Eric Bischoff On Why Tony Khan Should Consider Releasing AEW Star Rey Fenix

Few in wrestling understand the challenges of AEW CEO Tony Khan more than Eric Bischoff. The former WCW executive was often accused of contract tampering to either lure talent from WWE or prevent them from going there to begin with. Now reports suggest that Khan is entangled in a similarly unpleasant contract situation with one-half of the Lucha Brothers, Rey Fenix. 

It's believed Khan has added several months' worth of time to Fenix's contract to account for time missed due to injury, which many see as a vindictive move to keep Fenix away from WWE. A fervent critic of Khan's in most cases, Bischoff saw both sides of it.

"For the most part, I would agree with Tony," Bischoff said on his "83 Weeks" podcast. "He's got a business to protect, and when you invest a lot of money in talent and the talent isn't able to perform because of an injury, to me, it makes sense that you would add that time."

Bischoff then took his more familiar stance of criticizing AEW, suggesting Khan should let Fenix go if he's not using him.

"It's one thing [to] collect talent like you're collecting action figures, and a lot of talent will, initially, be optimistic," Bischoff said. "They're making a lot of money [and] that's cool for a while. But when you get talent that's really driven to perform ... once that 'At least I'm getting a big check every two weeks' starts wearing off, now you got a lot of unhappy sons of bi***es."

Fenix first urged professionalism while things were worked out, but he recently expressed frustration. Fenix claimed AEW refused his past requests for medical council, which he called "inhumane." Meanwhile, his brother and tag team partner, Penta El Zero Miedo, is not restricted by the same contractual obligations and is a free agent.