8 months ago
24 ARTICLE AD
Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Last week, AEW announced the appointment of Jennifer Pepperman as its new Vice President of Content Development. The role will see the former WWE employee work alongside Tony Khan to aid in the creative for the company's live programming, and Eric Bischoff believes she can fix what he deems to be one of AEW's biggest issues.
"This is the most exciting thing I've heard out of AEW in the last three years, maybe longer," Bischoff said on the latest episode of the "Strictly Business" podcast. "Because I think it indicates a couple of things to me. One is that Tony recognizes he has a problem. You can't fix a problem or come up with a solution if you don't recognize what's wrong with it first. And the fact that Tony is bringing in Jen at a high level suggests to me — now, part of this is wishful thinking on my part, but I do hope I'm right — that Tony is recognizing that his creative, his fantasy wrestling matches and dream match nonsense, and creating wrestling that appeals to the internet is not working."
According to Bischoff, AEW needs help to grow and maintain its audience. However, Bischoff — who briefly worked with Pepperman in WWE — believes she has the talent and capabilities to steer the product in a better creative direction and potentially attract more viewers to the company's programming. Furthermore, he hopes that Khan allows Pepperman to have creative autonomy, stating that Tony Khan can learn a lot from her.
The former WCW executive added that Pepperman understands storytelling and noted that she's also a nice person. However, he also recalled her willingness to disagree with Vince McMahon and work under pressure during her time in WWE, whereas other employees hesitated to disagree with him.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Strictly Business" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
