Eric Bischoff Offers Advice To Tony Khan – “Shut Up And Wrestle”

Eric Bischoff has said AEW President Tony Khan should concentrate on putting out the best product he can instead of picking fights with WWE.

Recently Tony Khan has been outspoken in his belief that AEW is real competition for WWE, going so far as to say he couldn’t wait to defeat their “main show” when it was announced that the October 15th episode of SmackDown would be 30 minutes longer than usual, this meant that it would be head-to-head with AEW Rampage for that time.

Eric Bischoff, who led WCW at the height of it’s popularity when it was consistently defeating WWE in the ratings every week in the Monday Night Wars of the 1990s, has weighed in on Khan’s recent words on his 83 Weeks podcast with some harsh advice.

“If Tony [Khan] were to call me and ask for any advice, here’s what it would be — ‘shut up and wrestle, dude’. Just put out the best product you can and you’ve proven you can. Focus on that. Now this is weird coming from me, right? The guy who challenged Vince McMahon. The guy who gave away their finishes.”

“But here’s the difference. I was actually competing with him. I was going head-to-head. Real head-to-head. Like, my show started the same time his show started each and every week.”

He went on to answer recent comparisons Tony Khan made between AEW and the WCW of 1996.

“And another thing, Tony comes out and says ‘We’re at the 1996 stage of WCW and going to not make their mistakes.’ Tony, you’re inventing some mistakes, brother. By coming out there and constantly comparing yourself or deriding your competition, but not having the willingness — I almost said balls — the willingness to say, ‘Okay, let’s go head-to-head. Let’s really compete. Let’s see who can get whose market share.’ That’s real competition.”

So, I’m a little disappointed in the rhetoric that I’m hearing out of Tony, as well as some of the talent. Man, shut the f*ck up. Until you’re actually competing and you’re actually competing favourably — and by the way, Tony, in 1996 I was kicking WWE’s ass. Every week! In a real head-to-head competition, not a cosplay competition.”

Eric Bischoff steered WCW Nitro to 83 Weeks of victory over WWE Raw, however, WWE ultimately won the war when they purchased WCW in 2001.

H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the above transcription.