83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - 83 Weeks #257: Sherri Martel

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad celebrate the life and legacy of the late, great Sherri Martel, who would have turned 65 this month. Topics include Sherri's early career, coming into WWF, getting physical in the ring, her WCW debut, being paired with Ric Flair, managing Harlem Heat, and much more! Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Manscaped Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com. Factor Head to FACTOR75.com/83WEEKS60 and use code 83WEEKS60 to get 60% off your first box.   MindbloomGo to Mindbloom.com/83WEEKS, promo code 83WEEKS for $100 off your first six session program todayGiftBar- Right now use promo code CONRAD to get 15% off your entire purchase! That’s code CONRAD to save 15% off and get a perfect, last-minute, Valentine’s Day gift at GiftBar.com WoooooWings- Wooooo! Wings, a virtual restaurant concept from The Man himself, the Nature Boy Ric Flair. Enjoy the legendary flavors and world championship wings by ordering with your Uber Eats or Postmates app. Wooo Wings is now open in Nashville, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Florida as well as Huntsville and Tuscaloosa in Alabama, with many more locations coming soon. Try the only chicken wings worthy of carrying the name of the 16x World Heavyweight Champion. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.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! If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am blessed, my friend, as always, and looking forward to a good week or so down in Florida. Going to see the fam jam? Absolutely. Going to hook up with way jay take him out and do some granddad grandson stuff whatever that is he's only not even a year and a half so there's limited things we can do but we're gonna we're gonna explore that who's more excited uh you or mrs b i mean mrs b's got to be ringing her hands to get her hands on that yeah she's she it's it drives her a little crazy it it it does you know i think that's a maternal instinct that's sure just slightly different you know with women that have had children um but

But yeah, she's, I won't say obsessed, but damn near close. Well, I, I can't wait to see all the pictures. I know you're always good about that. E. Bischoff on social media is where you want to look. If you want to keep up with Eric's travels and that youngster, Way J. How is Garrett doing? We haven't talked about Garrett in a little while here on the show. Garrett's doing great.

He's got a great job. He's doing well at. he's in sales of commercial construction equipment and materials materials not equipment and and doing really really well mj my daughter-in-law she's had her own tanny studio now for about seven or eight years or longer and i'm really proud of her because she ended up buying the building that she was leasing oh wow yeah because you know tanning business it's a service business and it's hard to, you know, it's a cash flow business, meaning it's hard to build equity really in a business like that. It's like martial arts schools or any kind of strip mall business

where you're renting as opposed to owning, you know, you're subject to, you know, rent increases all the time and all kinds of things you have no control over. But she was able to actually buy the building. So now she's a commercial real estate owner, her and Garrett, and running her own business and doing really well. So they're great. They're just having a blast. with way jay whalen and uh couldn't i don't think they could be happier maybe i don't know not sure don't think so well that's awesome man glad to hear the update there and of course we're going to talk about a great topic today uh we're going to talk about the one and only sherry martel but before we do i wanted to ask you you know have you been keeping up with uh with what's going on

and in w e land lately i know there was a lot of debate and going back and forth about hey man, Sammy Zane is so hot Should this be the match That Roman Raines has at WrestleMania A few weeks ago, Dave Meltzer even said That's the match, but it wasn't in the plans And it's not going to happen, but that's the one that fans want to see Of course, now we know we're going to see that

An Elimination Chamber And I think whatever sort of doubt there was As to whether or not they could tell a story About Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns went out the window After what I thought was a fantastic segment Last week on Raw between Paul Heyman and Cody Rhodes. Have you had a chance to see that? What are you thinking of the way they're crafting this Cody Roman story and the potential risk of not going with Sammy at

WrestleMania? I was, I was in the school of thought similar to Dave Meltzer in that man, Sammy's the guy because it's such a great story. Right. I mean, it's and I think that's why fans were so feeling so strongly about Sammy and Roman. going into WrestleMania and there's no denying it was a great story and it would make sense to keep that story going. It would make perfect sense in every way. And it would do well. And I was a little concerned, you know, when they set up Cody enrollment because, I mean, Cody's hot. Cody's super hot. There's no question that Cody has the equity to be in that event match. But up until this past Monday

that interview between Cody and Roman it wasn't personal and there was really no story it was just a match that was booked you're you know it was you won the rumble so you get the title shot yeah but there was nothing behind it not a person and my concern was man they're stepping away from a great story

they've been telling almost flawlessly and the audience has been responding accordingly and now they're jumping into you know a great matchup but with no no story and in one interview one interview promo in ring promo they completely turned that around yes and now there's not only story there's stakes clearly but it's now personal and when you can when you've got stakes and you can make it personal, you've got magic. And I'm all for it, no doubt. The only thing that, you know, the only emotion that I have is pure envy.

I mean, I would love to be in a position that Paula Beck is in right now and everybody else on the creative team, our buddy Bruce Pritchard and the whole team. I would love to be in their position right now because they've got a huge problem. I've got two great stars that I could put against my top heel. I got Cody and I got Sam and I got Sammy. What a great position to be in because there's no wrong choice. But I'm really looking forward to it right now. I'm truly some of the best storytelling,

the most disciplined storytelling. And for the last couple of years, Conrad, you know what. Unfortunately, you've had to listen to me babble and drone and rant on and on. on and on about discipline, quality, structured storytelling. And I've gotten so much heat for that, especially amongst the AEW fans, because I'm quick to point out that that's what's lacking over there. And all of a sudden, we're seeing discipline, structured, progressively compelling, episodic television with great characters.

And guess what? It's hot. Yeah. It just proves my point. And I'm really hoping, I won't beat this from too much longer, I promise. I'm really hoping that when this is over, WWE and everybody involved sits back and says, hmm, all right, that worked pretty good.

We told a great story. Let's go back and dissect it and figure out exactly what we did so well. Don't just move past it. Because this storyline and the build up and everything about it has been flawless, and it's the elements and discipline that went into that story that has made it so good. And if you can figure out a formula based on those elements, because every match is going to be different, every situation is going to be different. But if you've got a template, if you've got a formula,

seven times out of ten, you're going to hit. And one of those is going to be a bloodline type story. I think it's the best story that's been told in professional wrestling in 30 or more years. far better than NWO. Whoa. No, it is. It is. In terms of its structure, its discipline, the way it, and I keep using that term discipline, what does that mean?

That means sticking to the plan, sticking to the story, don't start throwing things in kind of randomly and spontaneously because somebody had a good idea two hours before showtime. Right. Because that's what typically happens. they've stuck to the plan and they've executed perfectly. And I think, you know, the NWO was a great story. And in its day, I think was up until Bloodline, perhaps one of the best stories that's been told, which is why people keep talking about it. But if you look at just the way Bloodline has been told in the detail and the discipline that goes into that story,

it blows the NWO story out of the water. Wow. I did not expect you to say that. I agree. It is some of the best storytelling. I actually tweeted out after the Royal Rumble. I said, I don't remember WWE ever being this good. And of course, that was partially tongue and cheek. I was at my peak fandom in 89 and 97. Absolutely loved all that stuff. But I thought the story that they're doing with the bloodline was fantastic. But I would challenge you on this when you were saying, man, I'm second guessing, you know, the decision to go with this. They should have went with Sammy. I hear you. but I also think if these are the same creative minds who have got us this far with the story, why not have that same confidence in them that we've had so far and just let it play out? Because when you take a look at just the routing of the big shows, they always knew that February show was in Montreal, Sammy and Kevin Owen's hometown. And again, I don't know anything. I don't have inside information.

You and I never ask Bruce this type of stuff. It's just not cool. It's not the way we roll. However, you got to think just Sammy's entrance against Roman Raines at Elimination Chamber is going to be one of the biggest pops in WW history, a legitimate all-time WWE moment. And maybe we don't see Jay until then. And then he does side with the bloodline and puts the boots to Sammy. And maybe it's the first time we've seen Kevin Owens and he makes that big run in in his hometown of Montreal.

all that would be even bigger than Sammy's entrance pop and it perfectly sets up a great tag team match with Sammy and Kevin Owens against the Usos and a tag team match with more stakes and story than we've seen in WWE in a long time. I mean, that match in and of itself to me could be a co-main event either night of WrestleMania. And I don't remember the last time we talked about a tag title match that way. No, no. And I'm with you. And you just made me even more excited, you know, to drill into WWE because that's a possibility and that's a fun thing about the story is because it's been done so well they've got a lot of different options and the option that you just laid out and if they don't do that you know you and I are going to tag team Mr.

Pritchard and why the hell not you know offline you know privately we'll get them in a corner and see if we can squeeze it out of them but man what a perfect setup and you're right about Montreal and I had the privilege of I won't even call it wrestling I had a match with Steve Austin when when Austin came back if I've been searching for him and we were co-GMs and all that crazy stuff that we built up and it was fun it wasn't a great storyline but it was it was episodic and fun and that was you know Steve and I and we weren't obviously the main event but we were up there because it was Steve. And that crowd in that venue is unlike any experience I've ever had in the ring.

I've been in front of bigger crowds, but I've never been in front of that much energy and that much passion amongst an audience. And what you're talking about, the way you just described it, will probably be far more than I experienced. So, man, I almost want to go to Montreal to sit in the cheap seats. I just want to feel that because you do, man. You close your eyes. You can just feel it.

It's pretty awesome. You're right. What a great time to be in WWE. You know, who would have thought this a year ago, right? Yeah. At best, you get a, mm, not bad. And now we're talking about it like, we haven't talked about at least i haven't talked about wrestling either forever you know i um

i think everybody listening to this knows i'm a big nostalgia wrestling fan and i try to keep up with what's going on but uh over the last year or so i have stopped watching more and more of the current stuff it just didn't keep my interest and i found myself watching because i always had and that's sort of the same thing with like the if you're a football fan the Saturday 3.30 Eastern CBS SEC football game. I'm always going to watch that one just because I always have. But right now, WWB programming has me excited to watch it, where it's like, I'm not watching because I always have,

and I usually do, and it's part of my routine. I'm watching because legitimately, I can't wait to see what they do next. Like, I want to know what's going to happen next. And so the elimination chamber would not normally even be a pay-per-view. I would care to watch live. I would actually avoid it. If you invited me to your house to watch Elimination Chamber, I'd have shit to do that day.

Well, the thing is, it's like, you know, as you know, Eric, between the full-time podcast gig and the full-time mortgage gig, Tom, just with the fam, is maybe I'll let the rough end drag a little bit. So a show like Elimination Chamber, which is really a lame duck pay-per-view between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, I kind of imagined I would be like, hey, Megan, let's go do, you know, whatever you want to do. We'll go do some new stuff. Let's do some us time.

