All Elite Wrestling president Tony Khan recently said that he planned on running the company differently to the way in which Eric Bischoff ran World Championship Wrestling back in the day. However, Bischoff appears to have an issue with the AEW executive’s comments, and he didn’t hold back when addressing the situation.
During the latest episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, as quoted by WrestlingNews.co , Bischoff suggested that AEW is copying WCW in certain aspects, and so are WWE and other wrestling promotions.
“‘We are going to do everything different than Eric Bischoff did,’” Bischoff said, referencing Khan’s comments about AEW doing things differently than WCW. “Well guess what mf’er, you’re doing about as much of what I did as anybody else in the industry. So, you know, it’s, I’m not defensive about that. I think it’s just a fact if you look at things objectively, the things that we did on Nitro, you’re still seeing today.”
According to Bischoff, WCW changed the wrestling landscape and took the shows to the next level. He also said that some of the company’s ideas are informing Monday Night Raw to this day, in regards to how the shows are formatted. Bischoff also believes that wrestling wouldn’t be where it is today without WCW, so he clearly disagrees with Khan’s alleged criticism.
Of course, Bischoff’s running of WCW has been criticized by some notable wrestling experts. As The Inquisitr reported earlier, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T — who worked for WCW during the Bischoff era — said that he should have focused on executive duties as opposed to turning himself into a prominent onscreen figure, as that marked the beginning of the end for the company.
When @Sting took out imposter @Sting , Eric Bischoff went scurrying for cover!! pic.twitter.com/XySsP4BCNf
— WWE (@WWE) May 13, 2019
While Bischoff had some issues with Khan’s comments, he clarified that he’s a fan of what he’s been doing with AEW. He assured listeners that he has nothing against Khan on a personal level, and that he wants the company to be successful. He just wasn’t happy with those comments as he felt Khan was being too dismissive of WCW and its impact on the world of professional wrestling.
AEW has drawn some comparisons to WCW as the weekly show, Dynamite, airs on TNT, which was the home of Monday Night Nitro back in the day. One of the recent episodes was also called Bash At the Beach , which was the name of a longstanding WCW pay-per-view before the company was acquired by WWE in 2001.