Eric Bischoff Ponders What Effect Cody Rhodes's Exit Will Have On AEW

On his own Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff podcast, the former WCW senior vice president spoke about Cody Rhodes' return to WWE, and the possible impact it will have on AEW.

"I don’t know how many other talents currently in AEW, how many of them are actually looking to the end of their contract and saying ‘huh, I’m going to see if this works out well for me just like it did for Cody.’ [...] I’m a fan of MJF, I heard his contract's up sometime in 2024, that’s a bit down the road. I don’t know if there’s anybody else coming up before that, but it’s an opportunity."

Bischoff also spoke about morale within AEW, and the possible change recent events will have had - as well as the notion that AEW's sense of "newness" has worn off.

"The one thing I think that’s interesting is: I’d like to know what the morale is really like, not when Tony’s around, not when everybody else is around, but when these guys are by themselves now that the newness has worn off of AEW. It’s three years old and has a track record now, they’ve hit some really great highs for a new company, some amazing things they’ve done early on.

"But here’s what happens, and here’s what I’ve seen happen around me. You know what happens when you start making more money than when you left your previous employer? [...] You begin to take that for granted and it’s no longer new anymore, and you’re no longer feeling it the way you used to. [...] You’ve got a lot of talent that’s come into AEW over the last couple of years, some of them making significantly more than they had ever made in the wrestling business on a guaranteed basis. That’s cool and you appreciate that but once the newness wears off and you get used to that, what do you want? You want a showcase, you want to perform. That’s why you became a professional wrestler in the first place. Athletes don’t want to sit on the bench and collect; they want to play.

“Now you’ve got a very crowded roster with some very talented people which is a credit to Tony Khan and AEW, but you can only showcase so many of them. Now that they’re used to the money, they’re going to be looking for another opportunity just like Cody Rhodes was looking for when he left WWE the first time. You’re going to see a shift in morale [...] I have to imagine there’s any number of talents there that are questioning what there future is going to look like in the next 12-18-24 months."

Bischoff has appeared on both AEW and WWE TV in recent years. In the podcast episode, he also revealed that he spoke to Cody recently and told him that his father, Dusty Rhodes, would be proud.

H/T to WrestlingInc.