Eric Bischoff is fully backing Nick Khan’s stance on social media criticism, and he made it clear that people from the Internet Wrestling Community shouldn’t be taken seriously.
While speaking on the 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff reacted to Khan saying WWE will never respond to social media criticism. Bischoff said he agrees with that approach because he has a very low opinion of online wrestling discourse: “Look, I think the internet wrestling community is like the, just as a whole, as a profile, one of the lowest forms of intellectual life on the freaking planet.”
Eric Bischoff then clarified that he wasn’t talking about every single wrestling fan, but said social media commentary as a whole is often uninformed and not worth building a business around whatsoever.
“These—not all of them obviously. I’ve often said we have the smartest wrestling fans anywhere out there, at least listening to this show. But if you—and this is true across all different forms of social media. It’s not exclusive to wrestling necessarily, but the voices en masse in social media across the board, not just wrestling, are the lowest form of intellectual life, the most uninformed people you can possibly pay attention to.”
Bischoff said he used to find social media comments entertaining, but now sees the discourse as childish and disconnected from real-world business decisions. He then fully backed Khan’s stance, saying any company that builds its business around social media reactions is asking for trouble.
“The discourse is so childish. It’s like these people, for the most part, are outside of any real social circles and the only people that will tolerate them are other people that are kind of as bad as they are when it comes to their outlook on life and the things that they need to get a reaction to and from. So I agree with Nick. It’s the same reason I don’t listen to social media across the board. It’s not just wrestling. So I’m not just picking on wrestling fans. I’m just saying, why would anybody listen to freaking social media? If you do, you’re an idiot.”
Bischoff then took one more shot at social media commentary, saying businesses should not base major decisions on what he called the “bottom feeders” of online discussion: “If you’re going to build your business and base your business around the opinions of the bottom feeders that compromise 80% of social media commentary, good luck with that.”
Khan had previously said WWE doesn’t change creative plans because of online criticism, including fan backlash tied to Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, and The Rock before WrestleMania 40. Bischoff clearly agrees, and his message is simple: social media may be loud, but that doesn’t mean wrestling companies should listen to it.
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Do you agree with Eric Bischoff and Nick Khan, or should WWE listen more closely to online fan criticism? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.