Eric Bischoff Explains When & Why He Lost Respect For Tony Khan

On the latest episode of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff talked about his heat with AEW President Tony Khan, comparisons between WCW and AEW, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On why he lost respect for Tony Khan: “I think there’s a lot of great things about Tony. But I lost respect for him. And I’ve talked about this before, I don’t want to spend a great deal of time on it. It’s old stuff, right? But I’m a ridiculously loyal person, almost to my detriment sometimes. Oftentimes, to be honest. And I don’t mind if someone wants to take a shot at me. I’m kind of used to it. Like you know, a bit on the spot for, whatever in, terms of getting hate from those that don’t think I’m qualified for the job or should have the job or did a great enough job, or whatever, right? ‘Fingerpoint of doom.’ [laughs] I don’t mind that, because I actually have fun with it now vis a vis the podcast and doing things with you. It doesn’t bother me. But when someone who I have a ton of respect for, that deserves even more than I can give? When that person is disrespected by somebody, it bothers me more. And when Tony Khan came out and said, ‘If Ted Turner knew 1% about wrestling as I do, WCW would still be around.’ It was such a fundamentally ignorant statement — and by that I mean no knowledge, no experience. That’s the definition of ignorance, right? I’m not using it derisively.

“But at that very moment, I went, ‘You’re just another guy. Your show is on the Turner Broadcasting Network and Turner Network television, and you’re criticizing and disrespecting — not criticizing, disrespecting from a position of absolute ignorance, a guy who built the empire you’re trying to survive on. And it’s so disrespectful to me, that I can like somebody? But if I don’t have respect for them, there just another person. I don’t make any exceptions for people like that, in terms of reacting to them and having fun with them on social media, things like that. That’s fun for me, right? I get a kick out of it, some of the stuff just makes me laugh, it’s so funny. But when Tony came out and made that statement, it’s like, ‘No, he’s just another Dave Meltzer dirt sheet wannabe.’ With a lot of money granted, but that the fact that he was born into a fortune doesn’t necessarily make him any different than anybody else. And anybody else that was walking the street that came out and made a stupid comment like that, an ignorant comment like that about Ted Turner, I would treat them the same way. But it’s not because I don’t like him. It’s certainly not because I’m jealous. I think about this three or four times a week. What if I had been working for AEW? All this would have been because of me, you know what I mean? It just — and it comes with the territory. But I am so grateful that I’m not there, that I’m not anywhere near it. Actually, I’m sitting in this chair talking about it objectively because I can, because I don’t depend on them for an income. And thank goodness for that. But man, thank God I’m not there. And it’s really not anything other than just a lack of respect because of Tony’s stupid, ignorant comment that he said about Ted Turner. That changed my perspective from, ‘I like this guy. Don’t know him very well. Probably a total of 40 minutes face-to-face, don’t know him. But I generally liked him.’ And because I had respect for him, and I could put myself in his shoes when he was launching his company.”

On the perception that he hates AEW: “If you go back and you look at my tweets, you people that are out there thinking I’m an AEW hater. Go back and look at anything that I said on social media about AEW or Tony Khan, it was all supportive. All supportive, like ‘I should have been working for them’ kind of promotion supportive. But it was genuine for me. When they announced Arthur Ashe, you know, and did so well with ticket sales. [I said] you know, ‘Man, Tony’s got some balls. He’s doing it, he’s doing what TNA needed to do,’ which is another thing I’d like to touch on, maybe on this show. But you know, he was doing the things that TNA should have done but didn’t have either the finances to do, or the balls to do it. And there were so many things like that that I was so excited about, that I thought genuinely that there would be legitimate competition. Not right away, and when I say competition, I mean meaningful on any metric. Not just TV ratings, there’s a lot of other things that go into that. But a growth pattern, anything, show me something that’s growing and living and getting bigger and stronger, so the industry gets bigger and stronger. Boats float higher, as they say.

“And I started noticing things that indicated to me — as I always talked about, I see patterns. And eventually, I started connecting a couple of dots. And after a while, I quit being so supportive, and was more or less neutral, cheering on the sidelines. Up until Tony made that comment. So you can go back and look at my timeline. If you don’t believe me, go back and look at my timeline if you can. I don’t even know if people have access to my timeline. But if you do go back and fight any of the tweets that I put out. You know, not in 2018 because I actually watched their debut show from WWE Headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut in the writer’s room with about six or eight other WWE writers that were on my staff at the time. And all of us were cheering them on. Not like ‘Yay!’ But all of us were optimistic and hopeful. Because it’s energy, right? And energy is better for everybody. So from that point — and then when I left obviously, a couple of months later or shortly thereafter, I started tweeting again. And I was very supportive. But really, if you go back and you look at that tweet. And it goes — I don’t know what it was, I think it was in November of 2020, maybe? Two years old, I think, by now? That’s when I made the comment on social media, which essentially said, ‘Shut up and wrestle,’ which was my way of saying, ‘Tony, focus on your own stuff because it’s not going in the right direction. The patterns I’m seeing with creativity, the patterns I’m seeing strategically, the things that I’m seeing when I watch the show,’ and then learning anecdotally — you know, it’s not like hard news. But you just start seeing patterns. And that’s when I started losing a little steam as far as support. And like I said, when Tony made that comment about Ted Turner it’s like, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna treat you like everybody else, you’re not special. You’re just another guy. You just happen to be, you know, in a lucky sperm club. Good for you, rah, rah. That doesn’t make you any different than anybody else.'”

On when he sent shots at WWE while running WCW: “I want to hit on this point. Did I do those things? Hell yes. Bringing Lex Luger in when everybody in the country — including everybody at WWE Headquarters — thought he was under contract, and bringing him in to crash the party on Nitro was not just a shot at WWE; it was a kick in the balls and a curb stomp when I was done. I went after them immediately, but — and it got better from there. But I was going head-to-head, I was actually in a fight. I was in the ring, and the referee was a guy named Nielsen. That was a real competition. And I’ve made this abundantly clear for so long now, two years on every format or every platform that I’m on. I think if Tony had come out swinging and jumped in the ring and taken those shots, I’d be cheering him on. But to do it from the sidelines when you’re not really competing makes you look ignorant in the literal sense of the word. No experience, no knowledge. There’s a difference, and it drives me crazy that people can’t understand.”

On the rivalry between WCW & WWE vs. the rivalry between AEW & WWE: “[Fans say] ‘Well, you did it?’ Well yeah, but the circumstances were night and day, night and day. So as long as people can keep that in their mind and you want to take shots that me, fine! Go ahead and do it, I don’t care. It makes me laugh, it’s entertainment. But if you really want to put things in clear perspective, understand the patterns, and start connecting your own dots, just think about it. There’s a big difference.”

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