Eric Bischoff On Possible Issues AEW Could Face By Signing Former WWE Stars

So far in 2021, All Elite Wrestling have added a number of former WWE Superstars to the roster. The likes of Christian Cage, Malakai Black and Andrade El Idolo have all joined the company since the start of the year and CM Punk and Bryan Danielson are reportedly set to debut on AEW TV before the end of September. 

Eric Bischoff knows about signing multiple former WWE wrestlers in a short space of time from his stint as president of World Championship Wrestling, and Eazy E has given his thoughts on issues AEW could face from so many ex-Superstars joining the roster.

"This is not a criticism, this is an observation. In the last couple of months, you've got Mark Henry, Christian Cage, Andrade, Big Show. You've got all this incredibly valuable talent each in their own way, Sting. Are they as valuable, the influx of all that top talent, is Sting as valuable as a commodity as he would've been had there been more focus on Sting? In case [Daniel] Bryan and CM Punk both go to AEW as we're reading about, that's an amazingly cool great thing. To have them both come in at the same time, I think they each dilute each other," Bischoff said on the 83 Weeks Podcast.

"Here's the risk, what's going to happen to a lot of that younger, homegrown talent that AEW started out with that people were so excited about? What was the excitement when AEW became a thing? We're going to be an alternative to WWE. I still hear that by the way, that's a great goal, be different than. I like it, but then when you start bringing in so many valuable top talents [from WWE], what happens to your core?

"There's only so much television time folks, there's only so many minutes in an hour. Even if [CM Punk and Bryan Danielson] don't [end up in AEW], there's still a lot of ex-WWE talent that are very valuable that are going to be taking up TV time from other younger less experienced talent and that's where the rift starts. When you bring in all of that top talent that has had so much television time on the biggest platform in the world, they've obviously got a big fan base," Bischoff continued.

"All of a sudden that young aspirational group of talent that's coming up that people were so excited about, they're not going to get the focus because there's only so much television time. This is not going to happen tomorrow or next week or next month but a lot of that talent that people were so excited about that differentiated AEW from WWE and delivered on the promise of being an alternative all of a sudden doesn't feel like an alternative anymore."

H/T to Inside The Ropes