Eric Bischoff Explains Why Recent Adam Copeland AEW Promo Hurts Him As A Performer

Adam Copeland traded words with the popular Ricky Starks on Saturday's "AEW Collision," and former WCW President Eric Bischoff thinks the WWE Hall of Famer went for some low-hanging fruit when he called Starks a "Vanilla Midget" and compared him to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

"If Adam is being positioned as that veteran baby face — which he should be, because he is — that makes me feel a little bit differently about the promo," Bischoff said on "83 Weeks." "That to me is not the promo that a babyface, a legend, a veteran, someone who's clearly much older, that's not the promo that I would cut."

Bischoff points out that the audience rightly has Copeland on a pedestal, as his resume in WWE makes him an elder statesman of wrestling. According to Bischoff, the promo might have worked if Copeland wanted to be a shades-of-grey face/heel hybrid, but Bischoff thinks there's more value in Copeland as a legacy babyface.

"If you've inherited that perception, you've built that perception with the audience, and they recognize you as this legacy performer," he said. "I think it took away from Adam Copeland as that legacy babyface." 

Copeland signed with AEW on October 1, debuting at AEW WrestleDream, after wrestling his last match for WWE in August, which saw him defeat Sheamus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The former WWE Champion won his debut match on October 10, defeating Luchasaurus, an ally of his former friend Christian Cage.