Whatever. But now it's like, hey, Silva and Cassia are coming over. We're going to watch Elimination Chamber because I want to know what's going to happen. And I think it's making all of us invested in a bigger way than we normally would. And I think that goes back to something you and I have talked about a lot. And we're going to get a little bit of heat. for this, a little bit of hate online for this, but the reality is neither one of us have talked about a five-star match in this entire conversation. I'm sure it's going to be a great match

an elimination chamber between Sammy Zane and Roman Raines. But we don't really care about the moves. We're talking about the story. And story over matches is a debate that we hear often. There was even a debate a few weeks ago on social media from an independent booker, if you will, and he was saying hey man stories are what sell tickets not the matches and there was a large contingent of fans who totally disagreed and i do think that's probably the fundamental difference right now between admittedly my friend tony cons at e w and and w ewee is so heavy on story right now is what we're all talking about and a tv has great matches i mean goodness gracious that's your wrestled danielsen last week on a wednesday night that's a match i never thought i would see i was

thrilled to see it. But now it's kind of over. And now I'm like, what else? As opposed to I can't wait to see what they're going to do next. The story with WWE has me hooked. I think and I got myself sidetracked. You know, when I said there's two things that I'm hoping is going to happen when this is over. One is WWE sits down and analyzes their success. You know, it's one thing to sit down and try to analyze a mistake because you're going to learn from that. But you can also learn from your success and really drill into the formula. And I keep saying formula, because once you figure that out, you can then adapt that formula going forward.

And I'm hoping that Tony is looking at the success of what's going on because people are buzzing. People are putting the product over. The audience has been increasing. The ticket sales, the pay-per-views, everything is coming up because that segment of the audience, which is still, in my opinion, The largest segment of the audience is into great characters and great story.

We're seeing discipline structured legitimate story in WW. We have never seen it in AEW. Now, the first thing that, you know, all the AEW fans are going to, oh, you do you hate Tony Con, you hate ADW. Not true. I want, I don't, I like Tony Con. He's a good person. I have lost some respect for him in certain, for certain reasons.

but there's no animosity of my part, nor is there any for AEW. However, the dirt sheet booking approach, which is just great matches, you know, with, you know, dream matches with great action, is not going to cut it for the vast majority of the audience. When I say Tony is booking for the Internet, I mean he is booking for the Internet wrestling community that loves to talk about it online. Well, if your creative instincts are driving you to that destination, you're going to get there.

You're going to have great matches like the one you just described. But no one's going to remember it two weeks later because there was no story behind it. If you want to build an audience, you have to do what WWE is doing. Unfortunately for them, because they went for a long time without doing it. Right. Story there's, you haven't heard me putting over story. in WWE in a long time. Correct.

Until now. If I was Tony, I checked my ego and just look at reality and say, okay, what they just did work. And I would do the same thing that I'm encouraging WWE to do is break it down. What made that story? Not who made it work. And for God's sake, not how good were the matches. How many four-star matches did we get out of it? And I don't mean to dismiss that aspect of it because you can have a great story.

But if the in-ring execution is sloppy and isn't believable and isn't compelling, you're going to have a problem. Starcate. Jeez, man. Let it go. You're sick, buddy. Let it go. How many times you have to beat me over the head with that?

Couple more. You're satisfied. A couple more. But I just hope that Tony looks at this and goes, okay, we can do that too, because he can. you know he's he's got a guy and i've been putting this guy over you know i think i'm the only one doing it consistently is mike mansuri yeah you put mike mansuri in a room with somebody that understands traditional storytelling structure and discipline along with i don't know take your pick arn anderson jake roberts yes cherokee

So any of those people, and if you can get them great, you get their gears synced up, because it's not easy. Because here's what happens. And I've done, I think I was one of the first people to try to bring in Hollywood writers. I brought them in in 94, I think. Yeah, 93 or 94. I had two guys that were really credentialed, you know, screen actors deal, a lot of, a lot of credits under their belts. I brought them in to work with Dusty. Well, I didn't know enough to know how to manage that process well.

Right. And what happens is traditional storytellers and people that have a lot of experience in wrestling, like a Dusty and Arn, a Jake, whoever. Chris Jericho, not Chris so much because Chris has done a lot of outside of wrestling. But you know what I'm saying? Somebody's got a really good understanding of wrestling storytelling. what traditionally has been called storytelling, which isn't really. But you get those people in a room with somebody from either New York or L.A.

that's actually been writing television for a living. They don't speak the same language. You know, you talk to a wrestling guy about a three-ass. I remember the first time I brought up a three-X structure to Vince Rousseau and TNA. It's like his eyes rolled back and the sad. He started drooling all over himself because he was that. And there's a resistance because it's a, familiar. That's human

nature. But if you can get a couple writers understand it, working closely and equally so you don't have your wrestling team running right over the top of your writing team, because they will unless you know how to manage it.

But you get that, if you hit that, if Tony could do that, and he only needs one or two people. I'm not talking about booking the show. I'm talking about developing the plot points. within a story to make it more interesting and to make it progress week after week and give it that compelling episodic feel compelling why do I emphasize that because that's what gets people to come back you want them to do exactly what you just described a few moments ago

I can't wait to next week to find out what's going to happen next right that's what I mean and it takes somebody that understands the formula and can combine that template with what works in the rest, because the rest, here's, you know, on the other side of that equation, the wrestling audience is different than a traditional drama audience or a traditional sitcom audience, all right? The audience in wrestling has a different expectation. So you've got to be a little careful. You've got to manage that process. But if you do, you get bloodline quality storylines on a regular, maybe not that big. You're going to be careful.

The quality of the story, you can replicate that. I don't know that you can replicate a guy like Roman Reigns too easily because he's been getting this push for, I don't know, years, years, six, seven years. Yeah. Right? So that's what's taking it into the, you know, a different universe. But the quality of the storytelling can be great. if you just commit to it.

And that'll be interesting if Tony does that. Because I think, look, you take me out of the equation. I was, I never happened. My opinions have never been aired or talked about. How do you just not see it? How do you not look at your own product? If you're Tony kind of go, okay, every once in while we crack a million, but we're living in that 900 zone.

And we have for a long time. Let's not kid ourselves. You can spin that thing anyway. You want to spin it. It is what it is. they're flatlining and have been for a long time what do you need to do to get to that next level that next phase that growth phase what do you do what you're doing isn't working dream matches and getting dirt sheet booker of the year awards has done absolutely nothing for your growth well

come on now i mean i think i listen i um i feel bad because you and I've had some conversations offline that aren't for public consumption where we did talk about Tony and and I know how you really feel about Tony but sometimes I feel like you say things on the program here that don't really line up where you said you know I lost some respect for him and blah blah blah I think that's referencing a Ted Turner comment but I think the Ted Turner comment is probably and some people confuse the definition of this word but it's ignorance I don't think Tony Con really knew what Ted was doing on a day-to-day basis, not like you did. So I don't think that necessarily came from a place of him trying to be being spirited

or slight Ted Turner or quote-unquote put himself over. I just think it was, he doesn't have the knowledge about Ted Turner's involvement and who he was and is that you did. But then when you say, well, they're flatlining and they're not growing and that's not a criticism. Hang tight though. Hang tight, though. we don't know that he wants to grow hang on i said what i said i want to repeat that we don't know

that he wants to grow you you look at this as as as a third party who has no skin in the game and says well they're not doing this they're not doing that not everybody is interested in growth some people are happy with where they are in life a lot of our listeners who are not um salesman or or industry leaders or CEOs or whatever man they got their life the way they like it and and I'm jealous of that sometimes because I am in a sales organization and I'm on the rat race I'm on the every single month you know it's hey we got to have a good month we got to have a good month okay the month started over let's do it again and I think you and I are both hardwired to just we need to see things grow but at the same time there's a good chance that

Tony Kahn is just happy with the way things are right now. He's happy and maybe his, his, his partners are happy. And if everybody's happy, why deviate? Why not just super served that base? Maybe the idea was, let's do be an alternative. Like on some level, I could see a comparison to,

like, peak Ring of Honor and current AEW, where if you want to see the best wrestling matches in the world, you probably want to watch New Japan and Ring of Honor. If you want to see the best stories, well, maybe you watch WWE. So I could see this being that alternative and a friend of mine who's very smart and had a lot of success in business often says you can be less than, better than, or different than. And if we're honest, I don't know that anybody can beat this bloodline story right now.

So maybe being better than isn't an option. So even if you try to compete, maybe you wind up, sad to say, a little bit like T&A. a few years ago or several years ago where it's less than so why not be different than but perhaps he's not interested in growing he's happy with the way things are right now you know if that's the case like you i'm a little jealous i can't imagine living that way i would love it i i see i wouldn't i wouldn't then what then what well i'm the guy who drives by my old house and thinks you know i was happy there. I could have just stayed there and been fine. But then, you know, me and you were just we got to do more. And so I get motivated and I get my feet on the ground every day and get out of

bed because I want to set a new goal. And you know me as soon as I hit that goal, I mean, by the time I accomplished the goal, I've already got two more lined up. And so I'm just in this rat race of life. However, if he's got the television, let's just reset for a minute. If you would have said to us 10 years ago, there's going to be a. rival league pop up that's got massive bank roll that's going to start developing video games and have solid pay-per-view numbers that they're going to run quarterly and they're going to have licensing for trading cards and action figures and oh by the way they're going to be live in prime time on t-and-t we've all would have said well that just sounds too good to be true

that's not realistic tony has done it and for some reason we have moved the goalpost where now it's like well that's not enough you're not growing you're not beating w w you're you're not you're not you're not okay let me let me jump in you're covering a lot of ground first of first of all me pointing out facts is not being critical i agree so when i talk about flatlining that is a term referencing their growth chart it's flat lining implies that it's going down no right now i'm what i mean it's flatlining implies death that's where that term comes from they're not dying they're just not okay i'll i'll take that you're right you're right bet bet their ratings are flat and have been or i can i'll be i'll be nicer about it

their ratings are stable yes there you go okay that's another word so but let me back up just a second now maybe tony look his father's a billionaire multi-billionaire yeah totally tony would never have to do anything he didn't want to do for the rest of his life and have more money than he can spend okay so he's already at that point where he's he's good financially But you step into, now he's in the television business. I don't think I've ever met anybody remotely associated with management in the television industry that wasn't focused, obsessed with growth. Because if you're not growing, you're dying. It's a matter of when do they pull the plug, is you have to survive in the environment that you're in.

Now, if somebody were to say to me, I don't know, David's, Zazloff, the guy who's really, you know, calls all the shots at Warner Discovery, he is happier than hell with AEW just the way it is. Okay. Then you're right. And now I'm really jealous to Tony because he doesn't really have to do much more than he's doing, which quite honestly, from a creative perspective, isn't that hard. It's booking matches.

Yeah. You sit down with your talent and they come up with their own little promos and what, you know, their audience thinks is a story. And as Faslov's happy, you've got a lifelong agreement if you wanted it, TBS or Turner, great. I just don't think that's reality. I think there is pressure. Maybe Tony doesn't care if he is at some point in the future at risk of losing his partnership.

But I can assure you, not just from personal experience, but just from paying attention to things a little bit, Man, with the turnover and the television industry, a top management, companies being merged, bought, sold, all the things that are going on for quite a while, if you're not growing, you're dying. That's just my opinion. And maybe Tony doesn't care. And if he doesn't, then great. By the way, he was the one that was making all the comparisons to WWE and taking shots at WWE. Talent still does it on a regular basis. So if you're not interested in really competing, quit talking about yourself.

as a competitor to WWE and focus on your own stuff. If you're not competing, if you are competing, then go the other direction. Fight like hell. Get in the mud. Go for the eyes. Well, hang on. You know, listen, you watch enough political TV to know that he's just trying to, quote, unquote, motivate his base.

So he's going to get up there and say things that are going to really fire up and roll up his fans. And yeah, it's us versus them and we love this. And that underdog mentality is, is something that's easy to get behind. So I understand why he does it on occasion. He's trying to motivate that fan base. But I do think that on some level, you know, Tony's, Tony's hardwiring is different from a lot of folks.

