83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - BONUS Episode: Bischoff Reviews AEW Collision

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

On this BONUS episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss the debut episode of AEW Collision. Eric uses his experiences in the television industry to draw from when giving his take on the show. What worked? What could be tweaked? What was Eric's takeaway? The guys cover it all segment by segment and you might be surprised at what you hear. 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 On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com. If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Double J.F. Jared. Here to tell you a little bit about the nonstop savings happening over here at savewithconrad.com. Are high credit card balances holding you down on the card? If you're looking to give a guitar shot your credit card debt or give your home the push it deserves with some upgrades and remodeling, you need to go to savewithconrad.com. That's right, savewithconrad.com. Conrad and his team are routinely helping my world listeners save $5, 6, 7, even $800 a month. Oh, did I mention you get to skip your next two house payments?

Take a cue from the last outlaw, because if anybody knows how to get the bag, it's me. Stret on over to savewithconrad.com today and see how much money you can save for free. That's right, it's save with conrad.com. NMLS number 65084 Equal Healthy Lenders. Woo! Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening. to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man?

How are you? I'm doing great, Conrad. And as I told you briefly, before we hit record, yesterday we recorded this week's, 83 weeks, which dropped at 6 o'clock this morning, approximately. And yesterday, while we were recording, you know, at the end of the show, you said, okay, let's talk about collision. Yeah. And I explained to you that we had family and friends over.

and we're hanging out and just the night got past me. Sure. And at the time I was able to sit down in front of the television, the show was almost over. And I really didn't want to waste the effort or time. But I felt so badly yesterday when we were, after we were done recording, I said, man, I owe it, first of all, to Conrad, because you were clearly disappointed that I didn't watch it. So we couldn't talk about it. And I think to our listeners, those people that follow us and subscribe to us and with this from day one, over the last five years.

Yeah, I owe them a little bit more, too. So I got up really early this morning, was able to find the replay on Sling, my new favorite app, since I pulled a plug on DirecTV. And I sat down and watched it and made some notes, and I've got a lot to say. And I know there's people out there that when I'm critical,

he's always got an extra grab. He's just mad Tony didn't hire him, which is true. I just give me my honest opinion, based on 30 plus years of experience and having accomplished a thing or two while I was in the industry. So whether you love these notes in this perspective or whether you hate them, this is non-emotional. This is not a dog in a hud, an ax you grind, jealousy, envy, any of this shit that I normally

read on this cesspool that we call social media when it comes to some people's reaction to what I have to say. So let's let it roll. and if you can kind of i don't know if you have the format or you remember the show well out no i've got it's a segment yeah we'll absolutely do that i want to remind everybody too the reason i was so interested in getting eric's take is because eric has actually worked inside of this organization i mean he was a turner employee and he's uniquely qualified to comment on these subjects and as luck would have it i don't know uh six seven weeks ago whatever it was i jokingly

said, hey, you want to bet? And we of course were betting about whether or not seeing punk would show up at double or nothing or the AEW collision debut, which of course was in Chicago. But at the time, there was speculation. Will it be in Chicago? Will it be at Daley's place? Is punk coming back? Is he not? So we did maybe what they used to do in wrestling in yesterday. We made a hair match. And the bet was if punk showed up, Eric was going to get his head shaved and if punk did not show up well i would now of course we know that see and punk showed and as a result i have forfeited my shaving rights for a great cause cut erics hair dot com we are still taking donations the idea is this we want to make our wrestling chatter and the discourse

and tribalism and negativity that exists in the wrestling space and turn it around into a positive thing. So we're donating 100% of the proceeds for this little initiative to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. It all happens at cuterick's hair.com. Now let me explain. What you'll do is you'll go to cut ericshair.com. You'll make a donation to St. Jude's. We want you to take a screenshot of your success page showing that you have successfully made a donation. It'll even show the amount there. then post it to social media using the hashtag cut eric's hair and eric we threw this out there and said the person who donates the most can come to huntsville this weekend for our patreon get together top guy weekend we like to call it over at adfreeshoes.com and that person gets to

cut your hair and to my surprise eric we had a very generous donor not going to share their name, but they're going to donate $10,000 to St. Jude's. They've already done it for the right to shave your head. So I know that there is going to be a bunch of folks on the internet who have their opinion about Eric sharing his opinion about this show. However, we raised $10,000 to cut his head. So it's for a good cause. You can still get in on the action. I think we've decided we're going to make it a joint effort. By the way, it all goes to St. Jude's. None of this money comes to Eric. It doesn't come to me.

