Eric Bischoff Critiques AEW’s Presentation & Commentary
On the latest episode of his “Strictly Business” podcast, Eric Bischoff shared his thoughts on AEW’s presentation, highlighting the need for improvements in production to make the shows look more vibrant and feel like major events. He also discussed the lack of storytelling in the commentary, expressing his dissatisfaction with both WWE and AEW in that regard.
Regarding AEW’s presentation, Bischoff commented,
“I think it has to be — in terms of presentation, there’s not much you can do that’s different than, there’s a lot that I think AEW can do production-wise that could be better than they’re currently doing. And sometimes the shows look great, don’t get me wrong. I know Mike Mansur, and I know what Mike Mansour’s capable of, and sometimes the shows look pretty damn good. But there are other times, even recently when I’ve dropped in over the last month or two, when I went, ‘Ugh, it’s kinda kind of ugly in a way.’ You know, it just doesn’t have that — it’s just not bright. It doesn’t have that pop; it doesn’t feel like a major event.”
“Now, some of that can be because sometimes some venues are better to light and sound than others. Sometimes you just don’t have a big enough audience, so you’ve gotta kind of cut the house lights down. I was looking at it the other day, and it looks like a lot of AEW’s Dynamite shows have in a range of — there are exceptions — five, six, 7,000-seat arenas they’re configured for. That’s big. That’s a great audience, and you can make it look good. But it’s not like 15,000 people where you’re big, sweeping, wide shots. Put a wide angle, a little bit of a wide angle lens on that. Make it look like you’re in the Super Bowl. There’s a lot of things you could do. When you’ve got a lot of people in scale, you can make it look so much better. And sometimes, you know, some of these venues are smaller venues. You don’t have that opportunity. I don’t think that production really needs to be upgraded too much. A little bit, because as I’ve said from the very beginning, one of the things I like about a AEW’s production is it feels a little gritty. I can almost smell the stale beer under my seat, you know, or last week’s popcorn. It’s still back in the storage room somewhere. I kinda like that. I like the little bit of gritty feel. I wouldn’t mess with it too much, but the look of talent, there’s such a sameness to the presentation of the characters and to the characters themselves. That — and again, exceptions — make it a little more colorful. It’s a little bland.”
On the topic of commentary, he mentioned,
“The adult theme. What I’ve seen when I watched at AEW is something that they could build upon. Not by going more extreme and pushing the boundaries even further, but by using that flexibility, that creative freedom and those extra paints on the palette that you can use, that your competition can’t [to] enhance your storytelling somehow. I think doing things outside of the ring, the storytelling outside of the ring is so critically important. The storytelling. Here’s a way that you could, it would be kind of a throwback in a way, but having play-by-play and color announcers that are actually storytellers and helping to thread a cohesive story that’s consistent with the overall arc of an angle or storyline between two or more wrestlers would go a long way to improve that presentation. And AEW and WWE [are] not doing that.
“I don’t like WWE’s play-by-play in color. I never have — well, I did a long time ago when Ross was there, but I don’t enjoy it now. I think they’re leaving a lot on the table now. And so is AEW. Tony Schavione’s a good friend. I like him, love him dearly. He’s a great talent. Far better announcer than I ever was, but I’m not hearing the Tony Schavione that I know we’re capable of hearing. There’s just no great storytelling going on in the ring. I know the story of the match, but that’s not a story arc. That’s one thing that I think they could really do differently and improve upon and be different than WWE in the process.”
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