Like Vince McMahon is interested in making as much money as he can. I don't know that that's a concern that Tony has to be bothered with now or ever. And I'm not saying that the company's not profitable. I don't know the financials. I don't think anybody knows the financials. But your and I thinking is always based on how do we do more, how do we make more, how do we grow, how do we get better? And I think his mentality could just be, hey man, we want to run a good show,

take care of our wrestlers, have a lot of fun, and make our partners happy. And he's already as successful as he's ever going to be. Realistically, do you think there's an alternate universe for AEW can beat WW? Because I don't think that exists. There's no scenario with a. No, no, no, no. I was one of the first ones to say long, long before they aired their first show. No one will ever outperform WWE again.

No one will ever do it. Yes. Tony's dad could throw a billion dollars at Tony and say, go try to be better. And he can't be. Not in this lifetime. WWE's had like a 40-year head start. Well, hang tight now. We're talking about two different things.

I know we're going to get Edle up alive based on what you just said. But the reality of what you just said is, from a business standpoint, from a P&L standpoint, they can't beat them. They can't. Now, creatively, could you like that product more? Sure. Some people like BMWs. Other people like Mercedes. And Mercedes people will never like BMW and vice versa.

I get that. But there's no arguing who sells the most cars. I mean, that's just, that's out there. WWE is going to sell the most tickets. They're going to generate the most revenue. They're going to get the most rate. They're going to court the most attention globally, et cetera, et cetera. It's too big of a head start.

I mean, it would be like thinking the XFL could someday compete with the NFL. We're saying the same thing. We both agree. But creatively, you can say, man, the XFL is more fun to watch. Okay, knock yourself out. But business wise, they're not the same. And I think they're there. I think that's exactly where AEW is.

I think they've got 100%, maybe 90%, maybe there's a little room, but they've probably got 100% of the, audience whose tastes are four four and five star matches with not not without story yeah and that's fine i agree i mean it's like some people like watching bare knuckle fighting as opposed to you know mma or professional boxing for whatever reason if that's your if that's your jam cool you you are a part of a segment of the audience that likes that stuff that's why it exists and i think not necessarily a fair analogy but i think where a eW is at is they've done done a great job of harnessing the interest and the passion for the internet wrestling fan

that is of the Dave Meltzer approach or school of thought, where it's all about the quality of the matches and the stories don't really matter. They're secondary. If that. And if that's, if that's Tony's goal, if that's TBS, if TBS is cool with that and they're happy and they don't want growth i still i can't even really say that without laughing but okay if tbs is happy with it and they're not interested necessarily in growth it's not urgent on their part tony doesn't need to worry about the money it's money is an afterthought for tony at this point

god bless him man and i'll i'll i'll refrain from ever commenting on it again in that respect but i just don't believe that it's true i don't believe tony con he's put himself out there he's made a huge commitment he's invested a lot of his money he's passionate about it he loves it i can't believe that somebody is smart and i know tony is smart he's way smarter than i am yeah he's i'm sure he is um but i can't believe somebody who's that smart who's that passionate who's invested that much of not only his own money but his identity into this thing that he wanted to nurture and grow or build i can't believe he's at this point. Now we're going to, okay, cool, I don't care about it. We don't need better

storylines. We don't need to improve the product. We just need to get more guys. I just can't believe that's true. Hey, 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 adfreeshows. Ad-free shows gives you early ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, including The Snake Pit with Jake Roberts. This week, The Snake welcomed the devil himself, Kevin Sullivan, to the program. I'm ready to go out, and I see Ming coming back, and all of a sudden they threw a cinder block and hit him on the shoulder from the roof.

He dropped to a knee, but he just shook it off and came in. And they hit him in the head who had killed him. David Crockett joins Conrad for an all-new edition of The Book, as they go day by day through February 1985 with the help of Jim Crockett's original booking laws. And what a pivotal month it was, as WrestleMania 1 is right around the corner, and Jim Crockett Promot is running in Vince's own backyard. In that area, knew him, knew his reputation. It's a working-class audience. They like the style of our wrestling, and he put Dusty and Backland together. They're, you know, opposites what they attract, and they make it work.

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With four levels to choose from four. See for yourself why AdFree Shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now, right now, at AdFree Shows.com. well i can't believe that we are celebrating today as you and i are recording sherry martel 65th birthday she would have been 65 today eric she was born february 8th 1958 uh there's a little spoiler for you guys and girls we're recording this early because eric's hitting the road to tampa but still man 65 today gone way too early uh she was pretty athletic growing up being born here in Birmingham, Alabama. She played basketball and did track and feel and eventually moves to

Mississippi, and that's when Sherry's mother gave her the option. You want to go ice skating or watch wrestling? At first she picked ice skating, but after some fights with her sister, she opted to watch wrestling instead, and she fell in love with it, so much so that she dropped out of college to focus on it full time. I know this is long before you knew her, Eric, but You felt her love of professional wrestling, I'm sure. Absolutely. Sherry was so unique. I mean,

that's not necessarily the best picture of Sherry, but Sherry is a very attractive woman. She had this raspy, sultry, like two packs of Paul Molladay and a quarter scotch kind of voice. Sexy as hell. And that's not usually something that people think about when they are talking about Sherry. But she had that, she had that quality about her. She had a raw sensuality about her.

Wow. But it was packaged in this badass, fear nothing character. And that's, I think, what made her so unique. And she didn't, you know, she, she, She never, at least as far as I remember, she never tried to, you know, exploit herself in the, in the sensuality category. She didn't flaunt. She didn't dress provocatively. Now, unless it was part of an angle and she was trying to distract somebody or something like that.

But her, her gig was she looked good and she could kick your ass. Right. And she, and when she cut a promo, she made you believe. And that was all out of her passion and her love. for what she did she gets trained for wrestling and works with people like butchmore and grisly smith of course that's uh jake's next father and eventually fabulous mula i know we don't talk about um a lot of ugly topics here on the show it's more of a business show but boy fabulous mula has had a lot of claims against her and sherry says that she was never subjected to some

of that behavior. Did you, way back when in the WCW days, did you hear any rumors about Moolah's factory of gals or any of that stuff? No, I didn't hear about that, that rumor until probably eight years ago. Okay. Yeah, I know, look, I just don't, unless I have first-hand knowledge or experience in something, I don't invest a lot of time and thought into rumors and store. I mean, not suggesting they weren't true or they were true. I don't. don't know and because I don't know I never really even when I found out about it was just kind of went in one ear and out the other mula winds up sending sherry to all japan to get some more experience and she returns to work in memphis where she was working as a manager for the very

first time and we have spent a little bit of time but maybe not enough talking about what i like to call a utility player a guy like bobby the brain heenan could work matches he could be a manager they could be a commentator he could do it all sherry was kind of cut from the same cloth right she could do it all she was and i attribute that a lot to the way she came up in the business you know she had to be good you had to be a master of all trades to survive back then you know the more you could do the more likely it is you're going to get booked right you know if you can get it to ring and have a match and or you can manage somebody on the same card damn promoters getting two for the price of one right so you you'll you'll get booked

more often that was the nature i think of the way she came up and the way she was trained we uh we know she's going to find her way to the a w a from 85 to 87 eric you were living up in minnesota before you started working for the a w a how big of a presence was women's wrestling in the a w a did it get much visibility on tv as best you can recall you know Vern used to bring in Wendy Richter, was one name that I do remember, but he would bring, before he, you know, hired Medusa, Deborah Metcelli. He would bring in women for a run. You know, he was a monthly territory traditionally, even though when I would,

by the time I got there, he was really cutting back on live events because they weren't drawing. But traditionally, Vern was a monthly territory. So he would bring women in for a month or two months to kind of work the circuit. then cycle them out, you know, maybe two, three, four months before you saw another woman on the card. And I just think that had a lot to do with. It just wasn't a giant pool of women wrestlers at that time. Right. It was, it was pretty thin. But when he, I remember, you know, I didn't start working for Vernon until 1987, late August, I think of 87. So, yeah, she was there

for a couple of years when I was just, I was a fan. Mrs. B and I were watching wrestling on a little black and white TV, a TV tray in a little house that looked right out of a house on the prairie in north central, Minnesota. The only heat we had was a woodburning fire stove in the basement. And we'd sit and watch All-Star, AWA All-Star wrestling, and there was Sherry Martell. So I think I remember seeing her with Kurt Henning. I think she managed Kurt, perhaps.

She was involved in the store. She was great. I loved her. And when I got to work there, I think she was just on her way out. Right. I remember seeing her one time in a hallway, like right after I first started, it was an interview taping day because Verdon used to tape his interviews, I think, once a month. So we'd fly all the talents in. They'd spend all day cutting individual market promotions, interviews.

So all the talent would fly in. And I remember seeing her for the first time in person. It was like, whoa, there she is. is. Then I heard her laugh. In fact, I heard her laugh before I saw her because she had a laugh. You could hear from here to Mississippi when she started laughing. It was great. Contagious laugh. I love hearing about people's first impressions and first memories of meeting wrestlers and to hear to know that you heard her laugh before you saw her. That's a great way to think about Sherry today on her 65th birthday. Sherry credits Larry Zavisco with helping her get into the

AWA. She did an interview back in 2004, which is up now over on the title match network, where she said, Larry was instrumental in getting me my job with Vern. He went in with me to the office. I had worked on a few shows for Vern at the time, so he knew me. I guess Vern never thought of me as being someone with the company on a regular basis. I was living in Nashville at the time, and I'd flown up to do a show. Larry says, we're going into the office to talk to Vern and Larry helped me work on my interviews he helped me become more self-confident he said

sherry when you get nervous just look out in the crowd and think everybody wants me it was history after that we went into talk to Vern and without Larry it would have never happened larry's a bisco man one of the uh maybe often overlooked great figures in wrestling i mean he helped name the freaking new world order the NWO that we've discussed here on the program before and here he is vashing for sherry martel and without that aWA break who knows if she gets the run with vince um i don't think i don't think history remembers larry zabiscoe the way they should what say you well i agree number one but i think the most interesting part of that story that you just relayed was not only did larry create the opportunity to

front of Vern, but Larry imparted some really valuable advice on a young lady that was pretty green at the time, not green, but she didn't have the type of experience that I know Vern would have been looking for, which is if you can't talk, you can't sell. And if you can't sell, I don't need you. When I mean sell, I mean sell tickets. That bit of advice that Larry gave her was probably far more valuable than just opening the door and getting a meeting with Vern. That says a lot about Larry. That's, I love hearing stories like that because that's a learned experience. Larry didn't, he wasn't born knowing that.

Right. He went through the same things that Sherry was probably going through, trying to get established, trying to get recognized as something more than a spot show, you know, independent talent. and Larry had to go through it and he learned by experience. He learned on the job and then was able to remember the things that helped get him to that next level and share that with Sherry. And that's, you know, you love seeing that passed down because that's what you can't

get, where are you going to get that advice? Acting coach, you know, you're going to go to a YouTube channel. You know, it's got to be with someone that you trust that. knows you and can really analyze what it is you need and see where your weakness is. You know, see what makes you nervous and be able to give you some advice to help you get over that hump. That's a cool story. Super cool story.

