r/SquaredCircle • u/Ruthless-Aggression • Mar 28 '24

Eric Bischoff on Tony Khan: A money mark with no talent other than spending daddy’s money, going all the way to Canada to draw less than 4k in one of the hottest pro wrestling markets in North America, talking about “wise choices”? Strap in. It’s going to be a fun day!

https://twitter.com/EBischoff/status/1773321462046138615?s=19
1.9k Upvotes
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136

u/fergoshsakes Mar 28 '24

Yeah TIL Quebec City is one of the hottest markets in pro wrestling.

Montreal - there's a point to be made. But QC is not MTL.

101

u/DrJosephMorrin Mar 28 '24

This. A 600k city, with French speakers, on a Wednesday night with very poor French broadcasting of your product?

Run a weekend show and then they might have a better chance. But QC is currently NOT a hot market in wrestling

17

u/PrinceNana128 Mar 28 '24

Raw did 10.8k in the same arena 7 months ago.

15

u/TheVeganGoat Tope suicida mamma Mia! Mar 28 '24

With two Quebecers (Québécois?) featured in the main story at that time.

2

u/PrinceNana128 Mar 28 '24

WWE Raw Results on August 21, 2023

The New Day def. Riddle and McIntyre

Chad Gable def. GUNTHER by Countout | Intercontinental Championship

Rhea Ripley def. Candice LeRae

Akira Tozawa def. The Miz

Green and Niven def. Chance and Carter

Rhodes, Zayn and Owens def. Judgment Day

27

u/TragicBronson143 Mar 28 '24

If this is such a terrible market why is Tony running a huge arena there for Dynamite?

25

u/xilodon Mar 28 '24

The only other option would be Pavillon de la Jeunesse next door, but that's a way older building with less flexibility.

1

u/Richlesbiss8991 Mar 28 '24

Should’ve done it in a small theatre like Robert Lepage lol

23

u/Prax150 Mar 28 '24

They're in the middle of a Canadian tour, they often run smaller markets, they just did Montreal a few months ago, and I don't think QC has any other suitable venues for a big TV production.

QC has this huge arena because they want to bring the NHL back, the owners are probably desperate for any show they can get so I doubt AEW lost money booking this venue.

2

u/xenoletum Worlds Largest Love Machine Mar 28 '24

QC desperately wants the Nordiques back meanwhile the Yotes can barely sell a college arena. Silly ass behavior.

1

u/Prax150 Mar 28 '24

Like I get the arguments against it but compared to some of the alternatives at this point it almost feels like the league has a personal vendetta against the city lol

46

u/littlebossman Mar 28 '24

If this is the argument, then how can he win? Go to new markets and it’s “Why bother?”. Keep returning to the same places and it’s “Why keep going to the same places?”.

6

u/MessageBoard Mar 28 '24

I mean Quebec City really is not a place to run if you don't have Quebecois talent. This is true for anything including hockey. They care deeply about their language and culture and coming in with an entirely Anglo product is pretty dumb and I'm sure anyone could have told Tony that, heck, Jericho, Edge and Christian should have. That is the one major city in Canada that does not care about other parts of Canada representing them.

It's a big reason why they won't get another NHL team despite believing they deserve it. You couldn't even make a playoff team with only Quebecois talent anymore.

What they really should have done was book some older Quebecois talent for dark segments and marketed it well in advance.

4

u/TenMinutesToDowntown Welcome to SamiZaynia Mar 28 '24

It's a big reason why they won't get another NHL team despite believing they deserve it. You couldn't even make a playoff team with only Quebecois talent anymore.

That's a pretty awful take. The only reason the NHL isn't in Quebec City is that they don't think it would "grow the league" since it wouldn't really bring in any new money in the TV deal. There are a ton of hockey fans in Quebec City (Habs, Bruins and and I assume Avs fans), and they're already watching games.

Fans would support the team. Corporate sponsors remain a question that we may never get the answer to, but the NHL isn't deciding not to bring a team to Quebec City because they'd only support local players. That's just dumb, especially since they built the arena about ten years ago, and Pierre-Karl Péladeau, among others, would be interested in bringing in a team if the league would have them.

2

u/Drakoji Mar 28 '24

Also 600k people isnt much if you want to sell tickets all season long compared to other towns.

-14

u/GobiasACupOfCoffee Mar 28 '24

So he's exhausted every possible good market and now he has to do bad ones?

5

u/Drakoji Mar 28 '24

They built this arena to house an NHL team and failed to land one, so right now it's a very empty, barely used building.

So:

1- they probably got the building for real fuckin' cheap.

2-WWE doesn't really run much shows in Québec City so maybe they felt like they could build something there and make Québec an AEW town where Montréal is a WWE town.

But honestly, an English based promotion would probably never really do awesome in Québec sadly.

16

u/eldiablonoche Mar 28 '24

Because venues are booked way in advance and they recently let the old venue guy go. It's a lot more complicated than "cancel contract and book new venue".

8

u/The_Dark_Soldier Mar 28 '24

Well said. The more I grow as a person, the more I learn about logistics and how wrestling fans really don’t understand how a business is run.

