Eric Bischoff has been hard at work as the executive director of Friday Night SmackDown for the past few months. But the former Nitro executive producer admitted on the latest episodes of his 83 Weeks podcast that he has checked out All Elite Wrestling’s new show AEW Dynamite in its first two weeks on TNT. The show has dominated NXT on the USA Network in the ratings, and Bischoff noted the thing that’s given Dynamite the edge so far is how lively the crowds have been.
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“I think the takeaway for me the biggest thing that I saw that I liked was the crowd,” Bischoff said (h/t Fightful for transcription). “I’ve always believed that the crowd, you know, if there’s two women or two guys in a match with a referee as the third person in the ring, the fourth person in the ring is the audience. They’re as much a part of the show as anything in my opinion. And I think what I saw Wednesday night from AEW was a crowd that was just intensely engaged in the product in the ring and in the show.”
Dynamite’s latest episode saw Private Party upset The Young Bucks in the AEW World Tag Team Championship Tournament, Chris Jericho debut his Inner Circle faction, Jon Moxley win his Dynamite debut and Darby Allin earn a shot at Jericho’s AEW World Championship.
Here’s the card (so far) for this Wednesday’s episode.
- AEW World Championship — Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin
- AEW Women’s World Championship — Riho vs. Britt Baker
- Tag Tournament Match — SoCal Uncensored vs. Best Friends
- Tag Tournament Match — The Lucha Brothers vs. Jurassic Express
- Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley & PAC
WWE sent out a public statement congratulating AEW after the success of Dynamite’s debut. But Moxley, while appearing at New York Comic Con, said he didn’t buy it as sincere.
“So literally the entire industry all over the world is benefiting from the fact that now there’s a viable alternative,” Moxley said. “And once we hit 10 o’clock and we got two hours in the can the other night and we were like, we did it, high five, there and now we got the ratings out, there is a viable alternative. You know what I mean? This is real. This actually happened. I’m sure there are a lot of people that are going to keep wanting to wake up from the nightmare and like, this isn’t really real, but oh, this is happening and this is 100% real.”
“And it’s great for everybody and it’s great most…and I don’t say this to try to do some corporate-speak like that passive-aggressive ass WWE statement the other day,” he added. “But it is, ultimately the fans benefit because they get to see these guys who are, all across the board are more inspired, or from the indies getting hyped up. All across the board, everybody’s more passionate.”