It doesn't come to our Patreon. You're donating directly to St. Jude. So it's a great tax write-off. We're helping some great folks out, some families who really need our help and some wonderful children. And, of course, we're having some fun at Eric's goofy appearance that will reemerge. I mean, Eric, you've done this in WCW. You've done this in WWV.

You've done this in impact. And now, not just a wrestling storyline, not just a character, a fan can shave your head. So I think, Eric, you're such a giving kind soul. you've agreed to let not one but two folks. So you don't have to beat $10,000 in order to be the person who helped shave some of Eric's hair. The next highest donor, we're going to do it as well.

Look at you, Eric, turning a negative into a positive here. Well, it's going to be really fun. And like you, I'm not going to mention the donor's name. I will let everybody know that the donor is a member of ad free show's family.

And we'll announce his name if and when he feels comfortable. in us doing so. I've tried to make contact with him. I have not yet heard back from him, but once we do, we'll talk about this a little bit more. But the idea that we came up with yesterday is, you know, look, it's obvious. It's going to be real hard for somebody to come up and beat a $10,000 donation. But I might add the reason this individual, and this way I'm so anxious to tell his story, yes, is an ad-free shows member. But there's a very, very, very special reason the most the most special reason why this individual was so generous and and when we get permission we'll discuss that but i we were talking about this yesterday and we said hey what if

the best conversations always start out with yes hey what if yes and in that hey what if you know conversation we had it's like what if the winner shaves one half of my head completely And then at some point, the runner-up also gets to come up and shave the other half. I love it. Now, not only do two people get to join the party. And the most important thing, by the way, is that we continue to raise money for St. Jude. Yes. So you may not want to cough up $10,001, but you know what?

You can still jump in the pile. And there's still a chance you can be the co-cutter, if you will. And I think it's, it's a great cause. I couldn't be happier to be able to participate in this. It's really freaking awesome. Yeah, we really, really appreciate, uh, you guys turning up and showing out for St. Jude's, you know, off and on, Eric and I have done stuff with St. Jude's for a long, long time.

Our mortgage company did a, a big initiative last year. We donated over a million dollars to St. Jude's, uh, and, and even back when I was in middle school, man, we were raising money for St. judes it's something that might me and my family really believe in it probably hits home for a lot of folks so i just want everybody to understand yes we're having some silly wrestling talk today and and we're going to have some fun and and maybe we'll disagree but it all is for a great cause and by the way even if you don't think you're going to be the high bidder wouldn't it make you feel

good to see a picture of a bald eric and help some children out go make a donation five bucks 50 bucks 100 bucks whatever let's get that hashtag going it's hashtag cut eric's and be sure to make that donation at cut erics hair.com that's just a domain we bought to forward to st jude's it all goes directly to st jude's cut ericshair dot com so listen man let's talk about it you finally sat down and you watched collision uh i think i've shared this before on the show um you know i know that i'm going to be criticized a little bit for this but as a rule of thumb i don't sit down and watch live wrestling all the way through every week what i try to do as i try to DVR everything and while that same day I will go in near the end of the show and I'll watch

the parts of the show I enjoy and I'll fast forward the parts I don't care for it and certainly fast forward as many commercials as I can just as a lot of you do on our podcast I'm sure but that's the way I consumed my wrestling but collision felt different I was excited to see what this was going to look like it is a new show it felt more historic than just another raw just another smackdown just another dynamite this is the first one and you don't get a second chance to make a first impression i was lucky enough to be at the first dynamite i was not able to be at the first collision but i didn't want to miss it live so i watched it live with commercials which is something i haven't done in a long long time start to finish and i'm excited to break it down with you

