster looks like.”

\Despite Bischoff’s comments, AEW has reported strong ticket sales for their upcoming event in collaboration with several other promotions, Forbidden Door. But it sure can be interesting to see if Eric assumes a managerial position with Tony Khan and takes his company in a different and compelling direction.

Do you think Eric Bischoff should be in charge of AEW? Would he do a better job than current AEW President and CEO Tony Khan? Sound off in the comments!