Eric Bischoff says The Elite made a “fantastic” decision to stay with All Elite Wrestling.
After months of speculation on whether Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page would stay on with AEW or make the leap to WWE, it was announced that the four would still be the ‘E’ in AEW for “years to come.”
It was later reported that the four had made a pact to stick together and put the decision of where their future lay to a majority vote. For Bischoff, they came down on the right side.
During the latest edition of his Strictly Business podcast, the Hall of Famer explained that, while a WWE schedule might be a good opportunity early in a wrestler’s career, it’s not quite the same when the stars already have a family.
“When you’re in your early 20s or early 30s, an opportunity to work 300 days a year is a wonderful opportunity. Now, I don’t know The Young Bucks or The Elite personally, but [from] what I’ve heard is that they’re very family-oriented individuals. If that’s true, I think that’s a fantastic decision on their part.”
“Taking perhaps lesser money [from AEW] for certainly less wear and tear, and to be able to spend time with your family — hats off to them. Good decision.”
With regard to what it means for the group’s legacy, Bischoff thinks it’s all subjective.
“In the minds of some fans, of course,” he responded. “Because they never made it to the big leagues, they never wrestled on the big show. Tony Khan can go on about Wembley and everything, Dixie Carter used to do the same thing … but WWE still is the show, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
“First of all, legacy is so subjective. Not all wrestling audience has the same consensus opinion, but the fact will remain that they wrestled on the big show. They’d never know what could have been.”
#TheElite Sign Long-Term Contract Extensions with #AEW
Full Press release: https://t.co/fYHdMXHJzR— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) August 2, 2023
Cody Rhodes is happy for The Elite re-signing with AEW
While Omega and the rest of The Elite opted to re-sign with the company, their fellow founder Cody Rhodes made the opposite decision in 2022, opting instead to return to WWE, a decision that has proved to be a success for The American Nightmare.
When asked about their re-signing at the SummerSlam Service Experience, Rhodes said he was “over the moon” for them, especially with the reported money involved.
“I am over the moon that that group did what they did because, as Nick Jackson said, I believe they’ve made some NBA money off of it.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the above transcription.