Eric Bischoff recently weighed in on WWE possibly running outdoor shows in the near future on a recent episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast.
During the show, the former WWE and WCW executive spoke about the talk within the industry regarding WWE looking to run live events at an outdoor venue despite the COVID-19 situation still being very much alive.
Featured below are some of the highlights of Eric Bischoff talking about the subject on his “83 Weeks” podcast.
On WWE running outdoor shows during COVID-19 pandemic:
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and make a prediction. Two things before I do. This time of year in Florida is a great time of year to do things outdoors. When COVID first hit in the middle of the summer, man, that’s a tough time of year to try to do anything outdoors in Florida because of the weather patterns and summer. You’re going to get heavy storms on a regular basis pretty much every night during the summertime. That makes live production very challenging in the summer….so I don’t think they could have tried to find a suitable outdoor arena that would’ve allowed them to stay on any kind of schedule to produce their shows. My other prediction is and I hope I’m wrong, this is just my gut…..if WWE is producing outdoors and is able to put fans into whatever venue they’re looking at, so you feel that energy that then it’s a good alternative, a reasonable alternative to what we were doing pre-COVID.”
On problems he could envision arising:
“My fear is that if for whatever reason they have to social distance and keep everybody spread apart and have everybody wearing masks and all the other things that could likely happen, I think the outdoor venue may provide less energy than the ThunderDome. When I see action in the ThunderDome – and I don’t sit and watch a full show, full disclosure here – but when I’ve dropped in and I have more out of curiosity than anything else……I almost forgot that this is an accommodation and that this is a solution to a problem. In other words, the energy is almost there enough for me to forget why I’m looking at what I’m looking at, which is a good thing. When I’m watching SmackDown, I can forget for just a moment because the energy is just that good. Unless they change the way they shoot the action, my fear is it’s gonna feel less than what we see in ThunderDome.”
Check out the complete episode of the 83 Weeks podcast featuring Eric Bischoff at Megaphone.link.
Follow Wrestling-Edge reporter Matt Boone on Twitter @MattBoone1984.
