Eric Bischoff Blasts Real American Freestyle Critics, Says “90% of the Noise Comes from 10% of the Audience

Eric Bischoff isn’t losing sleep over social media hate. In fact, he says the loudest critics don’t actually matter as much as people think.

On a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Bischoff broke down the online reaction to the debut teaser of Real American Freestyle—his new amateur wrestling-meets-pro-wrestling project with Hulk Hogan and Izzy Martinez.

The black-and-white nWo-style video got millions of views but also drew harsh criticism in the comment section. Bischoff used the podcast to defend the concept and push back on what he believes is a distorted view of audience sentiment.

Referencing the original teaser video that introduced the project (not the follow-up video revealing Izzy Martinez), Bischoff said the engagement numbers told a very different story from the negativity some fans were focused on:

“If I look at that first tease—the first one where we teased the third man, not the second one where we revealed Izzy—but the first one, right? I got over 2.6 million views just on my post on one platform. Yes, there were about 12,000 likes. That’s an engagement. That suggests to me these are positive reactions.”

To make his point even clearer, Bischoff addressed the volume of negative comments that followed the video’s release, offering a hypothetical breakdown to illustrate how misleading online outrage can be:

“Now, I’m going to assume, for the sake of this discussion, that 100% of the comments were people expressing a negative reaction—some of them were pretty extreme and funny to read. But let’s just assume 100% of those 1,400 comments were negative.”

“There were 12,000 likes. So that’s about 10%. And that falls directly in line with what I’ve been saying for years—and I’m not saying I’m right, because we don’t know—but I’ve been saying for years that 90% of the noise on social media is created by 10% of the audience.”

“And ironically, that’s exactly the numbers here. At least anecdotally. I know this isn’t critical research, but… the 10% haters make 90% of the noise.”

“So, you just take it with a grain of salt.”

This was Bischoff’s way of saying that despite loud negative responses, the majority of viewers were either supportive or silently receptive—suggesting the product is still in a strong position despite online pushback.

His commentary follows Real American Freestyle’s official announcement and a surge of online chatter—both positive and negative—about the new league’s fusion of Olympic-caliber athletes, scripted storytelling, and reality-show-style production. Bischoff and Hogan have pitched the concept as a fresh take on combat sports that will feature backstories and character arcs, much like The Voice or The Ultimate Fighter, only in the world of amateur wrestling.

With over 40 athletes expected to join the roster and big names like Ben Askren and Kennedy Blades already involved, the project is gaining steam. And with financial backing from Left Lane Capital, the same firm behind other alternative sports leagues like Gerard Piqué’s Kings League, this is no passion project—it’s a business move meant to disrupt the sports-entertainment space.

Bischoff’s latest rant shows just how personal the mission is—and how he’s sticking to his playbook from the nWo era: draw attention, control the narrative, and don’t let the haters dictate your strategy.