And we know that Larry was instrumental in helping you feel settled in the AWA. I'm curious, you told us the story earlier. You started to. You heard her voice. You heard her laugh. Then you got to meet her. did you have any relationship to speak of at all before she was out of there for quote unquote greener pastures no and when i say i saw it's because my office was on one side of the

building tv production was on the other side of the building i had not been introduced to the finer details and their workings of the wrestling business verne was very very old school in that regard so when i came when i came out of my side of the office and there was a common kind of lobby waiting area there is really big and that's where a lot of the talent when they weren't doing something on camera they'd come out to the lobby and talk because you can't talk in the studio when things are going on so i walked out of the main door to my side of the building into the main lobby and that's when i heard sherry laugh and i looked over and there she was and i think she was standing around kurt or sergeant slaughter and maybe a sheik i remember right and i heard her

left and I looked over and I saw her but I you know that was back when I was still yeah I didn't even have a parking place yet and I wasn't about to go hey I'm Eric bischoff I'm a big fan so I just took care of what I think I was going out to get a can of soda or something I got my can of soda the refrigerator went right back to my office I never I never really met her in a w I don't think may have done something with her at TV once but I don't recall it and then she went she left shortly after I got there. Let's remind everybody what Sherry did in the AWA. You can't believe this is real, but

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to the Midnight Rockers, who we know is Sean Michaels and Marty Janetti. That happens in January of 87. And this relatively short run is pretty remarkable. I mean, winning major titles, managing others to championships at the same time. I mean, this is trailblazing in a lot of ways for a woman in wrestling in this era, no? It was. Now, again, you know, you had Wendy Richter, he had other, a lot of other, excuse me, very successful women throughout the history of wrestling, right? But I think perhaps Sherry may have been the first,

that could do it all she could manage she could wrestle um we i have a cough button i'm sorry i just saw that on my chat i have a cough button i just kept i didn't have to use it i'm sorry i apologize to the audience um sherry might have been one of the first that was so adept at managing or wrestling or as you put announcing although i don't think she did any in the AWA. But yeah, she was a groundbreaking in that respect for sure. I mean, don't get me wrong. Wendy Richter and other great women wrestlers certainly did their thing in the ring. But the idea

of, hey, I can also manage the tag team champions is going to be something that gets the attention of Vince McMahon. She's going to spend the next six years in the WWF. She's going to be working with Mula for the women's title. Eventually, she wins it. That's an early version of the WWF women's title in Houston. And that's when she becomes sensational sherry and it's crazy to think you know most of us grew up listening to this podcast at least most of us grew up and thinking of sherry is like a manager

for the macho king or ted de biazzi or harlem heat but to know that and she was also a champion herself before that it's uh it's a trajectory that you don't see often happen with with personalities and wrestling where they were a champion wrestler and then they became a fantastic manager of champions but guys like bobby heenan and sherry martel i mean these are special talent who could do it all over the place and by the time you're established on camera as an interviewer and i guess 1989 in the a w a what was happening with the female side of the roster at that time was there an emphasis at all on women's wrestling in the AWA and 89 when you're there?

Well, Medusa was there. I think Medusa started either a week before me or a week after me. I don't really remember, but we started about the same time. So I think there was a you know, there was a desire there, but again, I'll go back to the reality of the situation back then. There just wasn't a great pool of talent.

You know, Bern certainly wasn't at a, at a point where he could, you know, be flying women in from Japan or from Los Angeles. You know, he was he was on a tight budget and there certainly weren't you know a deep pool of female wrestlers in the Minneapolis, St. Paul area. So I think he wanted it. He probably wanted more women because they've always been an attraction.

Right. To an event. And he did make the commitment to Medusa. But beyond that, I think it was tough for him. Well, I want to give a shout out to everybody over at ad-freeshows.com. You know, we often promote that you get. these shows early and ad-free. We're actually doing it live with a live studio audience. I want to give a shout out to Mark Cyrus, who's watching over along with us,

and he actually tweets out or comments in the chat. Sherry broke the mold of what a women's wrestler was thought of at the time, Trailblazer. We got another comment here from Mitchell Barnett. He says, as a child, I was terrified of Sherry in the WWF. She was such an incredible performer. Totally agree. Shout out to Josh and everybody else over in the group chat, Eddie Prather, and everybody who's watching along with us this early Wednesday morning. Let's talk about now that she's in the WWF and she's going to be not only wrestling, but also managing. She's going to do something that was, again, pretty groundbreaking at the time.

She dresses up as honky talk man's girlfriend, Peggy Sue. So before we ever really acknowledge that this is Sherry Martell, the former in-ring wrestling champion, she's going to be in full quote unquote gimmick costume with the big glasses and the blonde wig dancing around as peggy sue and then eventually starts managing the macho man randy savage and of course that happens after the mega powers explode and miss elizabeth is out of the picture once savage becomes the macho king sherry logically changes her name to sensational queen sherry and manages him through the 91 WrestleMania. She plays

an instrumental role in two major feuds during the time. The first is managing Savage and Zeus as they take on Hogan and Beefcake with Savage's former manager at Miss Elizabeth. And then she even teams up with Savage to wrestle Dusty Rodes and Sapphire at WrestleMania 6.

You know, when you take a look at her career, it just feels like she's the ultimate utility player. I mean, in a mix tag out of WrestleMania or don't even refer to me by my name and I'll get in a costume and I'll be honky talk man's girlfriend. It's phenomenal stuff, man. She had a run that rivals almost any ladies in the WWE, especially in that era, no. Absolutely. And I think if, if I had to come up with one word that best defines Sherry, it would be fearless. And I think

clearly, you know, what she was able to do in the ring because she was very physical. She was not afraid of doing anything in the ring with anybody that I can remember. You know, obviously it wasn't in WWE when she was there, and I didn't work with her in AWA, as we've just talked about. But when I worked with her in WCW, you know, if someone else were to throw out an idea to her and it involved physicality, she'd say, yeah, but, what if we do this and this and this as well? I mean,

she was not afraid to get physical with anybody in any situation. But she was also not afraid to go out and just be a character. And doesn't that sound easy? It sounds so easy. Yeah, come on, just put on this blonde wig and they'll throw on these clothes and just be Peggy Sue. It sounds easy. But if you're a talent and you don't have a hundred,

you're not secure in yourself and there's a little bit of fear or nervousness about going out and performing in a certain character, you're not going to be in a good at it. Sherry could care less. She had no fear of doing anything, whether it was physical or as a performer, non-physical. And I think that the fact that she was so fearless is what served her so well and made her so versatile And as you pointed out, she was capable of being not just a utility player, but a very, very bad. She was like a designated hitter. Yeah.

In that respect. She was not just a utility player. She was an extremely valuable utility player because of the fact that she was just flat out fear, fearless. Talk to me about her promo ability. You know, we, we these days oftentimes see a lot of quote unquote scripted promos. in this era that was not really the case maybe bullet points at best but it's not often that we would see promos from women that were like this but she was willing as you said to be fearless so she would especially when she was sensational queen sherry start doing her makeup in a very unique way

i don't know another way to say it but she would get a little more creative lots of glitter lots of color, lots of freehand drawing. It was a different look. And the promo style, I don't even know. How would you describe the way she did promos? I don't know. It's hard to describe the style of her promo. You know, she was just so good at it.

She could tell a story in a promo. She could take you on a journey in her promo. You paid attention to everything she said when she was doing her promos. And that takes a lot of talent. Quite honestly, she was far better at it than the people she managed, other than Larry. I don't know if she actually managed her or if they just hung out a lot together because I just remember seeing them together as often as I did. But of the people she managed while I was watching her before I came to AWA and what I

you know what I saw she was better you know way better than pretty boy Doug Summers and whoever the other guy was um no offense to them but she was so strong and believable and I keep harping on her voice but a voice is everything when you're when you're as identifiable by your voice as you are by your face you got a voice your voice is as much a part of your brand as anything else you do. Holkogen's the same way. You know, you hear that voice. You know exactly who that is.

Yes. Stone Cold, Rick Flair, obviously the motto, man. You know, when you've got a voice that is so distinct that it separates you from everybody else, male or female, you got a gift. And that's what Sherry had. And that's probably why Vern used her as much as he did and why Vince probably saw as much as he did in her. because her promos were gold and she became a brilliant foil for characters like miss elizabeth and sapphire

and no disrespect to either one of those i'm sure very kind ladies but their personalities were not over the top so sherry more than made up for that in both instances and i think that is the ultimate compliment to her because those feuds became memorable not necessarily because of what Sapphire did or what Miss Elizabeth did, but because of what Sherry did and how those characters reacted to it, she was the straw that stirs the dream. And she's calling now from beyond the grave. No, it was Sonny. Oh, no.

Well, let's talk to Sonny and see what he thought of Sherry. Seriously, talk to me about how she sort of more than made up. She more than, more than carried her. load of the water. I mean, when you're talking about Miss Elizabeth, who was universally loved and respected, when you go back and you take a look at what she actually did, it was, she had to have that antagonist, right? Somebody had to bully her and then her overcome and Sherry brought it. Yeah, Sherry was a great heel. She was a bully. She could be a bully as a character in a believable one. And you look at the contrast of those two characters, you know, Miss Elizabeth, who is this shy, demure, yes naive almost fragile you know beautiful but almost fragile type character and then you got somebody like sherry with that look and that voice and that confidence and that fearless aggression perfect perfect contrasting characters you felt you felt sympathy for miss elizabeth if if sherry marchel was at ringside you'd start she'd start to get sympathy

um from the audience uh elizabeth wood no it's a it's a perfect contrasting characters and here's another example and any pre there is the one that brought it up sherry was you know going back to what she did so well you know we look at you know booker tea now and he can cut a hell of a promo now right yeah yeah he was okay he wasn't horrible when he first got to wcd but he wasn't the booker t we know now that's fair any stretch sherry you asked me once you know why was sherry with harlem here's a perfect example. Sherry could deliver a promo better than either Booker or Stevie

at that time. I'll do respect to Booker now and I think he would probably agree. He's got a very healthy intact ego. But that was Sherry, man. It goes back to being that super valuable utility player. I'll tell you what else is super valuable. The Beard Hedger from Manscaped.

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here. Her last order of business on TV and the WWF is managing Ted DiBiase and Sean Michaels at different points from late 91 to early 93 she even played a major part in the storyline about the rockers breakup uh from may to july of 93 she returns to the ring in a series of matches against the newly arrived luna boshan this only happens at house shows her last match is on july 10th and it's a win over luna by dq in seattle and she said in 2004 that she left the WVF because the touring schedule made it impossible to hold a relationship. It's worth mentioning by this point she'd been married three different times. She also confessed that drugs played a role.

Quote, my mind was so focused on wrestling that everything else came second. Everything. That was including my ex, my family, everyone. I also got busted smoking marijuana and wouldn't quit. Drugs cost me a great job and personal friendships. At the time, I couldn't see how to strike. I was. I thought drugs had made me perform better.

I was stubborn. I didn't give a damn what anyone else said. Even Vince McMahon. If I cared about things as much as I thought I did, I wouldn't have done those things. And man, that's a lot to take in to read Sherry's words here from 2004, especially knowing how ultimately she lost her life.

Chat me up. What do you, how do you reconcile what we just laid out there? I agree with you, man. It is a little rough hearing that, especially because we know what happens in her future at that point. But look, I think so many people that get caught up, first of all, in the wrestling industry, especially at that time, it was the Wild Wild West in many respects. It wasn't the business that it is today.

