On the latest episode of his podcast, former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed the WWE’s decision to introduce a new U.K. championship and raised some concerns about their actions.
Bischoff opined that since the U.K. circuit is currently the hotspot in the pro-wrestling world, the WWE are perhaps trying to use their global image to get a foothold on it by taking this step. Looking at it in a different way, though, he felt that they might just be eating into the business of other promotions just like they have done in the past.
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The one-time WCW Hardcore Champion said:
“The UK is an exceptionally hot territory. There’s two ways I think to look at that. One is that the WWE is taking advantage of their global footprint and expanding. Trying to maximize their presence in that market. Which is obvious and a smart thing for them to do. The other angle is and I don’t want to say this falls in the conspiracy theory category but if you look at the history of the WWE.
It’s history of expansion and their business model. They gobbled up a lot of territories. They put a lot of independent promoters out of business. If you go back in history and you look at some of the comments that Vince McMahon made about the, ‘little wrestling chiefdoms’ How he had no loyalty to them and his vision for WWE was, quite honestly then, not global.”
According to Eric Bischoff, his concerns had to do with the fact that he was having to look at this situation from two angles. While he thinks that it will be good in a way that a powerhouse like the WWE will bring their vision to the U.K., he was scared that the new division does not end up becoming a localised version of NXT.
This is what Bischoff had to say:
“My concern is, well not my concern because I’m not doing business in the UK, is that I look at it two ways. One, “Great! WWE is bringing their power and expansion and their visibility to the UK!” Which can be a good thing. The other way to look at it is that, you know, they’re going to gobble up another territory and the UK could potentially lose it’s unique position in the market place. There is a lot of great talent in the UK but if it becomes an offshoot of the WWE and a UK version of NXT then… eh… I’m not sure in the long run that will be a great thing.”
Whether Eric Bischoff’s concerns turn out to be true or not is something that we will learn when things get underway with the U.K. championship next year.
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