Eric Bischoff Compares Jade Cargill To Chris Jericho Prior To WWE Jump In 1999

On a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed WWE’s signing of Jade Cargill, the unique approach they are taking with her introduction, how they have differed in their approach to handling her and the unique way she has been presented so far. He then compared Cargill’s current position to that of Chris Jericho back in 1999, when he made the jump from WCW to WWE.

Here are the highlights:

On Jade Cargill’s name not being changed:

 “Well, then, there you go. So there was no gimmick attorney Michael E. Dockins trademark or copyright issues. But your point is, typically WWE wants to own that name. They want to merchandise that name. So they’re basically doing a licensing deal with her as opposed to her showing up and being a talent. And they own the license or they own the trademarks. I think that’s very interesting and it does definitely break the paradigm. Yeah, that is not what WWE normally does. Over the decades — fascinating to me. I’m glad.”

On how WWE has hyped Cargill up via social media:

“First of all, let’s go back to introducing her on social media, getting her on TV, and establishing the fact that she’s landed. I’m going to go back to the audience duplication again. The reason I think it got so much attention is, you know, some of the same people that watched her are obviously watching WWE, a lot more of them than people think. And I think it’s going to get more apparent in the future. But I think, you know, getting her out there and establishing her officially on camera as a character as quickly as possible, great idea. Keeps her fresh in everybody’s mind.”

On what’s next for Cargill, how her run will differ from AEW:

“Everybody’s going to be anxious to see where she goes next, including me, by the way. But as I said, I think a couple of weeks ago when it first was announced that she was going over there, I think I said something to the effect, I’ll paraphrase myself, ‘I wouldn’t expect to see her in the ring right away because the expectations and the level of performance in WWE and the expectations that come with it.’ How she works in the ring is decidedly different in WWE than it is in AEW and a mistake, a big mistake the WWE theoretically could make because they won’t make it — theoretically could make — would be to rush her out there and put her in a ring and put her in a match and put her in a story before she’s really ready. She’s not WWE-ready yet. Now she may be ready two weeks from now. She may be ready two months from now. Time will tell. But I think it’s a really smart idea and very disciplined to make sure that she’s ready, and particularly with Paul because I think that’s one of the things that he would like the most. Vince would too. But Paul really would want to make sure that she’s going to overdeliver on her expectations in WWE and not put her in there so soon or too soon in a situation where she could. Expose herself, or when I say expose herself, you know what I mean? Expose the fact that she’s still relatively green in the business. She hasn’t been wrestling that long. It’s only been a couple of years. And let’s be honest, she hasn’t been on TV a ton and the expectations are far different than they are in WWE, So she’s not ready yet.”

On comparisons to Chris Jericho in 1999:

“You know who told me that? You know, who made that really abundantly clear to me? And I had never really thought about Chris Jericho much. Yeah, he had a long conversation a while back with Chris and again, paraphrasing Chris here, I’m not putting words in his mouth, but said something to the effect of, you know, when he left WCW in his mind he was main event ready in WWE. Once he got there, he went, ‘Whoa, this is different. I’m not quite where I need to be yet.’ That’s probably where Jade is at. And now, let’s just how long is it going to take. When will we see her? But I think they’ll probably keep her. If it takes three months, they’ll keep her alive and they’re good at that. There’ll be some great packages. They’ll be teases. If it takes her six months, it’ll be okay. But when she’s ready, she’ll. She’ll be ready and she’ll overdeliver.”

(h/t 411mania)