Trust me, when I tell you that. And I wasn't around or, you know, I didn't come into it until late 80s. And I think so many people, once you fall into that trap, whether you're dependent upon drugs or alcohol or a combination of it, and then you add to that the almost circus lifestyle of professional wrestling because it's all about travel. You're living on the road. Sherry talked about it in that excerpt that you read, you know, wrestling was everything.

It means you're probably home one day out of 14 or 15 or two. And if you've been partying all the way through it, and sometimes, look, I've done it myself, you know, you kind of numb yourself to the parts of that business that you don't enjoy, whether it's the travel or being alone or just the grind of it. You know, at some point you need to kind of numb yourself to that part of it in order to keep going. And if you rely on drugs and alcohol to kind of find that comfort zone, it's not going to be long before things start really spiraling. But you don't see it as it's happening. The people around you do, but you don't see it.

And the part that really struck me there that Sherry said was she thought the drugs made her better. Yeah. And I've heard that so many times from people that I was close to, you know, got to take care of a little business before the bell rings. You know, it's just. and it really it it just numbs you so you don't feel as much and you think because you don't feel as much the audience maybe isn't seeing through you or that you're performing better than you really are because the state of mind you're in I've heard that so many times and why do I say all this because it's easy for me to see how it happens right having sampled it I didn't live it I wasn't a wrestler so I didn't live a wrestler's life on the road but I saw enough of it and lived enough of it and seen what I saw what people like Sherry went through that I understand how it happens. It's just unfortunate that she didn't catch herself sooner and be able to control it because

that's the other hard part of it, man. Once you let that stuff take over your life, it's not easy to give up drinking. It's not easy to give up drugs. It's probably the biggest challenge that most people will face in their lifetime. in many respects. And it's unfortunate that she didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel in a more permanent way. You know,

when you, you sort of said you had heard people say that, that drugs made them feel like they were a better performer. Do you think that was from an anxiety standpoint? Like they were just in their head and they were nervous and it kind of calmed them down. I mean, we've heard a lot of people who would say that alcohol, hall maybe made them a more social person it reduced their inhibitions is that it or is it more

of a thought of because i've heard other people who would say boy when i really want to have a creative thinking session i need blah blah blah is it the creativity or anxiety i i guess it's different for everybody right depends on what your issues are what do you bring into the ring i think for a lot of people it's just because you get that lift you know depending what you're doing You know, I'm not here to promote stuff, but, you know, there are things that you can take and do, some of them, pharmaceuticals, some of them not, that just enhances that state of euphoria and well-being. And that's probably why people think they're actually better than they are. If you're a stand-up comic and you rely on whatever it is to get you out on stage and maybe you think you're your best, maybe the audience isn't convinced. to that, but you are. I think the same is true with music. Why is it that so many performers,

professional wrestlers, musicians, actors, actresses, why is it so many of them go down because of drugs and alcohol? It's the lifestyle being on the road. And it's that feeling that you need that crutch, whatever that is, either to calm you down, just going to do a shot at tequila before I go out on stage or to make you feel better than you otherwise feel and maybe it's a pharmaceutical or something that's not a pharmaceutical to kind of elevate you in that respect you're relying on something and I think that something is different for everybody sherry bounced around the next year or so she has some stints in the us w a smoky mountain and eastern championship wrestling in the USWA she briefly reunited with Randy Savage and a feud against Jerry Lawler

and in Smoky Mountain she's going to manage Tracy Smothers and a feud against Brian Lee and Sunny who at the time was known as Tammy Sitch and she even wrestled a loser against spanked match against Jim Cornett very briefly in the original ECW she made as Shane Douglas and she wraps up in ECW in early 94 and she she did an interview where she specifically said it was Kevin Sullivan and not Eric Bischoff that contacted her about coming into WCW quote Kevin and Nancy were in ECW. They went down to WCW. I get a call from Gary Juster and he told me they were filming at Universal and they wanted me to come in. Now at this time I think you're the executive producer. What do you recall about

how Sherry came in to WCW? I was executive producer and I think by this time I was senior vice president and I had a little bit more to do with talent acquisition at this point, not booking, not creative, but talent acquisition. And Kevin would have come to me and I would have approved it and we were off and running. What do I remember? I remember very I don't think I talked to Sherry much. I may not have even had a conversation with her when she first came in. I remember seeing her for the first time in person, probably since I, left the AWA, or since she had left AWA, when I saw her in person, we were filming at the Disney MGM studios.

We were going to be there for five or six or seven days shooting three or four shows a day. It was our schedule. And that was the first time Sherry came in was for a worldwide taping. And she walked in, Missy Hyatt was the, was the, was the, lead female on the roster at that point right and missy was doing a lot of things she was doing stand-ups and hosting different events and news centers and whatever so she was doing a lot but when she when sherry walked in missy pitched a fit really oh my god it was so embarrassing I think I might have been why I let her go.

That may have been why I let Missy go. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was. And I was shocked. It's like, whoa, what's your issue here? I mean, it was bizarre. But yeah, Sherry made a big impression on Missy Hyatt for sure. I enjoy, you know, for me, I was a fan. I went back to watching her, you know, when I watched her in AWA.

I didn't watch her a lot in WWE because I wasn't watching a lot of WWE that. at that point. But I do, you know, I flash back to AWA and I loved her as a character then. And I was excited to have her on the team. So the whole Missy Hyatt thing, she was just territorial, you think? I guess it made no sense to me. I can't even assign any logic to it because it wasn't like Sherry was there to take her job. You know, she was there to, you know, add value, not replace someone. Um, I don't know, I can't, I can't, I can't imagine. imagine what was going through missy's i think missy just didn't like the idea that there was going to be another woman there that's going to get some attention i guess i don't know what's your

relationship like with missy in twenty twenty three i don't have one i mean i i don't have anything against her you know i i there's no animosity but i haven't seen her in person since wcd i I don't talk to her on the phone or, you know, communicate with her on social media or anything. I like Missy. We should, uh, we should get her on the show one day. Uh, sure. I've had no problem. I'm no problem doing that.

What, what do you think about, um, Gary Jester being the guy to make the call here? Would that have been normal? I mean, that'd have been a normal course? No, that's weird. That's weird because Gary works on the arena side of the business. Right. he didn't work with talent he didn't work with bookers he i don't know maybe gary had her number and kevin didn't i don't know that's a weird one though it's that's it's it's like having somebody

from the accounting department you know reach out to a writer but whatever uh what about um Kevin Sullivan, I mean, is he, at this point, 94, does he have sort of carte blanche to reach out to talent like this or would this be something? No, no, no, no. In 94, people forget. And part of it's because the narrative, you know, ATM Eric had Ted Turner's checkbook. That was courtesy of WWE spread that nonsense. When I took over WCW for the first few years, all I did was cut costs. First year was all about cutting costs. Counting the pencils. Counting pencils, making sure you understood what your resources were. So if you had too much of one thing and not enough of another, we could fix that. It was the reason that I made people do that. But we were at a cost-cutting mode at that point. Now, my budget had been gradually increased because I was hitting my goals, the internal goals that were set for me by finance, Turner Finance.

I was meeting and exceeding them. So as I started having a little bit of success, even before we started making any profit, I started having a little bit more latitude, certainly bringing in Hulk Hogan, which wasn't originally in the budget. I had to go to TED separately for that because, again, it wasn't an approved budget item. But those things were easier to accomplish. So bringing in names like Sherry was getting easier for me to do. And she, you know, Sherry wasn't a high ticket item.

She wasn't a mid six figure character for that matter. So it wasn't that hard. But no, Kevin didn't have carte blanche, but it wasn't the hardest thing in the world for Kevin to do is come over to my office and explain to me why he wanted someone. And if it made sense and there was room in the budget, then go do it. Listen, guys, we've all been so focused on the big game this past weekend that maybe some of us forgot. It's Valentine's Day. Here's a little pro tip. Give the gift your loved one will truly be happy with this Valentine's Day.

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The same interview with Sherry, she says something like, Kevin wanted me to work with Dave Sullivan, but that didn't go as well. So they put me with Flair. When she comes in, did you have, you know, an idea? for her or was it simply we know she's talented we'll find a spot for no i wasn't i wasn't touching creative at that point um so that wasn't my concern i wanted to see how she was going to be used but that was really kevin at that point and and the creative team that was their job to figure out how best to use her my job was to provide the resources to bring in the talent that they

wanted within a budget so i didn't really think about how she was going to to be used. And I certainly didn't stay awake at night coming up with ideas because that wasn't my role at that time. Let's talk about her early impressions of you. In the same interview, she said, I thought he was cute. He had that TV face. Of course, I remember him from the AAWA right as I was leaving. The slate between us at this point was clean. We had no problems. My initial thoughts of you being in power where that this could turn out to be something cool he's willing to give me a chance he was always straight up with me you talk to us a little bit about your relationship here at the beginning of her wcw tenure just you and her we didn't really have much of one um i mean i just

again not to keep repeating it but i wasn't involved with creative therefore i wasn't involved with the talent on show days. You know, my role was much different than that. So I didn't have a lot of interactions with her. And I think if she felt that I was straightforward, it was probably because I wasn't a wrestling guy. And I typically am pretty straightforward and concise about things. And I think sometimes that comes.

people that aren't used to that sometimes are taken aback by it and oftentimes feel like wow that's refreshing you know um just because i i was just clear and concise in my dealings with her but we never really got into anything complex or personal um so that her impression must have been kind of a first impression more than anything else she uh had also said that maybe one of the things that had been discussed was maybe she gets back in the ring and has a feud with Medusa. Of course, that would have been challenging at the time because Medusa was working with the

WVF through late 95. But something else I found in my research, Sportsster reported that there was a plan at the beginning of WCWs, or Sherry's WCW run for her to manage Jean-Paul LeVec, who we know is going to go on to become Triple H. You see if you're watching over on YouTube. YouTube, a photo of them together. Man, what a pairing that could have been.

We know Sherry was great with Flair, but the idea that she could have also been Triple H's manager, that could have been fun. Would have been fun, right? Would have been a lot of fun. I don't know how strong Paul was at that point in terms of promos. I think probably not. I doubt that he had really found his character at that point. And he was probably way more, it was very good in the ring.

No question about that. But this, you know, he's still kind of fresh out of Killer Kowalski's camp at this point right have a ton of experience so i think sherry would have added a lot of value to that that pairing she she should have been very valuable football she finally makes her wcw debut here on april 23rd on an episode of saturday night of course this is pre nitro so this is the a show she's going to debut under the name sensuous sherry mean jean gives her a big welcome and uh they've got the big music and the big smoke and then she comes out and gives Jean a big kiss on the lips.

