9 months ago
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Tony Khan has promised to bring back AEW's rankings system as the company plans big things in 2024. In light of the expected change, Eric Bischoff critiqued the move during an episode of his "83 Weeks" podcast.
According to Bischoff, while rankings can be very effective, the system has the potential to paint you into a corner creatively. "That's probably why it didn't work out the first time because you've got to really do a great job of merging creative and math because those two things generally don't go together. Usually, good creative is kind of void of good math; good math isn't creative, but it can be done."
Bischoff described the system as a risk because it's something that the audience could quickly pick up on and criticize, saying, "They're going to lose faith so fast." However, he claimed that when the ranking system was first announced in 2019, he looked forward to seeing it in action. "It's one of the things that I was excited about back in 2019. That was the one thing that, to me, made AEW potentially feel different than WWE."
He also criticized AEW for dropping the ranking system so quickly and noted that it's all a part of the larger issue the promotion faces regarding its creative. Due to this, Bischoff notes that it might be possible for AEW to turn things around, but he doesn't have faith in the promotion anymore. "The void when it comes to creative that I've seen out of AEW for the last two years doesn't suggest to me that there's a lot of hope that they'll figure out that formula."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "83 Weeks" and provide Wrestling Inc. with a h/t for the transcription.
