83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - 83 Weeks #259: WCW NITRO 3/2/1998

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

This week on 83 weeks, Eric & Conrad watch a 3-HOUR NITRO. Eric also goes off on Dave Meltzer/ Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Athletic Greens- Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1x-year supply of immune-support Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/83WEEKS. MINDBLOOM-Go to Mindbloom.com/83WEEKS, promo code 83WEEKS for $100 off your first six-session program today 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 00:00 83 Weeks #259 00:05 START 00:38 COUNTDOWN 01:40 SHOW START 01:49 RECAP from last week 02:43 Schiavone Intro 03:35 WCW’s doing RECORD BUSINESS in Philadelphia 07:31 Scotty Riggs got BLOCKED 08:05 This was the COUNTER to Mike Tyson 09:51 6mm households 12:12 Macho Man in Harvard 17:04 Hogan’s promo 21:52 AEW ratings 23:44 unmasking Juventud 25:41 Fans are here for the STARS 28:23 Psychosis 29:13 Conrad vs Prince Iakua 29:39 Spicoli’s drug tests 32:01 WCW’s RECORD Business in 1998 34:50 HOW Turner RUINED WCW 37:23 DID Prince Iakua have a ceiling? 39:55 BREAK SaveWithConrad.com 40:25 RAVEN and the Public Enemy in Philadelphia 43:10 pyro heading into the 2nd hour 45:36 The Public Enemy in Philadelphia 46:37 Bringing back Erik Watts 48:04 Table BOTCH 48:39 BACK TO Erik Watts 49:21 Was the Macho Man feeling a “squeeze” roster wise? 51:48 Macho Man promo 52:19 STING breaks his silence 54:50 BREAK AG1 01:00:38 Did Eric Bischoff DROP THE BALL on Sting? 01:02:48 WCW’s lack of Discipline 01:07:25 “Stuck Mojo” music video 01:10:48 VKM claiming to have “Kicked Ted Turner’s ass” 01:13:35 DDP in 1998 01:18:06 BREAK AdFreeShows.com 01:20:23 2023 Observer Awards 01:25:43 Eric GOES OFF on Dave Meltzer 01:30:53 Is Meltzer PROJECTING about covering Cody Rhodes/Sami Zayn? 01:36:42 Ric Flair promo 01:41:31 Ric Flair’s Birthday!!! 01:42:07 Davy Boy Smith 01:43:04 Rick Steiner 01:43:35 WHAT was the Pyro budget? 01:44:02 Super Calo 01:45:32 WCW talent BANNED from Promo Azteca 01:49:10 Scott Steiner changing his look 01:51:39 The Steiner Recliner 01:52:17 BREAK MINDBLOOM 01:56:31 Stacy Kiebler's TV debut 01:58:31 Jericho and Guerrero 02:02:02 A&E doc on the nWo 02:06:58 The nWo Melee 02:12:55 Bret Hart vs Brian Adams 02:17:45 Is the Bret Hart/Goldberg thing a rib? 02:18:56 The Woman who designed the nWo logo 02:22:07 Want to have Bobby Heenan sympathize with the nWo 02:23:31 Would the narrative about Eric Bischoff be different had he not been an on screen character? 02:26:59 Do you regret having Sting and Savage walk out together? 02:30:03 Does today’s wrestling need to be more formatted like Nitro 1998? 02:31:05 Ed Leslie 02:32:35 OUTRO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks. Of course, we couldn't do it. Without the Hall of Famer himself, ladies and gentlemen, the creator of Nitro, the creator of the NWO, the Hall of Famer, Eric Bischoff. Eric, how's it going, man? How are you? I am having just an absolute perfect morning this Saturday morning. It's just been awesome.

I can't tell you how much. fun I've had already today. I am, I'm excited about today, too. We are going to be covering and actually doing something. We haven't done in a while watching an old nitro. And I want you guys to watch along with us. I can't believe it, but we're going back 25 years in time. It's the first time in almost two years that we've had this combination happen.

A WCW wrestler team with an NWO wrestler in the tag team main event. it's going to be a fun show. It's March 2nd, 1998, and we want you to watch along with us. So fire up your peacock machine. Type Nitro in the search bar, and there you'll see it. You want to go down to Season 4, Episode 9.

That'll be March 2nd, 1998. Eric, I know you're the resident high-tech redneck. You fired up and ready to go on your side? I am, and it's one of the reasons I feel so good about myself this morning is I was able to navigate this process, and I'm ready to go. Well, here we go. Peacock, 1998 Nitro. And what a big show it is.

One of the biggest nitros in history. And we get to watch it together with Easy E here. Season four, episode nine on Peacock, here we go. In three, two, one, play. And now the Spray Pink. The NWO continues and goes back to their disgusting way. Savage being held up by spray pinning going on here. Something's coming, something's coming and they're scattering like bugs.

It's Hoover. Steel chair in hand. So there you see, Hulk Hogan and the rest of the NWO holding down the macho man as they spray paint him, not with the NWO insignia, but H.H for Hollywood Hogan. And of all people, Lex Lugar makes the save. But tonight on a huge nitro,

every the macho man teaming up with Sting. To take on Hollywood Hogan. I can't believe this is real, man. Let's hear Tony Chivoni welcome us in here. March 2nd, 1998 may go down as one of the biggest nights in the history of professional wrestling. Ladies and gentlemen, Wendy Nitro is on.

the air. We are with you live here on TNT at the Spectrum in Philadelphia for three hours of the stars of WCW, and yes, the stars of the NWO. And as I said, the state may go down as one of the biggest ever, because ever since May, 1996, the NWO has been a major part of professional wrestling. tonight though the war that is raged within the NWO goes center stage as you look live we are looking out of the back of the spectrum here in Philadelphia the limousines are arriving so let's just talk about the fact that you're in Philadelphia I mean this is WWF territory and this has been a staple just to run the spectrum Tony Chivani would say just to have WCW there in a time when once upon a time the time the everybody have had a lock on all these buildings and just the idea that you guys could be there felt like a big deal to tony chivani did it feel like a big deal to you by this point in 98 or was it just old hat by this point no it was a big deal because there were certain markets certain venues in particular in those markets that we just couldn't crack you know madison square garden famously it was was number one because of that close relationship that had had existed for years and

years and years between then senior and everything that was going on New York and continued. And Vince had the leverage and the power to effectively block WCW from a lot of these markets. And he was able to do so because WCW really wasn't that appealing to some of those big venues. Nobody's going to risk upsetting, you know, a regular customer in the name of WWF or Vince McMahon to possibly take a flyer on this thing called WCW that really wasn't all that successful up until 95, 96. But by 98, especially March 2nd, 1998, boom, we were big enough that people were willing to take that risk. We had leverage where we didn't have leverage before. And in many respects, that was more exciting. I won't

say more exciting, but it was definitely as exciting sometimes is the financial benefits that came of it. Because to really grow your brand, you have to be able to penetrate markets in a meaningful way, not to show up in the market, but at the key venue in that market. It gives your brand credibility. And this was a, this was an important achievement for us. An important achievement is an understatement. I just want to reiterate, this is in Philadelphia, Vince McMahon and the WWF's backyard. And you've sold it out. 14,250. for fans paying $236,978. But check this out.

It was sold out so far in advance that the bigger arena in Philadelphia, the core state center at the time, would have tickets go on sale two days before for overflow. Think about that. The demand is so big that we go rent the even bigger arena and say, we'll just put it on big screens and y'all can come watch over here and party. Now, they do that on Saturday. the show is on Monday the tickets go on sale Saturday and you still draw 1,7008 fans over there.

And when you first took over WCW, if you had a paid crowd of 1700, it was fucking high fives all around. And now you, it didn't happen. It was, it would have been high fives if it would have ever happened, but it didn't. So now it's like, hey, you got 1,700 paying fans who are going to go pay for parking and go and go to the concession stand and watch it on a big screen in a, another, I mean, what? Just stay home and watch it, but they just want the vibe. They want the feeling. And of course, listen, that doesn't look like a huge success when you've got a giant

building and only 1,700. But when you consider, it was two days ahead of time. I mean, you couldn't have sold another seat here. You were just white, white, hot and in Vince McMahon's backyard. And of course, this is the same month and the same area of the country where WrestleMania 14 is going to happen. Of course, we know that's in Boston. This is in Philadelphia, but still, this is a great time for both organizations. I mean, you're still firmly in control here. But when they've got all the momentum of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mike Tyson and WrestleMania in the same month, this is one heck of a month for professional wrestling here. It is while we're watching Chris Benoit and Scottie Riggs. And by the way, shout out to

Scottie Riggs, who I confused with somebody else a while back in, and, and, and blocked him on my social media because the person who I thought he was said some pretty, you know, I don't block people, you got to work pretty hard to get me to block you. I'll mute you, but I don't block too many people. But I blocked who I thought, I blocked Scotty Rings because I thought,

I confused him with somebody else in a comment. And I finally rectified that. So shout out to Scottie Riggs. He's having an amazing match here with one Chris Binwau. But yeah, it was great. You know, the other thing I wanted to point out here because of the date here. You know, the naming of our show is 83 weeks.

And that's because we beat WWF, WWE, 83 consecutive weeks. But we're now into March of 98, and we're closing in on two years of dominating WWF. That's 100, you know, whatever, essentially two years. And we were competitive much throughout 98, even though it got closer in terms of competition. But, yeah, we're at this point in time, you know, the whole, the Tyson, Austin, Mr. McBanthing is brewing. WrestleMania is right around the corner at this time in 1998.

So to be able to have this much success in a WWF market at this particular time, especially right before WrestleMania is pretty amazing. Lots of reasons we would be covering this program today. But you might say to yourself, self, what are we watching this show? Well, let me explain on the other channel, Monday Night Raw is going to see Mike Tyson joined Degeneration X. And WCW is going to counter here with a pretty interesting main event. Sting, who is going to be taking on Scott Hall as a stipulation from winning World

War III for the title shot, they're opposing each other at the next pay-per-view, uncensored. Well, so are Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. So strange bedfellows here, the macho man, who's still a part of the NWO despite the beatdown. What? is teaming with Sting to take on Holcogen and Scott Hall. And maybe there's some seeds of doubt, some mistrust, some uneasiness in the NWO, and we're going to see some of that come to fruition here. The Undertaker is also going to return on Monday Night Raw.

Bradhart is going to wrestle on TV here for the first time in more than four months. And all of this happening on the same night sets an all-time record. This is an all-time Monday night record. audience. The combined all-time rating is just outstanding. Nitro gets its second highest rating in history in a competitive situation, a 4.81 rating and a 7.42 share. Raw also gets its second highest rating in a competitive situation, getting a 3.8 rating and a 5.8 share. That means this is a record setting 8.6 or 6,250,000. homes this is unbelievable how many homes was that kind of six million two hundred and fifty

thousand homes for watching monday night wrestling here so if you believe nielsen formulas that and i could be wrong on this i haven't looked at the dead in a long time again how many how many households six million so we're looking at an audience was it 2.2 is that the person's per household or something like that. Yeah, I think it was, my recollection, it was just under two. So I was going to use 1.5, or less just used to for sake of conversation. No, I'll do it right now. I mean, Times 2 is easy.

That's 12,500,000 people watching wrestling. So let's say to be conservative, there's somewhere between 10 and 12 million people watching this show. Unbelievable. Or watching, or combination of a two. That is why people still talk about the Monday Night War. That is why Wars, including Degeneration X and everything,

the NWL, obviously, that's why people still talk about it because of that significant of an impact. And that's what real competition, not cosplay competition, not fantasy war games, but I'm talking about real competition that drives both companies

to absolutely counter-programm each other. That's why it was so excited. and that's why it was so successful it's um it's so fun to go back and watch these shows let's take a listen here to this macho man package man of the year's one-on-o-man man seven every day i live a dream and this is the pinnacle of it right now hollywood it's over over brother the pecking order is officially changed here at harbour now i'm gonna make a league of my own and you're gonna be in Yeah, this is what's happening now, and it's just too sweet. I love that.

So we talked about that a little bit last week. Randy Savage being awarded the Manliest Man Award at Harvard. A little tongue-in-cheek deal, but Randy Savage won. You guys had him go down in full character, which I guess he made all the public experiences that way. and sent a camera along and put it on TV as well you should and next up well what else would you expect Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff listen we would see a lot of Hulk Hogan in this era and I totally get why the the brother was money he was ratings money he's the biggest star in

wrestling everybody wants to see him I get it but I'm curious was there a tried and true formula you've talked a lot about diligence and storytelling and and structure and all that stuff is there at least in your mind was there in this era we need him you know near the the first half hour we need him in the crossover and we need him in the main event or he needs two segments per when i say he i don't necessarily mean hogan i mean whoever your top star is because you've talked a lot about there's an a storyline a b storyline blah blah blah was there a method to the madness with what segments and when or was it just more feel not necessarily a hard and fast rule. It was a little bit of both,

Codrad. I was beginning to learn a lot more about formatting. Again, this is a three-hour show. Right. Which is a real disadvantage from a creative perspective because you've just got to hold the audience's attention for even that. Two hours, you know,

initially was kind of a stretch. And we got used to that format. And then when we're essentially forced, it wasn't my idea, to go to three hours, then really paying attention to the structure of your format and how you're formatting your show became even more critical. And we've often seen how I would open up a pay-per-view with cruiser waits, for example,

because you wanted to hook them with something hot. But in the case of episodic television, in this case, a three-hour show, you had to put your a story first. You hopefully will have some kind of evolution of that story during the course of the three hours, an incident backstage, for example, or a very key promo, for example. and there were others, a backstage encounter, anything that would elevate and progress the storyline within that three-hour format, you want that somewhere in the middle because what you're really doing is reminding people.

