Eric Bischoff knows at the core of professional wrestling, it’s all about business and the star of 83 Weeks with Conrad Thompson stated that the tough decision had to be made by WWE in going forward with WrestleMania 36.
Bischoff has a new exclusive video series called “Locked & Loaded,” on AdFreeShows.com, the new Patreon exclusive platform featuring content with all of Conrad’s podcast stars and on the first episode, Eric discussed with fans as to how unfortunate it was for the stars of WWE to not have the benefit of that “WrestleMania moment” inside of a packed Raymond James Stadium down in Tampa Bay.
“There’s no way to look at that situation that WWE and AEW were faced with in terms of producing shows in front of no audience,” Bischoff states, saying the company had about three options. “1) is to do the best with what you got and try to make it work, (2) is to regurgitate (or recycle I should say) old material to keep the product in front of the audience and (3) is to pull the plug in quick. Your really only three options and i think there probably is no right answer. It all depends on what your individual situation is if you’re WWE, if you’re AEW or whatever.”
Despite having such a difficult decision, Bischoff applauded WWE for moving forward, but does feel bad for the talent.
“The talent, I don’t want to say was robbed, but for lack of a better description, yeah they were robbed of that moment, that emotional connection to the audience. The opportunity to walk out in front of 70, 80 thousand people whatever it was, those are special moments that you know for some of them may not ever happen again. They may never get that opportunity again,” but Bischoff does feel that business, not individual emotion, comes first.
“The business is more important than that. The business of the wrestling business has to take priority over the personal feelings getting through losses of the individual, it just does in order to sustain itself. So I applaud WWE for moving forward in trying and quite honestly, in my opinion, successfully integrating some innovations to the industry that here before have not really been seen to the level that they were” Bischoff said, referring to The Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse matches.
“Those two elements alone to me made WrestleMania worth it,” he said, “but yeah, there was a lot of talent that didn’t get that moment. Would it have affected my decision had I been in Vince’s shoes? No. Would I be aware of it? Of course, just like I am right now. Would I feel bad about it? Of course, just like I do right now. Would it have changed my decision had I decided to move forward with what we were doing? Absolutely not.”
Also at the beginning of the episode, Eric talks about the tough ratings drought that both WWE and AEW are suffering from and gives his perspective as to how WWE could have utilized their wealthy inventory of WrestleMania footage to still create new and engaging weekly content for its viewers.
“I thought perhaps it [classic WrestleMania footage] would have been better suited for RAW and SmackDown in a way. Kind of mixing it with some interviews and some current storyline advancement opportunities with certain talents but really, utilizing that WrestleMania footage on the networks as opposed to producing shows in front of no audience.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo)
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