Eric Bischoff: AEW & IMPACT Partnership Hasn’t Changed A Thing
“I’m sorry, does anybody give a f***?”
Although WrestleMania has understandably dominated the wrestling landscape for the past week, it was still business as usual for non-WWE personal, even Hall of famers like Eric Bischoff.
After his induction into the HOF, Bischoff was a guest on the Everything Is with Kory and Ant podcast where talk soon turned to a potential working relationship between AEW and WWE, especially in the wake of Chris Jericho’s appearance on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Session podcast.
Having worked with both companies in some capacity, Bischoff has a good insight into how both promotions work, but says a working relationship between AEW and WWE is unlikely:
“No, I don’t see it,” Bischoff said. “Oh, and not for the reason that people think. Look, when I was in WWE the last time — as an executive for four months — that was right when WWE had just signed a deal with FOX three months before I got there. And so, WWE had a show on FOX and a show on USA Network. Well, these are two different companies. They’re not gonna do anything to try to help each other. They’re not, you know. It was big issue when I was there. FOX wanted their talent to be exclusive to their network. USA wanted their talent to be exclusive to that network.
“And they didn’t want a lot of talent crossing over, that’s the way networks are. If a network is going to use their platform to build a star, they don’t want to invest — because they’re investing too. They’re paying money every week for that show to be on their network. They own that real estate, so to speak, and as that talent emerges on their real estate, they don’t want that talent going over and helping another network that they’re not related to.”
Bischoff continued, asserting that any potential relationship would not benefit WWE:
“That’s like you putting the biggest star, Roman Reigns, on AEW,” Bischoff stated. “That would work out better for them than you putting somebody like Kenny Omega in a WWE. That won’t move the number for them … It’s not beneficial.”
AEW has enjoyed a working relationship with IMPACT Wrestling since late 2020, a partnership that sees AEW World Champion Kenny Omega and IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann in a title-for-title bout at IMPACT’s upcoming Rebellion pay-per-view. But again, Bischoff doesn’t see the value in the partnership:
“I’m sorry, does anybody give a f***?” Bischoff said. “I don’t. And guess what? Just because I don’t, doesn’t mean it doesn’t makes sense, but if you look at the ratings for Impact and you look at the ratings for AEW, I stand by what I said. Nobody gives a f***. It hasn’t changed anything.”