And she says she's come to WCW to, quote, find a man that can fulfill all of my needs, end quote, which of course makes Gene fumbled the mic like Gene classically did. And he would continue, or she would continue by saying, my needs are to take a man to go and get the World Championship belt. So this is fun stuff, but it does feel like it's from the WWF a handful of years earlier. main jean and sherry martel this is the criticism of wcw in this era that there's a lot of

former wbbdb talent coming in here using your old adage best than better than less than etc this isn't necessarily different than what's the thinking in let's try to collect as many of these w f characters and put them on wcdb programming is it just because they had the brand they had the recognition, they had that equity with the audience, with the advertisers or something else. I mean, the thinking, it was obvious. And again, this was a creative direction headed up by Kevin and his team. And at that time, and even before that, as we've talked about it many times, man, WCW was

WWE light. Their characters were bad imitations of WWE characters, whenever they could, including me, we would bring in WWE talent because we wanted to bring in talent that had more audience equity that were more over

that had more exposure than we typically did at WCW. There was no thinking beyond that. You know, I didn't get into, look, I didn't get into the better than less than different than frame of mind until I walked out of Ted Turner's office

with a mandate to go ahead to head with WWE. That's when I first came up with better than different than. Because in 1994, I wasn't trying to compete with WWE. I was just trying to compete with WCW. I was trying to compete with profit and loss. And by bringing in more talent and hopefully the idea being that we'd be able to generate more money in pay-per-view, more money in live events eventually, that's why they were brought in. Now, if Kevin Sullivan had ideas beyond that, I might not have known about them or been a part of those. But for me, it was like, okay, if we can bring in a piece, this piece of a WWE puzzle because it's available and this is a very popular character

that's been featured very prominently in WWE, it made total sense to bring them at that time. The main jeans and the Hulk Hogan's and the Rick Flares, you know, there's going to be a lot of talent for her to work with. She's ringside for Rick's title defense against Barry Windham at Slambury, 94. Wyndham was a surprise return here. He'd been away from WCW after he lost the title to Flair in 93. And in storyline, Colonel Robert Parker had been promised a surprise opponent for Flair,

which is revealed to be his old stable mate, Barry, of course, Barry being a former member of the four horsemen. Wyndham even comes out to the horseman music. What do you remember about Wyndham's comeback here in 94? You know, I don't remember much of it. I liked Barry a lot, still do. A ton of respect for Barry Wyndham. A ton of respect for Barry Windham.

Really enjoyed him as a performer. enjoyed him even more someone to work with. He was just a good guy. Barry was another one of those guys when I first got to WCW that was very tight with Dusty. And as a result, I got to know Barry pretty well and we became pretty good friends at that point. So I was just happy to see Barry come back.

I was just happy. I didn't have much of an opinion beyond that. But I do want to point out one more thing about Sherry first getting to WCW because it just occurred to me. There was nobody that was a bigger supporter of Sherry than Rick Flair. Yeah. Rick Flair loved working with Sherry, which just made it that much easier. You know, not that I needed to justify it, but there was a much greater comfort level

just because Rick was so excited about it. He loved working with her. We should note, Flair pins wind him. We don't see Sherry. involved. So she's here, but not really doing much. Um, but the idea of her with Flair just makes a lot of sense on it. You know what? It doesn't. It doesn't though, right? Because typically you think, well, you get somebody like Sherry. We talked about it with Booker and Harlem Heat, Booker and Stevie Ray and Harlem Heat early on when they were still learning and

getting better and better and better at their craft. But before they got better and better, they were just kind of okay. And Sherry really filled a. roll there because she was that she could do it she could pull it off i don't think rick flare needed somebody well i mean i don't think savage did either but i think them together it's a visual yeah it is a visual well said uh the big moment that we see sherry start to get involved in a much bigger way is june 23rd the world champion is rick flair and sting is the international champion and they're going to unify those titles at the clash of the champions here

and right as the match is about to start the music hits and Sherry comes to the ring hiding her face behind the mask when she removes the mask it reveals that she's painted her face up like Sting later in the match Sting is going to slingshot himself over the top rope but Flair puts Sherry in front of himself

Sherry goes down and Flair scores the roll-up pinfall off of the distraction then she gets in the ring and embraces Flair and then they attack Sting Hogan, who had just arrived in WCW that day, makes the save. Let's just recap here. Big debut for Hulk Hogan, the world champ, wrestling the international champ, the two biggest, most well-branded WCW stars of all time, Sting and Flair, are unifying the title.

And the fourth member of this party is Sherry. That's a vote of confidence right there, is it not? Indeed, it is. And I bet that was all Rick Flair. Yeah. The, uh, the physicality here, you know, this is something that if it was happening to Miss Elizabeth or someone else, maybe there would have been people who were concerned. But Sherry being a former wrestler, she was comfortable with all that, right?

Not only comfortable with it was probably chomping at the bit to get in and do it. She could bump. Sherry could, she was so physically tough. again fearless man she could care less she wanted to take those bumps she wanted to climb up to the top of a cage and a pair of high heels and a tight dress only to come crashing down in the middle she wanted to do that stuff which was good at it so let's talk a little bit about um turner was Turner hesitant to have males working with females like this, like any sort of physicality with a man and a woman?

Absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely. You know, so it was, that was a glorious time for me, at least in WCW, because honestly gosh, when I got made an executive producer, I think, in 93, right, February of 93. By 94, I was a senior vice president or vice, whatever I was. I can't remember. But I started to get more and more control of things and more involvement in things.

Turner, I was left alone. Nobody bothered me about anything. Now, I had a budget. They bothered me a lot about that. But that was, you know, we met on a regular basis and as long as, I was within my budget, nobody messed with me. Nobody questioned anything creatively. Now, I was careful not to do some of the things that others had done before me that I knew

brought negative attention. I knew where the rails were and how to stay within them. But other than financial discussions on a regular basis, just to make sure that we were on budget. throughout the year. I never got a call from anybody about the content itself. That didn't happen until 98. So from about 94 to 98, Bill Shaw left me alone when Bill Shaw was my boss, as long as I performed, as long as there was no negative PR, as long as there were no headlines, and as long as the shows continued to do well, and as long as I stayed within my budget,

I wouldn't hear from people for weeks on end. And I say this not to brag, but I think it reflects the confidence that Turner eventually had in me by 94, 95. I had signing ability. I could approve anything up to it including $1 million. If it was $1 million, then I had to kick it upstairs to get approval, even if it was within the budget. but anything up to and including a million bucks, I didn't even have to pick up the phone and ask anybody for as long as it was in the budget.

Wow. And that was it, man, that nobody bothered me. And that was such a, it was a great time to be in the wrestling business. You know, it's a lot harder now. Things have changed. Television's changed, advertisers, everything's changed. And it's a little bit more difficult now. I wouldn't want to be producing TV today with some of the restrictions and limitations

that are on you, not just not only from a network, but from a common sense perspective that you can't afford to irritate an average. You're going to be a little careful in today's environment. It'd be a lot harder. You don't have as many colors to paint with. You maybe only have five or six colors instead of 10 or 12 because things have just gotten so much more sanitized, even within professional wrestling. Well, I'll tell you something else that's gotten a lot harder,

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weeks 50 to get 50% off your first box. That's code 83 weeks 50 at factor meals.com slash 83 weeks 50 to get 50% off your first box. So we see some more familiar spots that we've seen from the WDF, but now on the WCW side of things with Sherry. She's going to aid flare against Hogan and bash at the beach and then their big blow-off match at Halloween Havoc. And that's where we would see her even client.

the cage to help flare and in the process gets her dress pulled off by jimmy hart who's hogan's manager at the time she's dangling from the cage here in black lingerie she had done a very similar spot with the warrior over in the wbf but she's a badass here a consummate heel seems like a team player uh but you said earlier she didn't necessarily flaunt her sexuality but she wasn't above using it in a match like this any hesitation about dangling around and lingerie here on pay-per-view? No, paper-view was always kind of like, I mean, you couldn't go too far on a pay-per-view

because it was still brand associated. You know, still a WCW brand. It's still a Turner product. But you'd have to go, you'd have to go to an extreme to get a phone call on pay-per-view. Blood was one thing because it was a hot topic, thanks to Vince McMahon's personal PR campaign and letter writing efforts to,

to Ted Turner, but now, when it came to, look, it, it was tasteful. I mean, she, if you watched Olympic ice skating, you know, the women there dressed the same as

Sherry was hanging off a cage. So it really wasn't that provocative. Let's, let's talk a little bit about, uh, what's next for Sherry because that Halloween havoc match is a retirement match for Flair. So with him off of TV,

at least for a while, we need something for Sherry to do. So from the latter part of 94 through early 97, she's going to transition to become the Harlem Heats manager using the name Sister Sherry. So she's going to develop a more tougher, more streetwise persona and manage Bookerty and Stevie Ray to seven tag title reigns. Whose idea was it to put her with Harlem Heat?

Like on paper, transitioning from Flair to Harlem Heat doesn't make any sense, but somehow it worked. I don't know. I would, I don't, who would, I mean, obviously, I would start with Kevin Sullivan. I may or may not have been involved in that conversation at that point. I don't think so. So I'd say it was Kevin, you know, and Kevin probably had three or four people that he collaborated with.

So it wasn't probably solely Kevin's idea, but I would imagine that it was Kevin Sullivan and company. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, listen it is what it is there were some people who thought that there was uh racial overtones to having a white woman managed two black men i don't think that would even be discussed now but back then it probably was a little more is that even something that crossed your mind no it is bizarre isn't it i mean that in and of itself would be a racist perspective in my opinion yes that's the first thing you see is that that's really the first thing you see and maybe look is it obvious of course yeah why would it matter right unless you've got an issue that you're trying

to hide or project onto somebody else that's just weird to me it's just weird to me it is weird and but you know here's the here's the thing this is the era where i mean even the Harlem heat debut they're out there and change So I'm not saying that those type of racial overtones didn't exist. But the idea, it never clicked for me until much later when I started to do, you know, research for these type pods. And I saw where people thought that was weird as a fan watching at the time. It was, oh, she's their manager.

And that was it. Well, you know what? Maybe, maybe the, maybe the heightened sensitivity to the issue was a result of the way, because it was pretty controversial with Harlem Heat. I mean, everybody. knew about it. All the dirt sheets were writing about it when it came out in chains and all the issues that that created. So it wasn't like it was a secret from the dirt sheet universe at the time. The regular audience had no idea. You know, the other 90 at that point, probably 99.8

percent. We weren't aware of any of that. But enough people were that it was probably a topic of conversation. And that's more than likely. I'm guessing why somebody might have been so quick to point that out as being potentially incentivized by some racist perspective somehow. I don't know. Just guessing. Well, I mean, I think that's logical. I hadn't even considered that.

But yeah, if you start with chains, they're going to look at everything after that, that way. Harlem Heat starts feuding with Dirty Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck of the Sud stable. They're, of course, managed by Colonel Robert Parker. And the rivalry allowed Sherry to get get back in the ring. It's August the 95 when she teams with Harlem Heat to defeat the studs table and Colonel Robert Parker at Clash of the Champions. Do you remember her being excited

about being back in the ring or is this something that, you know, was just another day at the office for her? I, you know, I don't remember specifically that she, here's a hard thing about, you know, going back and remembering the, this type of thing with Sherry, she was always pretty up. Now, I'm sure there were times when she wasn't, but in my interactions with her, at least at this point, it was like every day is a new opportunity. Any idea you have for me, she was going to go out and make it work to the best of her ability. She wasn't the type of person, at least that I saw when it came to creative or television, that was anything other than 100% into whatever she was doing. I couldn't tell if she was excited about it or hated. it because she delivered at the same level in either case.