before we talk about the actual contents of the show what did you think of the use of the use of of the Elton John song. I mean, that, I mean, Tony Con, if nothing else, I have to give him credit for going out and licensing some music. The only other guy I remember doing that in wrestling was you. The Jimmy Hendrix version of Hulk Hogan's theme song was fantastic. And I know that people would criticize it, but I think it adds a lot to the program. And of course, I loved ECW, but we all know in hindsight, Paul was probably not licensing

all of that stuff. What did you think of the use of Elton John there? no i i absolutely loved it i mean that at one point you know when did that song come out sometime in the 70s right it's early 70s probably uh i love that song i used to uh that was my pregame music as i was in my dormant st cloud state university getting ready to go out and hit the press bar in the red carpet in downtown st cloud and get nickel beers all night long with my buddies so i i love the music. It has a great energy. It's appropriate, right? It's almost like the song was written for the show. So I love the use of it. My only, and this is a note. Now, throughout this,

I'm going to do this a little differently than you and I normally do. Usually, when you're asking me questions about an episode or a match or whatever, it's a kind of a general opinion, right? And I'm not going to go so deep into the weeds that we're going to be here until next week's collision, but I want to do kind of break down each one of the segments. And I give them my version of a rating based on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of its effectiveness in the overall scheme of things, not so much on the individual quality of that segment, if that makes sense. Because a show is nothing, a great television show or bad one, is nothing but the sum of a lot of little details. And even if a segment is short and

It doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with the show, but adds to the overall vibe, the flow, and the energy of the show. I'm going to give it the same one out of ten ready that I would give a 20-minute main event match. Right. Okay. So I want to make that really clear. And these are still my subjective opinions, but what you're going to hear on this episode is more of a production note, story note, approach to it. In other words, whenever in the past, Jason Hervey and I were producing show, creating, and then producing shows and delivering them to the network, we would submit outlines and formats and things like that and production notes. We'd submit that to the network.

And then they would, they in turn had a room full of people who justified their existence by making little notes and sending that back to us as their response to our presentation and we had to incorporate those notes. So I'm not going to go to that extent because it's just fucking mind-numbing sometimes. But I do want to break this down as it relates to the overall product and how I felt at the end of it, as opposed to on every little segment. So keep that in mind. It's a little different way of hearing an opinion, but here we go. I wanted to ask you about it. Aside from music, fantastic energy.

Can't say enough. and we'll talk more about the overall production value of the show. Can't say enough about the way it was presented. It just set me up and made me ready to watch a bar fight. Right. And that's kind of what you want to feel like, right? You want to feel like you're pulling up to the bar and in a very civilized environment are able to watch people in a socially acceptable manner,

questionable on that, but socially acceptable manner, just whip the hell out of each other. That's what you came here for, and that's what that opened set you up for. So I thought it was great. Now, here's my note. I think in the montage of shots, and all of them were great, there wasn't a bad one in a bunch. It's not a critique. It's an idea.

Going forward, in an opening like that, especially one where you're setting the tone, raising the expectation while trying to create anticipation, I think if there would have been more shots that would have been dramatic and emotive, cheering, sadness, defeat, pain, anger, all of those emotions that make wrestling work from a visual. If there would have been a little bit more, emphasis a little bit. Know what I said? A little bit more emphasis on those type of motive shots within the montage as opposed to the dramatic action, excuse me, the action shots.

They were great. A little more balance would have, would have made this almost unbeatable. As such, I gave it a 7.5 out of 10. I really enjoyed the open and I thought it looked great. And I can't pretend to sit here and know who deserves credit for all that. I know that Mike Mansori, who you and I both think a lot of has come on board. I know Kevin Sullivan is doing a lot of hard work in Nashville. I'd love to give shoutouts to everybody else.

I know Matt Chivani is on the crew, but I thought it looked fantastic. I love the video of the open. I love the theme. I even like the way the building was lit. Man, that thing was lit up like a Christmas tree. It looked and felt big time.

I don't know another way to describe it, but I felt like the open, the pyro, the lighting, just the stage. the presentation, it felt significant. It didn't feel less than. What did you think? I felt it was different than.

