Dave Meltzer has suggested that those near the top of WWE see AEW in the same way that they saw WCW during the 1990’s.
While WWE has spent two decades unchallenged as the biggest professional wrestling show in town, that was famously not always the case. During the mid-1990’s WCW, led by Eric Bischoff, reinvented itself as genuine competition to the company.
During this period WCW Nitro famously beat Monday Night Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, while a number of WWE stars made their way to Atlanta. Within WWE this led to a very real fear that their rivals would eventually win out.
With the advent of AEW in 2019 many long-time fans hoped that the arrival of another North American promotion would spark a similar kind of wrestling war. While there have been shots thrown between the two sides, and numerous stars have moved to AEW from WWE, the hostility has yet to reach the same kind of level as it did 25 years previously.
At least in public that is.
During a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that those near the top of WWE, see AEW in the same way that Vince McMahon saw WCW.
“I don’t think people understand, if you ever talk to anyone near the top of WWE about AEW, I mean, it’s just… I used to talk to Vince [McMahon] about WCW, and it’s almost the same. In so many ways, in fact it is very much the same.
Everyone knows these stories about, Vince took all of the talent from, took a lot of the talent from like Verne Gagne and all these other people. From all the territories. Took JYD from [Bill] Watts and all of that when he started his company.
Then in the 90’s Eric Bischoff lured Hogan, Savage, Piper, all these guys, Nash, Hall, away from him by offering more money, which is what Vince did. And Vince was just crying foul, ‘they’re offering more money for our talent, that we created!’ It’s like ‘Vince isn’t that what you did?’ And he couldn’t fathom it, ‘that’s the exact same thing that you did.’
So in this one, [Tony] Khan started a company from scratch and all of that, he’s done pretty well. ‘Yeah but he didn’t have to make money in his first year! We have to make money, we have to turn a profit.’ It’s like $600 million in guaranteed money in TV deals, a monkey could turn a profit with your deals. He actually has to work to turn a profit!’
Not even just that, just the whole idea of him… it’s amazing what you hear.
This is the move [reports of NXT special same day as AEW All Out] and I guess we’re going to get lot of moves.”
Meltzer added that it would be wise for talent to sign shorter deals for around two years, especially if they are big stars, as more frequent negotiations with two companies doing well means they can make more money.
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