Eric Bischoff On AEW Signing A Lot Of New Talent: "It's Not Working"

On the latest episode of the 83 Weeks Podcast, Eric Bischoff spoke about Johnny Gargano leaving NXT and the speculation that he's going to sign with AEW. Bischoff discussed AEW compiling all this talent on their roster and why he doesn't think it's a great idea due to the viewership not going up.

"For his sake, I hope that happens. You want people in this industry to stay employed and prosper and to be successful at whatever levels they are able to achieve," Bischoff mentioned. "But what are you going to do with all that talent? 'Let's build the biggest roster in the history of wrestling?' Is that the goal? Is that the end game? To be able to brag about how deep your talent roster is? If it is, I guess AEW is on its way to achieving that goal, but what do you do with that talent?

"You look at the shows and let's be honest about it — I'm not being critical, I like AEW and I want AEW to prosper. But let's be honest about where AEW is, they drew 872,000 viewers this past Wednesday night. That's what they were doing a year ago. I've done shows with AEW that have done more than they did last Wednesday, and the talent roster is stacked with great talent, phenomenal talent but where's the audience for it? It's not working. 872,000 viewers on their A show? That's not exciting. The numbers are the numbers, and this is a number AEW was doing a year ago, two years ago. It's weird, and now you're going to stack even more talent on top of it? What are you going to do with them?"

Eric Bischoff continued to talk about Johnny Gargano and revealed that he isn't too familiar with the NXT legend. Bischoff also stated that NXT is comparable to a Triple-A baseball team and that watching something like that doesn't intrigue him at all.

"If I did, I don't remember them," Bischoff said. "Not a reflection on Johnny. I doubt I did because I probably watched maybe 15 minutes of NXT. It's just not my thing, there's nothing about it that I find interesting or compelling. It's a farm team, it's Triple-A baseball and I'm not a big enough fan to enjoy watching the professional wrestling version of Triple-A baseball consistently. If I hear about something going on, if there's somebody I'm interested in, absolutely, I'll drop in."

Along with Johnny Gargano, NXT is also expected to be losing former Undisputed Era member Kyle O'Reilly. AEW superstar Adam Cole spoke about what it would mean for him to have O'Reilly join AEW and see his old rival Gargano become All Elite.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.