Eric Bischoff Defends AEW's Decision To Put Omega/Danielson On Free TV

During the latest 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff discussed the TNA No Surrender 2011 pay-per-view, which led to being asked questions about the modern product. He was asked about AEW's decision to give Bryan Danielson's debut against Kenny Omega on free TV.

“Let’s move on to the ‘They should have saved it for PPV.’ That was the narrative. Where did that start? It certainly didn’t start within Turner Broadcasting. It certainly didn’t start within WCW. It started in the wrestling internet community, driven primarily by people like Dave Meltzer, who just had to pick apart, and do anything he could to criticize me or WCW. That’s where all of that started, and it built over the years. Everybody went, ‘Yeah, they should have done that (in reference to putting on the Hulk Hogan vs Goldberg match on free TV in 1998 as opposed to PPV). People don’t really understand the business even though they think they do sometimes. It’s been a thing.

It’s one of those things I get hit with pretty regularly on social media. ‘Yea, but you gave away Goldberg and Hogan on TV. You’re the reason why WCW died. That was a perfect example of why it died’, all because of the internet wrestling community. First of all, before I fast forward, it worked. Yes, we were a television company. Turner Broadcasting’s primary goal was television. Yes, they wanted to make money in the process. Obviously, they did, but, when given a choice, PPV or TV, 99 times out of 100, it’s going to be put on TV. That’s the driver. That’s why WCW existed from the very beginning was because Ted Turner believed that wrestling would bring eyeballs to the network.

Read his autobiography. Anything that you read about Ted, if you do any amount of research, that’s one of the reasons why Ted believed in wrestling, not because he liked wrestling per say, although he did, but because he understood that it would attract eyeballs. Early on in Turner Broadcasting’s history, that was his first and foremost goal, and that continued. Now here we are in 2021, you’ve got a new company in AEW. You’ve got Turner, and obviously, this is not the same Turner. This is Warner Media. None of the executives I dear say probably know the high level executives that are in Turner today, or even probably out of high school at the time we were there, or college at least. You have a whole different set of management. You have a different set of circumstances. Everything is different except for one thing. It’s still a television company. Television rights are the largest line item in WWE’s quarterly SEC statements. That’s where the majority of their money is coming from is television rights. In AEW’s case, that’s definitely the case. Nothing’s changed folks. The only thing that’s changed is how people write about it because of their relationships and their proximity. Nothing has changed. It’s the same, and I think it’s a great move by the way. Congrats Tony Khan for having the ba**s to do it.”

According to Bischoff, Bob Ryder was a huge supporter of The Young Bucks in TNA.

“I knew that the reason The Young Bucks, or Generation Me (as they were known then), were in TNA at all was because of Bob Ryder. Bob Ryder was a massive supporter of The Young Bucks to the extent that he started pissing people off. Bob Ryder, you would have to look long and hard for people that would say anything negative about Bob Ryder and the way he treated other people. He was very quiet, supportive, he did his work, and he worked hard. He’d have ideas like everybody else, but if you didn’t buy into his idea or take his suggestion, he wouldn’t get all a** rash over it. He would just move on and go about his business, except when it came to Generation Me. He was aggressive about pushing them. I had worked with Bob at WCW a little bit. I got to know Bob before TNA. I saw this aspect of Bob’s personality that made me go, ‘Wow. You have a little fire in you buddy.’ He was really high on them.”