Tony Khan comments on recent criticism from Eric Bischoff

[Chris]

Source: f4wonline.com

AEW head Tony Khan said that while he respects Eric Bischoff, the former WCW and TNA executive's recent comments about him were "laughable."

On his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff said that his advice to Khan would be to "shut up and wrestle," admitting that the comments may seem strange coming from him. Bischoff said the difference is that he was actually going to head-to-head with WWE every week and that Khan was "inventing mistakes" by both comparing AEW to WWE and deriding the competition without actually going head-to-head.

"That's real competition," Bischoff said, adding that he was disappointed in some of the rhetoric he's heard Khan say. He added that talent should also "shut the f**k up" until they are actually competing.

He also seemed to take offense to Khan comparing this era to 1996, saying he kicked Vince McMahon's ass back then and that it's not "cosplay" competition like AEW vs. WWE.
Speaking on Wednesday's Busted Open Radio, Khan said that was he amused by the comments and that he respects that Bischoff is doing an act.

"I really like Eric and was surprised by (his) comments because they were coming from Eric Bischoff who is probably the last person to say the president of a wrestling company should be quiet," Khan said, later adding, "This is the ultimate example of glass houses considering how he conducted himself as the head of WCW."

Khan said that he is balancing stars like CM Punk and Chris Jericho with emerging TV wrestling stars like Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks and that Bischoff ran out young talents like Jericho and Eddie Guerrero from WCW while he is committed to keeping them.

"It would be naive to look at this and not examine the person talking is Eric Bischoff," he said. He never addressed Bischoff's other criticisms.

Bischoff has made several appearances on AEW Dynamite in various role and Khan has called him a friend in the past.

While not mentioning WWE by name, Khan said he thought it was "aggressive" what WWE came in with on last Friday's extended edition of SmackDown, putting some of their big talents commercial free against Rampage. He contemplated changing up his lineup to have a bigger box office match, but stuck to his guns and worked with TNT to make the Punk vs. Matt Sydal match commercial free, bumping back an ad break.
"I didn't ask for (this head-to-head). Someone came into our time slot aggressively and it wasn't the first time they made an aggressive move like that," he said.

During his appearance, Khan also said that he is planning on doing a college football/AEW Dynamite countdown show Saturday but didn't say when or where it would air.

 

[Canadian Dragon]

Tony Khan: It's Laughable For Eric Bischoff To Say 'Stay Quiet,' We Needed To Win And We Did | Fightful News

Tony Khan gives the most detailed answer ever.

www.fightful.com

 

[Roy Mustang]

Khan is right. Bischoff is the last person to tell anyone to be "quiet" when he was challenging Vince to fight on Nitro and telling commentators to spoil the other brand on air.

 

[Deezy]

"Learn from my mistakes".....

"Fuck you, you did it wrong"....

And that's why everything's a circle.

 

[Moon Bird]

I don't wanna sound like a mark, but Tony Khan is 100% right.

Tony is a promoter. He's promoting the brand every time he does his wacky tweets. More power to him. More eyeballs on AEW means a better show for me.

 

[Chris]

Meh, I think there's some meat to what Bischoff is saying but I think it's just devolving to a generic go-to AEW complaint bc in this specific situation....WWE was the one initiating the head to head shit and Tony only reacted lol there's been other times in the past where I think "focus on you" would be valid though and I'm sure there's AEW fans who simply only care about AEW and would enjoy not hearing about WWE in a way even if negative but it's hard to do that when WWE extends their A show into your time slot

 

[Chris]

"Learn from my mistakes".....

"Fuck you, you did it wrong"....

And that's why everything's a circle.

This doesn't even apply bc Bischoff isn't even saying learn from me he's basically saying "you ain't me yet so you can't do this" lol I'd agree more if it was a learn from mistakes kinda thing

 

[Deezy]

This doesn't even apply bc Bischoff isn't even saying learn from me he's basically saying "you ain't me yet so you can't do this" lol I'd agree more if it was a learn from mistakes kinda thing

Not sure why he was being so antagonistic in his criticism, but whatever, they'll be kissing each others asses in a week or two.

 

[Chris]

Not sure why he was being so antagonistic in his criticism, but whatever, they'll be kissing each others asses in a week or two.

Within a week if i had to guess lol

 

[Canadian Dragon]

I have a feeling they both enjoying talking a bit of shit lol. but yeah I agree with you Chris, I'd love to never talk about WWE during AEW timeslots but if they are going out of their way to go head to head it's kind of hard not to say anything

 

[Moon Bird]

I think WWE deserve it to a point. I mean they are the ones who said they don't see AEW as competition. Tony Khan is just making sure they know that AEW IS competition....

Plus didn't Bischoff titles his book controversy creates cash??

Bischoff will say anything to stay relevant... he's literally a guy who lost his job 20 years ago and is still dining out on it...most people would have moved on by this point.