Tony Khan comments on Eric Bischoff's criticisms

[Chris]

In the continuing online feud between AEW head Tony Khan and former WCW and Impact head Eric Bischoff, Khan said his one-time friend has been "incendiary, contradictory and hypocritical" in his critiques of how Khan puts together certain Dynamite matches.

Making his weekly appearance on Busted Open Radio Wednesday to promote tonight's show, Khan took a turn near the end of the show to address a fascination about a perception "that every match on every show should have a long storyline built to what it's taking place. It just doesn't need to be the case for every single match."

Without mentioning them by name, he alluded to that being the case because of how WWE has put together their TV product over the last 20 years. He said there are stories, and have been, for the majority of the matches on his own TV product.

He then took aim at Bischoff who has appeared on AEW TV in the past and Khan once called a friend. Earlier this fall, Bischoff took specific issue with Khan's comments about how WCW would still be in business if Ted Turner knew half as much about booking as he did which apparently fractured their relationship.

"Frankly, the person that has been the most incendiary, contradictory and hypocritical on this entire point is Eric Bischoff," he said, explaining that to him, the "good" WCW Nitros from 1995 to 1998 featured random lucha matches and other unexpected pairings.

"There was a certain exquisite randomness to the lineup of the card." he said. "There were a lot of stories happening in WCW, but probably less than half the matches on Nitro had a story going into them and that was fine. It was the industry standard show."

He said WCW then copied the competition's method of doing things where every single match had to be happening for a reason.

He said his own reason for a seemingly random pairing could be the start of something new or just a challenge to see who's the best in that given match.

"To see the person who probably put more cold matches on TV, and did it successfully and did it well, say that it's an abomination to do it is pretty contradictory," Khan said, later adding, "I definitely don't want to see fans get brainwashed into thinking there's only one way to do this just because they've seen it done one way for a long time."

Tony Khan calls Eric Bischoff 'contradictory & hypocritical' over AEW criticisms

Khan took umbrage with Bischoff's critiques of how he puts together certain AEW Dynamite matches.

www.f4wonline.com

 

[Necro]

The one thing I think Tony does need to focus on is creating a set amount of people he wants to push, and try to figure out exact storylines around those people. I agree not everything has to have a storyline, but it's gets a bit confusing to me when there are random talent from other companies coming in on all the time. I think it's sort of cool, but ratings wise I think it would be smarter to have a select amount of people show up every week. AEW seems to be going down the same road with belts too as WWE. To a regular fan it's confusing all the random championships. I don't think the Vince Russo idea of every single talent has to have an in-depth storyline is really needed either. The roster is very bloated similar to when WCW got crazy towards the end.

WWE all though getting better for years legit redid the same matches week after week. So WWE is the opposite extreme of what Tony is doing. I think somewhere in the middle is the right answer.

I listen to Eric's podcast weekly. I do think he changes the narrative a lot, but he is pretty interesting. My only thing is Eric was never a booker, and Tony is. So for Eric to critique someone when he's never really done it is kind of weird to me. It's easy for Eric in hindsight to critique, but does he even know how to do it himself? In Eric's defense he usually does state he isn't an expert on booking.

Cornette does have similar critiques as Bischoff on AEW. I think Cornette has more of an argument about critiquing the product.

I think Tony is at a bit of a crossroads right now. He had a period where it seemed like he could do no wrong, he's nowfacing some diversity so we will see how it pans out overtime.

My advice to Tony is to ignore people like Bischoff, he's only trying to create controversy for his podcast. Not saying he's being legit with his thoughts, but at the end of the day Conrad and Eric have a business to run. Same with Cornette who's made it a business to hate AEW and WWE. Negativity sells.

 

[Deezy]

TK basically saying

Just shut the fuck up about him and other podcasters you thin skinned geek.....now I'm going to have to skip another hour long rant when all I wanted was a watch along for a random 97 Nitro.

 

[Roy Mustang]

TK has a point. Not every match on the show needs to be some deep long running story. If the whole card is just random matches? Bad but there is nothing wrong with the odd random match or showcase match on a card. It worked for early WCW

 

[Chris]

Eric Bischoff has responded to Tony Khan calling him "contradictory & hypocritical" regarding his criticisms of AEW.

Bischoff has been critical of AEW for frequently having "cold matches" with no build on its programming. Khan recently fired back on Bischoff's criticism by stating that during Bischoff's time running WCW, the company often had matches with no storyline behind them on its programming as well.

"Frankly, the person that has been the most incendiary, contradictory, and hypocritical on this entire point is Eric Bischoff," Khan said on Busted Open last week.

Bischoff responded to Khan's comments on an episode of his 83 Weeks released on Monday.

"There were certainly random matches that didn't have any story in WCW, I'm not denying that but I'm also going to point out, I don't think I ever said in any of my commentary about AEW, that I believe every match should have a story," Bischoff said.

"When you are introducing new talent or when you have talent that you haven't really matched up storyline-wise with an opponent yet but you want to expose that talent, you want the audience to become familiar with that talent, you want to establish that talent, sure, put people in matches that don't really have story. But use that time, in non-storyline matches, to give us some real backstory and information about said talent."

"My issue and my comments about AEW and the creative behind it is really a bunch of top matches that don't have sufficient story or structure or at least a compelling one."

"Your top matches, your A, B, C, and D storylines, that's different. I've seen a lot of matches, a lot of storylines - what AEW considers a storyline- that I feel are just nothing more than excuses for a match. They are not well-crafted stories."

"I believe in today's competitive environment with television being what it is, that if you want to - pay attention, Tony - build and grow your audience, you are going to have to do it with well-crafted, compelling, well-structured storylines and I don't see it. I see excuses for matches, and that's not a storyline."

Eric Bischoff responds to Tony Khan calling him hypocritical over AEW criticisms

Bischoff responded to Khan on his 83 Weeks podcast.

www.f4wonline.com

 

[Deezy]

Bischoff....half the cruiserweight matches on PPVs and Nitros came in cold matches.

Fuck sakes, Rey Mysterio's debut was a random title match where I didn't know who the hell that little kid in the mask was.