Eric Bischoff Says WWE Writers Would Watch AEW Dynamite and NXT Side-by-Side

AEW president Tony Khan and former WCW president Eric Bischoff cleared the air of their supposed online feud this week by sitting down for an interview alongside Conrad Thompson to help promote AEW’s Fight for the Fallen event this Wednesday. The two clarified that, despite what has been said in previous interviews and podcasts, there’s no actual beef between the two and Khan has a great amount of respect for Bischoff. However, during the conversation Bischoff revealed an interesting little tidbit from his brief return to WWE last year — he and a group of WWE writers would watch both AEW and NXT side-by-side on Wednesday nights.

“I do want to say this, one of the things that I think has distinguished [AEW] from anybody else, even when I was with WWE last year, I sat down and watched both shows side-by-side and I was working with WWE at the time and I was watching it in a writer’s conference room with a bunch of other writers,” Bischoff said (h/t Fightful) before praising AEW for making its product feel gritty while embracing its venues with its production team.

Considering the rivalry between the two brands, its interesting to hear that WWE writers went out of their way to watch the younger company.

Elsewhere in the interview Khan credited Bischoff for opening the door for him to have negotiations about bringing wrestling back to TNT.

“I wouldn’t be here and there would not be an AEW without you and there would not be wrestling on TNT right now without you. You gave me the opening to talk to the President of TNT to talk about the previous success you’d had on his network, which he didn’t realize because it’s been twenty years and he was obviously not at TNT or TBS or WarnerMedia when this was happening, when WCW was such a huge entity,” Khan said. “I’m sorry if it came across like I didn’t think that way, because I definitely think that. And I’m just such a huge believer in what you’ve built. So, thank you.”

Check out the card for Fight for the Fallen below:

• AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley vs. Brian Cage
• AEW TNT Championship: Cody Rhodes vs. Sonny Kiss
• The Elite (Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks) vs. Jurassic Express (Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy, Marko Stunt)
• FTR vs. The Lucha Brothers