Eric Bischoff heard Ricochet call AEW the “Greatest Wrestling company in the world,” and he wasn’t interested in playing along. He called Ricochet a “goof,” compared his tweets to Dave Meltzer and argued that comments like this are actually costing AEW credibility.
The subject came up on 83 Weeks after Conrad Thompson brought up Ricochet’s response to Paul Heyman saying WWE answers to shareholders. Ricochet had fired back by saying AEW answers to its fans instead.
“We’re the Greatest Wrestling company in the world. So no we don’t answer to ‘Share Holders’ we answer to OUR fans. Because they’re the ones who deserve it.”
Conrad actually liked it. He saw Ricochet’s response as smart positioning for the number-two wrestling company. If WWE is openly talking about answering to shareholders, Conrad felt AEW presenting itself as the promotion that answers directly to wrestling fans was an easy counter.
“Hey, this is great positioning by Ricochet. I think if you’re number two and you see number one make a shot like this and you can make it fan-based—‘Hey, we don’t care about the shareholders. We care about the fans.’ I like that sort of thing. But this feels like Heyman is getting the exact reaction he hoped for, in my opinion.”
Bischoff saw it completely differently. He didn’t just disagree with Ricochet’s argument. He went straight after Ricochet himself, calling Ricochet a goof and that he tweets more stupid things than anybody he knows outside of Dave Meltzer.
“Ricochet is a goof. I mean, the guy is—he probably says more stupid s*** per tweet than anybody I know other than maybe Dave Meltzer. Yeah, whatever. It doesn’t do him or the company he works for any good because everybody knows it’s a joke, you know, to go out and—and—and say he’s the greatest wrestling company in the world. By what? By what data point?”
That was Bischoff’s bigger problem with the whole thing. Ricochet can call AEW the greatest wrestling company in the world, but Bischoff wants to know what measurable evidence actually backs that up. He believes throwing around claims like that without anything behind them doesn’t make AEW look stronger. In his view, it does the opposite.
“I mean, continually saying that kind of thing just—it makes everybody involved, including the company, lose more and more credibility. There’s no reason. There’s no upside to it. There’s no upside to it. It’s just whatever. It’s a bad idea.”
Bottom line: Ricochet wanted to turn Heyman’s shareholder line into an argument for why AEW puts its fans first. Conrad thought it worked, but Bischoff thought Ricochet managed to take a perfectly usable opening and turn it into another reason for people not to take him seriously.
What do you make of Eric Bischoff’s reaction to Ricochet? Let us know in the comments.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
