Eric Bischoff believes Cody Rhodes risks diminishing his star power by hosting his own wrestling podcast and becoming increasingly accessible to fans.
Cody Rhodes has become another prominent wrestling name to enter the podcast space, interviewing current and former wrestlers. However, Eric Bischoff believes the WWE star should be the person being interviewed rather than the one conducting the interviews. On his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff agreed with co-host Conrad Thompson that he doesn’t like seeing Rhodes in the role, despite believing he is good at it.
“I can’t stand seeing Cody Rhodes in that role,” Bischoff said. “Is he good at it? Yeah. I have nothing but respect and affection, and I hate to see him doing something that I think dulls the luster of who he is and what he has achieved.”
Eric Bischoff Believes Cody Rhodes Is Becoming Overexposed
Eric Bischoff compared Cody Rhodes’ current level of exposure to Vince McMahon‘s approach to creating major stars during his time running WWE. The former WCW executive argued that wrestling’s biggest names benefit from maintaining a level of mystique and believes projects such as Rhodes’ podcast and WWE Unreal are pulling the curtain back too far.
“Peeling back the curtain even more than it already has,” Bischoff said. “All of these things, you know, in aggregate are just making these superstars people … We don’t pay money to go see people, we pay money to go see stars. And we’re not making them stars, we’re making them personal, we’re probably getting a return on an investment, but we’re not building a star.”
Bischoff’s concern is that allowing fans greater access to wrestlers outside their on-screen characters can make them feel less like larger-than-life personalities. He and Thompson also discussed how that approach differs from previous generations of wrestling. They suggested that if podcasts had been as prevalent during the 1990s, it would have been difficult to imagine “Stone Cold” Steve Austin regularly hosting one while at the height of his WWE career.
While Bischoff acknowledged Rhodes’ ability as a podcast host, he believes the additional exposure ultimately takes away from the image Rhodes has established as one of WWE’s biggest stars.