I only remember her being excited, but she was excited all the time when it came to TV and an opportunity to do something on television. She loved performing. And I think that kind of overshadowed any lack of enthusiasm about a particular creative scene. She was just excited to be on TV and perform. I got to ask. at this point had you you know we're a year and change into this had you noticed that her well we talked about it earlier we'll just say it plainly her substance issues had reared their head at all had they affected her performance at least in your mind by this point or not so much not at that point oh okay eventually there's a pretty fun storyline that i know you really dug sherry and colonel robert parker started an on-screen romance that leaves both teams upset parker e

abandons the stud stable to act as Harlem Heat's promoter. And finally, Sherry and Parker are set to marry when a returning Medusa attacked Sherry and reveals that she was Parker's wife. And this led to a one-off match, January 29th, 1996 on Nitro, where Sherry would defeat Medusa in a minute and 48 seconds. We've talked a little bit about this silliness with Colonel Robert Parker and Sherry before. And listen, it is tongue and cheek.

It is campy, but it's almost so bad it's good because you can tell those two are having fun, right? And there's room for that. You know, not everything has to be an intense story with drama and all the things that we love. Not everything has to be a bloodline story. In fact, if everything on your show is a bloodline level story, nothing would stand out. Yes. You've got to have some fun in there too. and it's okay to be campy when campy's fun and campy's good and with parker and sherry

i don't know if there was an academy award for campy skits they would have gotten them they were funny as hell together because you hit it he said the magic words man they were having fun together and when your talent is having fun more often than not so was the audience watching I thought it was perfect comedy relief you need comedy relief in a show you can't all be life or death not not disparaging medusa but what do you think of medusa as the swerve to me it was just like eh I wish we could have did something else um yeah the whole medusa comes back and claims she was robert parker's husband our wife that's weak that's about as lame as it gets yeah not not against it's medusa just storyline no medusa didn't come in with that idea oh no so she got that idea given to her when she walked through the door and it was lame yeah whoever she should have smacked whoever laid that storyline out to her the on again off again relationship with sherry and parker continues through the rest of 96 and after they break up parker starts to manage the amazing french canadians and a stipulation was made that of harlem he would defeat the canadians at world war three that november three that november

Sherry gets five minutes alone in the ring with Parker, Harlem Heat win, and of course Sherry just decimates Parker and that Rugeot helps Parker back to the locker room. This is one of, crazily enough, the longest stories WCW did. It seemed to revolve primarily around Sherry and Parker.

Was it something Sullivan enjoyed booking, you found entertaining, they liked doing, why did this get the legs it got? Probably all the above. You know, I think you've probably heard this saying. I don't even know if it's a saying, but I'm sure you've heard something similar to if you can entertain everybody

watching in the back, you know, all the other talent and the producers and the writers and a team backstage, if you can entertain that part of the audience, then the rest of it's pretty easy. And Sherry and Colonel Parker and everybody involved and everything she did, we're entertaining as hell and pretty sure everybody behind the curtain was watching everything she did because it was that entertaining which is probably why it lasted that long nobody wanted to finish it did you think it was ratings that it drew money or was it just a fun tv segment i don't think you know i don't think people tuned in for it right but i think people were

glad to see it when they tuned in if that makes sense it does it does uh let's talk about sherry and she's going to continue managing the harlem heat and that goes until mid 1997 and not too long ago stevie ray did an interview where he talked about harlem heat separating from sister sherry he said quote i'll never forget it i remember we were in memphis tennessee at a nitro this would have been july 7th 1997 and they told us sherry wasn't with the company anymore nobody told us anything until we got to the building To this day, I think that was one of the most disrespectful things I've ever been through. Sherry was a big part of Harlem Heat.

They never told us why. To this day, I still don't know. I was like, if that's all the respect we got in this company, I didn't really give a shit. So he's upset that he wasn't communicated with. You were there. What was the reason that Sherry was no longer with Harlem Heat? And sadly, no longer with W. this is the first time that i heard that booker felt that way and a stevie i'm sorry stevie

and i feel bad about that i've that's a that falls on me falls on kevin too but mostly me um damn uh why Sherry had challenges, and it was becoming more and more obvious and unmanageable. And it got to the point where it was the liability. There you go. Probably had something to do with why there wasn't a lot of talk about it. It's not something that you go spreading around when you have to let someone go. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have pulled Booker and Stevie aside and giving them a heads up under the circumstances.

there's no issues for that but we could have done that without going into a lot of specific detail she did an interview in 2004 and she had this to say Eric thought I was doing things I got back to the drugs again pulled me in the office one day this was right after my mother had threatened to have me committed because I had a drug problem I go right in Eric's office and he says Sherry we have the facilities and the means to help you do you have a drug problem i looked him right in the face and told him no regardless of whether or not i regret that i can't change it do you remember this conversation i don't remember the specifics of it no but i do remember sitting down with sherry before i

pulled the trigger she's talked about it here and acknowledged that it was drugs are you comfortable sharing your side of the story I mean, there's not much to tell. It was obvious. You can, you know, it wasn't just drugs. It was drugs and alcohol. And the drugs were obvious to me. You know, it wasn't in the beginning.

You know, 93, 94, I heard of all the things that people were using. And I wasn't naive. I dabbled a little bit before I got into the wrestling business even. The 80s were a fun time for someone in their early 30s. or late 20s. But, you know, I didn't have a lot of first-hand experience with it, especially prescription stuff. It wasn't until later on.

And certainly by this time that we're talking about here, it was pretty, you could look at somebody and tell when you're on something, if they're on perks or oxy. Oxi wasn't a big issue back then, but certainly perks were like it in. And you would see that you could tell when people were combining them. So it was obvious. It wasn't a secret.

You could smell her coming a mile away. You're in a conversation with somebody in a backstage area, and they've been drinking most of the afternoon and taking pills on top of it to kind of counterbalance the drinking. And bam, it's not like, it's hard to tell. And it just got into the point where it's so obvious, I couldn't. Look, I look the other way sometimes. You know, if I noticed somebody had alcohol in her breath or whatever,

depending on the situation, Hell, I drank beer backstage occasionally, more than occasionally, after I was done working or maybe even during, depending on the situation, but there's a difference between having a beer or two and drinking heavily and going out and performing. Those are two different things. And she wasn't alone, by the way, nor was she singled out. It just got to the point where even when I wanted to, I couldn't pretend I didn't see it. Oh, man, it's, is that your least favorite thing you ever had to do in WCW, let talent go?

I hated it. Yeah. Except for Honky Tongue Man, but I hated it. It's really funny how, again, going back to narratives, right? For a long time, I was, it was like two, there were two ways I was portrayed. Like, I would read things. not so much recently, but in the, you know, back in the early 90s, mid-90s, you know, Eric Bischoffel listened to whoever talks to him last, you know,

like I was so, come on, guys, come on, you know, I was so malleable, I guess, and easily manipulated, you know, because I wanted, and I wanted to be friends with the boys. That was Dave Meltzer, you know. All he wants to do is be friends with the boys, which is, again, kind of rejecting a little bit, you think, Dave, which is not true. I am not, as you know, I'm not a real social. person and all eat a lot of friends around me you know i have one or two maybe three and then i just want to be left alone you know i'm not a i'm not that guy but that was the narrative and then there was

the flip side of that which is exactly the opposite is i enjoyed firing people i was power hungry and i had a big ego and i treated people with disrespect and the my biggest mistake in wcw was not firing more people there were people i should have let go not so much talent but there were people that i should have let go when i took over and was really in control of wcw not 93 not 94 but by 95 and 96 i had complete control and i kept people on because i didn't want to fire them i you know there were certain people that i went uh not really the best at what they do and but i don't want to be the person to force them into unemployment or make them go find a job or hurt them financially. So I tolerated a lot of things I should have

never tolerated. I accepted a lot of mediocrity at a point in time when we should have been doing everything that we could to build the infrastructure to support this juggernaut that we created creatively. It's, you know, the wrestling business is a complex business. It's not as simple as a lot of other businesses. And, you know, we, like just timing and whatever, you know, by 96, we exploded, but we didn't have the infrastructure to support that growth. It's kind of like putting an 800 horsepower hemmy in a dodged dart that wasn't built for it. Yeah, it goes fast until it blows up and falls apart.

part, and the wheels fall off, but that's basically what happened. And part of that was, you know, people say, well, man, you didn't make as much money in licensing and merchandising. Chris Jericho always made fun of how screwed up. And he was right. It wasn't wrong, but how just unorganized and dysfunctional our licensing was with vendors. And that's because we took off like a, we were that 800 horsepower hemmy on TV, but we were a 68 Dodge Dart.

It's all rusted out when it came to the back side of the store, the back end of the business, the functional, you know, the logistical side of the business. And the same held true with, with talent in general. I never wanted to fire talent. It had to be pretty egregious or a budget situation. How did you end the conversation? How do you remember her response being when you're having to sit down and give her this unfortunate news, it sounds like you offered her help when she said she didn't need help or

whatever, however it was, we didn't acknowledge or admit that we had a problem, uh, and didn't take your help. Then you have to let her go. Is there a big blow up or does she stand up and thank you, shake your hand and out the door she goes or what's that line? Um, there was no blow up, none at all. It was not adversarial. She was not happy about it, but she was steadfast in her position and that she didn't need any help. And if I had to let her go, so be it. It was pretty matter of fact. It wasn't, it was yelling or screaming or calling each other names or anything like that.

Did you do this when it says the office, does she mean the TV office? Like where you had an office inside a building or did you call it Atlanta? I don't remember if it was on the road or if it was in the CNN Center. I tend to think it was on the road because. Yeah. Sherry wouldn't have otherwise been in the CNN Center where my office was. Right. So I'm 90% sure it was on the road.

Did you have any conversation with her after that? No, I didn't. I feel bad about that too. I should have reached out. I should have stayed in touch. If nothing else, because if she would have gotten herself clean, she would have been such a great asset.

Yeah. you know, I didn't have a personal relationship with it. It's not like we hung out. We weren't friendly. I mean, we were friendly, but we weren't friends. You know what I mean? Outside of TV or anything like that. But it's still as a, as the guy that she worked for that had to fire,

it would have been a smart move for me to stay in touch. It would have been the right. Forget about smart. It would have been a good thing for me to do. And I didn't. She had this to say. For so many years, I dogged Eric Bischoff.

I had so much resentment for him because that, point in time I had the drug problem the very things he was getting on me for he was allowing others to do but today because of what eric bischoff did and the actions he took i might not be here for that i'm grateful that's nice to hear um you acknowledge that others were partying maybe she just got a little too close to the sun she was taking a little too far yes and they were and she was right about that there were people who were doing some of the things that she was doing partaking but with a couple exceptions scott hall being one um it didn't have an obvious impact on their work nor was it obvious to me or and or others backstage the people's

You know, because talent, you know, it's not like even at the peak of 97, 98, late 96, whatever, when we were rocking and rolling and things were just happening, there would be things going on backstage that I wasn't necessarily aware of. I couldn't be in every room. I couldn't have contact with probably 65 to 75 talents, a production crew. of 60 or 70 on location. I wasn't involved in every aspect of everything that went on. It's impossible for anyone to be. Yeah. So there were things that were going on backstage sometimes that I was not directly

aware of. There were things going on backstage that I was aware of, and some of it, I let it go. If it didn't interfere with work, if employees weren't bringing it to my attention, meaning full-time staff or production teams, you know, if they came to me and said, look, I'm just having a hard problem. this person to come and do a pre-tape because they're backstage, snorting, pop, and drinking, doing whatever. Then I got an issue, and now it's my problem. So for Sherry to say there were

people backstage doing some of the things that she was doing, she was true, that was true, she was being honest. What she probably didn't realize why she was doing, while she was doing all that was that it wasn't affecting their work. Or I wasn't hearing about it from production. teams right employees there there now you've crossed over a line where eric can't pretend it's not an issue anymore that's what happened well we know that she's going to come back to uh the independence and she'll even pop back up on wcd programming uh even sold out 2000 this all happens when you're on to the company and uh when you're back in april of 2000 we don't really see her again in WCW. By 2003, she was living in Tennessee and remodeling houses with her husband.

