19. Eric Bischoff Says Rumors of ICW’s Video Library Moving To The WWE Network Is An Interesting Move

As we noted before, WWE’s Chief Financial Officer George Barrios had the following to say regarding video library of indy wrestling promotions moving to the WWE Network:

“Yeah, I think there’s something there. It’s always priority and what once comes first. We recently announced a deal with ICW and Progress, which are wrestling promotions in the UK. So we’re thinking about the best way to utilize that content. As you know, we’ve been fairly active over the years in purchasing wrestling libraries, video libraries, a lot of which now you can see on the network. We think there’s a home for that, and it just a matter of priority.”

Former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed this on a recent edition of “Bischoff on Wrestling” podcast and had the following to say about this situation:

“I was a little bit surprised. It certainly caught my eye for a couple of reasons. I think the biggest thing that attracted my attention is that WWE notoriously doesn’t acknowledge or support anything that they don’t own or control. That’s just the nature of the beast and how they have been successful in their approach to business. They don’t play well with others. They’ll play well with you if they own you or control you but if you are truly independent of them then you are not going to get a lot of love. At least not for long. The fact that they made that move is still very interesting to me.”