Eric Bischoff On Steven Borden’s Injury, Says He Shouldn’t Be Wrestling on TV Yet

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed Steven Borden and his injury scare at AEW All Out. Borden, the son of Sting, landed hard on his head during a double coast-to-coast spot in his tag match with Darby Allin against Kevin Knight and Kyle Fletcher. The referee stopped the match, and Borden was taken out on a stretcher and to the hospital, where Tony Khan later said his CT scans came back good. Bischoff said Borden is too green to be in that position and that Tony Khan bears responsibility. You can check out his comments below:

On Who Let Borden Do the Spot:

“I think you can go back to whatever podcast we did following Steven’s debut. He’s green. Who let him do that spot? Of all of these so-called veterans and guys who should know better that are collecting a paycheck, why didn’t somebody say, ‘This is not really the right thing for this kid to be doing at this stage of his career’? He actually shouldn’t even be wrestling on TV yet. He’s a deer in the headlights, and I don’t say that as a knock. I’ve been a deer in the headlights. My son Garrett was a deer in the headlights. You have to learn. You have to gain experience. You have to develop the confidence, not just memorize what you should do in the ring and the physical part of it. You need the reps and the confidence so that when you do put yourself into a position where your safety is at risk or your opponent’s safety is at risk, you’re 100% confident because you’ve done it thousands of times. This kid shouldn’t even be in a main event on television. Who’s putting him in this position? I said it a month or six weeks ago. You’re setting the kid up for failure.”

On Addressing Why It Happened:

“I’m really disappointed, particularly because of the head injury. You only have so many opportunities in life, and you have to protect the opportunity. Steven has such a great opportunity ahead of him. But to go up and do these bulls**t moves because somebody else did it and you think it looks cool, and the people around you think it looks cool, and you’re just going to be able to go out there and do it in a match? He’s still nervous. I don’t even know the kid, but I guarantee you before his match, he’s still scared as s**t. Because he hasn’t been doing it long enough. This isn’t football. It’s a whole different thing.

“Whoever let him, whoever approved that, whoever the manager was for that — and for Tony Khan to know that was going to happen and not say, ‘Wait a minute, let’s not expose him too much too soon, let’s not put him at risk, because this is a risky move.’ He should have known that. The people around him should have known that. I just don’t understand how it happens. We can’t just say, ‘Oh, it’s horrible, it’s bad, we hope he gets better, we hope this never happens again.’ Why did it happen in the first place? Because if you don’t address why it happened in the first place, I guarantee you it’s going to happen again. The elephant in the room is this kid was allowed to go up and put himself and his opponent at risk doing something that anybody with four days in the business would know he’s not ready to do. But they did it anyway because they like the hot spot. They like the pop spot. ‘This is awesome.’ Okay, how awesome is it? I have a lot of respect for Sting, and this situation actually pisses me off.”

On Tony Khan’s Responsibility:

“Number one, Tony should have known. Now, can he know every moment and every spot in every match? No. But this is Steven Borden. We’re putting him on a pedestal. We’re thrusting him into the limelight to take advantage of his connection to one of the biggest, most iconic figures in wrestling in the last 20 or 30 years. I understand that. But if I’m doing it, I guarantee you I would know what his finish was. And if there’s a high spot in the match, I guarantee you I would know what it is and whether or not I wanted him to do it. That would be one of my biggest responsibilities the day of the show

“Would the same be true for my opening match or a middle match where there’s nothing unusual going on? No. But in this match, with this particular talent, everybody knows he’s green and just learning, and now we’re going to put him in a spot like he’s Rey Mysterio? I’m sorry, that’s as much Tony’s fault as it is anybody else’s. That’s his responsibility. We talk about how hard he works and how he goes to all these different events. Take responsibility for what you’re trying to build, because this is one of your key assets, someone I know you have affection for, and his father is saying, ‘Protect my son.’ Protect him physically.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.