And you're telling them that this is important and you don't want to miss it, even though it's coming up at the end of a three-hour experience. So, yes, it wasn't just about Hulk or the NWO. It was about your A story, in which case this is obviously the NWO, Hogan and Savage, Hogan was fighting for the recognition to be the most important player on the NWO team, so to speak.

That was the story. So positioning segments of that story, pieces of that story throughout the three hours was critical in order to hold the audience. And obviously based on the ratings, we did. No doubt you did. You're out here cutting a promo with Hulk Hogan. You're actually going to refer to Randy Savage here

as a midget. really yes and we know that randy has been honest about or people have been on his behalf honest and saying he wore cowboy boots because he wanted to appear taller he wore the cowboy hat because he felt it made him feel a little taller he didn't he was very conscious of the fact that hogan is really chief rival and the guy he drew the most money and made the most money with was larger than him so he wanted to sort of balance that out do you remember height or size being a um i don't know an issue with with savage something he was at least sensitive about i i didn't know that until just now wow so it wasn't obvious to me you know he never said anything or

pulled me aside saying hey brother you know couldn't you lay off the size thing a little bit he never did that um obviously i wouldn't have referred to him as a midget if uh or a little person yeah yeah yeah yeah right time different era yeah i wouldn't have done that if it would have truly been a sensitive area for him so i i just didn't know until you brought that up let's take a listen to hogan's promo here those that i can beat stinger any day of the week for one two three that's the world champion sting get it right now and tonight macho my main man scott hall is going to come out here punk don't and beat stinger but you my friend you my macho man have a steel cage match right around the corner with hollywood and when i get done with you in

the tag match tonight as scott hall keeps staying out of my face as i decide to rob and stomp and pull that phony wig off your head macho man in front of the whole world as i beat you and show everybody that you can't even carry my bags the only thing that's going to be left of you in the steel cage after tonight is your carcass that i can rub in main and tear all in the cage and the reason for that is the boss knows all the n wites all the disciples know that hollywood is just too sweet boy had you guys branded too sweet well enough or what here i mean what a pop and by the way let me just say i um i love watching these old promos and there's a famous story that jim cornet has told before where and i think everybody listening to this knows when it

comes to a manager side him and paul haman the two sharpest tongues in the history of of wrestling managers he went out and cut a fantastic promo on turner tv once and then when he comes back through the curtain dusty roads was apparently not too happy and And Cornette thought it was great because he had a lot of one-liners in there. It was cute. It was fast. It was witty. It was well-worded.

All the boys liked it. The crowd seemed to like it. The television hosts like it. Everybody liked it. But Dusty was upset. And Dusty said something like, where was the money? And I sometimes feel like when I'm watching promos on TV today, because the business has changed. Because WWE, by and large, doesn't really, quote, unquote, sell pay-per-views.

It's all on the network. And, frankly, if you have, um, if you have peacock it's free i'm saying all that to say on a ew sometimes i feel like and other programming other shows we do a lot of promos about what's going to happen tonight and don't get me wrong i get that i see the value and hogan did a little bit of that here but then he also said this is just the start of what's going to happen bad to you randy savage because around the corner in our cage match at the pay-per-view and then he really started selling and he spent a lot of time building to that event, as Dusty would say, there was the money.

Is that something that you think is lost because it's just not a part of the WWE programming anymore? Do you think AEW does an effective job of the, or the talents do of selling the pay-per-view? Or has the business changed so much that it's just not as important and everyone focuses on TV because the rights fees are so huge now. The business is just different. It's a little bit of both.

but, you know, the fact that the WW, they call them premium live events now. That's right. It doesn't really matter. The form of distribution in the revenue model is different, but the fact that a premium live event in WWE is still the end of the story or the beginning of others, but it's still a focus. It's a destination.

It's where your stories on TV are going to. Look at the elimination chamber. You know, look at what's going to happen here in WrestleMania. All of those television segments are all leading you to a conclusion, generally speaking, right? That hasn't changed. It's the same thing. Right. The revenue models change.

But the intent or the structure or the reason that you have a premium live event, or in the case of AEW, a pay-per-view is the culmination, theoretically, the culmination of all of the events that we've been. watching weekly on television. I used to say it's the last chapter. It's the period at the end of the last sentence of the last chapter in a particular story or series of stories. So the need to promote your television episode that you're doing that night, still critical. You still need to check that box and do it in a uniform logical way, but not at the expense of the end of your story, not at the expense of the end of your story, not at the expense of the event that's hopefully going to satisfy the audience who's invested on a weekly

basis. So I don't think in WWE's case, look, I've only started really watching WWE closely again in the last couple of weeks to be really honest about it because there's been nothing that's interested in me up until recently from a storytelling way. Now I'm like fully engaged in what's going on in WWE as much as my schedule will allow. And I think in the case of AEW, I just watched it this past Wednesday night, watched the full episode, beginning to end. And it wasn't a bad episode. It was a decent episode. It looked great. Hats off, Mike Mansoury. The crowd was into it for the most part because it was a first time event in the Phoenix market. It always gives you an added advantage when it comes to the enthusiasm of

the crowd because they're excited. They've been waiting for this, finally coming to their backyard. And AEW, I think, did a adequate job of trying to keep the attention focused on that pay-per-view in their case. But I do think the show suffered as a result, and it shouldn't have. That should be a note. If you really, you know, if the team over at AEW is really paying attention and wanting to really, really fine-tune their formatting and hope to hold and build audiences and all that, and they got a great rating, you know. questionable whether why they got that rating or not but irregardless they got a great rating and they did an adequate job of of promoting the pay-per-view event and promoting the end of the story so to speak that are coming up at revolution but i think they could have done a much

better job of formatting the actual episode because they didn't over a million people watch the show and uh we're actually watching hoove and two guerrera wrestle a very young Chavo Guerrero. Hovintude has been freshly unmasked, of course, at Super Brawl. So one of our first times seeing him without the mask. In hindsight, any regrets about having Hoovey lose the mask? Or do you like the idea of being able to see that handsome face and all of his facials and selling and reactions?

No, I think in Hoovey's case in particular, and the same would have applied, at least it was the reason for me wanting to unmask rate in the beginning is because so much of the story, So much of the character is communicated to the audience vis-a-vis facials. Yes, the rest of it, you know, the action and the ability to have great matches and all of that psychology all factor in. But the emotion is created from the neck up.

The connection to the audience is communicated through the eyes and through the facial expressions. And especially with a guy like Hoovey, he was, you know, an extremely good-looking guy. he had great facial expressions, I think it added value to Hoovey. And I get the argument, yeah, but it's the mask and it's a tradition. We're not in Mexico, folks. We're in Philadelphia. And while arguably I admit, I was wrong about Ray, when we did unmask, we could have done a much better job.

We could have enhanced the history and the legacy of Lucha and the meaning of the mask. that when we did unmask somebody, it actually had more value. It would have been a greater stake in a match, but I don't regret taking the mask off Hovey at all. And, you know, aside from the historical connection to it and the cultural connection to it with a lot of the guys like Hovey and NRA, I think it was effective. No doubt. I'm enjoying watching this match, but if you're watching along with us, and I hope you are,

you'll be able to see that the fans here in Philadelphia, even by Meltzer's report, don't give a damn. They couldn't care less. These guys are here to see stars, not great wrestling. And what stinks out like a sore thumb to me is when you take a look at the camera or the hard cam, just shooting the fans across from the hard cam, there are so many NWO shirts. It's ridiculous. It's as if every third person, maybe more, is wearing an NWO shirt.

Handful of Sting shirts, handful of ECW shirts. but an unbelievable number of NWO shirts there. And listen, you're not going to find many better wrestlers in the world then, now, forever, than Hovintood and Chavo here. But frankly, these fans don't care. And these are supposedly in Philadelphia, some of the smartest, most hardcore fans. They're here, by and large, to see the stars.

It's not necessarily great matches that got them to turn out. It's this NWO storyline. like i know that sounds crazy and it's not what everybody wants to hear and it's not what i always want to believe but the proof is in the pudding these these fans are sitting on their hands and they're all wearing n wos shirts what got them to come to the arena and to buy those shirts wasn't barn burner lucha matches because those aren't happening in n w o storylines it's uh it's it's once again further proof of what you've been hanging your hat on for a while story is what sells in wrestling not the matches it is and and and

And I appreciate you saying that, but I also wouldn't dismiss the quality of the story because not every match in a three-hour show can be an NWO match. Yes, they're there primarily because of the story and the cultural phenomenon, quite frankly, that the NWO became inside the arena and even outside of the arena in mainstream entertainment. But it, without great matches like we just saw with Hoovey and Chavo, they couldn't have sat there for three hours and stayed excited about the end of the show. They did a great job. And I would also argue that the reason that the crowd wasn't into Hovey and Chavo had a lot to do with the fact that they didn't have a great story, which we're kind of saying the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you put a great story behind two great performers like Chavo and Hovey, you're going to blow the roof off the building. yes yes but but the great match in and of itself to your point which i agree with is you need more than just great matches speaking of great matches you know we're going to have another one when you see who's coming out next psychosis here one of my guilty pleasures from this era one of my very favorite luchadors to see uh in this era to me in no particular order the biggest stars on the lucha side of things to me as a fan ray mysterio hovintude psychosis and le parka would you agree those are probably your top four or would you think maybe

there's a different set no i would agree with you completely you know and i appreciated all the lusus you know i appreciated them more and more and more as time went on um but yeah those are your top those are your top attractions and they were the best performers the reason they were my favorites is because they were the best they they were so much fun to watch we uh we've spent a lot of time having a lot of fun here on this show with my irrational hate of Prince Ikea and that good good for nothing motherfucker here is in Philadelphia wrestling psychosis by the way it's all a joke I don't know Prince Ikeye I'm sure he's a nice guy trying to make you laugh no laughing matter here though we should mention the whole Spacoli stuff we touched on it last week had some really in depth conversations I encourage you to go back and listen to that one in the archives if you missed it but Meltzer would have a follow up report the next week where he would say that WC W or Bischoff said that WCW randomly drug tests as wrestlers and also gives all wrestlers mandatory tests at the time they signed their contracts and he would say that according to Bischoff, Spacoli was tested on two separate occasions, one last summer when he signed the contract

and again in January passing both times. Quote, since Spicoli had a prescription for the somas he was using, that usage wouldn't have come up as a positive on a drug test. And listen, I know some people would say that's a workaround, but realistically, that's the way it works folks if you go to a doctor and you have a prescription and you disclose that prescription on your drug test then you're not taking illegal substances you're taking substances that were approved by a doctor and after that it's it's kind of your own human choice you know it's just your free will to how many you took or whatever that's up to

you right it is and to take it that a step further and i know we've already covered i won't beat this up too much but to take it a step further not only does it yes get you past the drug test and the fact that you get flagged for a prescription, but if you have a prescription drug, but if you've got a legitimate prescription for it, nothing anybody can do about it. But to take that to the next step, let's just say I wanted to try to, you know, just,

I don't care if you've got a prescription or not. Now I'm going to get sued. Now there's litigation. Right. And it's serious. It's not a little thing. And it really was, I think, you know, everybody talks about steroids.

stories weren't the biggest issue when it came to illegal drugs or drug use it was prescription drugs and that's what made it so look at today the same thing is happening today how many people are addicted to heroin now because they had a legitimate prescription for opioids yeah because they were so easy to get you could get opioids at any you know pain clinic that was a big thing in florida when this stuff was so you know you could get prescriptions for percocet and viking in any other you know opioid that you you enjoyed it was so easy to get that prescription but it made it difficult to manage the misuse of it it was a tough spot to be it still is to this day probably what's not a tough spot though is where you guys were

business wise for the month of january 98 all the data comes from the observer average attendance is up from 1997 it's up from January 97 to January 98 it's up 49.9.9% that's unbelievable y'all and what's really unbelievable about it is 98's up over 97 97 was a record year 97 was way up over 96 96 was way up over 95 the trajectory has been here but just the idea that in one year you could be up in attendance 49% is staggering even more staggering

is not only are you getting 49% larger gates which is just crazy as far as attendance you can charge more too you've raised your ticket prices so the actual dollars at the turnstile they're not up 49% they're up 142%

142% 142% year every year from January of 97 when in my opinion the NWO is just the hottest thing going we keep that thing going all the way through and in January of 98 it's up an additional 142 percent and sometimes and we've talked about this before maybe attendance is down but revenues up because you charge more for tickets well now attendance is up and revenues up because we're charging more for tickets but that's not all more people are watching the product your cable television ratings are also up 43%.

It's unbelievable, the success that you're having right here. And you've done some interviews. And I know we're going to talk about the NWO documentary. But let's just say it probably was hard to be humble here. If you're Eric Bischoff, is it not? You had to be believing your own shit. Like, are you kidding? Who could, who could have ever imagined this level of success, right?

Yes. we certainly could. And I wasn't as, I wasn't high-fiving myself as much as people might think, right? I probably wanted to, but when you're on that treadmill and every week is a war, a real war, not cosplay war, when every week you're in a war and you want to win because I'm always, I've always been a very competitive person, sometimes to my fault. But you don't have time to pat yourself on the back. In my case, I was trying to, you know, pay attention to what was working, pay attention to what wasn't working, do more of what was and less of what wasn't. Right. And there really wasn't as much time to sit back and go, man, are we good at this?

It just wasn't the time. But here's what I do want to point one thing out. And this is March of 98. Yes. We're rocking. We're rolling. We're setting records. We're driving revenue. Shortly after this show, I was called to a meeting, had to sit in front of a bunch of people I didn't know who told me, here's what you're going to do to change the format in the presentation of your show. And shortly thereafter, they got my budget that had been approved a year before. Why would anybody want to screw with the kind of success we were having right now? It's crazy. You'd have to want this company to fail, and we'll go back to that later. Wait, is that a tease for something we're going to talk about today?

Yeah, we should, I think. Or maybe later in another episode. I don't know. But there was a decision made corporately to change the presentation of our show that was what created the success that we're watching right now. And the growth that we just got done discussing and the revenue that this company was providing within about 90 days of this show, I was called to that meeting and said, okay, here's what we're going to do going forward. You're going to present your show this way. You're going to go after teens and preteens.

We want you to be family entertainment. I don't care about the 18 to 49 thing anymore. We want you to be teen and preteen friendly and family friendly. Why would you do that? Why would you go to Eric Bischoff in July of 1998 have that conversation? and within a month or two later, gut the budget that had been approved the year before. In the third quarter of 98, my budget was gutted,

even though it had been approved the year before by Turner Finance, and even though we were over delivering against that budget and the forecast that supported it, why would you do that unless you wanted it to fail? That's where the guy happens, Nitro book, is really interesting really interesting go check it out if you haven't already we've plugged it a lot here because we love it this is not a paid ad just sharing with you if you can't get enough of the way things were and want to learn more about why they were the way they were go out of

your way to check out nitro the book by guy evans available on amazon anywhere you enjoy books and we're enjoying a couple of george boys here tearing it up we got uh raven and disco inferno here The prior match, in case you aren't watching with us, unbelievably, and Meltzer would even call it mind-boggling, Prince Iakea gets a win over psychosis. Was this, I mean, did you really think, let me rephrase it. What did you believe the ceiling to be for Prince Ikea? It wasn't that, Conrad. It wasn't like, and certainly that would have been a Kevin Sullivan decision.

Okay. And I think it was a great decision, by the way. I'm not like fading the heat, so to speak, to Kevin Sullivan. Oh, I didn't even do that. That was Kevin Sullivan. That's not that at all. I think that decision by Kevin Sullivan was an absolutely excellent decision. And here's why.

Okay. The fact that Dave Meltzer was surprised and dumbfounded by the end of that match is exactly why we did it. Because if wrestling becomes so predictable. There you go. You've conditioned the audience to know the Prince Iacan doesn't stand an ice cube's chance in hell of winning a match, then why have it? Right. It's stupid. Whereas if you instill the feeling, you create the impression, consciously or subconsciously, mostly subconsciously, to your audience that you have to watch because anything can happen.

It's real. It's not predictable. just because you think it's going to happen is probably a good reason to not let it happen. And to keep the audience a little bit off balance. You don't want to overdo that because then, you know, you create other issues. But again, that's the difference between the thinking, creative thinking of a guy like Kevin Sullivan and in some cases myself who believed that I've talked about this forever. The unpredictable nature of Nitro is what led to it.

it's success. And occasionally, you've got to do things that make people go, whoa, I didn't expect that. If they say to themselves, wow, I didn't expect that, you won. You won. Now, again, you've got to be careful. You can't just do it for the sick of doing it. You've got timing, talent, a lot of things coming to play. But that was a Kevin Sullivan decision, not an Eric Bischoff won, but it was an excellent decision. Hats off to Kevin for making it. This was a fun match. NMLS number 65084, Equal Healthy Lended. Woo!

The five-star reviews are in, and it's confirmed, save withconrad.com can save you thousands. Jimmy E writes that we saved his family more than $1,000 a month. James S says we saved his family more than $1,200 a month. But how much can you save? It's free to find out right now at savewithconrad.com. But if you've got a second mortgage, if you've got credit card debt, or even worse.

If you're in a third-year loan, it's not a matter of if we can save you money, but a matter of how much. at save with conrad.com. It ends with Raven getting the win. Just to remind everybody, Raven, of course, was a big deal here in ECW. And I know that you often chuckle at that.

But we're in Philadelphia, the spiritual home of ECW. And Kevin Sullivan is at least acknowledging that fan base a little bit because not only do we get Raven, but we also get the public enemy. They're coming up next. They're going to be wrestling Hugh Morris and the Barbarian. We keep going back to clips from the Nitro,

party and what was going on at St. Joseph's before the nitro party got started. And I don't know. I think it's nice use of former territorial talent. Why would you not feature them in their quote unquote hometown, whether well known? Let's make sure they're on TV. And here's me and Gene doing a hell of a pitch. We've seen, we still see all these years later, these, these marketing elements that I just can't get over.

What a great value it was. So far, we've seen a Valvaline replay. we've seen a 1-800 collect replay we've seen a centerburst replay we're still watching this stuff 25 years later talk about value for the dollar you guys over delivered i mean nobody would have predicted that this sort of thing would would exist video on demand like it is now and these libraries but it's still paying dividends for these brands yeah i mean you when you think about it you know wrestling was there's two types of programming you know there's evergreen programming which means it continues to bear fruit until the end of time.

And then there's a short lifespan type of program. Wrestling was always like, you're in, you're out, it's done, it has no value in this time period because nobody saw streaming down the road, right? Sure, people talked about, well, maybe home video, and yeah, there was a market for that, but it's a very, very small market, at least for WCW. Boy, these backstage parties are awesome. I mean, look at this. This is crazy what we're watching.

watching now. Nitro girls hanging out with a bunch of college students. Everybody excited about wrestling and Nitro. What a great, what a great thing. But wrestling was never considered Evergreen programming. We're now it is. So advertisers who got in thinking, all right, well, for at least one week, we're going to reach our audience to your point of now 20 odd years later. They're still gaining benefit from it. Yeah. I love it. And hats off to Peacock, WWE. for creating the streaming platform because there's a good chance I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you without it. I might be still doing this show with you, but so many people are aware now of Nitro and NWO that weren't even around on March 2nd, 1998. It's kind of cool.

Eric, on the show we're watching, you're coming back from a commercial break and starting the second hour of Nitro. When we take our next commercial break on Nitro, we're going to pause our watch along and thank some of our sponsors but what did you think of or just talk me through the the logic in having a big pomp and circumstance second hour we saw the pyro and all the bali who or whatever you call it for the the open of the show but to start the second hour we're doing it again here more pyro are you just trying and clearly you're not doing that for the live audience or are you you're doing that for the people who might be channel changers who are just finishing their other program and now they're switching over or what's the thing yeah it was the

latter it was no look the the in in arena audience certainly benefited from it because that pyro and that feeling of an opening of a show creates energy right it gets everybody excited and keeping your audience in the arena excited for three hours is a much bigger challenge than than i certainly knew it would be um it's tough man three hours of people just screaming and yelling and Shearing and booed and all the things that come with it, that's fatiguing as hell, right? But by breaking it up so that each hour felt like a different episode, all tied together, there was a, there was continuity to it. But it kept everybody engaged, certainly on the television side as well, and particularly

with regard to hitting that crossover hour. Now, I think in this case, we went up an hour before WWE. The crossover is the beginning of our second hour. and, of course, we were head-to-head in our third hour. But to be able to hold your audience, because the last thing I wanted was, okay, we got everybody to tune in to WCW because I started early, right? And we're going to check them out. And then we're going to go see what WWE has to offer.

The only way to compete against that is to enact one, which is the first hour, get their attention, get them excited, plant the seed, create an inciting incident, if you will, if you want to get technical about it, that hooks the audience and creates anticipation for the second hour and or the third hour. That was critical, but the pyro was all about keeping people from changing channels

to check out the competition. Well, Jimmy Hart's not looking for any competition, but public enemy's trying to strip him down. We got a big pierc six brawl here with tables and trash cans and all the crazy ECW style violence. Jimmy Hart even pulling the belt off going to work here on Johnny Grunge

and we're in the heart of Philadelphia we're giving them what they want if they're looking for hardcore wrestling we're checking all the boxes look at Jimmy go Jimmy's going bat shit crazy I'm not seeing Jimmy that's the real Jimmy Hart by the way

everybody knows the yeah baby baby I love you baby I love you baby okay and that's a part of who Jimmy is I'm not suggesting it's phony it's not That's a big part of who Jimmy Hart is. But let me tell you something, brother, he's a much bigger heel deep down inside that he'll ever let most people on to. Jimmy Hart is a heel at his core.

He just does a great job of managing it. I love it. Something that you're going to manage is all the comings and goings of all the new talent that you're trying to get into the promotion. Of course, we're still starting thunder and trying to make sure. we get, you know, the proper amount of, uh, folks on the roster, including somehow, some way Eric Watts is training again at the power plant. Why'd you bring him back, Eric? I don't think he got a fair shot. I did think that he got a fair shot. You know,

when your dad, you know, Bill Watts in this case is, first of all, he was a heavy handed bully that almost everybody other than Jim Ross and one or two other people just absolutely hated. including me. Not hate. I didn't hate him. But I had, I did not want anything to do with him. I was hoping to leave the company while Bill Watts was involved. But for Bill Watts to then bring in his son, Eric, in the environment that Bill Watts created for himself and therefore his son by default was not a good opportunity for Eric. Eric was a good guy. Eric was had the potential of being a good performer. And we wanted to see if if that was, if that was, if that was the if he had the ability to actually evolve but not when your dad's the booker and everybody hates him i mean it's hard enough to be a second jet when you're following in

somebody's footsteps in this case you know eric's father when you're following in bill wott's footsteps watch the table watch the table had already broken as soon as they laid him more so that's so bad that's one of the things we sucked at look at the details man little details Kevin Das said it best recently. We'll talk about that. But it's those little details that make all the difference in the world, isn't it? It is. Like that match was hot, the crowd.

Look at the crowd. They're still into it, even though it was a mess because of the table. The match was fine, but the table spot was a mess. And that was the finish. Yes. And even though the finish was a joke of a finish because of the table, not because of the action, the crowd was still into it. But going back to Eric Watts, he didn't get a fair shot under his dad.

He was, you know, you're a second generation. Russell, you've already got two and a half strikes against you. And then in the case of Bill Watts, he was such a dick that it made it even harder. And we wanted to give him a shot. He was a good guy. Still is, I'm sure. It's a fun night to go back and take a look at these hardcore matches, especially in Philadelphia. And you just got a wide shot of the crowd, but you would see the referees in there and the ring crew trying to sweep up the debris.

Of course, they would have normally called for a replay. but after the table broke we're wisely saying uh let's not go ahead and do a replay there let's just keep it going and we're going to keep it going with a big macho man theme song here he's going to come out and be cutting a promo talk about what's going on tonight um this is a different time for the macho man character you know like we i think most of us i would tend to think from here on out the rest of his WCW run and unfortunately the rest of his wrestling career is kind of on the downhill slope it feels like he's reached the mountain top this is maybe one of his last opportunities to be in a handful of main events and things like that but considering what a big

part he was of the WWF and then even when he first came over here to WCW Meltzer would say that you know it was him and flare on the house shows and the main event that really turned around house show business he was such a big part but it does feel like it got a little crowded at the top and unfortunately wasn't enough room for the macho man to be as featured as he had been in prior years prior was he feeling that squeeze do you think i don't i think randy i think randy more than anything was grateful to be a part of something that was so powerful and so successful. And Randy was a competitive person, absolutely competitive, and wanted as much as he could, to be that guy, or at least featured in that event.

But Randy also recognized that he was surrounded by powerful characters and a powerful story that became kind of a phenomenon. And I don't think it bothered him personally. I really don't. I think he was grateful and not like, oh, I'm so lucky to be. a part of this because I'm on the downward slide of my career. Not that. Just it was so exciting and so much fun that I think ego became, for Randy at least, ego became less of an issue than perhaps it may have been otherwise. And by the way, before we go too far, shout out to Amy Vaugh, Eddie Prather, Genovius, Matt. Congratulations, Kyle, for the success you had. Coach Rosie, great job last weekend. You're a winner, brother. A lot of great people here from Paul Millett.

Thank you, Brad. Glad to have all the ad-free shows team on board. Absolutely. We always say you get the shows early in ad-free over at ad-freeshows.com. But now you can be a part of our live studio audience. Let's listen to Macho Man here a little bit. Dang. I'm going to do business.

Because that's the only way that we can get you two cowards into the ring. and sting is going to do business my way oh yeah so that is sting's theme song sting is going to come out here without the title even though he's the champion nobody explains why he doesn't have the belt it's never discussed but he doesn't have the belt and i can't believe this is real Sting's about to do a promo. My man ain't said shit.

And he's about to break his silence here and do a promo on Nitro in Philadelphia in front of one of the biggest audience in Nitro history. Let's take a listen to Sting here. Find us all we need. He's got a microphone. Look at this. Hold on one second, macho. Hey, yo!

Hey, working man's man, Scott Hall. Last week, you told me to bring it and don't sing it, well, I brought it. Survey says Scott Hall, you're dead. I like that, survey. Can you believe that this man is natural? Macho, macho, macho, brother, brother. For the last 16 months,

every time I looked up and saw Hogan's face, I saw your face. I don't forgive and I don't forget. Tonight we got business, but there's a problem because I can only

do business one way. My way. Huh? Ooh, yeah. sting talked sting not only talked he had a lot to say and i think he left us with a feeling and that is it has to be his way what does that mean an incredible nitro continues after this we're going to talk about what it means but eric we've got to take a time out get that pause button ready hit it at 5239 there it is we'll take this time out and let you know it's

being brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens has been a sponsor here on our program for a long, long time, and they make it possible for us to bring you this show each and every week. Not only that, they make it possible for Eric and I to be at our best. We often take these shows first thing in the morning, and I know our routines are the same. We wake up and we knock out that athletic greens. And we do it every day because we want to supplement that tastes great. We want to optimize our immune system. We want better at gut health. We want more energy. And this checks all the boxes. Now, what is this stuff? Well, with one delicious scoop of AG1, you're going to be absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, and

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And Eric, we love us some athletic greens, don't we? I love it more this morning than I ever have since I've been using it. I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to keep this short because we've got a lot to ground to cover. But I listened to an interview this morning featuring an individual guy by the name of Cali Means, C-A-L-L-E-Y-M-M-E-Y-M-Nes. Callie Means is very much into nutrition. And Mrs. B and I both are, it's almost like our hobby. It's a passion that we really enjoy.

It's a great hobby, believe me. But Callie Means in this interview was, talking a lot about overall health and the condition of people in the United States and pointed out that the hormones that make you feel good, serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, those hormones that control how we feel in a general sense. Are you optimistic? Do you feel joy, are you, you know, joy and happiness are all related to those hormones. I learned this morning that those hormones are created in your gut. They don't just end up in your head.

They go, they're created in your gut. And the ability to create those good feeling hormones that we all enjoy so much is based on the efficiency and the prevalence of the micro, bio-biomes and the things that are so important to digestion. And the reason I feel so passionate about this, and I'm not an expert, you know, Mrs. Pete is pretty close, but I'm not, is because in my own experience as an individual, not as an expert, I've noticed that when I'm eating really well, I get a certain high. I can't describe it in any other way.

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You're going to love it. Athletic Greens.com forward slash 83 weeks. Eric, let's get back to the program. We're at 52 minutes and 39 seconds. I'll count us in here in three, two, one lay. You know, we're all talking during the break. I mean, we're absolutely dumbfounded, stunned that Sting would come out of here with a microphone and actually have something to say.

The same man who has refused all of our interviews, who has not spoken, but what just about a handful of words, two or three words, since almost two years ago. So let's talk about it because they're talking about it. It was a major moment outside of Sting getting up near the camera after he won the world title at Starcade and saying mamacita, we don't know why. but outside of that this is kind of it this is the first time we've heard sting talk he was this enigma known as sting and this crazy dark character who didn't speak who was brooding and hanging out in the rafters and rappelling down and had his own vultures and shit well now he's

just coming out from the back and cutting rassling promos and don't get me wrong survey says you're dead is a great line and had he just said that maybe I feel differently, but I can't help but feel like just the idea that he's talking, a little bit of the mystique is now gone. What say you? Before I get into that deeply, Bryant Haramza, I think, is how we pronounce the name. Producer Steve, if you could pull up his comment. Brian asked the question, do you think Sting should have had a mouthpiece at this time to keep

with a dark, ominous persona? Well, Ryan, you're absolutely right. This was a huge mistake on my part, huge mistake on my part. I left a lot of money on the table right there with Sting because we didn't make a big deal out of it. We didn't create anticipation for it. We could have left the, Sting could have let the audience know, or I could have let the audience know that this is going to be the very first time we're going to hear from Sting. And we just let it fly by like it was just one of those things. do every single week.

And I agree with you a thousand percent, Conrad, if we were going to have them speak and we would have promoted it, teased it, created anticipation for it, because it was a big freaking deal. We haven't heard from him on almost 18 months. Yes. And the first time we do, he comes out and cuts a promo like any other guy. Yes. That was such a huge mistake on my part for letting that happen or encouraging it even.

Whatever I did. I don't remember. But to allow that to happen left, it took a big chunk out of the mystique, as you pointed out, for Sting's character. And Bryant, you're absolutely right. If we're going to bring him out, he should have had a mouthpiece.

And perhaps he could have grabbed the mic and closed it with that powerful statement. So we did hear from him, but we heard from him in a way that scared the hell out of people. No, we just had him come out and kind of wrestling problem. Stupid on my part.

Really wasted opportunity. do you think um right i want to be clear i'm asking for the introspective eric not the defensive i'm not attacking i'm not finger wagging i'm asking it's okay do you think you were based on all the success because we've went through it and it's unbelievable and you know what i just want to heap a little more on because this came out in the newsletter too on february 22nd tickets were put on sale for the april 13th nitro at the target center in minneapolis with the governor proclaiming it as Rick Flair Day in the state of Minnesota and Flair being honored and spearheading the ticket sales, the building sold out in five hours. That's 14,667 tickets,

$270,376 making it the most impressive first day in the history of the company. The all-time city gate record was the wrestle rock show on April 20th, 1986. And that supposedly did 16,000 fans and an estimated $300,000 at the gate. But this is just a regular freaking Monday Nitro. They sit in some big multi-month build, pay-per-view, marquee attraction at a Metro dome, by the way. This is just the Target Center on a regular ass Monday and we're just breaking records left and right.

The next day you put tickets on sale for the March 23rd Nitro in Louisville at Freedom Hall, and perhaps this is even more impressive. The show sold out in four and a half hours and this is not the type of town that has a history of six-figure gates in pro wrestling like Minneapolis.

Jimmy Hart is handling the local promotion doing the day one sales, not taking anything away from Jimmy, but it's Jimmy Hart, not Rick Flair. And we sold out $13,856 for a gate of $238,8,820 It absolutely shattered all records for the history of Louisville. So I'm saying all that to say.

When you've got all of the success, gates are up, revenues are up, ratings are up, everything's up. Do you tend to think some of these little details that certainly add up like Sting doing a promo? Is it easy to just get cocky with little things like that and not feel like you have to micromanage everything? because everything's going so well, shit, what could go wrong, right? I don't think it was cocky, Connor, and I know that's, I guess, a perception probably created, you know, by the dirty narrative to a degree.

It was more lack of discipline. And you hear me talk a lot now about discipline and storyline and character development, structure and discipline. That's all I seem to talk about when people ask about, you know, how wrestling can be improved. I think what we're seeing right now is an example of my lack of discipline. I just let things go that I should have never let happen. And it wasn't because I was cocky because we were having so much success,

as much as it was in some cases, not really understanding why we were successful to the extent that I should have. I knew the basics. I knew why we were in the position we were in here and was trying to replicate some of those formulas and also trying to explore new ones and experiment. We're seeing it right now with music in the ring, which none of this stuff I even remember.

So I hope you want to ask you about it. This is Stuck Mojo, by the way. This is a flock music video. The band is Stuck Mojo. If some of these folks seem familiar, it's because, well, now you call them Fossey, just with Chris Jericho as the front man. But yeah, this was, listen, I like this.

I just wish or I don't wish I tend to think if the Eric Bischoff I know now was programming this he still might run this music video because it is cool and it features WCW wrestlers and it is an actual music video and it is a real band based out of Atlanta but still a real band I would probably run it in the first hour when I'm unopposed with Raw as opposed to heads up because if I'm a channel changer I'd say I don't want to watch this music video let me see what Stone Cole's doing. Or at least a smaller portion of it. You know, 35, 45, 55 minute, maybe, but this is too much. But going back to, you know, cocky versus lack of discipline, lack of discipline, maybe a little cocky, maybe being a little cocky or overconfident. Yeah. I was never cocky. I mean, I was on camera, obviously.

But it was potentially a little overconfident, but primarily. I just hadn't developed the discipline to identify and stick with the things that were working. And I'm almost embarrassed. I mean, I'm not really, but I should be, I guess. The fact that we let Sting come out there and just cut that promo, it was so wrong. It was so freaking wrong, but it wasn't because I was cocky. It was because I just didn't have the discipline to stick with what. was working to the extent that I could have or should have.

This is a pretty fun music video. I mean, as far as, you know, music videos incorporating wrestlers, that's pretty cool. It starts off looking like it's going to be a flock piece. It very much winds up at ADEP vehicle. Let's take a listen to Mike tonight. The United States heavyweight champion and the master of the diamond cutter, DDP, Diamond Dallas Page. Now we understand Diamond Dallas Page will be live on it.

in the wits of com when they play a good mojo's brand new video the u.s. heavyweight champion makes his way out and i tell you larry the big go what a night this has been this great venue so there you see it's a nice little crossover opportunity this is back on mtv you know did crazy things like played music on television the the idea of you having w cw wrestlers featured in an m tv music video is a cool thing I certainly understand, you know, the cross-pollinization there and the reason you would want to cross-promote here. I get it. I just think today, Eric Bischoff would have said, we'll put that in the first time.

And there's just a better way to do it. But look at this, DDP, a non-WWF guy, according to Dave Meltzv, because the only people that got applauded and shared and got an audience reaction were former WWF guys. Here's a WCW guy that had never been a WWF guy. and people are standing and giving him I don't think there's anybody in the arena that's not standing if there are there's very few everybody got to their feet when they heard that music and I want to ask you about the WWF because Vince McMahon would go on the Canadian show off the record on TSN which I used to really like with Mr. Landsberg and he would go on this show and claim that the WWF was quote unquote kicking Ted Turner's ass in every category but television ratings of course you hear about this and you make an appearance the next day but i do want to ask do you think why do you think vince was always quote unquote punching up at ted turner rather than directing it to you i ask because in the course of this interview with mr lansberg he plays word association and he says eric bischoff and viz

McMahon responds don't know him that well from his reputation not a nice man I don't know why but that tickles me but why do you think Vince would always frame it at because does he just does he in his head convince himself he's the underdog and that's the reason he can stay hungry and competitive and have that chip on his shoulder and since Ted Turner was a bigger media mogul or billionaire or whatever that was his motivation in public or is that really the way he perceived it or talked me through that i think it was a perception he was trying to create was the real answer to that look did vince mcmahon want to admit that this kid that he never even heard of before that that he turned down for an announcer audition

was now turning the entire industry upside down and kicking his ass in the process he didn't want to admit that why would you i wouldn't i would much rather make it sound like it was Ted Turner. Like Ted Turner was creating all these moments. Ted Turner was the guy that, as we just looked at DiBadela's page before your question, while you were asking it, was going up to his crowd and the entire arena

was on its feet in Vince McMahon's backyard. Does he want, does Vince McMahon want to admit that Eric Bischoff did that? Of course not. It sounds a lot better if Big Bad Billionaire Ted Turner, isn't that ironic? Big Bad billionaire Ted Turner was trying to hurt little WWE

and Eric Bischoff was just some guy that I've heard about and it doesn't have a good reputation. That was the, Vince McMahon very much believed the perception is reality. And eventually it became true. So maybe he wasn't wrong, but it had nothing to do. You know, Ted didn't have any. I talked to Ted maybe twice a year.

Right. Let me take that back. I talked to Ted every Tuesday when ratings came in. But in terms of talking about business, eh, twice a year, maybe. let's let's also mention the fact that we just saw ddp do an in-ring interview and he leaves the very next segment is van hammer doing an in-ring promo and now ddp climbs in through the crowd these segments touch is this ddp really wanting to come through the crowd to do this is

gary bishop why do you to come through the crowd and you just saw why i'm with you on that i'm just wondering formatting wise would it have made sense to have ddp do the promo after the fact yes okay not saying it was a great idea but it was my idea i love him coming through the crowd but those segments touching feels like somebody wasn't paying attention to the format maybe no it was paying attention to the format it was just making a bad decision okay i was you know it wasn't like i was paying not paying attention it was like it works so well let's do it again and that was the mistake let's uh let's mention what we're leading to here because this ddp doesn't really have a feud going here with fan hammer he's got one going with raven and of course a rivalry

not really a feud a rivalry with benoit and they're going to do some great stuff here as individuals and then as a group as a three-way dance if you will and it all comes to a paper view and then of course as we all recall goldberg squashes raven the very next night With the benefit of hindsight, that really didn't do that feud any service, did it? I mean, you had this long feud between Raven and DDP and Benoit. And then once it's all over, quote unquote, over the next night, Goldberg just mows down Raven. It just feels like less than to me. I don't know.

Yes. It's like, well, we're done. We accomplish what we want to accomplish. now it's just cannon fodder he being raven and and i get i get you know i don't mean to cut you off but i understand that sometimes you need a transitional champion in that we know that ddp is the u.s. champion right now but we know that goldberg we think is going to be the next big thing so we want to continue to build goldberg hopefully for the world title but let's put the u.s title on him and see how things go man i get that but we don't necessarily want to beat ddp in order to do

that because those are baby faces and maybe we can make money with them in the future and we will a Halloween havoc. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need Goldberg to beat somebody and the only quote unquote heal in this scenario is Raven. So Raven comes out on top of this three way dance for the U.S. title, but then it's Goldberg's turn. So maybe, you know, we just understood, hey, Goldberg's the real primary beneficiary and what we're trying to sell and what we're trying to accomplish. But in hindsight, I wish maybe we had something, a little more of a story. for Raven rather than win the belt next day gone it's over yeah not only was it um a bad creative decision in abrupt there was no real transition and and beating raven that quickly

what you just said it and raven comes out on top in this three way right in that situation correct yep okay and then he gets squashed immediately afterwards what does that say about dDP Or Benoit. Or Benoit. What does it say about them? What is the perception of the audience when two guys who are two of your top stars, Benoit and DDP, go out there and have this incredibly, and by the way, that was a great match. I'll put that match up against anything that I saw on AEW last Wednesday night, by the way.

And it included Van Hammer. So let's talk about that if it's necessary. That was a great match. The crowd was on its feet, almost throughout the entire match. And then Raven comes out on top and gets crushed so quickly and easily. It not only hurt Raven and was a total misuse of Raven, admittedly, it also had an adverse impact on GDP and Ben Laugh. How good are they? If they have to work their guts out and fight for their lives in order to try to beat a guy like Raven,

and Raven comes on top, and then Goldberg comes along and eats him for breakfast, and spits them out. Stu, yeah. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Hey, guys, Double J. Jeff Jared. Need to call a timeout real quick here. I wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling my world listeners

for a while now. It's about all the incredible things happening over on ad-freeshows.com. The debut of our new Monday Mailbag series is here with a man we love to hate. Longtime WCW and W.W.E. referee, Nick Patrick. But they didn't know who was going to be the heel out of it because of the Montreal screwed job on there. I said, I care. I promise you, I'll be the heel.

And that they were going to hate me far worse than him. Watch this. And then I went out and that happened. And they said, you're right. 34 years ago, Jim Ross was on the call for the first match in the classic Blair Steamboat trip. at Chaitown Rumble. And now he's watching it back on a bonus watch-along edition of Grilling J.R. As far as a match is concerned, nobody's going to have a better match in 1989.

He's just with us. So many people, you know, this is what got them hooked on wrestling for life this match. At free shows members, sat shotgun alongside Impact star Frankie Cazarian and Eric Bischoff, as the pair reflected on their time together in TNA and answered member questions live. I did as good of a job as I could to substitute for Kurt Angle. There's no filling those shoes, but I did the best I could. I thought we had a great match, and I subsequently tore my tricep in that match. So it was a rollercoaster of emotions of a day, man, but it was cool to be put in that position.

Like, hey, well, you know, we're throwing you into the main event. It's basically sink or swim, and I think I carried my weight, and it was a real, real, real fun experience, man, what I haven't really talked about a whole lot. Hey, that's just a small taste of what ad free shows has waiting for you, including a brand new perk, getting to join in on the live recordings of the shows

with four levels to choose from, see for yourself why ad free shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now at atfreeshoes.com. That's right, sign up today at adfreeshows.com. Listen, I know we don't

uh we don't usually talk about uh things like the observer awards but i do just want to uh briefly mention a couple that that jumped off the page to me and again these are observer awards meaning it's not necessarily an award that was voted on or decided by dave melzer it's the readers but the readers of the wrestling observer voted all elite wrestling to be the number one promotion of the year and they promoted and they voted stardom, the Women's League over in Japan, to be the second best promotion of the year. And WWE came in third place for best promotion of the year.

It was overwhelming that AEW Dynamite by more than double was the best weekly television show beating Smackdown. And they said that Rampage was the third best show. Newt & Prang Strong was the fourth best show. Impact was the first show. Impact was the fifth best show. Autumn was the sixth best show. W.W.R.

was the seventh best show, just barely beating out being the elite, the YouTube blog from the Young Bucks at number nine. They would also say this year that the MVP, I don't think this is arguable, is John Moxley. I think a lot of people would say that. He steps up in a major way for that promotion. And I have no qualms with that.

some of the other ones were a little interesting to me they would even you know have some other ones that I could agree with like most improved the acclaim no one could argue about how over he was but most charismatic they voted MJF in over Sammy Zane and I understand that MJF's been on a great tear in recent years but I got to think Sammy Zane probably deserved it last year just my opinion best technical wrestler they awarded to Brian Danielson. I'll never argue that. I think he's one of the best in the world without question.

Rookie of the year was Braun Breaker. I know we both think a lot of him. Can't argue with that. Best non-wrestler, Paul Heyman, hands down, not close. But then, you know, when it comes to some of the others, the best major wrestling show, supposedly last year, was forbidden door. The New Japan-A-W joint show. I don't know that I would have guessed that.

And they had the, I can't believe this is real. The worst television show, Monday Night Raw. The worst feud of the year, the Ms. and Dexter Loomis. But the thing that took the cake to me, can't believe this is real. The worst promotion of the year award, WWE. The NWA was second place. Control Your Narrative was third place. AAA was fourth place

GCW was fifth place and then Booker of the year this was controversial Tony Kahn won best Booker of the year Paul Leveck came in third

the best promoter of the year Nick Kahn I'm sorry Vince McMahon came in eighth Stephanie and seventh Nick Kahn and fifth Paul Leveck in fourth Dana White and second and Tony Conn in first place.

Oh, my God. I like Tony Conn a lot, a lot, consider him a friend. But goodness gracious. And listen, creative is subjective. Jeff Jarrett says that all the time on a show, so I'm not going to argue Booker of the year.

I know you will because you're a creative type. But promoter of the year to me is business. Like promoter, when you think about promoter, if you were to call your local arena, whether it's the Vaughn Braun Center or wherever you live, whatever your big arena is,

and you were to ask them, who are your best promoters? Here's what they wouldn't tell you. Boy, I really like the creative stuff that so-and-so does. I really like the colors that so-and-so uses for their events, and I really like the merch,

so-and-so uses for their events. No, they would say, such-and-such sells the most tickets. So-and-so has the best gate revenue. Best promoter is a financial thing in my mind. Like when you think about a promoter, you're thinking about who sold the most tickets, who put the most asses and seats. How in the world is anybody promoter of the year that's not WWE? I say that, not as a WWE defender or someone who sleeps under a WWB blanket. I say that as someone who knows,

wwe had their best top line biggest and most money ever top line ever last year and their most profit last year so just by definition wwee had to be whoever was the promoter of the year but how in the world does that category have nick con and paul levec and viz McMahon and step what? Like, WWE was the promoter of the year, right? Look, the Wrestling Observer newsletter and the people that vote within it are a collection of, it's basically a circle jerk.

Okay. It's a masturbation experience for Dave Meltzer to be sitting in the middle of the small group of nerds like him and making these votes that are not based on anything closely related to any kind of subjective or objective reality. It's just not. You've got Dave Meltzer who is, he creates this narrative within his little dirt sheet universe

and gets like-minded, weak-minded people to all vote and agree with him and his perspective on things, to suggest that Tony Kahn was Booker of the Year, promoter of the year, when his company damn near imploded last year as a result of the piss-poor decisions, immature decisions, and nonsensical decisions that Tony Kahn has made last year is a joke, but the reason Dave doesn't is because of the proximity principle, right? Dave is close to the elite.

He's close to the young bucks. He can say whatever he wants, and Tony, Tony County could criticize Ariel Horwani for not being objective. Dave Meltzer, if he is not a paid supporter and promoter in his own way of AEW probably should be. And now it's all blowing up in his face. So he tries to, you know, balance it out a little bit. But Dave Meltzer is a, it's funny how Dave projects a lot. he really projects a lot and I've noticed it more and more because of the way he covers recent things but Dave is really he always uses the word con man everybody that doesn't agree with Dave or

someone that Dave does like he's a con man in the business there is no bigger example of a fraud by virtue of the fact that recently we find out that this so-called this objective journalist is taking phony information that it's fed to him and posting as if it's true in his own voice and it's not and he was exposed there is not a bigger fraud in the wrestling industry today than dave melzer and the dirt sheet universe that he's created and how is that playing out today eric give me an example i'll give me an example dave wants people to believe so badly that sammy zane is going to get cheered or excuse me cody rose is not going to get the response he's getting because the

audience really wanted Sammy Zane in that spot. That's because that's what Dave wants. So in order to kind of manifest that juvenile desire and ignorant desire of Dave Meltzer to just react to one night in Montreal or a series of data, it's funny, Dave, Dave Meltzer using data is an example of Dave Meltzer not using data. You just did a phenomenal job of exposing him for ignoring data in going with what he wants to see happen. And he uses his little dirt sheet audience to vote for the things that Dave wants. And how does he do that? He influences it in his narrative.

It's always been Dave's game. But again, what's an example of what's happening now? Look at some of the stuff that Dave has been posting and saying recently, WWE second guessing their decision to go with Cody Rose. No, they're fucking not. And even if they were, how would Dave Mouser know that? that. He wouldn't, but they're not. It's a figment of Dave's imagination. It's a reflection of Dave's desire to influence his certain segment of the audience, which is a pimple

on a hamster's ass when it comes to the real world of the wrestling industry. But Dave wants to influence them as much as he can to try to be proven right, to try to give an example of knowing something that he knows nothing about. And I find, you know, look, I get animated. I'm going to shut the hell up here in a second about it. But the reason that I'm animated is because of the example that you just gave us. His attempt to influence reality based on his own personal proximity and people that pat him on head and make him feel good about himself. That's who Dave Meltzer is. That's what those ratings are. That's what those awards are. Yes, his audience, quote-unquote audience votes on him. The only people that

voted amongst Dave's audience are people that are less informed and more ignorant than him that are influenced by someone who is uninformed and ignorant, that being Dave Meltzer. Wow. Didn't see that one coming, did you? No. I, um, I mean, here's the thing. I didn't think we were going to talk about this but the whole sammy zane cody roads thing man i like dave i consider dave a friend we communicate we're friendly uh if he were in huntsville or i were in california i'm sure we get together and have a beer and it'd be great uh really respect his knowledge and fandom and all that he's done for wrestling i'd have a different view of him than you do however that old cody wrote sammy zane thing is dave projecting um he wrote something or maybe he said it i forget but

just know there was a quote that said something along the lines of because i don't have it in front of me because i don't know we were going to talk about this today but that uh when cody rose did his promo last monday night on raw and paul haman responded on the titan tron with both belts over his shoulder in a neck brace it was reported by dave that they were so nervous that cody was going to get booed or more specifically there were going to be sammy chance that they they went to paul haman faster they didn't want there to be a lull because they didn't want to give those sammy chance a reason to come up they don't they needed to suppress those so if we keep moving sort of like we used to have to see talent try to navigate the what chance which ruined

wrestling for a few years so you would have to plan for that and they didn't want to want that Sammy chant because they wanted to stick with Cody. So let's structure it a certain way. That's the way Dave said the thing that the the segment happened. I'm not going to say how I know, but I know that's not true. The segment happened to the way it was supposed to happen. There was no, nobody called an audible that it wasn't written. It wasn't, nothing changed. Like the chance weren't there. The chance didn't happen. Now I understand historically that, And I could see how Dave would make that logical leap and jump to that conclusion. You're being too kind because you are friendly with him.

But I've seen that before and you have two with Daniel Bryan when we wanted him. There's a matter. It didn't happen in this case. It didn't happen in this case. And the idea that it's reported is like, in my opinion, it feels like it's playing dirty and it's taken away from Cody. Because Dave doesn't want it to succeed. Dave does not want WWE to succeed.

he doesn't want I don't believe that I do believe it otherwise why would he do it what's the motivation what's the incentive of lying it's a lie well here's the motivation Jeff Jarrett says it all the time and I used to want to argue it

because I didn't want I didn't but I understand it he says Conrad got to have something to talk about got to sell subscriptions so we lie gotta sell magazines no I'm with you but I'm just saying, think about, I don't know that it's a thing anymore,

but do you remember the National Inquirer? You'd be at the grocery store. There it is in the bin. You're getting ready to check out. And there's all these salacious headlines. Do you remember seeing a National Inquirer where it said, business as usual, everyone's on their best behavior. No crazy stories this week.

No, that doesn't happen. You got to have something to talk about. So to give a different analogy, here in Alabama, what everybody wants to talk about on sports talk radio is Alabama football it doesn't matter what season it is what day what month it doesn't matter but they want to talk about it's Alabama football well if you've got two co-hosts on a show and the first guy says boy I don't think anybody's any match for Alabama they're going to go undefeated win the heisman and win the national championship if the other guy says I agree where do we go now we'll be back after

these words there's nothing to discuss you got to have something to write about you got to have something to talk about and if something could happen if something might happen if there's a chance something could happen well we should talk about it i get that because god damn we do some of that here on this program what if this what if that i get it but when when it's reported as fact as if well the w v blah blah blah and his opinion carries so much weight i think it might be a little dirty pool for cody roads and yes people are going to hear this and say oh he's just me just kissing cody's ass okay fine whatever oh no no it's what you're saying is the truth and you're being so gentle with it.

Well, because of your perspective and relationship on Dave. I got to tell you, he's a liar, he's a fraud, he's a weak-minded person, and he's projecting all, and he's been doing it for years. You're just seeing it now, and some people are just seeing it now,

because things have changed now. We have this thing called podcasts. You can hear from people like Bruce Pritchard and Eric Bischoff or Booker T or any number of other people that will rip this fraud to shreds because we've been watching it happening for, in my case, 30 years. But look, if Dave said, I'm the National Enquirer of professional wrestling and some of the

stuff I say may or may not happen. And by the way, these are my opinions, I'd probably be supportive of it because it's funny, it's interesting, and just like the National Inquirer, it gave you something to do while you're sitting on a toilet taking a dump. Yeah. But that's all it's worth. That's who Dave Meltzer is. And he is, I hate to say this.

I'm not going to say it. He is a disease. Oh. He is a malignant, insidious disease when it comes to the way wrestling is covered. And he's doing it because there's a need somewhere deep-seated in Dave Meltzer to have a little group of people around him who all pat him on the back and give him a cookie. That's who Dave Meltzer is. Well, well, we got it off track there.

We're still watching Nitro. I hope you're watching along with us. Rick Flair is coming to the ring. He's going to talk to Mike today here. We're going to take a listen, but before we do, I want to catch you up in case you weren't watching with us. We saw Brett Hart come down to the end of the ramp and do a promo and letting everyone know he's here to take the NWO down brick by brick and he'll be starting with Kurt Henning at Uncensored. And he also wanted to remind everybody that Stu Hart could beat up Larry Henning, which is pretty fun. Davy Boy Smith is going to go get a win over Scott

Norton by DQ. It only goes a minute and 41 seconds. A Meltzer would say, Bulldog is trying to break DiMaggio's record for most consecutive horrible matches. I want to talk about British Bulldog on the other side, but first, I think we should hear from Rick Flair. This is horseman country. It's Philadelphia, and they love the bad guys and they love the nature boy. Let's take a listen. It's great to be back in one of the true sports capitals of the United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Michael today, Philadelphia. The L.P.A. Hello! The nature boys in town! And ready to go! Woo! What I want to know is, wise mean, Jean, at the party over St. Joseph and the nature boys here. I'll tell you why. Because tonight, in a short period of time, Stinger, Savage, Hogan, Hall, I want. to be firsthand to see it go down. Woo! Rick Flair, March the 15th at Uncensored, Brett the hitman Hart, who I know you certainly have a tremendous amount of respect for,

will face Kurt Henneck. Did you ever think you'd see the day that I'd stand here Philadelphia and tell you, I hope Brett Hart does something right and win? Uh-oh. he's getting some visitors here and it doesn't look good guys so here comes kirk henning and uh rick rude walking to the ring and that is a walk with purpose right there i think the pittsburgh penguins are in the building and yager wants to talk to lindross That's true.

Kurt Hanig? 13-time world champion. Well, if my math is right, that makes him a 14-time loser, wouldn't you say? And let me tell you something else, Flair. If Rick Rode and Kurt Henning decide to crawl through these ropes, it kicked that big nose and your teeth

right down your throat you think Brett Hart's going to come out here and help you out you're dumber than you look if rude will stand on the floor and it's just you and me I don't need breadhart daddy oh he's ready hey hey I'm talking to you yager tonight on there at it well i we've got a challenge and we're going to have an impop two match here there's no referee in the ring but heck who needs one here we go this is night joe doesn't matter and this is a fight flair combination right left he's going to put him out with those trademark knife that's chaps but here he goes to the eyes rick flare and curt headed and one was just what do you think of Eric what a fun segment what a fun little piece of TV I love it is spontaneous I mean

I can't say enough about Kurt Henning and Rick Flair and their work together look at the crowd you know my opinion doesn't mean squat neither does anybody else's except for those people that are in the seats and they're reacting in a way that you can only hope for when you have a match like this so I love it I love it how about the folks in the front row there's a kid wearing a raw shirt and two seats over from him there's a guy who's got a homemade WCW shirt, but sort of the opposite way of the NWO logo is. So capital W, lower KC, capital W, and underneath 4 life. And there you see

Rick Flair doing his best ravishing Rick Cruz. I saw it later that night too at the hotel bar. You know, he's going to be doing it somewhere tonight as you and I are recording. It's the Nature Voice 74th birthday. How about that? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Rick Flair. happy birthday to you maybe at the end of the show we should have you call him up on speaker

phone wish him a happy birthday and see if you get cussed out or thank hey let's do that let's do that I want to make sure my phone is charged my phone's charged and I've got rick's never plugged in my phone here oh gosh I love doing shit like that because you never know what's going to happen it's spontaneous you don't know how about that Rick rude counting the three for the perfect Plex. Of course, it wasn't a real match, but super fun. You know, maybe it was a little too

localized of a promo for Rick Flair referencing all the Pennsylvania stars. But still, the crowd was eating it up here. They were eating it up a little more than what we got with Davey Boy Smith. At this point, were you already regretting signing Davey Boy? He's not yet had a good showing for WCW.

Yeah, but Davy Boy had, you know, look, at different times in my life, I've had different challenges. Sure. Davey had a challenge at this point, and it was a big one. And I, I wasn't, we, we, and baby wasn't getting the Davey Boy Smith that we hoped for. Right. But, you know, yeah, let it go with that. Take a listen. You're going to be in the main event on that night show tonight.

Sting, watch that crazy man, macho, man. You can't be trusted. You need any help. I'm in the back, in the door, I'm just watching it. Steve, just give me the call. Who, who, who, who, who. How do you not love Rick Steiner? He's such a good.

He's a good dude, man. He's such a good dude. He was a hard to work with. A great performer. A good person. the uh the start of the third hour yet another uh big pyro presentation what do you think your pyro budget was back then if you had to guess i know there's no way you remember but just guess i wouldn't even i couldn't even take a guess because i was never involved in it you know

david crockett could tell you um but i i i couldn't even i couldn't even begin to guess let's talk about something else that made the news here um oh you know what before we do i want to mention that we saw conan beat supercalo with the tequila sunrise and no matter uh melts would say no matter how dead the crowd is they always wake up when calo does that bump off a clothesline conan did an interview to build up his match against hoovey juice for the pay per view although they announced a match uh with the two next week on nitro as well um super callow is sort of one of those forgotten luchadors he was always great i enjoyed everything he did I knew whenever I was going to see him, I was going to see something fun and exciting.

But even earlier today, as we were talking about this show, I said, man, these are my favorite luchadors. I didn't mention Supercalo. You were so deep in great lucha talent. It was easy to kind of get lost in the shuffle sometimes because Supercalo, if there wasn't so many other great talent there, he could have been a player for you guys. Yeah. When you look at guys like Hootoo and obviously Ray Mysterio and.

and some of the lucidors that were more familiar with, they got more story time. Yeah. They weren't just filler. They weren't transitional matches. They had actual story, meaningful story, and phenomenal matches, which is why, you know,

it's easy to forget some of them because they did get lost in a shuffle because we had some really, really great lucidors. And that happened sometimes, unfortunately. Talk to me a little bit about, Promo Azteca. There's a lot of information written in the observer about how things were progressing or so we thought between Mexico's Premo Azteca promotion and WCW. And eventually you guys get a call from down there and they say hey Conan has no decision-making authority or ownership or booking power with Promo Azteca. And I guess this even involved

Nick Lambros, sending Conan a letter stating in no uncertain terms that he, along with every Mexican wrestler in WCW, is under exclusive contract to WCW internationally. And Meltzer would say that means they were specifically told they're no longer allowed to wrestle in Mexico, which means basically every top name except for a handful of the promo Azteca headline talent are now banned. In addition, WCW told Conan he has to cease booking as teca lineups and angles and booking as tech a talent to other organizations around the world the ban on the wcw mexican talent working in that country is going to be the most difficult to enforce since aside for major shows and television tapings it's virtually impossible to get

spot show news out of mexico how big of an issue was this some of that detail i can't respond to because nick lambrose would have been the one dealing with it i wouldn't have been in the minutia of those discussions or the cease and desist or the communication. Here's what I knew, though, that I was impacted by. And I've said this before. Here's a disclaimer. Conan and I are tight. We do a lot of fun stuff together on his show, and I appreciate my relationship with him.

But just like I've changed, and we've all changed, hopefully we've all changed, so is Conan. But at that point in time, Conan was. enjoying the benefits of playing both ends or in this case three ends against the middle and it's fine up until it creates a problem and you get called out for it and this is where that became an issue um i don't blame conan he was maximizing opportunities but there's a point where it becomes a detriment and that's where we were and we were just, we, not we were just, we were trying to protect our asset,

and in this case, assets, with regards to our relationship with the lichador wrestlers. Hard to make long-term commitments with people who you aren't exactly sure are going to fulfill their end of the obligations. Hard to commit to certain talents. These are some examples of why it was a problem for me. hard to pay guys what you really think they're worth knowing they're working part-time

for people that you're not associated with and you can likely get hurt in which case we're still going to have to pay them. There were so many issues that arose out of the you know, playing two or three ends against the middle and using talent to do it as well. Then it became really problematic. And at this point, yeah,

once it leaves my domain and it's no longer a creative or operation, issue and it becomes a legal issue, I kind of lose control of it at that point. That was the nature of the way Turner was structured. It wasn't a choice. Just when something becomes a legal issue, my hands are, for the most part, tied. Let's talk about what we're seeing here. It's Hacksaw Jim Duggan getting a whooping from Scott Steiner.

As a reminder, Scott Steiner at Superbrawl has just turned on his brother and he's turned heel he's now a bad guy for the first time really in his NWA slash WCW run he's also changed his look it's easy for us to forget that because we're so familiar now with him wearing the blonde hair but back at super brawl man he had black hair and a black goatee and now not so much this is a totally different presentation and uh we know you guys briefly tried calling him white thunder a little bit or no white lightning no it was white thunder whatever it was you had some silly goofy name for him it doesn't stick but what we're seeing now this is cementing that big pop-a-pump is here and his career was never really the same like it wasn't just turning on his brother and going singles it was the

whole look and presentation and we know it's going to continue to evolve they'll start wearing different gear metal headdresses start to have some ladies come to the ring with him but the transition of Steiner here from a guy who really didn't do promos to a guy who's going to go out here and cut all kinds of crazy off the cuff quote unquote shoot promos uh it's a transition like you know you don't see a lot of that in wrestling and you know what's really cool about that transition and and scott signer at this time is that was all scott yeah you know the look now obviously we you know supplied the creative in the platform for him creative and sense of his role now is eventually as part of the NW and all that.

That was, that was us. But in terms of the promos and the way Scott approached promos and the look and the metal headdress and women and all that was Scott. And he, Scott created that character, which was a phenomenal character, by the way. So he not only made the transition from being, you know, basically a baby face tag team guy to being an individual performer, he upped his game dramatically and he did it on his own that was his creative in terms of his character in the way it was presented that wasn't me or kevin solvin or that was scott that's that makes it even more impressive in my opinion here's the heel finish the steiner recliner something a lot of people don't think about with a finish and i just learned this really

from hanging out with mick foley on his great podcast it comes out on friday fully his pod is he liked the mandible claw in WCW or the WWE rather because he wanted to apply the fingers but then he could put his face next to their face as they're selling and a Steiner recliner sort of lended itself to the same thing you could see both of their faces they're taking a break here Eric and we're going to take one too we're going to stop it when we get to 51 there it is 141 51 taking a time out now to tell you about our friends

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And Eric, I know you've tried it. I can't wait to hear. What did you think? Well, it was a great experience. And here's one of the reasons why I was excited to try it. As time goes on and I learn more, and I spend more time reading and learning, there are two industries in the United States that I think are dangerous.

That is the food industry and a pharmaceutical industry. And when there's an alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals, because I think that is one of the most corrupt segments of our society, and it controls so much of what we learn. for example most doctors have absolutely no training in nutrition everything is a compound a chemical a pharmaceutical whatever whatever your ills are oh there's a pharmaceutical for that the pharmaceutical industry spends so much the two biggest um contributors when it when it comes to um lobbyists are the pharmaceutical business and the food industry. And I'm always looking for an alternative for

anything that comes in a pill. And when I heard about mind bloom and I did a little bit of research, I wanted to try it for myself. And I can only encourage people. I don't want to encourage people to try anything. I want to encourage people to learn and to keep an open mind and don't necessarily sign off on what the medical community tells you necessary. Now, look, if you get a gunshot or you're hit by a car, you break your arm, absolutely. But I think pharmaceuticals, you know, SSIs, some of the things that are being prescribed,

and I'm not a doctor and I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy that reads a fucking tongue. Explore, read, learn, and keep an open mind. And I think to have access to something like, like Mind Bloom, with the guidance that is provided for you could be a great alternative. That's what I want to encourage people to do, is to look into it, read about it, and talk to someone over at Mind Bloom, and you decide if it's right for you. Don't automatically go to your doctor for the solution, because in my opinion, just my opinion, you're probably going to be

led the wrong direction. Right now, Mind Bloom is offering our listeners $100 off your first six session program when you sign up at mindbloom.com slash 83 weeks and use the promo code 83 weeks. So take the first step and break free from your anxiety and depression with mind bloom. That's mindbloom.com slash 83 weeks and be sure to use the promo code 83 weeks. Eric, let's get back to the program. I'm at 141.51. That's 141.51. Here we go. And three, two, one play. What's up, Baltimore? That's the Stacey Keebler. Oh, wow. How cool is that? In the crowd holding up a sign. What's up Baltimore? She had on a Nitro shirt. And she's here in Philadelphia. As the story goes, she had a boyfriend who was a big wrestling fan. I say,

eh, awfully attractive girl will be at a wrestling show with no boyfriend standing that's very visible. I think she's a plant. I mean, first of all, not only she has an attractive girl who we know is going to be a part of the roster, but we also know she's wearing a Nitro t-shirt. You know what, and she may have been. I'm not denying that it could have been. I don't know that it was for sure. She was for sure. But it wasn't like, okay, we got this Stacey Cleaver. We got to gradually involve her in WCW because we see a role for her. it wasn't that right you know we did bring certain people and although if we're going to bring her into as a plant why would we have stuck her up so high yeah i mean somebody in as a plant especially somebody as hot as stacey kebler sorry stacey didn't be respectful man she's gonna be right

you're gonna see her on a hard camera shot uh i don't know six seven 800 times during the course of three hours and by the way i'm pretty sure you're allowed to call anybody hot and it not be disrespectful yeah but in today's environment political correct is the cancer culture it's you know I don't want to be a massaginist or any of that other is shit. You know, I got to be careful. No, Eric,

fuck that. Send me your hate tweets. Hey, Hey, it's Conrad. Stacey Keebler was hot and I fucking hate my brother and all. Continue.

I think we covered it. Yeah, we did. Listen, you're about to see the best match on the show. If you're going to watch one match on this night show, if you haven't been doing a watch along, go watch this one.

You're going to see Booker T coming into his own. He's raising the roof here. The fans are with him. He's tagging. against Dean Malinko and their opponents. So let's track it here. I like him. I know you do.

You know, I told all of you adoring Jerichoolics last week that I want to change the name of this program from WSW Monday Nitro to WCW Monday Jericho. And tonight, my first guest on WCW Monday Nitro is the incredible. the incomparable, steady, Eddie Godrello! And when you're finished watching us, you ain't never, ever going to want to see anybody else again.

Thank you. Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho, what a great tag team in an alternate universe. We would have got behind them and made these guys tag champs because I can only imagine the entertaining bits and skits that would have come out of it. guerrero we saw a little bit of his acting chops here but he really came into his own in the w w f and we saw chris jericho become a star here in wc wc and in 1998 i mean he starts to turn the volume up in 1997 but by 1998 with his whole jericho hallex and monday night jericho and

ron mysterio junior and you know the man of a thousand one holds arm bar this is just great stuff and these guys look at the heat look at the reaction eddie's getting these guys as a tag team could have been fantastic it is such a great reaction by the way i wanted to give a shout out to bobby at keel fox trout five golf tango x-ray x-ray thanks for joining us another member of the ad free show's family here on 83 weeks joining us live and this is phenomenal look at the i mean you look at the talent in that ring and and this is a fun part about doing this show with you all the time is when we get a chance to go back and we see some of the great matchups in this case, this tag match. Look how far are these guys all went in this industry. And Chris Jericho to

this day, he's a rock star in real life and in the ring. And I just love it. Dean Malenko will never be able to say enough good things about Dean Malenko, Bookerty, don't have to say too much about Bookerty. He says it all himself. And he's such a phenomenal character and Eddie Guerrero. All you need to say about Eddie Groreau is Eddie Guerrero yeah great stuff here go out of your way to watch this one really really good stuff unfortunately way too short four minutes and 46 seconds uh Meltzer would say I'm really glad WCW doesn't believe in tag teams anymore because if they did Guerrero and Jericho would be the best team in this country by leaps and bounds Jericho is basically doing the love machine stuff and nobody knows how to work with that

as a heel better than Eddie Guerrero. Seriously, great stuff here. We think a lot of everyone involved. Go check it out. I do want to ask about something that happened this past weekend. I know we usually talk about current stuff at the top of the program, but we saw A&E bring back their legends and rivalries and all these different Sunday night programming. I always tune them in.

I love them. can't get enough of them. Last week, we were treated to Hulk Hogan and Andre the giant, but that rivalry episode followed the story of the NWO. And you heard from a bunch of different talking heads. You heard from Kevin Nash and you heard from Hulk Hogan, and we heard from you and a handful of others. What did you think of the job they did?

And, oh, shout out to REC Tech. They got some screen time. That was cool. I hadn't been to your place yet. it was awesome to see your place every time you post a picture or i see video from there i always tell megan this dude lives in a postcard i mean the most beautiful part of the planet maybe i mean my goodness but um the content of the n w o episode for may what did you think i was so i was so grateful for it because i think the producers did a phenomenal job

of capturing the story and I there's nothing I can't see anything other than thank you that's how I feel about it just thank you to A&E and everybody involved in it um Kevin moved me you know Kevin Nash he was himself was real he was authentic I, man, I don't know what else to say. I learned a few things, you know, I learned that it was basically Paul Kogan's idea to go head to head with WWE, which, you know, that was a surprise, but I get it. Look, you know, and I say that kind of half jokeling, but actually not,

because I think I texted you. Yeah. And he said it, it was like, really? That's an interesting thing. But, look, even in that show. when i at the very end of the show when i talked about amanda young lady who i met yeah at a convention and you know the a and he producers found that footage which i didn't even know existed by the way that's what a great job they did on the details that made that story come

to life as much as it did but even in my interview at the very end when i when i told that story about amanda and when she explained to me about her situation with her father And I said it on 80, and I'm so disappointed to myself for saying it. But I described the tough life that Amanda had and the time that she got to spend with her father. And I said, when I was describing how tough her life was, I said, and her father was an alcoholic. That's not true. I didn't say that because I didn't say that for any reason other than I thought that's what she had told me. And I feel so horrible about that, that it just makes me realize that, look, people say things

sometimes maliciously, sometimes because they have an agenda, sometimes because they just need to feel better about themselves, and sometimes they say things that may or may not be true, but sometimes people just make mistakes, as I did, because there was no benefit in me in throwing that little nugget of misinformation into that interview right there was no agenda there's no benefit to it the story was compelling is compelling enough on its own i didn't have to color it up any to make it more compelling but i made a mistake and sometimes i hear things in these interviews that i don't quite remember it that way or in some cases i know that it just didn't happen but i don't get upset about it because i i understand it hell i'm i was guilty of it myself

So I know I've done a couple interviews with people now that caught some of those same things that, you know, Hulk said that, you know, threw a flag on it because they're so used to doing that. And I said, look, man, it's, it's all good. It's all good. I am so grateful that I got to sit in my chair 28 years or whatever it's been after all that stuff went down and see such a phenomenal story taking place that I got to be a part of that none of the rest of the stuff matters to me really doesn't you're an evolved human being kind sir i i uh i appreciate you being honest about you sort of conflating two different stories there about the um the alcohol circumstance but i'll tell you i uh i was upset at it felt like to me

your pal, Hulk Hogan, threw you under the bus. I didn't think that was cool. But, you know, he's your friend. So it's your call. Let's listen to Scott Steiner here. Because not only did you get to see me wrestle, but tonight you get to see my brother get inducted into the NWO. You think?

Because my brother finally realized that when I joined the NWO, it was the right decision for both of us. And tonight, the NW. Get stronger. Yes. Come on down, Rick. They're making the call, just like we said. So as a reminder, on Thunder, the Thunder. that was prior to this show, of course, the previous Thursday.

Scott Steiner took over an announcer desk position, put the headsets on, and said, Rick, I know you're at home. I know you're watching the show. I want to let you know, I've chartered a jet, and as soon as I land home tonight, before I go home, I'm coming to your house, and we're going to talk. And you've got until tonight to make your decision to join the NWO. This is what the future arresting.

This is what we should be doing. and I've got you a spot so you're going to make your decision and I'll see you on nitro and here we are we'll see what his decision is as we see Rick Steiner coming into the ring with Ted DiBiase oh here we oh no oh no I can't believe this blood is thicker than water you're exactly right they have a tag team You know, you can buy these NWO shirts up at the merchandise pit. But ladies and gentlemen, when you get it from one of the, one of the NWO guys themselves, I can't believe this.

You become family. That's what it is. What an unbelievable honor it is tonight for me to induct Rick Steiner into the NWO. It's a horrible moment for all of us, guys. Yeah, oh, this, you know? Oh, no, he's WCW. You're not, can hit your brother in the mouth.

He's WCW for a lie. Yeah, but he's out. How great was Tony Chivani? Hit your brother in the mouth. No, and Scott's cider, too. Did you see when Rick would have for him in the corner? He was like, yeah, don't beat me up. He was like he was six years old again.

So good. So good. this is uh this is a fun show man it really is i had no idea what to expect all you know truth be told um i didn't really prep for this show the way i thought i would or could usually when i'm doing a watch long and so this is like whoa what this is like christmas morning for me brother don't forget he has a teased to the power bomb and doesn't do it j j dillon was there ready to make sure that he gets arrested now he's going to tease it again but there's a big surprise in store oh back potty drop Steiner's out of it and now they're back

on him gang warfare something this was so much fun to watch and look at that crowd look at the crowd you guys you hear me say this all the time the crowd is the one who's look at this they're all powdering and here's why could this be that I don't it's the giant seven feet four five hundred pounds back neck or not Look, an eye to eye, with Kevin Mass. How about it now, big sexy? The man that tried to break his neck. Hey, man who against doctor's orders will return to the ring

and uncensored against Kevin Mad. He's going to power forward. Do it, do it. He's going to pop, put him up. Whoa. Who. Dusty Roe. Dusty.

is in the ring facing off a big show I've got goosebumps every fan is on the this is awesome awesome he should not be in that ring there's 50,000 dollars I know that anybody in WCW wrestler any wrestler will pay for that pick him up and do it again Trevor they'll pass the hat what a cool moment of course as a reminder it sold out it was the battle of the giants when kevin nash lost control of the big show and accidentally dropped him on his head they've been uh furthering the storyline that as a result of that the power bomb is banned it's illegal and it's a fifty thousand dollar fine and you could be arrested and of course uh we just saw the triumphant return of the giant with one hell of a power bomb on kevin nash and

Hey, Conrad, not to interrupt you, but before we move on to the next thing, wouldn't it have been cool if J.J. Dillon would have been standing out there with the cops? Oh, maybe we're, they are doing it. There we go. Except for the damn, with the handcuffs on them. Which makes it even better. Duck tape. But they should have arrested him, and he should have gone out willingly because it was worth it.

Yes. What a fun segment. What a fun. moment on Nitro, sort of a forgotten moment. And next up, we got Brett Hart wrestling on TV. It's the first time this has happened here in WCW. And there's his opponent, the most recent defection from the WWF, Brian Adams, Brett Hart and Undertaker's pal.

They're going to go four and a half minutes. Of course, the real storyline is we're trying to get Brett and the former Mr. Perfect back together again. Listen, this is, uh, we talked about. Sting's misstep that maybe we shouldn't have had him cutting a promo i get it uh now we got breadhart's first match on nitro and it's against brian adams and i know you don't love talking about brethart's wcw run but i think even you have to admit in hindsight probably should have promoted breadhart wrestling on nitro a little more and maybe it gets to different opponent maybe a

better match there's no doubt about that there's no defense there's no i can't even usually when i see stuff that i know sucked at least i know there was a good reason behind it right and even even though the idea ultimately wasn't a good idea the intention behind it was i got nothing i just got nothing i mean this was not this was not this was not Look, I think a lot of Brett's issues are Brett's issues. There was, I could, I could go back and talk about, you know, Brent and WCW and what, from my perspective, didn't happen that I was hoping would.

Not necessarily creatively. But Brett's got a legitimate bitch when it comes to this type of thing. Yeah. Just like Sting, this was not well thought out. This was not the best use of an asset, an important asset it was a mistake and it's just nothing i mean i wish i could i wish i could add more to that but i can't just even seeing bret in this gear with that ring apron with those mats around the ring all the nitro stuff from the heyday of nitro just feels weird it feels

disconnected yeah it's like me trying to write with my left hand yeah i mean okay i might could do it but it's it's going to feel uncomfortable i i would have loved to have seen you know if we had to do over again it's probably a million different fun creative interesting angles or ways to introduce bret i loved what you did with flare i mean to start that was cool but at this point with the flare thing maybe in the rear rear rear rear mirror and he's got a mutual hatred of kirk henning maybe his first match could have been imagine if that was the match here tonight your co-main event was rick flare versus brett heart and then then, you know, maybe Rick Rood and Mr. Perfect get involved there.

And I don't know, but you could have done something like that. No, and that would have been an ideal, ideal situation. And again, this is by no means of defense. Yeah. But I think if there was a reason, even though it was a bad reason, if there was a reason why it didn't happen, it was no, let's hold it off. Let's build towards it. But that should have been done sooner. It could have been done here.

It could have even been done at a later date, but it wasn't. And I think the mistake, one of the mistakes I made, because I knew why I wanted Brett in WCW, and I knew how I wanted to use Brett in WCW. That became diluted and confused eventually, but could have done a much, much better job. And to that extent, you know, I think Brett's got some got some culpability in it as well but 90% of it was on me and the team and it gives I don't blame Brett

for being angry or disappointed well I think he's I think he's wearing it out a little bit and he's letting it get to him a little more than he should I think at some point in time you've got to let go of the things that didn't go well and focus on the things that did and enjoy the rest of your life and the career that you had because it was an amazing career and whether he's focusing on Goldberg or me, how he was misused, you know, there's a certain point where you've got

to kind of look in a mirror too because we've all contributed to our success and we've all had some hand in our own failures, sometimes more than others. But not to imply that Brett did, by the way, that would probably be more in my case. But I don't know what else to say, brother. Hey, let me just mention this.

I know you were just sort of half-ass kidding there, but you know him, uh, digging at Goldberg is just a rib. He's fucking around being funny, right? I hope so. Yeah, yeah, he is.

I mean, I'm not like, I actually I feel much better because I saw something the other day. I'm going, man, let this shit go. Oh, no, he's doing it on per.

It's like a call. It's a comedy callback. You know, so he, you know, there's even like, it's become a meme now where, you know,

Rihanna did a, because Goldberg came. out and was critical of right right and so it's a brett hard had a comment and again this might just be a meme but this is the comical level it's gone to riana did a great job and i'm sure she didn't hurt anybody unlike bill goldberg i mean it's just funny like he's not he doesn't really care he's i mean sure i'm glad i'm sure he wishes it didn't happen but still he's just he's doing a bit now it's just funny ha ha so do you know if goldberg is in on this joke is he No, Goldberg is a humorless piece of shit.

I don't see, I don't see Goldberg going, okay, I get the joke. No, no, no, no. He doesn't get it. Goldberg takes himself way too seriously, as you know. We got a bunch of questions on Twitter. Let's hit a few here. Notorious Bone. So, no, is there any way Bischoff still has access to the other designs MGM came up with for the NWO logo?

I'd love to see them out of curiosity. No, I don't. I don't. However, this is really interesting. The, I wish I could remember his name. I'm sorry, I don't. It's not because of you, it's because of me. But there was the guy that was kind of,

he was being interviewed about the NWO and kind of tying it all together. He's a writer, I think, for ESPN. Yes. His name just escapes me at this point. But it was funny because about two weeks earlier, he reached out to me and said, hey, I'm working on this book, and I'd really like to find the person who is working at Disney MGM Studios and actually created the NWO logo.

And I said, brother, good freaking luck. You know, I gave him Neil Pruitt's number and Kepa Rogers number, Greg Leather's number, or at least said reach out to those guys because maybe they can possibly help you. But I thought, man, that's a needle in the freaking haystack. Needle in the haystack. and I had no interest in even trying to find that needle or get near the hay. So I passed, you know, said, if there's anything else I can do for you, let me know. But not that.

He reached out to me five or six days ago and said, guess what? I found her. So in the book that he's writing about the NWO, he actually found the lady that designed that logo, and we're going to hear from her in that book. And I can't wait. I can't wait. We're going to get her on the show. I don't want to scoop the book.

That would be unfair because he's the one that did the work. But once that book comes out, we're going to get her on the show and we're going to hear about that process. Isn't that cool? A Disney group founder on February 8th and our mutual friend Logan in Nashville sent us, sent me your contact info. She's a real estate agent and she'll be on ad free shows. I didn't know any of this.

I texted it to you on February 8th, but you get a lot of texts from me. I am so sorry. No, all good. But listen, I'm pumped with founder. I think it's cool. It's cool to know that the design. Yeah, but you found her and Logan found her. Logan Secula is an awesome dude and a great supporter and fan of everything that we do.

But I didn't know that. It makes it even cooler now. She's going to be on ad-free shows. Evan's been in touch with her and we're going to talk about the design and how it all came to be. I need to be. I just want to be, I want to be a part of that. I mean, I'm doing that. You're doing that.

I want to talk to that lady. You never know what we're going to have up our sleeves. You're amazing. You just keep pulling these rabbits out of your hat. You've got, you've got more rabbits and more hats than anybody I know. We should let everybody know that this is the night after ECW had a pay-per-view. And you're in Philadelphia.

So I don't know if that's fun. scheduling or what, but there's some commentary about that. Here's another question. John Edwards on Twitter wants to know, is there ever any thought given to having Bobby Heenan serve as the NWO sympathizer announcer? No. That's an interesting question because once upon a time,

he always sided with the heels. Was there ever a consideration for that? No, Bobby never gave any indication that he wanted to be involved in anything more than what he was contractually obligated to do. And I don't want to, I don't want that to come off as a negative. But I think Bobby was at a point in his life. First of all, he's really worried about his neck.

And so getting in and out of the ring or getting in proximity to any kind of action, any of that, he wasn't interested in. And I, as an announcer, strictly as an announcer, a color commentary guy, he, I just never got the impression. and I could be dead wrong about this because I was just I'm dealing with what I remember my gut told me at the time I don't think he was a real fan of the NWO the idea of the NWO. I'm not talking about the characters.

The idea of it was asymmetrical to the way in the ring cheering on. I mean, you're in the mix here. Yeah. Probably a little too much. Do you think um you know we talked earlier about how i know the dirt sheet perception of me was that i was cocky

do you think that perception would have existed the way it did had you not become an on-screen character do you think the narrative because like i've talked to mcfoli before and he says sometimes he'd be at charity events and out you know doing you know public events and things like that and he would meet people smart well adjusted adult humans who would just say you got to do something about Hunter and Stephanie. They're ruining WWE. And this is at a time when they were the on-screen authority. And it's like they weren't

able to separate the real life Paul and Stephanie from the characters they played. And since you were this smarmy arrogant prick on TV and I'm not saying you didn't have prick like tendencies in real life. Nobody would have even known those had you not been on TV.

Right. So like I wondered does this narrative of and the perception of Eric Bischoff allowed to blossom in a bad light because you played a bad guy on TV like if you were just behind the scenes the whole time like a Jim Crockett Jr. or whatever you think that would have existed the way it does no and actually you know we the A&E special you know touched on that and I told the story about firing Randy Anderson and you know yes calling and me getting you know a called up to Harvey Schiller's office because the HR department thought it was all real life and thought I'd lost my freaking mind. It comes to the territory and it is unique in wrestling, right? Just like it was

for Big Foley and Paul and Stephanie in that situation, wrestling is unique in that respect that the audience tends to not separate the character from the person. I certainly fit into that, but I guess the reason I didn't think about it too much and I wasn't worried about it, it just isn't And it didn't enter my mind at the time. It's because I wouldn't have cared anyway. The truth is, you know, I've heard Rick Flair refer to it in different interviews, depending on how much he hates me in any given moment. I had as much heat or more than anybody in the ring in the business at that time.

I had a ton of heat. That heat is a valuable commodity. And if I was faced with the choice, if somebody's smarter than me, wiser than me, more experienced than me would have come up to me at the time and said look eric you've got two choices you can either bring that heat to the ring and bring it to life as a character but in doing so you're going to get painted as an asshole and in a smarmy slimy less than honorable person as your choice i would have gone with the heat because it worked i'm i'm not going to go through the litany of things that i did carrying that heat that really

benefited some of the baby faces, including Sting, by the way, because I had so much heat, it was easy. And this thing didn't need me to help him get over. I don't want to imply that. But there were certain people that did get over because they bounced me all over an arena or kicked my ass in one way, shape, or form. Yeah, it happened. And I don't regret one moment of it.

do you regret as we're watching the main event now do you regret having sting and savage walk out together with miss elizabeth like the whole promo the segment we saw earlier is hey these guys might be tag team partners but they're not friends they're both going to say they're going to do it their own way blah blah blah and then they walk out there almost in lock step it's like wait shouldn't we have separate entrances this is not only that yes i absolutely agree with you 100 percent it was another fatal in the way that this was presented. But the last thing we heard Sting say is we're going to, because you heard Randy Savage at the beginning of the show. He's going to do it in my way. My way, brother. Yeah. And it's staying countered that.

My way. And then he walks out like they just went to a barbecue together. Yes. Like what happened? Bluh. In my head, again, you know, it's easy to look back in hindsight. You got the world champion on your program here, at no point do we see him wear the world title carry the world title and i he's talking here

and just walking out with a member of the n w o in my head shouldn't we have had him repel from the ceiling wearing the belt and his own separate entrance and coming in last like if we position him as a big deal he's a big deal and he's this mysterious and let's play let's play fantasy booker here for just a second what if to your point now taking your comment just now holding upon it. What if, because of the way that interview was conducted, first of all, shouldn't have been an interview, got that, but let's move on. Sting said, no, we're going to do it my way.

Okay, you've got dissension, which is the reason we put it together in the first place is to tease the fact that something may go wrong here. Is Randy going to turn on Sting? Because now they're forced to, or they've chosen to work together, whatever. But wouldn't it have been cool after creating this animosity, not animosity, this tension between the two of them vis-a-vis these interviews that had been done you're going to do it my way brother no we're going to do it my way right randy comes out gets his entrance to your point we're sting no sting no sting where sting we're sting boom out of the ceiling yes confrontation sting savage right oh my gosh maybe this was a setup all along they turn and take on the competition home run Home run. Bingo. That's not hard. I love that. That's not hard. It's simple. We just did it. Didn't you give it any thought. Just did it.

Top of our heads, right? Yes, yes. Discipline, commitment. Stick to the things that work. And we didn't do that. That's, that was the mistake here. As great as this show is, it could have been better. Huge flaw. Not only would the show have been better? Yes. But what happened downstream as a result. of taking the steam off Sting's character. Which is what we did. We let the steam off. Speaking of discipline, my man, Moondoggy 187 on Twitter says, The A story for WCW, which was the NWO,

was threaded through this show six times. Whereas our most recent Raw on February 20th, the A story, which is the bloodline, was given two segments. They're both three-hour shows. Is this an example of what wrestling is lacking nowadays, to keep fans interested, and should the show's formats change? This show formats, look, I am not going to even begin to criticize the Bloodline storyline.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, from a disciplined structure perspective, layers, the pace and the progression of the story, the evolution of the characters in it. It is second to nothing in the history of the wrestling business. It is second to nothing, including the NWO, right? So to be critical of what they've done would be a mistake. Look at this. Look at beefcake right here. He's supposed to be giving a stone cold stunner.

It looks more like a diamond cutter, but he sits on his ass. I point this out because it makes the newsletters that you guys went to disco inferno and told him, no more blockbusters. Those are now Ed Leslie's. I just can't believe. I mean, what the fuck were we doing carrying water for Ed Leslie here? Well, that should be obvious. Let's move on.

Here's another question. This is a good one. Adam Arpin wants to know. What would you have done with Tyson? Has you gotten him to WCW instead of the WWF? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I'd have to think about that a lot.

That's fantasy booking in hindsight. What a great opportunity it would have been. I don't know what I would have done with it. I would have, my instinct would to be, would have been to have gotten him as involved as possible. I don't know what he would have been willing to do in the ring, how much physicality he would have been interested in getting involved in. I just don't know.

If I would have erred, I would have erred on the side of too much involvement. I think what WWE did was absolutely perfect. they absolutely maximize that opportunity. I don't think it could have been done any better, but I'm not sure what I would have done. But if I would have erred, it would have been overexposing him. Well, I'll tell you what,

we're never going to overexpose ourselves on this show. As Nitro is coming to a close, we're going to wrap it up too. We'll be back next week talking about the dog face gremlin. We'll talk about as part of the Steiner's coming in and out of WCW, breaking up the Steiner. shooting Bagwell, Chucky, and so much more.

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is a part of ad-free shows. He's jumping on and answering your questions on Monday Mailbag with Nick Patrick exclusively at ad-free shows.com. Tons of really cool bonus watchalongs just posted to. You get to watch Flair and Steamboat for the Shy Town Rumble with Jim Ross. How do you beat that. You can even watch Kurt Angle, watch back his match with Cody Rhodes when Cody first left at the WWE. All of this is exclusive to ad-free shows.com. I want to mention, too, if your business targets men that are 25 to 54 years old, buddy, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 weeks. You've probably heard us do the same

ads for the same sponsors for years. Why is that? Because it really works. With our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. go to advertise with eric.com right now and find out more about advertising with 83 weeks and the easiest cheapest, fastest way to support the show is to follow us on YouTube. It's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. And we're about to close the show, but we're going to take even more bonus questions. We're going into overtime.

We're calling it overdrive. So if you can't get more of us talking about this era of WCW, when you finish this podcast, cruise on over to YouTube. We got a little bonus extra content for you there from this same taping. And we've also got some great new merch and swag over at Box of Gimmicks.com, including the now infamous Mucker Father hoodie, which is perfect this time of year. If he'd like to interact with Eric online, that's easy.

He's at E. Bischoff on Twitter. Our show handles are at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And man, I don't know what I expected today, but I had a blast. I can't thank you enough for all the time. and can't wait to talk about Rick Steiner next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.