Eric Bischoff Casts Doubt on AEW’s Ability to Fill Stadium for All In 2025

AEW continues to grow rapidly each year, with their All In event being their most significant achievement to date. The company has announced that next year’s All In will be held in Texas. However, Eric Bischoff is skeptical, believing there’s no chance AEW can fill the stadium for the event.

Last week, AEW announced that AEW All In 2025 will be hosted at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. This event will mark the first time AEW All In will be held outside of Wembley Stadium in London.

While speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff shared his thoughts on AEW’s plan to hold their All In event next year at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Bischoff noted that he is doubtful about the move, thinking it might be more about creating buzz than reflecting AEW’s actual performance.

Bischoff questioned why AEW would host such a large event, especially since there’s little evidence they can fill a stadium of that size. He pointed out that AEW’s attendance and TV ratings have been going down, which doesn’t match the big announcements and positive news coming from the company. He speculated that promoting these big events might be more about impressing TV networks or new partners rather than having a realistic chance of success.

“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.

But 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.”

Bischoff also believes there is no way AEW could fill a 50,000-seat stadium, noting that their current live shows draw much smaller crowds. Bischoff believes AEW has a habit of overhyping and underdelivering, and that these announcements might be more about getting attention from potential TV partners rather than based on solid planning.

“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.”

We have also reported on the internal reaction to AEW All In Texas’ press conference. Moving the event to Texas and announcing it early shows that AEW is putting a lot of effort into planning and building excitement among fans. It’s too early to determine how successful these plans will be, but AEW is clearly aiming high, so we’ll have to see if Bischoff will turn out to be right in the end.

What’s your view on what Eric Bischoff had to say about AEW not being able to fill the stadium in Texas next year for All In? Let us know in the comments section below!

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