And as a result, it's better than. That's an open. And look, it was 6 o'clock in the morning when I watched this. This is not me with a pot of coffee and me and just kind of getting over-excited and perhaps being overly enthusiastic about something, I was still, you know, wiping asleep out of my eyes and trying to find my coffee cup. So, you know, I thought it was great.

It, it woke me the hell up. I, I dig it. I thought it was cool. And of course, that crowd was red hot. And I think sometimes the crowd can almost make or break a show. And if you put, like I've encouraged people who really love Hulk

Kogan and the Rock at WrestleMania 18. And I have some friends in wrestling who contend that that is the best wrestling match of all time. I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but I would say it is a totally different experience with the sound off. The crowd makes that match what it is. The emotion, the hairs on your arm stand up based on the fans and the guys in the ring are feeding off of those fans.

This was a hot crowd. And there's been a lot said about AEW in Chicago. I know certainly it's sort of their their home away from home. I guess they're based out of Jacksonville. But that does feel like their hub, Chicago. And there's been a lot of plundance who would say that they've ran it too much. And maybe that's the reason this didn't sell out immediately like the punk debut did, et cetera, et cetera.

Boy, they were ready that night. When all the pyro's over and you can just see and hear that crowd, Eric, they were ready for this show. They were fired up. They were. And again, some of this I want to save to the end because it's more or less a summary and kind of a what do they do now? Right.

Looking forward, kind of an opinion. But again, I want to save a lot of that to the end because it'll make more sense once this is over. But yes, there is absolutely no question that that crowd was on fire. They were there because of pomp. punk make no question you know i've been very critical and will continue to be when i when i feel as appropriate of what i've seen out of punk since he arrived in a e w and some of the things he said that's much in the ring although some of that but out of the ring but that's not what

we're here to talk about um they were here for punk they were ready for a fight and i mean in the overall context of the way the show was presented in the theme music in the open and everything else. A lot of anticipation, story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action. Going into this, there were a lot of those elements that were already in place because some of the things that have happened over the last six months. Let's not pretend that didn't exist. But I think either in spite of that or because of that, everybody showed up waiting for something big to happen and they weren't disappointed. And then of course, we're wondering what's going to start the show the fans start chanting see and punk see and punk that music hits and man it's a love

fest all over again see and punk is back uh he has had all of his head shaved maybe in solidarity for you uh yeah i don't think there's a lot of empathy going on in either case trust me i loved his t-shirt certainly a roddy piper inspired t-shirt from his early w f run except now featuring larry his own dog he's got his wrestling boots tied around his neck there and a red bag that we all assume is the quote unquote belt bag because as you may recall he won the world title it was never defeated for that championship and he's been off and on the sidelines with an injury ever since and he comes into the ring and cuts quite a promo and a lot of people are wondering hey man he took the AEW mic flag off hey man he never said the letters

AEW in the promo and then he had lots of insider references if you will double entendres you might even say some word smithing calling himself one bill Phil and name dropping the head of Tom Warner and talking about the counterfeit bucks and offering a tongue-in-cheek apology it was a classic CM Punk what did you think of this promo Eric I love It's so hard to say. I loved it. It was great. I almost swell in my tongue.

No, I absolutely loved it. It had the right balance. Again, you cannot ignore the elephant of the world. We can't pretend the last six months didn't happen. Right. I mean, if you aggregated every. tweet, post, Reddit comment, YouTube clip, whatever of the scrum and the evisceration of Tony Kahn by CM Punk right in front of an audience.

You can't pretend that stuff didn't happen, but they've elected to move on from it. So you can't ignore it, but you don't want to lean into it too much either, right? there's a balance there and i think this promo achieved nothing's perfect in life but a perfect balance of acknowledging not pretending it didn't happen hoping everybody forgets because they won't and because they know you're trying to make them forget by not acknowledging it what are they going to do they're going to talk about it even more but when you address it in a in a way, particularly in this case, that was done so well executed so properly, production-wise, on punk's part and everything else.

The audience will move on to, and they'll reinvest their curiosity or their opinion of what happened six months ago into what's going on now. And I think this promo achieved from a narrative perspective, a absolutely flawless, almost 100% perfect balance in that. I have notes. Could have been a little bit shorter. Yeah. 30 seconds to a minute.

