Eric Bischoff believes there were two major risks that AEW took with presenting the very bloody no rules match between Chris Jericho and Nick Gage on 7/28 Dynamite.
As the former President of WCW, Eric Bischoff knows plenty about showcasing wrestling on primetime network television and in turn its relationship with advertisers. This topic was heavily discussed on the latest 83 Weeks via AdFreeShows.com as Conrad Thompson brought up the match to Bischoff to get his perspective, and asked if there was a real controversy or if it was blown out of proportion.
“I think it’s much ado about something that’s really important,” Eric said, prefacing his remarks with a disclosure statement he typically gives on the show in order to not have his words taken out of context.
“You and I did talk about it and I did say that these bloody hardcore matches, you have two risks that are out there that are real risks. The first risk is that you turn off your audience and I think I made a reference to the fact that for every one person that may really enjoy this hardcore bloody, gory kind of a match, you run the risk of alienating two or three others that don’t, so who are you serving? What portion of your audience are you serving? And I’m not suggesting—and this is where I want to make it clear—I’m also the guy who has been saying as long as you and I have been doing these podcasts, just because I don’t like hardcore matches and generally, I do not like hardcore matches—unless, motherf-ckers, pay attention—unless it’s a logical part of the storyline and then I’m all in,” Bischoff said. “But random hardcore matches for the sake of random hardcore matches, particularly when they get as gory as the AEW episode I saw where Moxley and [Lance Archer] were digging at each other with a fork?
“Okay, if you’re gonna go that far in your presentation of a hardcore match to satisfy whatever percentage of your audience that really digs that stuff, you’re taking two big calculated risks. Could turn off your audience, and I will say, according to the feedback that I got on my social media, a lot of people agreed with me by the way, that it was a turn-off for them, some people liked it, that goes to my point. You got to service your audience. Wrestling has to be a buffet,” he said. “There has to be enough of everything for everybody to keep an entire audience happy so I get hardcore matches and why they’re important when you’re laying out creative for wrestling because there is a portion of an audience that digs it, but you can go too far with it.”
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Eric Bischoff then went on to explain the second risk, which is upsetting your advertisers and sponsors and how it could work for or against a company.
“Take it from the guy that wrote the book, Controversy Creates Cash, there is some controversy that really works in your benefit and particularly in the state of affairs that we find ourselves culturally today. There’s a lot of controversy that can kick your ass and not be a benefit. So you have this incident that we’re talking about, Domino’s comes out, makes a statement and then of course die-hard wrestling fans, in particular, true blue hardcore AEW fans, are like, ‘Oh, it doesn’t really matter! Another advertiser will come in and take their place!’ Okay, maybe, probably, but here’s what also happens,” Eric said, before noting many people that make these types of comments have never been in the television or advertising business.
“Domino’s has an advertising agency. Do you think that Domino’s is the only client that that advertising agency has?” he proposed to listeners. “Do people not recognize that in the world of the advertising industry and the media buying industry there are trades, there are newsletters, there are conversations, there is narrative so that when a company like Domino’s and more importantly, their ad agency, this is the part that people don’t understand in terms of recognizing the risk. Once an advertising agency says, ‘Oh, no, I’m not putting that in front of my client, no way am I even going to offer this up as an opportunity,’ not to AEW,’ Eric clarified, but by AT&T, the owner of Turner.
“There are three levels above any executive in Turner that is going to have a much different perspective on this issue than a wrestling fan would because it can affect the bigger picture,” he added.
“Do you think that they’re concerned that there’s something on their network in primetime on really, their most valuable network that are causing advertisers, in this case, an advertiser, to threaten to pull the plug? Damn right there is. Do you think there are not executives at Turner and at Warner Media who are in charge of ad sales who are not concerned about the reverberation of the Domino’s incident and how it could affect other potential advertisers to the network, not to AEW? And then everybody got excited because Pabst Blue Ribbon decided, ‘Hey, I’ll jump in!’ (Eric replies with a ‘fan’s’ response) ‘Well they’re smart man, they’re taking advantage of the feeling of the wrestling fan and the psychology of the wrestling fan, they’re jumping right in!’ Good for them. Guess what? They don’t have a pot to piss in terms of national advertising. Why is that? Cause Pabst Blue Ribbon isn’t even a brewery, it’s a brand.”
Eric Bischoff explained how PBR lacks the budget of a Domino’s or GM, then said there’s so many more layers to the story, and you can’t just tell AEW to go get a new advertiser because the network is doing that, not the wrestling company.
“There’s layers and levels to something like this that are not obvious to someone if you haven’t been in this industry. Now in the end, here’s what I think is going to happen: I think everybody’s going to recognize that it was probably a bad choice creative to go as far as it went. Not a bad choice to have a hardcore match, but to have as go as far as it went,” Eric said who also believes that the Domino’s moment was just an unfortunate circumstance. “I do believe it was just a really bad coincidence, I don’t know this I just feel like this, I don’t think anybody in their right mind would go, ‘Hey! There’s gonna be a Domino’s commercial in here so let’s really take it to the next [level],’ I don’t think that happened. I think it was a bad coincidence.”
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Conrad gave his input, that this probably would have been okay if this kind of match occurred on PPV rather than on network television. Eric agreed.
“Save that kind of thing for your PPV,” he said. “It makes your PPV buzzworthy. It makes your PPV different than what you provide weekly for free on television.”
If Eric Bischoff had to guess, he said this controversy will all blow over and AEW will rectify any tension, before he wished Tony Khan and the promotion well.
“I think AEW’s gonna go, ‘Okay, lesson learned. Sorry Mr. Warner Media, that won’t happen again and here’s how we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again and everybody will move on,’ and in a month from now, two months from now, nobody will be thinking about this. I think if it happens again, and again, then I think there’s a much, much bigger risk of it having an adverse impact on AEW’s business in the long-term.”
You can check out the full episode of 83 Weeks below, which includes a complete interview with Kevin Nash.
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
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