Eric Bischoff Sees Tony Khan Repeating WCW's Mistakes In AEW
Eric Bischoff has been one of the voices most critical of AEW since its inception four years ago. But a lot of his sentiments about AEW come from not wanting Tony Khan to repeat mistakes of wrestling's past. In the wake of AEW's biggest event to date — All In at Wembley Stadium — Bischoff knocked some of Khan's decisions heading in and described the pay-per-view as "too indie-riffic."
Speaking on the latest edition of "83 Weeks," Bischoff also complained that the finishes to a lot of All In's matches felt like they had "WCW disease" and implored Khan to steer away from his current direction. "There weren't many good finishes ... a lot of solid action and in some cases great action," he said, "but with the exception of one or two matches, the finishes in just about everything I saw felt like a means to an end instead of a journey."
"People should have been able to learn from some of the mistakes I did make in WCW or I allowed to happen," Bischoff added. "Not only are you making the same mistakes that Eric Bischoff made and WCW made, but they're on steroids and they're actually worse."
Bischoff was vocal in his disappointment with the Stadium Stampede match — among plenty of others on the four-hour card — but had plenty of good things to say about the main event bout between MJF and Adam Cole for the AEW World Title. With another pay-per-view set for this Sunday in Chicago, Illinois — and one of the biggest stars in AEW slated to be unavailable — Khan finds himself in a tricky position and teeters dangerously close to falling into some of the bad habits to which Bischoff refers.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "83 Weeks" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.