AEW may have defeated NXT in the Wednesday Night Wars, but the company is still a long way off from overthrowing WWE as the #1 pro wrestling company. The gap between those 18-49 demographic numbers is narrowing, but in terms of overall viewership, RAW and SmackDown remain on top.
Recently, AEW President Tony Khan has had a lot to say about the WWE product (including saying that RAW "sucked"), but former WCW boss Eric Bischoff has now offered him some words of wisdom.
"If Tony were to call me and ask for any advice, here’s what it would be — shut up and wrestle dude," Bischoff, who is no stranger to competing with Vince McMahon, says in the video below. "Just put out the best product you can and you’ve proven you can, focus on that. This is weird coming from me right? The guy that challenged Vince McMahon, the guy that gave away all of the finishes...but here’s the difference, I was actually competing with them. I was going head-to-head, real head-to-head, my show started the same time his show started every week."
"That’s real competition, so I’m a little disappointed in the rhetoric I’m hearing out of Tony as well as some of the talent man," he continued. "Shut the f**k up until you’re actually competing and you’re actually competing favourably. And by the way Tony, in 1996, I was kicking WWE’s a** every week in a real head-to-head competition, not a cosplay competition."
Bischoff has made appearances for AEW, so it's definitely surprising to hear how harsh he's being here. However, while AEW may have beaten NXT, that's very different to toppling WWE's main shows. This is someone who went head-to-head with Vince and lost, and when those AEW Rampage numbers come out later today...well, we'll soon find out whether Tony was setting himself up for failure.
After all, he made some bold statements about the show topping SmackDown in the ratings, and if that hasn't happened...well, it's easy enough to see where Bischoff is coming from here, don't you think?