Mercedes Mone recently talked with WWE about a potential return. However, WWE walked out of the negotiations due to Mone’s high asking price. She is now reportedly in talks with All Elite Wrestling.
In the past five years, Tony Khan has signed numerous big names in the pro wrestling industry, such as Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Sting, Adam Copeland, and Will Ospreay. However, the company didn’t grow, and viewership & ticket sales declined year over year.
On the 83 Weeks podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff was asked about how AEW would improve if Mercedes Mone signed with the company. Bischoff said the following:
“Nothing. I mean, how many times have we seen big names come from WWE to AEW and people speculating about how it’s going to impact the business and what’s gonna happen and nothing happens? It doesn’t matter who you bring in there. I made the comment and I’m gonna make it again. AEW is quickly becoming TNA. I got nearly a million views on that comment and out of the probably half million responses, everybody, you know, buried my comment and me along with it, but this is a perfect example of what I meant.”
Eric Bischoff also said that nobody can grow AEW other than selling T-shirts.
“We’ve seen so many big names come into AEW. Pick one. Let’s put CM Punk off to the side. Pick any other one and the net impact on the growth of the business other than selling T-shirts has been zip. The television audience continues to deteriorate while WWE’s continues to grow. You look at their ticket sales, outside of anomalies or outliers I should say like, UK, and they’re not doing nearly as well as they were in the past. Look at their Dynamite shows. Check out WrestleTix on social media and you can see their ticket sales. They’re playing in 10,000 or 15,000-seat venues, but they’re scaling them down to 4,000, and a week before the event, they haven’t sold out yet. So, it doesn’t matter.”