Eric Bischoff has claimed that recent comments made by Tony Khan remind him of those made by former TNA boss Dixie Carter.
For a number of months Eric Bischoff and AEW President Tony Khan have taken part in something of a war of words.
The former WCW President previously criticised Khan for trying to talk up a wrestling war with WWE, his handling of CM Punk’s AEW run to date, at one point declaring that he “didn’t have a f**king idea” what he’s talking about.
For his part, Khan openly discussed not wanting to make the same mistakes as WCW in the past, branding many of the recent comments from Bischoff “laughable.”
While as recently as mid-December, Bischoff also questioned AEW’s policy on signing new stars.
Speaking on the latest episode of his podcast, 83 Weeks, available via AdFreeShows, Bischoff took issue with comments Tony Khan recently made about Jade Cargill. Speaking just prior to Cargill winning the newly created TBS Championship, the AEW boss said that she was on the most dominant run of any wrestler since Goldberg in the late 1990’s.
Bischoff responded by saying that while Cargill is undoubtedly talented, she’s not yet a big star.
“I don’t know Jade Cargill. I don’t know anything about Jade Cargill. I’ve seen her live maybe once or twice. She’s a very, very impressive looking individual from what I recall. I don’t watch a lot of her work so it’s not fair for me to comment, but she looked very green,” Bischoff said. “She’s new. She’s learning. She has amazing talent and she’s probably going to go on to be a big star someday, but she’s not now. Why would you make a comparison like that to Bill Goldberg? Probably about 90% of the people that hear that, read that are going to go, ‘What?’”
Continuing on, Bischoff said that the comments from Khan reminded him of things that former TNA President Dixie Carter also used to say. The former Raw General Manager, said that Carter also had a habit of making grand statements but being unable to back them up.
“When I hear comments like that out of Tony, it reminds me very much of Dixie Carter and TNA. Dixie Carter had a habit of making announcements that were going to get great social media reactions, but very rarely could follow them up,” Bischoff said. “‘We’re going to make an announcement that’s going to change the wrestling world!’ How many times did we hear that coming out of Dixie and TNA, and then they didn’t deliver? After a while, the audience begins to lose confidence in people that talk like that. When you make everything such a big deal and it really isn’t, people begin to learn that you’re just not a big deal.”
Eric Bischoff expanded further, once again denouncing previous comments from Khan where he compared AEW to WCW in the mid-1990’s.
“Tony’s constantly drawing comparisons to WCW. The one that sticks out and got the biggest reaction out of me was, ‘Oh, AEW is right about now where WCW was in 1996.’ That was just stupid, ignorant falsehood. It’s not true!” Bischoff said. “Why make a statement like that and set yourself up for comparison when it’s not true? WCW was highly profitable in ’96 dude, you’re not. WCW was outperforming the #1 show in WWE at the time, Monday Night RAW, in head-to-head against real competition including the NFL, and we were winning hand over fist. AEW’s still only delivering about two-thirds what Monday Night RAW does, and half, if that, of what SmackDown does.
“There’s always going to be a percentage of people, a small percentage of people that are going to buy into that,” Bischoff continued. “Because they want that. They want to be excited. But the largest majority of the audience is going to say, ‘That’s not true. That’s kind of insulting my intelligence.’ They lose confidence in you.”
On the January 5th episode of AEW Dynamite, Jade Cargill defeated Ruby Soho to become the first-ever TBA Champion. The win meant that Cargill remains undefeated since making her in-ring debut in March 2021. Her winning streak currently stands at 25.
H/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.