Eric Bischoff has discussed one aspect of wrestling he hates, claiming it “serves absolutely no purpose”.
Media scrums have become something of a tradition following major AEW shows. However, the latest scrum after All Out produced no end of controversy when CM Punk made divisive comments taking aim at Colt Cabana, Hangman Adam Page, and the companys EVPs, The Elite.
Things didn’t end at the scrum, however, as a backstage fight reportedly broke out between Punk, Ace Steel, the Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega. This led to suspensions for everyone involved and both the AEW World Championship and AEW Trios Championships being vacated.
Speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff has weighed in on the very concept of media scrums, arguing that they’re “f*cking stupid”. The former WCW President also has issues with the word “scrum” itself.
“I think they’re f*cking stupid. It serves absolutely no purpose. You know, first of all, I hate the word Scrum. It’s right up there with taint. Now it’s like it’s one of those words, it just makes you go ooh.”
“But when you think about it, you know, professional wrestling, as we all know, is a scripted form of entertainment.
“Can you imagine the producers of, insert the name of a scripted show here, and having a press conference at the end of every episode talking about the production of that episode?”
Eric Bischoff went on to take aim at the journalists who take part in the scrums, claiming they are too afraid to ask hardball questions in case they aren’t asked to return.
“I mean, it’s stupid. You can’t really serve the audience, you can’t honestly address the real issues. First of all, you attract people that are afraid to ask hard questions.
“You know, for example, has anybody asked Tony Khan yet, ‘Tony, you keep talking about, for example, a week or two ago will gross $100 million? Great. What’s your profit margin? What’s your EBIT? What is that? It doesn’t matter how much money you gross, how much money you make?’ Right? Little questions like that.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are some legitimate guys covering wrestling for the various websites and news sites, I use them. I have respect for the people, some of the people that do them.
“But there’s some of them that I don’t, Dave Meltzer, for example, has got his lips permanently attached to Tony Khan’s ass so he’s not going to ask the kind of questions that people really want to hear. He’s going to ask setup questions.
“Nobody’s asking any real hard questions there, because they don’t want to get blackballed. They don’t want to be the wrestling internet news reporter that’s not allowed to come to the meeting. So everybody dances around, well, that’s bullsh*t, it’s not real.”
Summing up, Eric Bischoff said he thinks it’s time to end the scrums as he believes them to be a waste of effort and just make people look bad.
“So I think the whole idea is a bad idea. We’re seeing evidence of it, the last two that I’ve seen anyway. Just fold it up. Put it away. Don’t ever bring it out of the closet again.
“It’s a f*cking worthless effort and it makes you look like a joke. That’s how I feel.”
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