Eric Bischoff ‘confident’ Real American Freestyle will land streaming deal
Eric Bischoff says he’s confident his new venture with Hulk Hogan, Real American Freestyle, will land a broadcast deal.
Bischoff and Hogan were guests on Monday’s episode of The Ariel Helwani Show. During the interview, Bischoff was asked about where the promotion’s debut event on August 30 will air. He responded:
“As a matter of fact, as soon as we’re done with this, I have a call with a major platform that everybody would know about and recognize. We may end up there, we may not. We are going to end up on a platform on August 30th. We’re in discussions. I don’t even want to call negotiations. I’ll be really straightforward with you on this. We’re in discussions with two different platforms. Like I said, one over the next 45 minutes. I’m confident that we’re going to land a streaming opportunity and it may be a cable broadcast, but time will tell, you know.”
“I’m not concerned that we won’t have a platform. I’m only concerned with which one it will be and how it will work for us.”
Also during the conversation, Hogan and Bischoff mentioned their goal is to run one event per month. The Real American Freestyle website lists an event in Michigan for October and one in New Jersey for November, but no other details have been disclosed.
Bischoff was also asked about the status of Olympic gold medalist Kyle Snyder with the promotion. Snyder is one of 8 athletes to be featured on the RAF website. Snyder was recently revealed as one of 16 men arrested as part of a prostitution sting in Ohio earlier this month. Bischoff says they will review the matter internally.
“I just read about that about an hour ago, actually. I’ve been on the phone all morning and we’ll talk about it internally. I don’t know enough about the facts to comment on it here. Other than to say, I don’t know how old Kyle is, but as a young man or woman, once you start reaching certain levels of success in life and people know who you are, it becomes even more critical that you are careful in the way you conduct yourself, whether it’s in the business or away from the business.”
Hogan was also asked about the negative reaction he received at the WWE on Netflix premiere earlier this year. He responded that the media treats him differently than others when he’s booed.
“The last time I was in LA, I was Hollywood with the black beard and doing the bad guy thing. I can go out there and get booed in LA or The Rock can get booed in LA or John Cena gets booed in LA but when I get booed, there’s a whole different reaction media wise. For some reason I’ve laid some type of groundwork that people are still interested in what I’m doing. And so for those that are on the team and are riding with the train to the station, that’s great. For those that are the haters and still have a problem with me, there’s nothing I can do to fix that except just keep proving by my actions that I’m still in the game. I’m still pushing hard.”
“When you get booed and then you get 3.2 billion engagements, and you rock that whole world in LA with how much interaction there was on the internet, I’ll take it.”
Hogan was asked if he felt it was people booing his character rather than him personally. Hogan responded:
“All of the above. There were certain people who boo the character, there were certain WWE Superstars who had an opinion and had advice for me but I would like to ask the same guys when I go to New York or Chicago and the people cheer out of the rooftops, I would like to know what their advice is then and what their opinion is.”
“So it’s a double-edged sword and it’s always been that. It’s part of the character, it’s part of me personally, it’s part of my professional life, it’s part of my personal life, it’s all the above. And at the end of the day I’m just like an old scarred up seal with a bunch of scars on me and I’m really relatable to most normal people because a lot of people have been through a lot of stuff I have professionally.”
Bischoff and Hogan’s full appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show is available below: