83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - 83 Weeks #252: WWE Sale?

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

On this edition of 83 Weeks Conrad and Eric push back the initial plan to do a show about Buff Bagwell to next week as they talk all about the potential sale of the WWE. Special thanks to this week's sponsors! CamperMaxx -Specializing in MAXX discounted pricing on Travel Trailers and Fifthwheel RV’s.Visit: campermaxx.com or call 256-320-7033 ShipStation- Go to ShipStation.com/83weeks today and sign up for a FREE 60-day trial. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9 over on AdFreeShows.com. That's less than 15 cents an episode each month! You can also listen to them directly through Apple Podcasts or your other regular podcast apps! AdFreeShows.com also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content including popular series like Title Chase, Eric Fires Back, Conversations with Conrad, Mike Chioda's Mailbag and many more! Plus, live, interactive virtual chats with your favorite podcasts hosts and wrestling legends. All that and much more! Sign up today at AdFreeShows.com! Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Massachusetts, or call 1-8-7-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope-N-Y in New York. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? Finally catching my breath, brother. I feel like I've been on a treadmill here for the last three and a half days, two and a half days. So I kind of settling down a little bit. So much good stuff going on.

Dude, there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. We're going to talk about most of it here today. We, uh, we had a plan today to cover Buff Bagwell. We've promoted it. We advertised it. We teased it. We did our homework. We got all of our preparation ready.

And then we crumpled it up and threw it off the window. Not really. Uh, I hope everyone wishes Buff a happy birthday tomorrow. We were looking forward to talking about one of wrestling's biggest success stories. Our next big success story. I do think that Buff Bagwell is going to be that guy. I know we're all. pulling for him. But we're going to table that conversation for next week because from

when we recorded last and now the wrestling world has changed a little bit. Fair to say, Mr. Bischoff. Wow. Like like like yeah, it's changed a little bit, but it's going to be changing a lot. Yeah. Over the next who knows, weeks, months, days, hours. I don't know. What time is it? It's only 11. You know, here it's only 11. 17 a.m. Rocky Mountain time on a Sunday morning. By the time this thing drops, who knows what happens. It's awesome. It is a crazy time in the wrestling business. Since you and I recorded, it came out that Vince McMahon is back.

From what I understand, he's brought back George Barrios and Michelle Wilson with him. Of course, that was the leadership that was steering the ship for a long time. And then as they sort of eased out, it made way for Nick Conn. And now they're back. And supposedly, as the story goes, there is, uh, well, let's just jump into it. There's three, there's three people who no longer on the board. And allegedly one of those folks are the folks who sort of spearheaded the campaign. That resulted in Vince leaving the company.

he's since had a change of heart and now he's back and supposedly changed the bylaws along the way saying that you can't sell this company or negotiate major media rights for this company without my approval he of course has the super shares he has the power and now he's wielding it and so it's come out since you and i recorded that he's actually enlisted the help of j p morgan to advance sale talks and this is something that you and I have talked about a lot here on the program for over two years that I believed for a long time that the company was being positioned for sale and lots of people didn't believe that and argued it and said that'll never happen and blah blah blah and now it's out there it's at least a possibility and one of the other things

that's been discussed that I can't wait to talk about with you is the idea of it, you know, Vince could actually take this thing private, meaning it's no longer publicly traded. You just get some help buying it out. And then it's Vince and a few other private investors. Needless to say, the wrestling world is on pins and needles to see how all of this plays out. Perhaps no one more so than those who already work in WWE. And your old personal friend Tony Kahn even had a little fun with it on social media and says,

I don't know why everybody's being so nice to me all of a sudden. Maybe it's a, I got a kick out of that comment. That's kind of funny. Hilarious stuff, man. I, I'm curious as we're talking now on Sunday,

January 8th, the day before everybody hears this. What's your prediction? Where does this all wind up? Let me start at this. Do you think Vince is at TV tonight as folks are listening to this? No. I don't either.

I don't think so. I don't either. But I'm out of the prediction business. This, I mean, you know, back on Strictly Business a week or so ago, which, by the way, is its own podcast, you can get it automatically by subscribing here to 83 weeks and you'll be notified the minute Strictly business drops typically on Thursdays. And we talked a great deal, obviously, about what's going on. but I just can't imagine that Vince's primary focus right now is to jump back into creative saddle. I mean, there's a lot.

Obviously, there is a ton on his plate of a magnitude that I just don't think, even Vince McMahon, who notoriously works 20 hours a day, I think that would be a little bit much. I think Vince is going to be focused on stability, particularly outward facing stability, which is why I think he went to great lengths to acknowledge Nick, Khan, and Stephanie and Paul LeVecke in their roles and assure everybody he did it three times in one press release, I believe, or maybe in different comments, whatever.

There were three different occasions that Vince made a point to say, hey, Paul, Nick and Stephanie, doing a great job, all the confidence in the world in them, nothing's going to change. And if that's true or accurate, it's accurate, he said it. If it's true, I think showing up a TV would be, even just from a perception wise, even if he just showed up and hung around backstage, I think would be really, it wouldn't add to the stability of the situation right now. A couple weeks, maybe once things settle down, but right now I can't see it.

I do wonder about the optics. Like maybe it does make sense for him to show up at TV just to show that, hey, things are, you know, I got my hands on the wheel, so to speak. Everything's all right. But this is usual, but not necessarily. I agree with you. I can't imagine that he's super interested in, in the creative. And I know that a lot of wrestling fans and there are some other podcasters out

there who do a fine job and have done a great, built a great audience and a great business for themselves. Boy, they are just beside themselves. The Vince McMahon is going to ruin the WWE, which makes me chuckle a little bit. Like, nowhere in any of this do I think this is about creative. And I understand that a lot of people are painting this as a power struggle. And it's all about control. But is it really about control? of was Bobby Lashley winning tonight? I don't think that that's insignificant. This is about controlling the cash. This is this is a business play, not a creative play. Did you agree with that? No, absolutely. That's why I say I just can't see, I can't see the primary motivation here,

even a secondary motivation and this whole thing. And again, I'm setting myself up to be absolutely wrong because we're talking about Vince McMahon. Yes. And Vince McMahon is not your typical human being and not your typical business person. What would seem to make sense for most people may or may not necessarily apply to Vince here. And the word, you know, we've used this word now you used in the last couple, in the last minute, it was control. Yes.

I think one thing we can all agree on, regardless of how we feel about Vince with Man one way or the other, control has always been kind of the foundation upon which Vince McMahon operates. Yeah. go back to when he took the company public. And we touched on this on strictly business last week. But I think a lot of listeners, in your average person,

doesn't necessarily understand the difference between, probably doesn't even know that there are A shares and B shares. There are two different classes of shares. Right. One class has voting rights. That's the one Vince owns the majority of interest in. He has the majority of shares. And the other one is just along for the right.

They don't get to vote. And I find it fascinating, among so many other things, that Vince structured this company and was able to do so successfully. Because look, a lot of companies, I've actually structured a company once with A shares and B shares many years ago for this exact same purpose. But it was a small, it was a small opportunity and we were taking in some investment. We wanted to make sure that our core team would be able to. maintain control over the direction of the company and the strategies of the company. And when you bring in outside money, if you're not careful, you don't have that control. But I find it fascinating that so many years ago took the company public, was able to do so

with an A and B share, two classes of shares architecture, and be able to be so successful with it because that that structure typically turns investors off right people are generally not inclined to throw a lot of their money into a company that they know they don't have a voice in unless it's very successful and initially nobody knew if this public offering for wwe was going to be a success but the fact that he did it and he set himself up to be in the position that he's in he has the ultimate hammer. I'm so fascinated by all of this. This is the most interesting thing.

Other than Musk and Twitter, I find this to be one of the most interesting things in media and business in the last 20, 30 years. I can't think of anything that, in my opinion, is as interesting as this. Over the last five days, as you and I are recording, the stock is up six, 16 bucks and 21 cents, which represents everything's about percentages, boys and girls. 23.82% up on the news that Vince is coming back and that a sale could be in the works. The stock is up based on a rounding 24%. That's incredible news.

How do you read that? You know, there's a lot of gamblers out there. You know, I mean, to me, you know, I've never really been involved in the stock market because I think if I was going to invest in the market, I would have to invest a lot of time to educate myself. I just, it's the same reason I don't go to Vegas and put money on, on anything. I don't gamble because I'm not good at it. And it's just, it's just a game of chance. and I'm not interested in investing or spending money in Vegas, for example, on a game of chance, because I have no control over anything.

You have control over decisions you make, whether you put it, you know, split your deck if you're playing blackjack and things like that. But at the end of the day, it's just odds, right? And I feel the same way a little bit about the stock market. There are strategies, obviously, and there are a lot of people. Hell, Warren Buffett, you know, is out there. And there are people, individuals who really understand the market and are good at it. But I think a lot of people, your average investor, sees, oh, there's going to be a merger or acquisition.

Typically, stocks go up in that environment. And I think there's just a lot of people betting on the transaction. I think, I guess, I guess, I don't know. I'm not an expert. but if there comes a point in time in all of this that it appears that maybe it's not going to be there's not going to be a transaction and it's simply a rights deal which is now kind of a B story I think at this point then I think you'll see the stock go down you'll seek a more normal level but as long as there's a big acquisition on the table and we're you know we're

hearing about Saudi Arabia now which I think is a viable thing to discuss an important thing to discuss because I think it's a real possibility given the relationship between Vince individually, Vince McMahon and the WWA, obviously, and he members of the Saudi family. I think that's a real possibility. You know, I think the other possibilities we've all discussed over the last couple years are all real possibilities. So I think as long as that possibility of a sale is out there, the stock will continue to do well. that somebody suggests that maybe it's not going to be a sale, maybe it's just going to be taking

the company private, which is still a transaction and still would be something that would increase the value of the stock price. But I think that'll slow down a little bit if the talk of a sale starts to slow down a little bit, if that makes sense. Well, I do want to talk about taking the company private, but one thing you and I are not private about is our love of athletic greens. you and I have been using AG1 for a long time long before they were even a sponsor here on the program my wife started using it in our household which meant I had to start using it now that was a bit of a trickeration as somebody used to say because my wife knew uh conrad doesn't like

taking pills or vitamins it's just not really his thing and if he's going to do it it needs to taste good well AG1 checks all the boxes now my wife wanted to optimize our immune system at the start of the pandemic, but she's appreciated more energy, and she feels like better gut health, too. Let me explain, if you're taking a look at us over on YouTube, it's 83 weeks on YouTube.com, you can see exactly what we're talking about. Now, what is this stuff? Well, with one delicious scoop of AG1, you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens, everything you need to help you start

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It'll provide better sleep quality and recovery. Think of it as like your all-in-one nutritional insurance, but don't just take our word for it. Athletic Greens has more than 7,000 five star reviews. And Eric, one of those five star reviews is from you. You absolutely love AG1. And I know Mrs. B, she's, uh, she's way more educated on this stuff than you and I probably ever will be. And she's a big believer too, right? Yes, she is. I mean, my wife, we, I refer to her as Mrs. B, but Lori has spent probably the last 20 years, really studying nutrition. And I mean studying it formally. you know, in school, as well as just reading.

If you came into our house, Conrad, you went up into our bedroom. There's maybe not a thousand, but more than a couple hundred books, all on nutrition. Wow. And Lori focuses primarily on holistic nutrition. It's just, it's a passion. And it has been for her for many, many years. It all started out with a book that I, actually suggests that she read a book called Sugar Blues. And this is like, this may have been

even longer, man. This may be 35 years ago. But I read that book Sugar Blues and it really opened my eyes to a lot of things about nutrition. I first read the book when I was training for my black belt in martial arts. And I read it because I ate a lot of sugar. Anyway, fast forward. So that was the kind of the catalyst that got Lori really interested in. But she's, she's all in, man and both of us i think we were on a trip somewhere down to see you or heading down of florida we were listening to joe rogan's podcast so we're doing a road trip or in a truck sometimes you can't get a radio station anyway we're listening to joe rogan extolling the virtues of ag one and i i i kind of dig joe and i believe joe i think he's i don't think he's out there

promoting things that he doesn't believe in particularly when it comes to nutrition because he's also obsessed with it and i listened to it and we and lor i said let's or what's some of that give it a shot and we did an absolutely love it absolutely love it it tastes so good by the way that uh lorry also likes to make homemade ice cream but she makes it without sugar she uses sugar substitutes and doesn't it's it's delicious actually um when we make healthy ice cream or as healthy as it can be but i'm even thinking man some some i'd like to try some some age you one wow our ice cream because we're trying to make it a healthy treat so we're going to probably give that a world. I don't know if it a work or now, but we absolutely love

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out so we don't forget our family here. We're doing this show and we're doing it live for ad-free shows. And we've got some of our family members on board Bobby at Keelow, Foxxrap 5 golf tango x-ray. Glad to have you with us. You're here almost every week. Man, I appreciate it. Josh, Rosenblum, love it. Love that you're here, man, or Rosenbaum. I'm sorry. I said, damn, Eddie Prather, Matt, thanks for joining us, man. And if you want to join us live and be able to make comments during the show and be a part of it and get us over at adfreeshows.com, join the party. It's a fun one. It is.

We're going to be talking about ad free shows.com a little more at the end of the show. But I do appreciate everybody turning up today. And I wanted to ask what you talked about or touched on just before we went to the break there about the idea that perhaps Vince would take this thing private. I have heard that that was actually something that was discussed long before any of the other shenanigans, that this is something that has actually been beat up for a while. And I guess that's really not all that uncommon.

You hear about companies that maybe go public and then regret it and think, man, we'd have more freedom if we did this and we did that. And I could see Vince McMahon being that kind of maverick at heart. He's like, man, I don't want to really want to be. dictated to let's just go private again but that would take an incredible amount of cash i don't know five six seven billion um maybe in the scheme of things that's not that much money for a property like this but still a substantial investment and it makes me wonder is the only opportunity for that quote unquote saudi money because clearly vince has made a lot of money with them and and they

certainly have a relationship with w e or do you think that is something he could pull off in a more traditional sense. I don't know. You know, that's a level of fundraising, money raising that's so far out of my scope of even comprehension. I just don't know who has the kind of money to play that game. But I think in aggregate, if you put together three, four, five people, especially if you've got somebody who's, I mean, what is Vince,

what is Vince net worth, you know, three, four billion? would he let would he we would he throw some of his own money into the kitty yeah you don't think most of his net worth is just the stock in the company itself right i'm i'm assuming that but we don't know that but i bet i think that's a fair assumption a good assumption i think forbes has him down at 2.4 billion you know so and by the way i'm not suggesting he has to come up with all over himself but if he throws in a half a billion or a billion so he's got skin in the game, if he has access to that cash, if he's liquid, and he's got Saudi partners who are willing to come in with three or four, and you've got Endeavor that may want to come in.

There's no way of knowing. There's just no way of knowing. I do believe, and I said this on Strictly Business hours before the press release came out or the news came out, that during a company-wide meeting, Frank Riddick, who I believe is their controller, whatever his title is, vice president, controller, whatever. He's the money guy, came out and said that one of the options is to take the company private.

I think hours before that, I was strictly business, I leaned into that one because that's what I think. And I say that because, especially under the circumstances, it's the fact that WWE is a publicly held company that really forced Vince into retirement. right you know you got to protect the stock and i can see vince based on what i've heard about him a little bit when i've come to came to know about him he's a fighter i mean we all know that

i could see vince going i'm taking his i'm taking his back right and putting together a team of people that would put the money together and take it back private i could see it it's going to be interesting to see how it shakes out because i think there's probably folks who have operated within and around wb who felt like vince is gone and i was never totally convinced of that uh simply because i don't think vince McMahon knows life without W.E. Like, it's hard for me to imagine, and I saw you talking about this with Chris Van Vleek. Like, I don't think my man has decided to move to the wilderness and, and start fly fishing and he's grown a Zizi top beard. Like, I don't, that's real, you know, it's just I can't imagine.

All the years that we've been following Vince, you know, has anybody ever caught a picture of him on vacation, like the French Riviera or scuba diving in Belize, you know? or anything. Have we ever seen a picture of Vince McMahon on a golf course? Have we ever seen anything about Vince McMahon that suggests that he's got any interests outside of WWE? I haven't. I've heard their stories that he used to go to Florida and Bruce has told the story that he used to have a property that was like golf on one side and bay on the other and he sold it. But when he sold it to the developer, he got one of the penthouses or something. Bruce told some sort of story like that. And it came out over the years

I've been doing the shit with Bruce that he used to have like a yacht down there. And I think the name of the boat was something like sexy bitch or something like that hilarious where it was like what? And I even saw a photo of him in like a speedo on that boat once. But yes, you're right. We don't see or hear him in these extravagant vacation. That's not really his thing. He loves what he does. And hey guys. Guys, it's the hardcore legend Mick Foley here, and I need to call a quick timeout, a brief timeout, because I wanted to tell your listeners what I have been telling Foley is pod listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-freeshows.com. We kick off 2023 by going back to 1983 and the debut of the NWA U.S. heavyweight championship, commonly referred to as the 10 pounds of silver. on an all-new edition of Title Chase.

Over time has just kind of worn out, and then Magnum T.A. told me himself that he finally just polished some of the rest of it out because it just had some little bit in the corners or whatever that had hung on, and so he just finished the job. Our book series continues, and this time we turn to Jim Crockett promotions. Conrad and David Crockett dive into Jim Crockett Jr.'s

Handwritten Booking Logs from January 1985. So tell us exactly what we're looking at here, The Red Books. All right, the Red Books, I have to tell you, are basically, and I'll hold one up, this is a calendar for a book for 1985. Yep. All right. In it, I'm just going to turn a full page.

Handwritten, the matches, and also the gross of the city, towns that we're in, the matchups. And this is the Bible. It was started with my father. On January 24th, ad-free shows is bringing you another premium watch-along event as we celebrate the 35-year anniversary of the very first Royal Rumble. And we're watching it live with the winner of that historic match, Haxaw Jim Duggan. Hello. Hey, folks, I'm W.W.E. All-famer Haxaw Jim Duggan from the Golden Age of Wrestling.

And I'm celebrating the 35th anniversary of my win in the first. first ever Royal Wumble by watching this Royal Wumble on ad-freeshows.com. Join me January 24th at 9 p.m. Ad-freeshows.com. Tough guy. First ever winner. That's just a small taste, a sampling, if you will, of what we have waiting for you, with four levels to choose from four. See for yourself why Ad-Free Shows is the best value in wrestling today sign up now right now at ad free shows dot com yeah and the idea that that was gone made me think there's got to be he's going to come do something at some point i don't know what he's working on but he's working on something well now maybe we know

and i also don't believe and again i don't really know vince i mean i've only talked to him a handful of times but it's hard for me to imagine what we do know about vince that he would just go into this sort of willy-nilly like i don't know really what we're going to do but we'll figure it out. I imagine that he's, if there's going to be quote unquote sale talks, he probably already has one, maybe two buyers in mind thinking,

I know they're in and I know they're in. Now let's just see how we can get the best deal possible. That's, that's what this feels like to me. Like he's already got a plan. We just don't know it yet. Yeah, it would be interesting to know what Vince has been doing

since he retired. Yeah. where he's been who he's met with where he's traveled that kind of information would be interesting you know because it not that it would tell us anything but it would fuel speculation I guess and inmate may provide some indication but yeah none of that man he's been under the radar I think I saw one picture of him out to dinner one night yeah everybody that made it but I think he was in New York, you know, um, so yeah, I mean, this is such a fun time. There is more drama, more story, more intrigue, um, going on behind the scenes in

the wrestling business than has ever taken place inside of a wrestling ring. It's just awesome. It's crazy too, man, because there's so much to this story and it can go and spider off in so many different directions. And I think we all just sort of look. think in a weird way and boy i don't mean for this to be dismissive of the fine men and women who are out there entertaining us every week the more interesting story isn't happening in the ring it's behind the scenes and that's not an indictment on creative or any of that it's just

the unknown and it keeps us guessing and i'm curious from your perspective with some of these different buyers that have been rumored to be out there uh and lord there's a bunch of different conspiracy theory so that maybe it's going to be cottoncaster, you know, maybe it's going to be Disney. Maybe it's going to be Amazon or whatever. Does one of those stand out as a bigger threat to wrestling as we know it than others? Everybody has their opinion, right? And you and I talked about this a little bit last night.

I can see why a lot of people inside of WWE, particularly those that have stock options in their portfolio, WWE stock options. But I can see a lot of people being very nervous because it's the unknown. You know, nobody likes the unknown. Nobody knows how this is going to play itself out. So everybody's kind of hanging on by a thread waiting to see which direction it's going to go. And I get that.

That's an uncomfortable feeling. But my impression is that whoever buys it is probably not going to come in and start making any kind of wholesale changes when it comes to the management of the company for the first year and a half for two years. And I lived through that, by the way. I remember when the AOL Time Warner, when the merger happened or the acquisition happened of Turner Broadcasting, somebody that was really, that had been through this type of thing before, somebody a lot smarter than me. And more experienced, not smarter, but just had been through it before. I never had.

Said to me, Eric, don't worry about it. You're not going to see or feel a thing for the first year, maybe two. And I didn't understand it. I didn't question it. I just kind of took it at face value, but I never, didn't really understand why. But having been through it, it was true. You know, initially, when, And when that all went down, a lot of people were expecting, oh, my gosh, Monday morning,

we're a new company now. Things are going to change. And it didn't. It was business as usual for about six or eight months. Then you started seeing a few changes. And then over another six or eight months, you started seeing more changes. And then before you knew it, there was a culture war. It was the AOL time Warner, corporate culture.

basically consuming the entrepreneurial culture of Turner Broadcasting. And I started seeing guys who would typically show up wearing a sport coat, nice pair of jeans, loafers, showing up to work, executives showing up. And before I knew it, they're all wearing dark blue suits, white shirts, red ties, and wingtip shoes. That was the culture of a well-time order. But it takes time.

And I think the same thing is true here. You know, Steve Kaufman and I were talking right before we got on here about Comcast, you know, and Steve's concern was, well, wait a minute. You know, if Comcast comes in, you know, they're going to want to have some voice and creative or the process. I don't know who wants to do that? First of all, nobody in that company has any experience or knowledge of the wrestling product, not to the extent that they can come in and have a voice in the creative process.

Nobody's going to want to take that chance. they're going to wait and see and they're going to learn more importantly they're going to learn and over time i think whoever would buy it if they wanted to influence the direction of the company will but it's not going to happen for a year or two or more and also and i don't mean to hog this thing but yeah look at the success and the effectiveness of the current creative team for example. Yes. Led by Paul LeVecke, aka Triple H, and in Bruce and the team that they work with.

Why would you want to mess with that? It's working. Whether it's Vince coming in and deciding he wants to get back in that seat or whether it's Comcast or some other buyer coming in and buying the company, why would you want to screw with something that's working? without even really understanding how the business operates and functions. I just don't see it. Eventually, yes.

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Wu Wings is looking to partner with existing restaurants in major metro areas. Tell your favorite sports bar or local restaurant, you want Wu Wings in your town. And to visit RickflareWings.com for more information on how to become a partner. But if you're in Nashville, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Huntsville, or Tuscaloosa, hop on your Uber Eats or Postmates app and look for Woo Wings and try the only chicken wings, hearing the name of the 16 time world heavyweight champion woo wings be sure to check out rickflarewings.com to become a partner it's um it's just fascinating to think about what if and what could be and i see people in the chat right now over at adfreesows.com

who are getting to watch along with us and they're having a lot of the same questions that i've got i got two phone calls last week from different people who, uh, well, their names in the wrestling community, we'll say that. And they both asked me the exact same question that Josh Rosenbaum did in our chat right now, as folks are watching us live here on ad free shows.com. Does and would Tony Khan have the capacity to buy WWE? And I think the answer is, yes, he has the capacity. There's no question that he would be able to put together a deal.

but I just I would put the odds of that being near zero like what would be in I don't know why Tony con would do that I don't see the upside for Tony con doing that he's got his own thing like I mean I hear you he could combine and blah blah blah that's fantasy wrestling book I just I don't see it let's say you yeah yeah you know Steve just put up there you know Tony's father this isn't Tony con's money it's Tony con's money it's Tony father's money family money Tony has a big chunk of it obviously part of it but are you go to you know how much of your 11 billion dollars of your net worth depending on how much of it is even liquid are you willing to put on wwe well he wouldn't have to do that you know that

eric i mean guys don't guys don't really write a check for seven billion they go into their banker and they say hey uh you see i got a bunch of cash give me some money well and i understand that But you're probably going to have to put some of your own money in that. Oh, sure. He's not going to Wells Fargo and asking Wells Fargo to finance this thing, right? You're talking about private investors. Yes. And private investors would probably be very interested in this,

depending upon how much of the Khan family's own money is in it. So, again, just like Vince, would probably have to put up half a billion, a billion dollars of his own money because they want to see that, okay, if you're going to lead this charge and we're going to jump on your team here to do this and make this acquisition, we want to know that you have skin in the game too. They're not just buying your name and your reputation. They want to know that you're in it to win it. And the same would be true with the con family.

I'm sure that if they put in a half a billion, a billion dollars of their own money, they would go out and I'm sure they have a Rolodex of potential investors from around the world that would be interested. It could happen. but, man, you've got the Jags, you've got a football team in England, you've got AEW. I don't know what other businesses they're in, but do you really want to do that? No, I just, I don't see it. I mean, again, I don't know.

I haven't asked Tony, uh, but I just, I don't see it. I know that Tony once in a time, like the idea of working with WWV and, well, that's his story to tell, uh, but here's the thing. I just. I think this is going to go one or two ways. This is going to be much ado about nothing or the whole business is fixing a change. I don't think it has anything to do with what people who and listen,

you and I are guilty of this. Sometimes we're all, especially if you're listening to this program, man, like it or not, at times we're all in the bubble. And so we let ourselves just get caught up on wrestling talk. This is not about,

this is a business. talk and then you know the wrestling will figure itself out on the other side but it's to me it's going to go one or two ways right it's either going to be a game changer for the whole industry or much to do about nothing business as usual so so what's the scenario let's let's start to paint a picture here what's the scenario what scenario would play out in your mind that would result in this just being much ado about nothing what happens uh if he continues to let hunter handle creative and wrestling and he just works closely with Nick Conn and Stephanie on media rights and potential sales stuff.

And he just wants to make sure that he's got a voice and he's actively involved. But he doesn't necessarily at whatever his tweet reference, because he had some sort of at 77 years old, it's time for me, blah, blah, blah. He just says, okay, you guys just have out that. But I'm going to make sure that I'm responsible for guarding the kingdom, so to speak. So in that scenario, here's the downside. And by the way, there was a headline on one of the news sites. I think it was Wrestling Inc.

And I love all the coverage. They're being giving this and I think a lot of the folks over there. But the headline, because I made a comment, it was either, yeah, it was on strict of business. I made a comment about, we're discussing, you know, why some people feel it's so bizarre that Vince would come in and say, hey, I'm basically the person that gets to decide what we do and who we do it with because he's the largest controlling shareholder. He has the most skin in the game. And so many people are, well, a lot of the comments that I'm reading just don't understand

that. It is a controversial thing. What the headline said is, Mischoff doesn't see any controversy in McMahon coming back. That's not what I said. And it's not even what I was implying. What I was implying is that people need to understand why this makes sense from Vince McMahon's point of view. Take how you feel about Vince out of the equation. It doesn't matter how you feel about it. Emotion is one thing, facts or another. Okay. Emotionally, everybody has an opinion about Vince McMahon. Many people do have an opinion about Vince McMahon. And that opinion, for better or worse, is driven

in part, I don't know how you measure it, but in part by what we've come to know about Vince as a television character or what we think we've come to know about Vince as a result of the narrative that's been floating around for 25 or 30 years, you know, in in dirt sheets and guys like, you know, Dave Meltzer and others and early on, you know, and now we're getting legitimate coverage by some great people like, you know, you know, Sean Ross Sapp and Mike Johnson. There's a lot of people that are really covering this pretty well. But over the last few decades, right, we've gotten this narrative about who Vince is because

not many people know Vince McMahon. Right. You know, I'm sure Bruce Pritchard does and I'm sure there's a handful of other people that do that are really close to Vince and obviously his family. But the rest of us, and I'm putting myself into that equation, you know, I competed against Vince you know, I was a fan of it's, you know, WWE before I even got into the business and I knew of Vince McMahon. And eventually I was competing against Vince McMahon. And you get to know somebody when you're competing with them, especially the way that we did. And then I got to work with Vince

as a talent. And then I got to work for Vince very briefly as an executive. So do I have a sense of who Vince McMahon is? Of course I do. Doesn't mean I'm right, but I have a sense of who he is. But none of us really know Vince. Right. And what motivates him. But Vince McMahon is the guy who, the reason we're even having this conversation and we're talking about, you know, people possibly coming in with $5, 6, 7 billion to take the company public or to buy it is because of Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon had a vision back in the 80s that people thought would never happen. A lot of the independent territory guys, like Verganya, by the way, because I heard it.

I listened to it early in my career. Byrne continued to dismiss Vince McMahon and continue to say at the time, it'll never work. This is going to blow up in his face. He's chasing a dream. I heard all that conversation. The fact is, Vince had a vision. He executed it.

And here we are today. And he is the largest shareholder and the chief executive board member, whatever his new title is, of a company that's worth almost $7 billion, dollars publicly held company is there anybody better to bet on no let's put his controversies aside because they exist and I acknowledge they exist and there's serious controversies potentially but is there how can you doubt his vision and ability to execute he's not only had a vision he clearly executed it if you were going to hire someone off the street to try to accomplish what Vince McMahon accomplished, would you not want to clone of Vince

McMahon? You may want to have some control over him, but man, he did it. And since he owns the majority of the controlling shares, I think it makes perfectly sense that he wants to be the guy in the seat and be knowledgeable of a potential deal from the ground up, not coming in, you know, hey, Vince, come on over from Fiji. We've got a deal on a table. We've got a deal on a table. we want to show you. Vince wants to be a part of that deal from the get-go so that he knows it's the best possible deal. And I think he has that right. He's earned that right, clearly. That's kind of where I think it is, which I think it makes it, you know, the other option,

which is much ado about nothing. Now, let's talk about that because that's where people start to get nervous. Okay, so Vince is back, but because that's where wrestling fans start to really get nervous about what does that mean for the wrestling product that we see on TV because there is a chance and it comes back and just leaves well enough alone and says hey man I don't want anything to do with that and I'll keep doing it I just need my voice to be heard if we're headed down one of these major roads which by the way if you were the largest investor in any company so let's just as I like to say I've got a men and blackie right now and then boop nothing we've talked about happens but if that's what we're doing or just resetting

the table here and you're the largest investor of a company and your biggest revenue item is television rights and now you know those conversations are probably about to start happening and my money my income my net worth is directly tied legacy i you're damn right i want a convert i need a voice in that we can't i would not want to relinquish all of that control and just trust that it's going to be okay that i know you could say well how much money do you need and blah, blah, blah. But we're 77 and we're successful for a reason. Like there, I just gravitate to, he probably just, I think this, this could wind up

being nothing. It could wind up being, he just wants to make sure that he gets the, that the company gets the right steals that he's comfortable with, because a lot of that money is still his. And, you know, if there is a sale, he gets taken care of. He wants to be considered. I don't think that's unrealistic or unreasonable, but, if we go the other way and he comes back and he says nope we're going to stop saying professional

wrestling and we're going to go back to sports entertainment and the and who the fuck hired regal back or whatever else you know he nonsense who cares but if all of that becomes a thing again where does that leave hunter yeah now we're getting into the the palace intrigue and there's so much of it and I try to you know in a private conversation You know, I'm happy to engage in that kind of discussion because it is, it is fascinating, you know, it's a little bit like going to a movie and in your own mind trying to figure out how the hell this movie is going to end. Right.

And it's hard not to think that way. But it's also, I think, inappropriate, for me at least, my choice to delve too deeply into that because talk about what you don't know. Right. There's a lot of things that you have heard, a lot of things that I have heard, a lot of things that other people have heard about what that palace intrigue might be, but it doesn't mean it's true or it's accurate or the degrees to which it's true or accurate. There may be a little smoke there, but not a bonfire, you know, or there may be a bonfire that.

We don't know, but man, it sure is fascinating. It sure is fascinating. And here's what I, and I said this to you last night, and I know it's not all about the money, right? I don't think it's all about the money with Vince. I think Vince coming, look, he was forced into retirement. He didn't go on his own free will. He made the choice. He agreed to it. But I think it's fair to say circumstances and perhaps some people within WWE forced him out against his will. They tried to dress it up in a nice little package and thank you Vince, thank you Vince. And we showed up on TV and then now and forever and supposedly sailed off into the sunset. But that wasn't Vincent's choice.

That choice was made for him. And I think it's safe, I think it's a safe bet to suggest that Vince's pride, his ego, maybe the same thing. More importantly, his DNA is such that if anybody's going to write the last chapter of Vince McMahon's story and the WWE legacy,

see, Vince McMahon wants to write his own story, and he wants to be the person that puts the period at the end of the last sentence of the Vince McMahon saga, not somebody else. That may be part of this as well, but none of that necessarily means that anybody's going to lose their position. And again, I don't know the relationship between, here's what's funny, you know, talk about what you don't know, you know. When this all started, when, when Triple H came back and Stephanie was made co-CEO, in my mind, because I know all of them, I've worked with all of them at various levels, in my mind, I thought, I could see Vince McMahon sitting down with

Triple H and Stephanie, but Triple H in particular, this is what I've thought about. giving him advice and telling Triple H to run that company his way and to not try to run it the way he thinks Vince would run it, but to run it the way Paul Leveck thinks it should be run creatively. I imagine that conversation in my head because I thought that was the relationship. And it might be, by the way, I could have been absolutely right or I could be absolutely wrong. I don't know.

but if I'm take take the ego and the pride and all of that out of it and just look at the money Triple H has got a boat load Kevin Dunn sure has a boatload of options yeah I'm sure our close friend Bruce Pritchard has options I'm sure a lot that we know have a lot of options and those options don't vest for a period of time. I don't know, I don't know what the program is. I was in it, but I don't, I can't remember it. But typically, you know, you get, you get, let's say at the end of the year, part of your bonuses, you get 3,000 options at whatever the strike price is at that day,

meaning whatever the value of the stock is on that day. So the day you get your options, the stock is at $55 a share. Well, if the stock sells for $1505 a share, the minute they, that transaction is consummated and occurs, you've just made $100 a share because your stock options automatically vest and you don't get to vote. You don't get to say, no, I'm just going to leave him in the kitty. Let's just see where it goes. You don't have any choice. Now, that's the way it was a Turner with me. And there's a funny story that goes along with it. I'm not going to tell it again, but you can hear it on strictly business if you go back and listen. Because I experienced

that. And I think a lot of people who are sitting on a bunch of options right now and are Twitter, your thumbs and you're worried and your concern and trying to imagine what the future is going to look like, have forgotten to, you know, take a look at how many options they have in your desk, pull out a calculator like I was forced to do, do the math and go, either way, I'm coming out good. Either way my financial life has changed in some cases forever. Yes. And that's the worst that's going to happen.

That's the worst that's going to happen. The worst that's going to happen is you're going to get filthy rich. you are. Depending on who you are and how many options you have, the worst that's going to happen is you're going to get filthy rich. And in a best case scenario, you're going to get filthy rich and things are going to get better. Yeah. And as you said, maybe, maybe it does, maybe Vince does take the company private. And perhaps Vince looks at creative in the process and the effectiveness and the efficiency and the morale and goes, you know what? I'm not going to mess. with that. Why would I want that? Why would I want to hurt myself? I'm going to let this team

continue to do what they've proven they can do. Yes. Now you've gotten filthy rich and your gig is still good. So I think a lot of people, fans, probably some employees are stressing themselves out over something that is really nothing but a massively fantastic opportunity. They just don't quite see it yet. I know that there's a narrative out there where people think it's two sides warring. We'll talk about that. I do want to talk about that. I do want to talk about it because I don't know that stuff.

I don't know. Here's what you know. You know that some of the best memories you can have with your family are out on the open road. You just heard Eric talking a little bit about how he used to make these long road trips. You know, Eric lives in the middle of nowhere. So when he goes to visit me sometimes or Florida, instead of just flying, which for Eric's who involves a lot of driving, he just drives.

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Hit Rod up there to 256, 3207033, campermax.com. Eric, what we were talking about is the narrative that's out there that, and I've heard multiple people say, they now believe, I can't believe this is a real sentence, that as Vince George and Michelle on one side versus Nick Kine, Stephanie McMahon, and Hunter, I just don't see it that way. And I know that because our brains are just conditioned at this point because we're in the bubble to be well there's got to be more to it somebody's trying to get over on somebody somebody's burying somebody it's a nature of the wrestling

business right in the ring and out of the ring but it's not it's not always the case like if we know this is the guy i mean let's let's back this up who made a bunch of money for vince mcman and were his right hand men and women and it was george and michel so you go back to people you know and you lean on their expertise and they clearly understand the business better than most better than almost anyone and now this is like your counsel your supporting group let's let's get the biggest television rights deal of all time let's break a record let's put the UFC to shame with their acquisitions several years ago that's a great team to put that together it doesn't necessarily mean god damn it he hunter has

Michael Cole say wrestling. We can't say wrestling on the show. I just don't think that's it, man. I don't either, man. I don't either. And again, this is where, you know, my brief, and I keep saying, I just want people to understand my four months as an executive working directly with Vince, probably three days a week, I spent the largest part of my day,

either with Vince one-on-one or in a very, very small group or at television, right? The majority of my week was within handshaking distance of Vince McMahon. You do get a sense of someone when you work with him that closely for that period of time. But the other thing that I got was, you know, I saw Vince, I'll never forget. And I promised I gave him my word I would never share this moment. And I'm not going to do it now, but I'll characterize the moment as completely unvinced McMahon. Like, what's going on right now, in my opinion, is the most Vince McMahon thing ever. It just is.

This is art of war, you know, applied to business. It's just, again, fascinating is the only one I can think of. And typically when we see Vince on camera, obviously, as a character, when we hear, things about Vince McMahon. He's a fighter. He's an animal. He's cold-hearted. He's blah, blah, blah, blah. I've seen the opposite of that, personally, in a one-on-one situation. So opposite of that, that it gives you just a brief insight into what the rest of that personality that we don't get to see might be. I've seen that. So he does have a heart. He really does have a heart. Cold as it may be, it exists.

But I've also seen what I consider to be genuine affection and respect between Vince and Triple H. I mean, it wasn't just, you know, okay, you're my son-in-law. I'm going to match you on the back at the family picnic. Now, there was a tremendous amount of respect. Now, if something happened behind the scenes or there's been some evolution of that relationship that none of us really know about, maybe heard about, but we don't know. I still think that respect remains, in my opinion, in terms of his data, that Triple H's ability to manage his portion of the business, I just don't think that changes. And there may be more to it than I know, and that could all be, you know, a week from now,

we could be sitting here going, oh, my God, I had no idea. I just don't think so. And look, Vince McMahon is also the guy, whatever's best for business, right? Yeah. Something, there may have been some kind of internal power struggle, falling out, disagreement, whatever. But at the end of it all, do we think that Vince has gotten to the point where he doesn't care what's best for business and is just going to do what he feels he wants to do?

I don't see that, man. look if triple h would have come in a pa would have come in and made a bunch of wholesale changes and things would have taken a dive different conversation but it didn't happen but it went the opposite yeah incrementally there was improvement and growth and strength so why despite himself to reduce the value of his own portfolio to prove a point no i don't see it i might have this wrong but i think we're just a few weeks removed from like a two year high rating for SmackDown. So it's not as if anyone has failed and now they want control back.

Now I know where that narrative comes from and you and I have both heard the stories. And we're not going to talk about them here because it's their real life. Uh, it's none of our business. It's not podcast fodder, but let me just say this, anybody who has ever, if you have a family that you're close with and I know some of our listeners that I've had conversations with or not and I'm glad that we get to be their wrestling family, with ad-free shows but man families every now and again they can't help it they just have stuff and most everyone listening to this has had stuff in their family so-and-so doesn't get along with so-and-so

and so-and-so had a falling out with so-and-so it doesn't mean you don't love and care about each other it just means we're going to agree to disagree and the volume gets turned up on that when you work with your family i know that a parent's worked for a mortgage company for 20 years um it kind of is what it is man you know you it's going to be impossible for you to spend all of this time personally professionally and there not be some stuff and that doesn't make them bad people it makes them human you know like we all have that one guy we don't get along with at work we all have that one family member who occasionally just hurts someone else's in the family's feelings whatever i'm saying this exists in every family dynamic and

And you just turn the volume on all that stuff up where it's not like, all right, I see them on the weekends or I see them at birthdays and holidays and Christmas. But no, we're with each other at work on the way to work. Yeah. It's naturally normal for there to be some of that stuff. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's us versus them,

right? Absolutely. It's us versus the bottom line. Yes. Is what it is. And I think if anybody's proven public, that he up that's his method of operation it's Vince McMahon yes he brought me back for crying out loud or brought me in forget about bringing me back he brought me in the first time

not because he liked me not because of any other reason other than he thought and it was best for business it worked creatively that's all that mattered he probably hated my guts he probably really wanted to curb stop me. It's probably how he really felt about me, personally. But what was best for business at that moment? Look at Ultimate Warrior. Yeah. Look at Jeff Jarrett.

Brought Jeff Jarrett back. Yeah. Jeff Jarrett held him up for $350,000 or whatever it was. I don't even know. I didn't pay attention to the story. But held them up for a significant amount of money, run them back. So I think Vince has demonstrated that what's best for business is more important than how he feels about somebody personally.

Let's talk about some other talking points that have to be discussed. We're talking about the family dynamic and how it can be interesting, just working with your family. And there's two other people we haven't talked about in all this, Lyndon McMahon and Shane McMahon. Now, neither you know. nor I know all the details, but the story's been out there for a while, and we don't know if this is true, that Shane got rid of all his WWE stock a long time ago, and that he was essentially done with WWE business, moving on.

I'm sure, given the nature of the news, Linda had to feel a certain type of way about all of that news and I'm sure that Shane probably felt bad for everybody involved where do you think they sit on all of this because we've seen a lot of people speculating what this means for Stephanie what this means for Vince what this means for Hunter what it means for Nick Cohn but we've yet to really bring up Linda or Stephanie or Linda or Shane. What do you think they are on all this? No idea. I mean, I don't know wind at all. I know Shane a little bit. We're pretty good for, you know, when we're friendly. I like Shane a lot. I had fun with Shane. I got to know Shane a lot better than I got to know Vince because I worked, you know, I produced Shane, you know,

when he and Kevin Owen were having their storyline. And believe me, that was a, that was a fun project to work on because Vince had a certain opinion about Kevin Owen at the time. And Shane was a little bit, you know, Shane was Shane. And I say that in a positive way. But he could be a handful. Bruce will tell you better than I can because Bruce has worked with him more. I enjoyed working with Shane, but he was a handful that I enjoyed working with. But again, you get to know somebody.

You know, you're in your own little trench. It's not a deep trench. It's not war. But you're in a trench trying to make things. things work. And you get, you see how people react to situations they're not comfortable and you see how they react to that. And that reaction indicates to you, to me at least, what kind of person someone is. And I got to know both Kevin Owen and Shane pretty well during that very brief period of time. At least I feel like I did. And I think, you know,

Shane, in my opinion, limited basis that I know him, is more like Linda McMahon and Stephanie is more like Vince McMahon. And that's true at a lot of, you know, like my son Garrett is much more like in many respects, not at all respects. He's got a little bit of me and him, sometimes more than others. But for the most part, my son's personality is very much like lorries it's just everybody likes being around them they're fun they're easygoing they're just different people than i am you know and my daughter is much more like me um a lot more like me in some respects when it comes to business and things like that so only she's smarter, by the way. So I think in the same sense, Shane is very much like Linda.

And that's probably why neither one of them have been working with Vince closely for the last few years. It's just a clash of personality. Right. It's just different. It doesn't mean there's not love there. Doesn't mean there's not respect there. But on a day-to-day basis, probably not the best working chemistry.

You know, I saw that with Shane. I did. And I would presume Linda probably saw it and felt it too. I think they're probably both really happy where they're at. You know, Shane's in a good spot. It's not like he needs money. I don't think Shane's even probably sitting back going, gosh, I wish I would have held down to that stock because I'd be worth 10 more billion dollars. Shane's fine financially. He's way more than fine. And he's got things that he's passionate about in his life. I think that's one of the reasons why he's not in WWE because it wasn't going to consume his life 24 hours a day, which is what's necessary.

Look at the tail number on the plane, dude. It ends in it's WWE 24-7. And I don't think Shane was a 24-7 guy. He's a more well-round. He's a more normal person. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. No, no.

It's a healthy way to be. and I think he's probably, you know, I'm assuming, again, I don't know. I don't talk to Shane very often. We don't stay in touch, but he's got a pretty good life, man. I think he's pretty happy. Yeah, I would think that's fair to say. Another thing that I think we should at least discuss is the old what if, you and I have done some fun shows over the years about, hey, hypothetically,

had you been able to pull all the funding together in 2001 and you got your hands on wc wc what would it have looked like and we did all that fantasy booking and it was great fun but i ask myself now self if eric bischoff was 45 years old again today this comes from the group chat uh over at ad free shows dot com would you try to put together a group to buy w w probably I did not expect that answer. Let's hear it. I mean,

like if I had, if I had the Rolodex, if I, again, it was a big, you know, if I was 45 years old. Right,

right, right. That matters. And look, I'll be 68 this spring. I'm healthier that I probably been, I'm probably healthier now than I was when I was 45.

You know, I may not be able to do some of the same things physically as I was able to do. But in terms of my overall, health and my mental state and things like that, I'm probably in a much better position now than I was when I was 45, because I've grown out of a lot of things. And I've learned a lot. But had I been, if I was 45 today with the same DNA and experience, and I had a Rolodex that would allow me to think that I could possibly put together that investment, damn right,

I would. I would love that. I wouldn't. Think about it today, even if I had the money or the Rolodex. But when I was 45, absolutely. Who wouldn't? What entrepreneur with the ability and the resources wouldn't? I can't imagine. Entrepreneur with a passion for the wrestling business and an understanding of it. Who wouldn't want that job or that opportunity?

Do you think we talked about whether or not you thought Vince was going to show up at TV tonight? We both landed on no. Do you think Vince showing up at the office would serve as a destroy? as well, because I feel like he's coming back to the office this week. I think he probably will, but to make a statement, you know, somebody I talked to to remain nameless, um, not Bruce Pritchard, by the way. I mean, you know, it's funny. I rarely, rarely talk to Bruce.

I know you talk to him all the time because, you know, you got a podcast together, obviously. But I, I understand the position that Bruce is in. And I, I took this position to meet as soon as I was let go back in 2019, because I never want to put my friendship yes in between somebody else's career you know what I mean and out of pure respect I never discuss this I'll talk to Bruce occasionally about our kids right at the weather his daughter's coming down to visit our daughter his boyfriend are coming down to visit this summer and are going to camp out on my property for a while in her motor home and we we'll talk our dogs you know we love to talk about dogs but I never talk about business

but somebody told me recently and I honestly can't remember who it was, but it wasn't Bruce that Vince still shows up and works out corporate jam every day. I thought, huh, that would be weird, right? But that, when I heard that I went, that's Vince just reminding everybody that he still owns this bitch. Well, hang on. I felt, I heard the same thing. And I actually saw some people who were, I thought it had been hinted at and

reported on maybe it hadn't but this i don't think i don't think that's the story like Vince built that gym the way he likes it with his money and it's all his stuff and he's probably done it every day for decades uh and he does own a bunch of the stuff i mean like if you're the largest shareholder of any company you should get to work out in their office gym i think that's fair uh i just i thought it was a non story and i and i do know a little more than that but again, not something that we should probably share because I think you and I are both overly sensitive to the fact that Bruce Richard is like our real life friend and he was our real life friend before he went back and he'll be our real life friend when he's no longer there

and hopefully that's never and he slips happily ever after and blah blah, but I too do the same thing you do when all this is blowing up. I'm not calling Bruce and give me the scoop brother. What's going on? Like you know, I'll just send him the eyes bugging out emoji and he'll just do the exclamation point and that's our talk like oh lot of shit going on and that's it but like this is what's fun to me is the hypothetical what ifs but i i have noticed that everybody just goes to this doomsday scenario with this i just i don't see it i do worry about what would wrestling look like if it was owned by a television company and this is what i want to close with because i know that this is something that you've talked a lot about

that were the differences of working within the Turner organization to create Nitro and all the magic that you did with WCW and how it did become challenging because it was corporate. And I know that I think Jeff Jarrett has said on his program before, my world, that he feels like, you know, corporate business ruins wrestling,

that that's not what it was born out of and blah, blah, blah. And I know that Tony Chivani goes on his podcast, what happened when he said it earlier today wcw was never going to be successful because they were owned by a television company and you need a wrestling company run by wrestling people not a television company i'm going to throw a flag on that one tony but go and you go the other way you just said it a few weeks ago and we talked about t and a hey why not give spike skin in the game what would be wrong

with locking down and securing your long term future and your television home by having them as your television partner and I feel like where Jeff maybe saw it differently than you did and certainly Tony sees it differently than you did you were able to be successful running a wrestling company that was owned by a television company and saw opportunity with TNA how if they were partly owned by a television company it could have been better but there are a lot of people who were worried and I would even suspect that a lot of the people who were worried about what might happen to WWE don't even watch current WWE. They're just consumed with what if

it's different and I don't like it. What if it looks like Lucha Underground and it's all taped and it's and it's a Netflix approach. What if we have an off season? It's my favorite character isn't on this season at all and what if and what if and what if, but you sort of always been the voice of the other direction. Hey, that ain't bad to be owned by TV company. Play devil's advocate. What's the best thing and what's the worst thing that could happen by WWE being owned by a quote unquote television company. Yeah, and I'm going to address Tony Shavani here for a minute. And I really like Tony just on a personal basis. He's one of the people that I've worked with in the past at a pretty

high level that I really enjoy just being around he's just he's a positive person he's funny he's smart and he's talented and there's a lot of things I like about Tony but recently I think on one of your podcasts with Tony he said oh this RK 97 was the end of beginning of the end it was such a stupid Dave Meltzerish thing to say because the actual facts don't back that up if you go back and I did because I want to see if Tony was right and I was wrong go back and look at the ratings leading up to December of 97, look at the ratings in the show for four months following December of 97, the ratings got better. At the very least, they held their own.

So that's kind of the dirt sheet narrative. Oh, man, it was that one point. No, it was the finger poke of doom. You know, what happened to WCW happened because. One corporate culture saw the future of the TNT network in particular one way and another one saw it the other way. That's it. It had nothing to do with anything creative. Now, you can camp out on that because emotionally it's a comfortable chair to sit in because a lot of, you know, the wrestling media and the internet, you know, kind of go, yeah, you're right.

I felt the same way. It's stupid. Tony, I'm sorry. I love you, but you're stupid when you say things like, and you're not stupid. But it was a stupid thing to say. And take that a step further and say, and again, I'm not picking on Tony because I respect them, but wrestling company should be run by wrestling people. I'm sorry.

Not when you're totally dependent upon a television network to keep you alive. Correct. The best relation, you know, because wrestling people don't understand television. They may understand aspects of it. They may understand the parts of it that they actually deal with on a day-to-day basis, the portions of it. But for the most part, all of the wrestling people that ran the wrestling company of WCW fell flat on their wrestling asses.

They didn't have a clue. And I find a statement like that in the truest sense of the term, ignorant, meaning lack of experience or information. I think a wrestling group, if a wrestling group of people came in to try to run WWE, it would be a matter of a year or two before the walls would collapse. Because wrestling people don't know enough about the business of the wrestling business, particularly in relationship to dealing with television and television networks. to really maximize the opportunity. Now, the opposite of that statement is Vince McMahon, clearly,

but here's the upside that I see. Insert television property here, Comcast, Fox, whatever, Disney, whoever you want to name. Stability of strength. Stability in the sense that you don't have to worry about when's my contract do, or when's my contract expiring. How am I, You know, because if you have a, if you have a two or four-year contract, let's say you have a two-year contract, a licensing deal with a network, and okay, day one, you got two years to go. About six months later, you're already looking for your next negotiation. You're already preparing for your next negotiation. You're at least thinking about it.

And within a year of it, you're busy working. Whereas if you're part of a, if you're a partner is what I wanted to see happen was Biacom and TNA was let them have some skin in the game. Yeah. Doesn't mean that they're calling all the shots, by the way. And you can structure a deal like that. I'm going to focus on what I was hoping would happen with TNA and Spike. You can structure that deal so that, of course, your, your television partner is going to have

conversation with you about things. Of course, they're going to have an opinion about things, as they will anyway, by the way, because if they're your licensee, in other words, you've sold your rights to them, but it's their television show. If you think they don't have a voice and what happens creatively, you're naive. You have no idea what you're talking about because they do. So you could be a wrestling company run by a wrestling person. And guess what? you're still, if you're on television, you're still answering to the television network. One way, shape, or form. You don't get to do whatever you want to do.

You're going to have somebody from standards and practices or some programming executive or somebody from ad sales telling you what's working and what's not working. And you have to address it. It's no different. So if you're partners with a television company and they have skin in the game, in the game but you have a sound enough relationship with them you're not giving them total you're not giving them any more control than they already had to be honest with you because they do whoever writes a check writes a freaking rules and if they're writing you a check for your

television show they're writing the rules and you're following them Tony con and even WWE to a large degree they're having to be Tony and Vince have to respond to their networks and networks executives. But I think the stability of having that partner far outweighs the perceived wrestling fan influence of what that means. In fact, you can improve upon that relationship. You can mitigate the amount of influence your television partner has if you're licensing your content to them by involving them more and helping them to understand, still staying in control. But for anybody, no matter who it is, whether they're friends of mine or not, do you think

that, well, once they sign out on the dotted line and they stroke you a check, you get to do whatever you want to do, you're so naive. And it's a reflection of what you don't know about how things really work as opposed to what you do know. And that's a problem with a lot of, even people in a wrestling business, you know, Wrestlers in particular, they think because they know a lot about what's going on inside the ring and what makes a character work and what's, you know, when it comes to the confines of the ring, they know far more than most executives they ever work with. But once they step out of the ring, they don't know dick about the business and the wrestling business because they've never spent a minute in it. They have a strong opinion about it and they can convince people outside of the industry, wrestling fans, the internet, dirt sheet writers, they can try to convince people that they have a really good.

good handle on the corporate side of things. But the fact is, they don't have a clue anymore than the VP of marketing knows about laying out a match. They may know a lot about the business of the wrestling business, but they couldn't lay out a match. It's the same thing. But the narrative that we all get exposed to is coming from people who really don't understand the business of the wrestling business, or at least have never really

had direct. No, case of Tony, he didn't really, Tony wasn't in my meetings. Tony wasn't in a lot of the strategy sessions that I was a part of. No. Tony didn't interface with the executives that I had to interface with. I'm not picking on Tony, but that's an example. So people that even that were in the wrestling business, Jeff included say, I don't know, it's got to be wrestling people running a wrestling company are advocating for themselves.

or others who are not corporate executives. Because it's not true. Now, if you want to be a small territory, you know, if you want to be an independent, you know, wrestling company, a GCW or something like that, and you don't really care about television, television is not part of your business plan? Sure, absolutely.

But if you want to compete on a national or international level, it's a silly thing to say. well it's a silly thing to not go to save with conrad dot com this we know for sure this is the time of year where we're all thinking about the royal rumble it's january right some of us are also thinking hey man how am i going to pay off all this extra holiday debt i racked up i actually saw a study a few years ago that said it takes the american the average american family over five months nearly six months to pay off all that christmas credit card debt we can help you get rid of it just like that you don't need perfect credit you don't need money out of your

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Save withconrad.com. Eric, this was fun, man. I don't know what I expected, but just talking about, what could be and how this could all affect everything is is fun to sort of freestyle and what we know about wrestling is it's going to keep changing it's going to keep evolving nothing's going to stay the same you know one thing kind of before we go i want to i'm going to add some clarity here because i'm looking at some of the comments in our chat from our family over to every shows

and again follow up on the you know would it be a good idea for a tv company to own a wrestling company want an example yeah bellator yeah bellator was dying it was actually dead they just refused to pronounce it dead yeah and biacom came me in and purchased and it is still a viable successful property today scott cocker who i know personally i've known him since he was a kid is not being encumbered to my knowledge at least he's done a great job nobody in viacomomomom and is suggesting, I would imagine, to Scott Coker, how to, you know, book fights. Nobody's, you know, running the athlete side of the business from Viacom. Hey, I got an idea.

