Eric Bischoff Praises Phenomenal WWE Bash In Berlin Match
Eric Bischoff has given his opinion on Bash In Berlin.
On August 31st, WWE headed to Germany for Bash In Berlin. The event continued the company’s recent trend of keeping the number of matches on its Premium Live Events to a minimum with just five matches on offer.
Despite the short card, both of the men’s World Titles were on the line, with the bout between Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens opening the show.
The theme of the match was a teased heel turn for Owens, who refused to attack Rhodes’ injured knee. In the end, Owens ignored the devil on his shoulder and shook hands with Rhodes being defeated.
Eric Bischoff Says Cody Rhodes Is Still The Man
During a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff looked back at Bash In Berlin, while breaking down why he loved the opening match of the show.
The former WCW boss said he would have liked to have seen Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens in the main event, but even so, it didn’t impact the quality of the match.
“I continue to, because of my traditional approach, think that Cody Rhodes is still the guy right now and as long as he’s the guy, he should be treated like the guy. I’m not changing my opinion in terms of the placement, I wanted to see Cody and Kevin in the main event. At the end of the day, my opinion doesn’t make any difference at all because it worked really well.”
Bischoff went on to heavily praise the match, adding that Owens in particular “made me believe.”
“I thought the match was phenomenal. I think Kevin Owens did a stellar job. The part of the post-match that really got me was the look after the three count. Cody wins, Kevin turns his back on Cody, initially shunned the handshake, turns back to Cody, walked over to the ropes. Took his time, let that moment breathe. Cody wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, didn’t oversell it, didn’t telegraph it.
Kevin turned around slowly and then there was the embrace and the handshake. Cool. Japanese type finish, two baby faces with mutual respect for each other, we’ve seen that many times before and we’re seeing it a lot in some places. It’s like everybody is doing it so it’s not really that special, but it was special today because Kevin made it believable. If you go back and look at that, don’t pay attention to anything.
Turn down the commentary, go back and watch it without any sound and look at the eyes of Kevin Owens. Fantastic f*cking job. He sold that moment, he made me believe what he was feeling. If you make the audience believe to the extent that Kevin Owens made me believe. By the way, this happened throughout the match, this started before the match during the pre-show. What a great job.”
In the main event, Gunther retained his World Heavyweight Title with a win over Randy Orton. The bout marked Gunther’s first successful defence of the title since he claimed the gold at SummerSlam.
H/t to Fightful