Not a lot. And again, this is such, this is 2020 hindsight, chicken, chit nitpicking. But if you want to look at something and go, wow, I want to do even better next time, how would I do that? This is just a thought.

Shorten that promo up by about a minute, 45 seconds. 30 seconds, whatever, but ended on something a little bit more compelling. It ended, compared to the rest of the promo, so good. I think if it would have been more of a call-to-action type of a close or a statement, mission statement perhaps type of close as opposed to the way it ended it would have taken this 8 out of 10 and probably achieved a 9.5 because I don't think anything is going to ever achieve a 10. So 9.5 is realistically what's available in my little grading system. I think

that that subtle tiny minute difference in that promo in my opinion would have would have gotten a 9.5 out of town. I don't know what to say. I didn't expect that you would be complimentary of the promo, but I dug it and it felt like 2013 CM Punk. And it worked for me. And then of course, we're right into some action. They're going to have the T&T championship on. the line ward low defending against luchosaurus of course luchosaurus has um christian in his corner what'd you think here the two behemoths to open the show would you have went with the big guys to start what'd you think um let me back up just a little bit because i want to i do want to take this segment by segment sure piece by piece the lichosaurus ward low promo uh it was decent

there was nothing wrong with it but nothing it didn't like make me go holy crap can't wait to watch All right. It was just there. It served its purpose. It let me know what was coming up. So six out of ten on that. It was functional. All right. Now, the match, I think it was the great use of Christian Cage. And again, if the totality of a television finished product is the sum of tiny little details, right off the bat, Christian Cage, whispering in luchosaurus's ear wasn't overt it and it was shot perfectly it wasn't meant to be like hit you over the head with it it was just almost like an ENG or electronic news gathering type of shot it was if you know handheld show

look what's going on over here okay back to the action but that subtle little detail that subtle little detail and if that's Mike Mansouri in the truck which I do believe it is that's the an example of the little details that make sense for a manager to be outside of the ring. You're establishing that the manager is actually involved in the match. Now, you would say, well, we all know that. We've been watching worstling forever. Of course you have.

But to the extent that a manager is actually a functional part of that match, aside from throwing in a pair of brass knox or doing something stupid, this set that tone, not something stupid, but something obvious. this set that relationship in cages significance reason for being established it in the very beginning as opposed to waiting till the very end i like that that's storytelling you can also cause it psychology i get called psychology either way that little detail may be go huh somebody's paying attention here somebody's paying attention to the little details and that now consciously as a guy who watches professional wrestling, not for the enjoyment or the entertainment of the

product overall, but for how it's being produced and the business side of the wrestling business and that type of thing. That's what gets me excited. And that got me excited right off the top. And I know that sounds like, why would you care about that? Because it's little details. And it gives me hope when I see people paying attention to little details. What else? would love to see. Here's the one thing I thought in, you know, I very rarely critique in ring action because I don't feel

qualified to do so, frankly. I can tell you what I like and don't like. But in terms of breaking down the mechanics of a match as a producer would or what we used to call agents, when I tend to get away from that. I would have liked, because these are two big impressive guys, right? two big, impressive guys.

And I would have loved to have seen, if you break that match down into three segments, I would love to have seen, or three acts, I would have loved to see that first act be more of a big man power move versus power move. Let's see who the biggest, most powerful man is in this ring.

So it's just back and forth, almost like a tennis match. Boom and boom. Slow pace. Big man match. Don't need to try to work like a luchador because you're not. And whatever highly athletic things you're going to do, save till the end of Act 3.

But nonetheless, I would have loved to see the first part of the match be more of a big man versus big man versus big man versus big man until the heel started wearing out. And he's not bigger, but he's gassed or something. He's just starting to feel like, I'm losing this power versus power balance. And then during act two, let's see more heelish stuff out of the heel. It doesn't have to be over the top.

