Why WWE Hall Of Famer Feels Tony Khan Was Disrespectful

A WWE Hall of Famer feels like Tony Khan was disrespectful towards one of the biggest names in wrestling history.

Eric Bischoff has been a harsh critic of AEW for many years, even though he has appeared on AEW television as a guest.

As a WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President, Eric Bischoff knows what it’s like to compete against WWE. Bischoff is also somebody who can say his company beat WWE in head-to-head competition because it happened for nearly two years in the late 1990s.

Tony Khan is AEW’s Owner and Head of Creative, who is heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of his company. Since Khan has liked to compare AEW to WCW in the past, Bischoff has taken exception to that. The difference is that Bischoff didn’t own WCW since billionaire Ted Turner was the principal owner before it was sold in 2001 as part of the failed AOL-Time Warner merger.

Speaking to the Action Network, Eric Bischoff said Tony Khan likes to compare himself to him, and he explained why he felt Khan was disrespectful.

“Tony likes to compare himself to me and to WCW, but he hasn’t gotten to the part yet where he’s actually changed the industry or defeated his competition in head-to-head ratings. He [Tony] likes to draw a lot of parallels to himself or WCW or Eric Bischoff, but they’re really not appropriate.

And the real reason I’ve been vocal about Tony and AEW, and Tony knows this, I’ve talked about this, is that Tony came out on national television and was very disrespectful, in my opinion, to Ted Turner.

The guy whose name is still on the door at Turner Broadcasting, where Tony airs his show. And Tony made some ridiculous comment to the effect of, ‘If Ted Turner knew 1% about professional wrestling as I do, WCW would still be around.'”

Tony Khan’s Comments Were “Profoundly Stupid”

Eric Bischoff continued making his point about Khan’s disrespectful remarks, noting that Tony Khan’s father, Shahid Khan, has billions of dollars.

“It was such a profoundly stupid thing to say that it made me lose respect for Tony. It also indicated to me that Tony doesn’t really understand the business he’s in.

Tony has the benefit of having a couple of billion dollars behind him. He doesn’t really need to worry about performance from a revenue perspective, because he’s not really accountable to anybody. He’s spending his own money. And he’s got a lot of it to spend.”

As he continued, Eric Bischoff said that AEW’s lack of storytelling is what hurts them.

“He makes no bones about it. This is his hobby. Some people play golf. Some people have wrestling companies. But to be disrespectful to someone like Ted Turner while you’ve got a show on his network, to me, just told me everything I needed to know about Tony, and look, I’m critical, I want it to succeed, and I know people have a hard time believing that.

But I’ve been critical because I wanted it to succeed. I’ve pointed out that they need to actually tell real stories, not cosplay wrestling journalist stories, but actual real stories with real structure, with real stakes, with real arcs to those stories, and real payoffs to those stories. The characters have to be interesting; there needs to be some depth to these characters.

They can’t all look like they just showed up at the Jiffy Lube Oil Change Center, so you can change your oil for $29.95. I mean, you actually have to look like a star for people to perceive you to be a star.”

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