Eric Bischoff wants to take ROH behind the barn.
The latest episode of AdFreeShows.com‘s 83 Weeks podcast featured an “Ask Eric Anything” theme. Eric Bischoff was asked how he would bring more interest to the Ring Of Honor brand.
Bischoff had some bad news, however, and believes that Tony Khan can’t save ROH. In fact, Bischoff believes the best move is for Tony Khan to shut down ROH and start putting those resources into All Elite Wrestling programming.
“It was a bad decision to buy it in the first place and there’s nothing anybody’s going to do to make it interesting or important outside of the hardest of hardcore internet wrestling community fans. That’s it. There is no solution,” Bischoff explained (via WrestlingNews.co). “If it was a horse, I’d put it out of its misery and move on. I would take the resources that are going into Ring of Honor, which is never going to be viable, ever.”
Bischoff continued, noting how having AEW talent on ROH programming only dilutes their respective characters. He doesn’t believe the dual appearances elevate talent at all, and questions why Tony Khan bought the brand in the first place.
“It’s really unbelievable to me. I don’t know what the drive is. Is it ego? Is Tony just like, I did this and I’m gonna prove I can make it work? It’s certainly not because it’s a great revenue opportunity. it dilutes the core product. It’s being shoved down the audience’s throat and they’re gagging on it,” Bischoff stated. “They’re gagging on it. AEW did what, 850,000 viewers with Christian and Edge last week after they did their best to build it up and that’s all you can bring in? You gotta ask yourself why? It’s a really powerful word, why? Why aren’t fans spending more time with the AEW product? Why is Dynamite unable to break a million viewers more than once or twice or three times a year? What is it about this brand?
I hope it works…
Bischoff said Ring Of Honor is just a distraction for All Elite Wrestling and it dilutes the core business of the company.
“It’s almost embarrassing to me that it’s happening. I don’t understand it at all, I hope it works. I hope a year from now you can go, ‘Remember when you said…’ I’d have to admit that I was wrong, but so far when it comes to AEW, I’ve been right far more often than I’ve been wrong and I said for two years, just focus on the core product,” he added. “Focus on Dynamite, not all of these other shows. You don’t have the creative infrastructure or a formula or a vision that’s working. If you don’t have a formula or vision that’s working and you don’t see any kind of upward growth in your product, why would you expand it?”
“I don’t want to hear about the money because I hear Dave Meltzer talking about the gross. Gross doesn’t meet sh*t. You know that, Conrad. I don’t care what the company’s gross revenues are. That’s such horsesh*t. Net revenues, yeah.”
