Tony Khan On How He Would React If He Saw Eric Bischoff Today
Tony Khan has notoriously received heavy criticism from Eric Bischoff in the past few months. Including Bischoff recently stating that one of Tony's top signings, CM Punk, has been a financial flop for AEW. When pressed about this criticism it elicited an emphatic response from the AEW President during the Double or Nothing media scrums.
Of course, Bischoff has appeared on AEW programming a total of four times since the company's birth but has not appeared since his criticisms of the company began. Khan revealed on The Corner Podcast how he would react if he saw Bischoff in person.
"I haven't spoken a bad word to him because we haven't talked in a while, but I liked Eric when we talked and I've said this before, if I saw him right now, I think we'd probably shake hands and talk," Khan stated. "He just started saying some pretty negative stuff around the time CM Punk came in and I didn't think it was really fair and he's talked about investments and financial stuff, but he doesn't really understand our financials."
Since arriving at AEW after a seven-year wrestling hiatus, Punk sold more shirts on ProWrestlingTees than any wrestler in the first 72 hours of its release than any other has in the history of the site, beating out the Bone Soldier Bullet Club shirt which was on the site for seven years. Punk has also been a part of the three most profitable AEW Pay-Per-Views in history. He had his return match to pro wrestling after seven years away against Darby Allin at All Out 2021, which reached over 200,000 buys, a record that still stands for AEW.
Bischoff is well-known as the Senior Vice President of WCW, an organization that went head-to-head with WWE in the late 90s and very early 2000s and competed in a ratings war on Monday Nights against "Raw." While working with WCW, Bischoff became part of the well-known faction known as the NWO, a group that had members such as Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall.
WCW ultimately lost that war and was bought out by its opponent, WWE. WWE briefly did an invasion storyline where their wrestlers went up against some of WCW and ECW's, culminating in a match where WWE came out on top once again.
From 2003 until 2005, Bischoff remained a mainstay on WWE programming, acting as a General Manager for "Monday Night Raw." A few years later Bischoff also had a run in TNA as an executive producer.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Corner Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.