Despite previously enjoying a good relationship, Eric Bischoff and Tony Khan have been engaged in a series of very public disagreements for a number of months. Bischoff has been open with his criticism of both All Elite Wrestling and Khan more specifically, while the AEW boss has stanchly defended his product and ability as a booker.
The most recent back-and-forth began after Bischoff criticised the number of matches on AEW programming which didn’t appear to link up with any of the existing long-term stories, and seemingly took place at random. Khan didn’t take kindly to these comments, branding the former WCW President as “contradictory and hypocritical,” citing the number of ‘cold matches’ which featured in WCW.
Eric Bischoff Outlines Issues With AEW
Speaking on his podcast, 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff responded to Khan by first attempting to clarify his recent criticism.
“There were certainly random matches that didn’t have any story in WCW, I’m not denying that but I’m also going to point out, I don’t think I ever said in any of my commentary about AEW, that I believe every match should have a story,
When you are introducing new talent or when you have talent that you haven’t really matched up storyline-wise with an opponent yet but you want to expose that talent, you want the audience to become familiar with that talent, you want to establish that talent, sure, put people in matches that don’t really have story. But use that time, in non-storyline matches, to give us some real backstory and information about said talent.”
Bischoff went on to explain that his issue with AEW is more to do with a lack of structure in storytelling, or matches that don’t have much story at all.
“Your top matches, your A, B, C, and D storylines, that’s different. I’ve seen a lot of matches, a lot of storylines – what AEW considers a storyline- that I feel are just nothing more than excuses for a match. They are not well-crafted stories.
I believe in today’s competitive environment with television being what it is, that if you want to – pay attention, Tony – build and grow your audience, you are going to have to do it with well-crafted, compelling, well-structured storylines and I don’t see it. I see excuses for matches, and that’s not a storyline.”
Eric Bischoff last appeared in AEW on the May 28th 2021 edition of Dynamite where he hosted a party for MJF and The Pinnacle.
H/t to F4Wonline