On a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff discussed the finish to the main event at WWE Clash at the Castle: Scotland and articulated the rationale behind it, highlighting its merits despite the audience’s desire to witness Drew McIntyre winning the World Heavyweight Title from Damian Priest.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On CM Punk costing Drew McIntyre the World Title at Clash at the Castle: “It’s hard to say what I would have done, but I love the finish. We need heat. Heat is a necessary part of the equation. Good guys, bad guys; it all comes down to that. It’s storytelling, it’s characters. It’s so important to have a heel that people really hate. And if Punk’s that guy in this scenario, I love it. I love ending a show with heat. It’s not that you want to do it all the time, because it would lose its impact and wouldn’t be as effective if we saw it regularly. But especially on a PPV — because as you pointed out, and I think we’ve all been conditioned to the process of making everybody home happy, and we anticipate that.
“And the fact that WWE did something different than they normally do, particularly with Punk and Drew. Because they’ve been setting the stage for this for several months now. It’s not like this just came out of nowhere. This is part of the arc. We’re probably now into act two. We saw act one, it was establishing everybody. Getting to know how Drew and Punk felt about each other; giving us a baseline of who these two characters are and how they feel about each other. But now we’ve just escalated that to a different level. It’s a great way to open up an act two, and let’s see where it goes. But I love it, I thought it was great. And I think mixing it up and ending a PPV with heat like this is a great idea. The more heat, the better. The more heat you have, the more babyfaces you can make. I mean, it’s a wonderful thing. But you can’t build a company without real heat. Real heat. Yes, you’re gonna pi** people off. Yes, they’re gonna scream and cry and pi** and moan on social media. That’s what you want them to do. So I love it. Great move.”
On Chad Gable: “I love Chad Gable’s work. He’s a great guy, such a pro. Such a solid human being out of the ring. And I know Vince [McMahon] did like him. You know, while I was there for that brief period of time in 2019, Chad Gable was one of the people that when I sat down with Vince one night, he said, ‘Look, I really want to do something with Chad. Let’s see if we can develop some ideas.’ And unfortunately, Vince’s idea was Shorty G I think, or a version of it.
“And it was — I just don’t think it’s maximizing Chad gables potential. He can be a comedic talent. I mean, he’s a funny guy. And he’s got a great sense of comedic timing. But a lot like Kurt Angle and Dolph Ziggler when he was in WWE, he has such an amazing ability in the ring to either be a complete terror bada** or a comedic type of wrestler. And I think Vince saw him as a more lighthearted comedy relief type of character. Hopefully, Paul Levesque and the company will look at him differently, and maximize his talent because he’s got a wealth of talent. He’s such a talented guy. He can interview, he knows his character. And he’s fearless, he’s not afraid to try things. That’s — to me, that’s an ideal talent.”
