WWE Hall Of Famer Feels Mercedes Moné Will Mean Nothing For AEW Business
A WWE Hall of Famer thinks that if Mercedes Mone signs with AEW then it won’t lead to a boost for the company.
After missing the second half of 2023 with a serious ankle injury that required surgery, Mercedes Mone is a free agent in 2024. There are plenty of rumours about where she might end up.
Apparently, Mercedes Mone had talks with WWE about returning to the company as Sasha Banks, but there have been reports that claim that Mone’s talks with WWE failed to lead to a return. Despite that report, there are still people within WWE who think Mone/Banks could return.
To begin 2024, there were reports that Mone could be headed to AEW very soon. It is one of those things where until it happens, you don’t really know what is true.
Eric Bischoff is a WWE Hall of Famer who isn’t afraid to give his opinion on any topic in pro wrestling. While speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff explained why Mercedes Mone wouldn’t make a huge impact for AEW if she signed there.
“Nothing. I mean, how many times have we seen big names come from from WWE to AEW and people speculating about how it’s going to impact the business and what’s gonna happen and nothing happens? It doesn’t matter who you bring in there. I made the comment and I’m gonna make it again. AEW is quickly becoming TNA.”
“I got nearly a million views on that comment and out of the probably half million responses, everybody, you know, buried my comment and me along with it, but this is a perfect example of what I meant. We’ve seen so many big names come into AEW. Pick one. Let’s put CM Punk off to the side. Pick any other one and the net impact on the growth of the business other than selling T-shirts has been zip. Nada. The television audience continues to deteriorate while WWE’s continues to grow.”
“You look at their ticket sales, outside of anomalies or outliers I should say like, UK, and they’re not doing nearly as well as they were in the past. Look at their Dynamite shows. Check out WrestleTix on social media and you can see their ticket sales. They’re playing in 10,000 or 15,000 seat venues, but they’re scaling them down to 4,000 and a week before the event, they haven’t sold out yet. So it doesn’t matter.”
Eric Bischoff Compares Mercedes Mone Going To AEW With TNA Signing Ex-WWE Stars
As he continued, Eric Bischoff spoke about when he worked for TNA Wrestling in the early 2010s and how the company relied on ex-WWE stars too much. Bischoff recalled what he used to tell former TNA President/Owner Dixie Carter when he worked there.
“I used to tell Dixie all the time. She’d want to bring in big names. I know I get busted for that. ‘Oh, yeah, but look at all the WWE guys you brought into TNA.’ I didn’t bring them in. I didn’t even bring me in. I didn’t even really want the job.”
“Dixie Carter had brought in Mick Foley and Sting and Kurt Angle, and so many others before I ever got there with the idea that you bringing in these big WWE names, it’s going to move the needle and I would always tell Dixie, and she hated me for this, I think she didn’t hate me, but she would get frustrated because I think word for word I said to her one day, ‘Dixie, it doesn’t matter if you brought Undertaker and you dropped him from the ceiling as a surprise into the middle of the TNA ring and then John Cena.'”
“This is when they were both, you know, obviously at the top of WWE years ago, ‘and then you have John Cena run to the TNA ring and you shoot an angle, it won’t matter.”
“It just doesn’t because the brand, the perception of it, the scale of it, is so small that it won’t get over’, and that’s the problem that I think AEW has is they don’t know how to use those big names in a way that grows their business. It just grows their budget, but it doesn’t grow their business.”
“Not yet it hasn’t, and if anybody can prove to me, not outliers, but show me what’s happened when big names have come in, to television ratings, to buy rates, show me a pattern and I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I won’t be because I watch that stuff. I look at it. It interests me.”
On Twitter/X, Bischoff posted a clip with his comments about Mercedes Mone and wrote “zero impact” as well.
Zero impact.
Nada. @83Weekspic.twitter.com/JvwxnBlDSR
— Eric Bischoff (@EBischoff) January 8, 2024