On a recent edition of his “Strictly Business” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff explained why he would never let his talent work independent shows unlike AEW and other promotions.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On whether promotions should allow their talent to work independent dates: “I wouldn’t do it. Where’s the benefit other than to the talent and to the indie promoter? Where’s the benefit? Where’s the risk? I guess you could probably, if you dig deep enough and hard enough and you wanted to justify your position badly, you could come up with a benefit. Maybe because you’re supporting the indie scene and building some loyalty and following within the independent audience, and that’s not a bad argument. It’s just that the value of that argument is minimal, in my opinion. What’s the risk? Well, the risk is somebody gets hurt on the indie scene and takes them off your roster. I think that’s probably happened in the past. I just don’t see a scenario where the benefits outweigh the risks. As an average golfer, would you get any benefit from taking lessons from somebody who’s less proficient in golf than you? Here’s your answer. What are you going to learn on the indie scene? How are you going to improve on the indie scene? All you’re going to do is learn a bad golf swing, and it becomes twice as difficult to unlearn a bad golf swing and unlearn bad habits than it takes to learn good ones or to learn good golf swings.”
On WCW video games: “No, I never played them. I kind of was outside of the demo as they were emerging. It was never my thing to sit down and play video games. I’ve never been a video game guy, even. I think I played pong when it first came out because it was new, and you could play it on your TV. And I might have dabbled in that for a minute, but after that minute or two, I kind of lost interest in it. I’ve just never been interested in video games in terms of strategy. I don’t know that there was a real strategy other than, let’s try to get a deal and let’s try to get the best deal we can, and the best deal we could get at the time I think it was either an eight or $10 million guarantee upfront from EA sports for a WCW video game license. So it’s not that we weren’t successful in it, but it was never something that I was familiar enough or passionate about enough to interject myself into. It was an important part of our business, don’t get me wrong, but other people were much more knowledgeable and much more interested in that space than I was. I was interested in the business of the business and the business of video games, but I wasn’t interested in the product itself.”
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In a recent episode of his podcast “Strictly Business,” WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff shared his thoughts on why he would never allow his talent to work independent shows, unlike other promotions such as AEW. Bischoff believes that there are minimal benefits and significant risks associated with allowing talent to work independent dates.
According to Bischoff, the only beneficiaries of talent working independent shows are the talent themselves and the indie promoters. He questions the overall benefit for the promotion and suggests that the argument of supporting the indie scene and building loyalty within the independent audience is not strong enough. The potential risk, on the other hand, is that a talent could get injured while working on the indie scene, which could take them off the promotion’s roster. While Bischoff acknowledges that this has happened in the past, he doesn’t see a scenario where the benefits outweigh the risks.
To illustrate his point, Bischoff uses a golf analogy. He asks if an average golfer would benefit from taking lessons from someone who is less proficient in golf than them. The answer, according to Bischoff, is no. Similarly, he believes that talent working on the indie scene won’t learn anything valuable or improve their skills. Instead, they might pick up bad habits or techniques that are difficult to unlearn. In Bischoff’s opinion, it is more beneficial for talent to focus on learning from experienced professionals within their own promotion.
During the podcast, Bischoff also briefly discussed WCW video games. He admitted that he never played them and was not interested in video games in general. While he recognized the importance of video games in the wrestling business, he left it to others who were more knowledgeable and passionate about that space to handle it.
Overall, Bischoff’s stance on not allowing talent to work independent shows is based on his belief that the risks outweigh the benefits. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on learning from experienced professionals within the promotion rather than potentially picking up bad habits from the indie scene.