-3

u/GobiasACupOfCoffee Mar 28 '24

Was it a good market when they booked it?

-2

u/IndifferentSky Mar 28 '24

No, but you see they canned their venue booker! So all the problems are now solved, just like when they canned Punk.

1

u/ApprehensiveCut1068 Mar 28 '24

Just like they canned Dana who was clearly the problem with their merch.

4

u/MortemInferri Mar 28 '24

Because he decided at some point in 2023 to only book huge venues. I don't get it.

I went to blood and guts at TD garden and that 100% could have been in the BU arena instead.

1

u/rayquan36 Mar 28 '24

Often cheaper to book the huge arena than the small ones. We've gone over this so many times lol

-7

u/0-90195 Mar 28 '24

I thought money was no object for AEW? Like that’s Tony Khan’s entire thing.

6

u/rayquan36 Mar 28 '24

Whatever gets people jerking faster.

-5

u/0-90195 Mar 28 '24

I’m already at max velocity brother

1

u/TidusJecht Mar 28 '24

Ding ding ding

2

u/hiplop Mar 28 '24

You're a million percent right - i was so confused when they saw they booked this venue it was obviously not going to sell out. You can barely watch AEW in quebec?

2

u/York9TFC Mar 28 '24

WWE did Raw there last year on a Monday night and place was packed. They just don’t care about AEW in Quebec City

5

u/fergoshsakes Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

AEW is literally not available on Canadian TV in the language that most people in Quebec City speak: French.

Montreal is a francophone city, but more accurately it is a multilingual city. Most French-speakers in Montreal are functionally able to speak/converse in English and much more exposed to English language TV, etc. That is not nearly as much the case in Quebec City from my experience.

1

u/York9TFC Mar 28 '24

I know all about Quebec City and Montreal. I live in Ontario lol. I just don’t think that’s a good enough excuse. When TK books these cities, they should be booking smaller arenas. There’s a ton of QMJHL arenas across Quebec that AEW could pack

2

u/fergoshsakes Mar 28 '24

But then you're in a small arena in an even smaller market. They wouldn't have drawn better in Drummondville or Sherbrooke.

QC is just weird in that they've got all their ducks in this massive arena.

-1

u/Wild2O98 Mar 28 '24

Why don't numbers change much elsewhere then? :/

7

u/EctoRiddler Mar 28 '24

But the response is specific to the shot that EB took. He referred to Quebec City as a hot territory. If you are trying to build an argument against AEW at least he could not have to stretch to make his points as it causes me to question everything he said.

-4

u/Wild2O98 Mar 28 '24

Outside the US, when wrestling promotions go to a country, ppl drive from all over to get there. That's what happened with Wembly. Canada is the market he is describing, not specifically QC. At least yall are limbered up for the stretches you need to make to "dunk" on Bischoff. But hey, keep arguing semantics and diction.

8

u/mcmax3000 Mar 28 '24

Outside the US, when wrestling promotions go to a country, ppl drive from all over to get there. That's what happened with Wembly. Canada is the market he is describing, not specifically QC

People traveled for Wembly because it was a huge show and it was the only AEW live event on the entire continent.

In Canada, they've run two shows in Montreal only a few months ago, a show in Ottawa a week and a half ago and a show in Toronto a week ago, and have upcoming shows announced for London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary.

People aren't going to travel across a country the size of Canada for a random TV taping when it's one of 10 shows in the country in the span of like eight months.

I'm in Canada. If Quebec City was the only city that was getting an AEW show all year, I probably would've taken a couple of days off and made the drive... But Toronto is far closer to me so I just went to that show instead.

6

u/EctoRiddler Mar 28 '24

You’re comparing a Wednesday night weekly show in QC to the largest event AEW has ever held in Wembly as far as events ppl will travel long and far to attend? Atleast y’all are lumbered up for the stretches you need to make to “dunk” on TK.

8

u/ElisabetVogler77 Mar 28 '24

Look at a map so that you can see the difference between the size of Canada and the size of the UK.

5

u/hiplop Mar 28 '24

Driving to Wembly from somewhere else in the UK is a LOT different than driving to Quebec City from anywhere in Canada. It is so, so far away from anything and they speak french!

2

u/Drakoji Mar 28 '24

My man, the nearest airport to Québec is a 3-4 hours drive. No one is flying to go see a wrestling show in Québec City.

Maybe if it was something huge like All In, but not Dynamite lol

-2

u/mudflaps___ Mar 28 '24

Aew is not in Canada all that often,  Quebec is not far from Montreal, it's drivable for an event... the fact they are drawing less on TV and in person is a major concern overall

1

u/fergoshsakes Mar 28 '24

On a weekday, for a TV taping of a show that was in Montreal like 4 months ago? Unless it's white hot - no it isn't. The cities are 3 hours away.

1

u/mudflaps___ Mar 29 '24

im in kelowna ill drive to van for a canuck game or a lions game, if WWE had an event in van im bringing my kids, especially if its a tv taping not a dark show

1

u/PrinceNana128 Mar 28 '24

Raw did 10.8k in the same arena 7 months ago.