Why don't we have this guy fight this guy? Because my kid loves that guy. That's not happening. That's a perfect example of the upside, the positive side of having a television partner like Viacom have skin in the game in your business. That's the best example I can think of. Would TNA have been in that same position? I like to think so, but maybe not.

I like to think so. I worked with Kevin K and Scott Fishman, the executive from Viacom, not the writer. These were guys that didn't want to sit down. They wouldn't, if you invited them to a creative, meaning they wouldn't come. So wrestling fans have a tendency to project what they think they know into situations.

that they don't. And again, I wasn't beating up on Tony. I like Tony, but I just found that comment to be a common, you know, dirt, cheat narrative, and it's not necessarily true. I think, look, I think if WWE ends up being owned by a Comcast or Fox or anybody else, I think the future for people that are executives now, employees that are currently there is nothing but bright. I think for talent, nothing but bright. Maybe some individual talent are not going to come out of it great, but man, I think people should quit looking at the worst case scenario and spend half as much time looking at the positive side of what could happen out of this. And I think you'll find that there's probably going to be a pretty bright light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I'm kidding

myself because I am more optimistic than cynical by nature. I'm always the guy half full, which has been a problem for me. Businesses sometimes in my life. I'm always looking at the upside and don't spend a lot of time looking at the negative side. But I see a bright opportunity here, man. We don't know what it's going to be. And there's going to be some fallout and there's going to be some drama.

But a year from now, we're all going to be going, wow. Remember when we were so afraid this is going to be going to crush WWE or ruin the product? Weren't we silly to feel that way? that's what that's what my hope is well my hope is that you'll check out some of the brand new shirts we have for 83 weeks let everybody know about your favorite podcast when you're sporting your brand new 83 weeks swag how about that mucker father my favorite shirt now it's a hoodie mucker father the hoodie is available now over at box of gimmicks dot com hey wait can i tell you something real quick where you're trying to sign out you know the first time i ever used the

word mucker father on this program nope when on a wwee uh something that i did for them for the network okay it was an interview it was like a couple years ago they came out to the house and i got as you know i could get all fired up depending on the conversation and i caught myself i was gonna go the other way with it and i caught myself in the neck at time nick of time and said mucker father. And I laughed after it was over. And I said, well, that'll that'll never make it to TV. And sure enough, it did. How about it? Well, now it's a hoodie and boxing emmix.com. I think I've got one more when it would be you and get your opinion on here, Eric. Google the internet. It's a brand new shirt. I can't believe that's the thing.

All right. So let me tell you a little story about that. Okay. First time on this show, obviously, you and I were some kind of a, you know, where my temperature was raised just in not you too and I said so well just Google their internet and you laughed you laughed so hard when I said that and you're laughing and I'm going what's so funny I just said Google the internet I didn't even understand why it was so funny and I went oh that was kind of stupid but it took me about four minutes to figure that such good stuff man check it out box of gimmicks.com also want to mention everybody ad free shows.com man we're about 10 days removed as you and I are discussing it now we got you and nick patrick to sit down together live for the very first time

to discuss what really happened with that very infamous starcade 1997 main event but maybe the thing I'm most excited about now is we're doing another live thing of course we just talked about how you know January for wrestling fans kind of synonymous with the royal rumble I can't believe it, but the first Royal Rumble was 35 years ago this month. And the guy who won the very first ever Royal Rumble, oh, Hacksaw Jim Duggan will join us on the exact anniversary of that historic match, January 24th at 9 p.m. Eastern, head over to ad-free shows.com. That's a Tuesday at 9 p.m.

Haxaw will be there live with us watching the very first Royal Rumble, But where he won, man, ad-freeshows.com has got something for everybody, but I got so much great feedback. I'm not even sure if you've had a chance to see it. We debuted it over the weekend, Eric. But the feedback I got for our new series called The Book with David Crockett, I had multiple people say, this is the best thing you guys have ever created. What we were able to do is call on Mr. David Crockett, a part of wrestling royalty,

and say, hey, can we take a shot at your brother's books? They were just known as Jimmy's red books, but these are the actual handwritten notes that shaped what we all grew up on with Jim Crockett Promotions. We're starting with the month, 1985, and we just debuted the January 85 episode next month in February. We'll have February 85, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to go all the way through the year, 1985. And you see J.J. Dillon's perfect handwriting there from the booking genius that was Dusty Rhodes. He would make sure he marked it down, put all of the facts. and figures in there and boom these are the books that shaped jim crockett promotions

jim crockett juniors personal books we break it down day by day city by city gate gate town by town talk about the comings and goings and 85 is the year they got back tbs they did the deal with vince mcmett we're covering all of that and it exists exclusively at adfreeshows.com when it comes to wrestling history i don't think anybody can touch us eric absolutely not and by the way I know you guys sent me a preview of that a couple days ago, and I haven't really had time to look at it. I'm going to this afternoon. I can't wait to see it because this kind of history is so fascinating to me,

and you have, you, Conrad, have such unique access and to be it for all of us to be able to go back in time and not hear stories, not somebody's opinion, but to sit down and look at facts. and figures to really help paint a picture of one of the most important times. I mean, there's been a lot of important times in wrestling. We're talking about today being, you know, maybe the most important in, really, our lifetimes in terms of the history of the business and the things that are impacting it.

But you go back to, you know, the Crockett's in the mid-80s, the late 80s, pivotal point in time, pivotal part of history. And I'm grateful to you and your team to be able to put together such a great look at what I'm sure is going to be a fascinating story. I know I've seen some of the other things that you guys have done so much detail, whether it's hearing from Jim Hurd or others, so much great detail and information that you don't hear or see anywhere else. Kudos to you and the team, man.

We love what we do. And we do it every single day over at ad-freeshows. Um, greatly appreciate all of you guys tuning in. Hope that you'll consider joining us over at ad free shows. Not only to get these shows early and ad free, you get to see them being filmed live and ask questions and be interactive with us, but you also get all this great bonus content like,

uh, seeing the conversation and asking questions of Nick Patrick and, and, and, and sitting down and watching the first Royal Rumble with the winner, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, but man, the history of those Jim Crockett books. And we've got this for Fritz von Eric too. And this is in Fritz's handwriting.

And to know that these great wrestling minds that shaped all of wrestling, this is their handwriting, this is their behind the scenes look. This is all about the money in the miles as the old wrestling cliche goes. And if we don't share those stories and get those stories out on ad free shows. com, they may die forever. We're continuing to dig into that and bring it to you and hope that you're digging

what we're doing. Check it out adfreeshows.com. And next week, we are going to talk about Buff Bagwell. I think he's going to be one of the great success. stories the next great success story and i hope you guys will check it out i also want to recommend if you haven't already you check our show out on youtube uh we're doing lots of new fun things uh with our youtube channel and you're going to want to be a part of all that

including some new exclusive stuff that eric and i've just talked about that's going to start showing up every month uh in the meantime if you can't get enough eric bischoff well buddy cruise on over to amazon and check out grateful just type in grateful eric bischoff there it is i continue to get comments in my dms from people who absolutely love the book. I think you'll love it too. And Eric would love to have your, your interaction at E. Bischoff on Twitter. He's on Instagram at the real Eric Bischoff. And you can follow our show on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook at 83 weeks. But in the meantime, hey man, do us a favor. Cruise on over to 83 weeks on YouTube.com and hit that subscribe button. This was fun today, Eric. I don't know

what I expected given that, man, it seems like it's changing day by day or hour by hour, but I enjoy with today's conversation about what's next for WWE. Yeah, well, we'll probably be dropping another episode tomorrow of strictly business at this rate because we're Elba and I are trying, John Elvin I are trying to stay on top of it. But I look forward to talking about

Buff. I'm really, I'm praying for him. I'm, I'm his, I'm his biggest fan right now and I'm hoping he's going to kick out of a situation that's probably not been good for him for a number of years. And last time I saw him, which was only a couple weeks ago, he looked awesome. I mean, it's real. He looked awesome. And I'm even going to sing him happy birthday.

I will sing him happy birthday next week right here on 83 weeks. Not that that's going to necessarily drive any listeners and viewers here. Maybe that was more of a warning. Yeah. Thank you, Conrad. I appreciate it. Thanks, Steve Kaufman. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks.