Eric Bischoff Believes AEW Has A ‘Golden Opportunity’ With Rampage

WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff has said he believes AEW has a “golden opportunity” with Rampage airing straight after SmackDown.

Rampage debuts this coming Friday and will air on TNT at 10pm ET for one hour, after SmackDown airs on FOX 8pm-10pm.

Speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff explained that he believes the timing of Rampage means WWE fans who haven’t yet checked out AEW are now more likely to, especially with some big former WWE names that could join the promotion soon.

Eric Bischoff said:

“I was supportive of the Friday night opportunity for AEW. Yes, it does pose risk. Everything poses a risk people! Everything, and there are risks with creating an additional hour, particularly on a major cable network. What are those risks? You can dilute your talent pool. You can create a situation where your must-see programming, in AEW’s case on Wednesday night, becomes not quite as must-see because, well, you can pick it up on Friday night or a version thereof. That’s a risk. The upside is they’re making more money.

“You’ve got to balance that, but now, with at least the potential of some of these key players coming over from WWE to AEW, you talk about a way to draft that WWE audience. They are in such a great position. Of course, in AEW’s case, they’re gonna have to deliver. You can only ride the anticipation horse so long before, ‘Okay, we’re done being excited about what could happen. Let’s show us what is going to happen’, but right now, I don’t want to say what AEW is doing is flawless, certainly not flawless. I don’t know that anything can be, but this is about as close to it as you can get, and they’re getting a huge assist from WWE, for whatever reasons known or unknown to all of us who are not in the office, so to speak.

“WWE is handing Rampage a golden opportunity because you have to assume SmackDown averages about two million viewers a week, give or take. AEW right now is probably around 900,000 because they got a couple back-to-back weeks of a million plus, and if that trend continues, I suspect it will, now you’re getting into the point of being legitimate competition, regardless of what Vince McMahon has to say. You have to assume, though, looking at those numbers, that there is a large percentage of the WWE audience who has not yet sampled, or if they have sampled, haven’t become a regular AEW viewer. The numbers just tell you that. You’ve got two million over here. You’ve got one million over here. Well, there’s a million people floating around out there that haven’t committed yet. They’re ambivalent, at this point, to AEW, for whatever reason. Well, now there’s a reason not to be ambivalent. Now, there’s a reason to go, ‘Hey, this show’s on right after SmackDown. Let’s at least see what’s going on’. We’ve talked ad nauseum about getting people to sample your product. I always use the restaurant analogy, give people a reason to try your menu. It’s incumbent upon you then once they do to deliver, but once you do, now, you’ve got a loyal customer.”

Announced so far for the Rampage debut in Pittsburgh, is hometown hero Britt Baker defending the AEW Women’s World Championship against Red Velvet, and Kenny Omega will also be in action, but no opponent has been announced yet.

It’s been reported, and heavily teased by AEW, that CM Punk will appear on the August 20 episode of the show next Friday in his hometown of Chicago.

Quote via Wrestling Inc

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• eric bischoff
• rampage
• Smackdown
• AEW

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