Eric Bischoff Talks Today's Wrestling PPV's Having No Personality
Eric Bischoff agreed with the opinion that today's wrestling pay-per-views have no distinct personality, recently, on his 83 Weeks podcast with Conrad Thompson.
Thompson said that fans today miss the individual personality that PPV's once possessed.
"The personality of a PPV is something that I think a lot of fans miss," said Thompson. "One of the most frequent questions on our podcast are fans tweeting about how they really miss the different sets from the PPV's. The set is a small piece, but an important piece of the personality of a PPV."
He went on to say that fans believe that everything is just the same now. "The big complaint is that everything with the WWE is same same," said Thompson.
Bischoff does not disagree with the opinion of the fans and explains how the changes in technology and adapting to new mediums has taken away from the distinct personalities that PPV's used to portray.
"In the late 90's for both WWE and WCW, PPV was a minimum of 25 percent of your revenue," said Bischoff. "In today's environment that number has changed dramatically. Part of it is because of streaming, technology, and other revenue opportunities. PPV is just not the significant part of the business that it once was."
The decline of PPV importance, according to Bischoff, also has to do with the lack of storytelling with today's product.
"The formula used to be pretty simple," said Bischoff. "Act One, Act Two and the first half of Act Three played out on television. The last half of Act Three, and the ending of the movie if you will, that was your PPV. Now that there is less significance on PPV's to the bottom line, there's less emphasis on story.
"If you don't find a way to give each PPV a personality or make it a character on it's own, you're not doing it right," said Bischoff. "Royal Rumble is a character. It comes around once a year and you know whats up. Wrestlemania is the character of all characters in the WWE PPV schedule."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.