And we would see her pop up for a cup of coffee in the WWF in 2005. She's going to be a fantastic part of this Sean Michael's Kurt Angle feud. She's going to sing sexy Kurt as a parody of Sean Michael's old theme, sexy boy. Just great stuff. And then a year later, in 2006, she takes her rightful place in the WWE Hall of Fame, as Ted DiBiase Inductor and a pretty memorable moment in the speech. She mentions you not realizing you're in the crowd. I had to make you smile.

Get a shout out from Sherry from the stage. Yeah, I just saw that clip actually a couple of weeks ago. Somebody showed it to me. And because I forgot all about it. I like so many things, you know. And somebody showed me that clip and it made me smile. Yeah, Lori was with me. And Lori's like going, man,

Why is she saying all this? I got a bigger kick out of watching Lori's expression back then than anything else. But no, it was nice. It was a real organic moment in her speech for the Hall of Fame. So, yeah, it was nice. We acknowledged each other. Super fun moment. She makes her last television appearance that same year.

It's for TNA. It's a vignette that airs on September 21st. And in the vignette, she's trying to convince Bobby Rood that he should take her on as his manager. Did you ever spend any time talking with Rick or Hulk or Randy or any of these big superstars? She was such a big part of their career about what made her so special, Eric. No, I didn't because I think I knew by then.

I mean, just talking about her today. I mean, I think everybody that's listening to this can get a sense of how he felt about or as a performer before I even started working with her. So I never asked anybody else what made her so special because I just, I think I had my own strong opinions. And by the way, you asked me a few moments ago, did I ever speak to her after that time I let her go? Actually, I did once.

I forgot about this until just a second. I was at an event of some, I think it was a convention. I don't remember where or exactly when, but it was only a year or so. before she passed and we sat down and she wasn't drinking I think she was with her son actually and she wasn't drinking so I sat down and we had a nice long chat I don't know maybe 45 minutes or an hour and got caught up and she was very she was grateful I don't know she said those words but she was very she was very much at peace let's put it that way there was no i'd like to talk to you about why you let me go and why did you let other people

do what i you know there's none of that right it was just a very pleasant cordial positive conversation and i remember walking away and i told laurie glory was with me and i told laurie was like wow you know you love to see that happen because it more often than not it doesn't right the story is usually in that one this one did unfortunately a year later but or so but at that point time i thought wow she's got it together you know she's with her son she's sober you know we sat down in a lobby of a bar and she wasn't drinking it's like wow this is awesome it was awesome unfortunately nine months after she does this tea and a vignette uh june 15th She's discovered at her mom's home in rural Alabama.

She's no longer with us and only 49 years old. Wow. The toxicology report showed an overdose on multiple drugs. She wound up being cremated. But man, 49. Goodness gracious. It's a kid. It's not really way too soon.

Yes. I mean, we see, you know, you see so many great performers now. They're in their 40s. Some of them in their 50s. 50s, and they keep getting better. Yes. You know, I mean, it's like, wow. You know, what they, what they may have lost a little bit physically,

they've learned so much and they're actually better characters and better performers. So, well, they may be lost a half a step in one regard. They've gained four steps in another. And 49, she still had, she still had gas in the tank, man. She could have. She was that great a performer. Well, something I want to talk to everybody about today is a new sponsor on the program. something that you have tried yourself, Mind Bloom, here's the deal.

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And I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who pays attention and who reads and who tries to learn. And I think anytime anybody has an issue with depression, for example, seeing a therapist talking to a professional, smart way to go, alternative solutions, in my opinion, as a non-expert, but a pretty smart guy when it comes to the same. stuff, is that you owe it to yourself or a family member to explore options beyond pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals can become the problem and more of a problem than the symptom that the pharmaceutical is trying to fix.

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and use the promo code 83 weeks. Take the first step and break free from your anxiety and depression with Mind Bloom. That's mindbloom.com slash 83 weeks. 83 weeks and use the promo code 83 weeks. Eric, getting back to Sherry, how would you characterize Sherry's legacy all these years later? Fearless. Do you think

Do you think history remembers her as fondly as they should or is she one of these great, almost forgotten characters? I guess because I felt, so strongly about her as a performer as a character. I feel like she should get more attention than she does. And I think history will always look back at Sherry finally because her performance speaks louder than anything else that we talked about today. You know, we covered some of the challenges that she had and they were very negative

situations. But what people will remember is what they see on Peacock and what they're going to see when they go back and look at some of these memorable moments that she was a part of, whether it was with Rick Flair or whoever, they'll remember that, and that will become her legacy, as it should, by the way, because the larger part of her life was being a great performer as compared to a dark period in her life, which is a relatively short period compared to the rest of the things she accomplished. I think I think her legacy is is going to be just fine the more people go back and watch her. Do you have a favorite sherry story you can share with us? I don't. My favorite

story is anytime I heard her to laugh. Yeah. I mean, she she just, there's certain people that have have a way about them that when they break out and laughter, it's just like, even if I'm in a bad mood, I'm going to start laughing. I'm going to laugh with them, even if I don't know why they're laughing. She had one of those laughs. And she had that, it wasn't just her laugh. Her laugh was an example of her, but she was just, she loved life. Yeah.

When I saw her, when I worked with her, when I was around her, until the end, she had just such a passion for life and for performing that that superseded everything else about her to me. let's do some questions then we'll wrap up our sherry episode here adam lason wants to know what made sherry so important when she managed harlem heat does eric ever consider building a women's division in wcd and build it around sherry i think adam we kind of touched on this a little bit you know why was she important to heartle him heat because she was so much better on the mic than they were at that time again don't take that as a criticism of them but they got you know booker t has gone on to be one of the best but he wasn't one of the best back then, and Sherry filled that gap and added just a layer of entertainment to that story or to those characters. That's why she was important. And again, going back to what we talked about earlier, there just weren't enough women around unless I wanted to own a jet and fly them back and forth on a regular basis from Japan. You know, things have changed

now, fortunately, for everybody, for the fans, for the talent, promoters and producers. There's more women available now. But it wasn't that. So no, I wasn't interested in trying to create a women's division that I couldn't fill a roster with. Francis Reyes wants to know, how smart was she behind the scenes with talent? I don't know how smart she was. Again, I didn't work with her that much, you know, to really get a sense of that. I would say she was very smart based on her ability to get herself over and consistently. She was consistently good. I don't know that she's ever had a bad promo. I don't know that she's ever had on a scale of 1 to 10, anything less than a 7 or an 8.

So you can't get that good at what you do without being pretty smart about what you're doing. So I think I'd have to, by default, so she was incredibly smart. But I, you know, I didn't listen to her layout matches. I didn't work with her on her promos. So I don't know what her individual process was. Everybody's got their own process. I don't know what hers was. but based on her abilities and what we saw she had to be very very smart no doubt uh peter d says

hi eric sherry had the reputation of being tough hear any backstage stories proving this you ever hear anything uh about sherry scrapping or being tough no but i you know i remember you know listen to guys like rick flair who would you know if she was if and this is just rick telling stories and you know how great he is at telling stories not that it i didn't think they were absolutely true but you know Rick is just such a colorful storyteller but you know you'd hear those stories about I was in her ring with Sherry and we had a spot where she had to slap me oh my God I'd rather get punched in the head by Ming than slapped by Sherry that type of thing you know I heard that a lot and just watching her you know she was very

very physical Reese has a great second question he says in Eric's opinion what was the best managerial stint Sherry had And why? I think based on the impact it had on the talent and the business, Harlem Heat. Wow. I would go Savage, but I hear you on Harlem Heat. Savage was already there.

Yeah. Harlem Heat was emerging. And I think she had a lot to do with their success. Crazy JJ wants to know. Eric, to have Sherry join the NWO. Not to me. It doesn't mean it wasn't discussed in the rooms that I wasn't in.

Right. Cars I wasn't in or to borrow I wasn't at. But not with not that I was a part of. Tony Roth has a great question about modern stuff. He says, which current WWE female superstar resemble Sherry, Martel, and why? Let's remove the WWE piece.

And let's just say, is there a modern talent? is reminiscent to you of sherry you know who does in a way who is becky lynch really in in terms of becky's believability when she does a promo now i'm not as big a fan of becky lynch's new character as of the last year you know she's kind of rock start out a little bit i kind of dug her when she was like blue collar betty or becky lynch if that makes sense but there's something so real and believable about Becky's promos that

and Becky's physical she doesn't she'll mix it up you ever see those videos like on Instagram or Facebook if you hit the reels and you see you see these high school kids getting fights in cafeteria but every once in a while you come across

two women are just going at it and one of them is just beaten hell out of the other. It always reminds me of Becky Lynch and or Sherry. I mean, it's like you'd make the mistake of getting into it with one of those two, and you would just be so upset with yourself for doing it because you get your ass kicked. Becky, not as much as Sherry. I think Sherry was a little more physically imposing.

But, yeah, they kind of remind me a little bit of. each other let's uh listen we got lots of questions in this vein i don't really know the most appropriate way to ask so i'm just going to ask do you know if sherry had any relationships with wcw wrestlers i don't know yeah never came up in a conversation i don't know well here's you know i mean look guys that knew are much longer and certainly much better and traveled with her and you know we've done a road with her they could probably answer a question like that but i i can't well we know you're going to be able to answer questions next week when we're talking about super brawl eight we're finally hopefully thankfully

going to get some resolution to the sting hollywood hogan debacle that started back at star k 97 the wcd tv title is on the line we'll be talking about it whether or not sting was ready for the champion. Maybe he wandered into a tanning salon. I don't know. Uh, Scott Stein. He's such a horse his ass. Lex Lugar and Randy Savage are going to face off in a ODQ match. We got DDP defending the U.S. title against Chris Finwa. Hovintude is going to put his mask on the line against Chris Jericho and so much more. And in the meantime, I want to give you guys a pro tip. In my real life, I'm helping people save money at save with Conrad.com. If you haven't taken a look at this in a while, you

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We break down his brother's book from the mind of Dusty Rhodes, from the penmanship of J.J. Dillon, everything that happened, gate by gate, show by show, match by match, angle by angle during February, 1985. We also had an opportunity to watch the very first Royal Rumble with the winner, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. That's up there as well as the brand new episode of Earl Hebner, talking about the evil twin referee from the main event angle it's all happening at ad free

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But do me a favor. Like it. Subscribe and hit that little announce button, the little bell so that when we drop Strictly Business, for example, or any bonus content that goes right to YouTube, you'll know about it right away. 83 weeks on YouTube.com and you can also check out all the new 83 weeks merch and swag over at box of gimmicks.com including the now infamous mucker father hoodie which is perfect this time of year. Eric today was fun man I'm glad we got to celebrate the life and times of Sherry Martel but I am looking

forward to busting your balls a little more about 1998 next week. Bust away, mofo. I'll be ready for you. Thanks everybody. appreciate you tuning in to 83 weeks tell your friends leave us a five-star review if you think we've earned it throw us a follow at 83 weeks on twitter instagram and facebook and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with eric bischoff i