WWE Hall of Famer claims AEW will never land a deal with FOX Network amid recent rumors - "That's a fantasy"
A WWE Hall of Famer has made a bold claim regarding a rumored AEW deal with FOX. The name in question is none other than Eric Bischoff.
According to recent rumors, AEW has been in talks with FOX to introduce a new television program, Shockwave. Former World Champion Swerve Strickland also seemingly spoiled the news in a recent vlog where said that the Tony Khan-led promotion is set to air a new television show on FOX.
In a recent edition of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff claimed that All Elite Wrestling will never land on broadcast television and called it a fantasy. The WWE Hall of Famer then explained how it's Swerve's job to promote the company and FOX would never take their programming over Friday Night SmackDown which averaged 2.3 million viewers.
“It’s not going to land on broadcast television. That’s a fantasy. Look, Swerve is — I understand. He’s excited. He’s out there promoting his company. He just got a big contract renewal, and he’s doing what he should do and promoting the company he works for. And I admire that. I think he got a little ahead of his skis by suggesting — and he did suggest it — that Fox Network didn’t renew SmackDown, which delivers about 2.3 million viewers a week, and they’re going to replace it with an AEW product that can’t find 600,000 or 700,000 viewers a week. With Rampage and Collision, we were looking at 300,000 to 400,000 viewers per week.” [H/T: RingsideNews]
AEW recently renewed their deal with Warner Bros. Discovery
It was heavily rumored that All Elite Wrestling and Warner Bros. Discovery have signed a new deal and the news was made official after a recent announcement. The deal is of approximately $150 million per year.
AEW Dynamite and Collision are set to remain on their respective TBS and TNT Networks, however, both programs will be available on Max's streaming platform starting January 2025 in the United States. There is no word on the status of the company's future pay-per-views being added to Max for now.
It will be interesting to see how things shape up starting January 2025 as WWE is also set to take Monday Night RAW to Netflix in the same month.