Doesn't have to be pulling nucks out of his trunks and of that kind of obvious stuff. But you start seeing a little bit more of desperation on the part of the heel. In act three, of course, the heels, you know, he's getting the upper hand, getting the upper hand. Now give me the comeback out of Wardlow. Let me see something really surprising out of Wardlow. because for the for the duration of the match we've seen big man power man all about who's stronger who's tougher who's better and oh my gosh now now world is he's in a losing end of this not because he's not bigger stronger but he's on a losing end of this and then he makes his comeback and pull something out of this hat that is uncharacteristic given his size and strength had i seen a little bit more of that as opposed to the way the match was laid out i would have been shocked at the quality of the match.

Again, I'm going to talk much more about this at the end. Caller and play by play was off the charts, good. Okay, yeah, I wanted to talk about that. So we had Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness. Of course, a lot of us have seen Nigel doing his thing over on the NXT UK brand. And of course, Kevin Kelly has been the voice of New Japan here in America for a long, long time. I like that pairing.

I think a lot of Kevin Kelly and certainly, you know, Nigel, I don't know if you got to see much of his in ring work and ring of honor. I know you saw some in impact, but man, what a, what a talent. I like that duo.

It worked for me. It was, I have to admit, a little different not hearing Excalibur or Taz or Tony. Like those voices, besides J.R. We're going to get to J.R. He's in the main event.

It felt a little weird. Like no J.R. no Tony. No Excalibur. no TAS, but I think that's a good thing. I mean, one of the things you learned in WCW is maybe there was over exposure of Tony Chivani back then. He was on Saturday night.

He was on Nitro. He was on Thunder. So I like switching it up. You were pleased with the job that Nigel and Kevin Kelly did? Beyond pleased. I thought it was the freshest, most significant improvement in any one element of an overall production than anything that I've seen. probably in 10 years it was it was that good it look and this is their first time out i know

they both respectively have had you know plenty of experience doing this but together on this show live new show pressure live first time really working together i think i don't know correct me if i'm wrong when i'm wrong but man i thought here's what i thought i can't wait to hear him a month from now. Wow. Because if they were that good Saturday night, once they get their groove and their rhythm together after doing it a few times, point me to another potentially, not there yet, point me to another, a better color and play by team, and I'll tell you that you're wrong. Here's what I liked, and I'll tell you why. Now, could it be better? And I hope somebody from there, I hope either one of them are listening to this because my, my intentions are truly constructive here, regardless of how you take it or how your ego takes it. My intention is completely supportive. All right. There was still a little bit of a tendency for Kevin Kelly in particular to do color commentary.

There was too much, there were too many points during the course of the color and play-by-play for this match that Kevin would go in and out of color and play-by-play. Leave color to Nigel. Nigel's been in the ring. Nigel could talk about his experience. Nigel can talk about what is likely going through the minds of the people in the ring. the ring and explain why they're doing and what they're doing. Let Nigel bring us inside of the mind of the talent in the ring. And Kevin, you describe what's going on inside of that ring like it's the most important

thing in your life. Don't go in and out of it. Imagine being on a tight wire. And the only way you're not going to fall off one side of the other. is if you're focusing on what's going on inside of the ring or what's going on outside of the ring or how people are reacting to what's going on, bring me inside of that arena in your seat and explain it all to me as if I couldn't see. That's your job. Let Nigel be Nigel and let him be the color expert. And if you do that consistently, I don't think that you could find a better

color and play by play team right now. Nigel did a great job on color. And I caught him catching himself a few times to make sure that he did exactly what I was just describing a good color man should do. Like he stopped himself and went back and made sure he was clear. It was subtle, so subtle. But I was so thoroughly impressed. And I think because they did such a great job is why I feel as good as I do about this particular match and otherwise wouldn't not have really captured my imagination i got to tell you i was so happy to see and hear kevin kelly on the call like that dude has been overdue a big break for a long long time he's

been criminally underrated i'm so glad to see him on a national platform and i was so glad to see andrade el edelow back in action he's going to be oh my gosh how impressive let's not okay sorry i'm just reading my notes here and i knew we'd have follow up but how impressive is he yeah man he i mean this was i was i've seen him before in action you know it's not like i wasn't aware of him but damn he looked awesome so did buddy matthews these guys went out and i think they stole the show no disrespect to anything else on the show i thoroughly enjoyed this match i was really impressed with buddy matthews the first time i saw him in person, I think was the Royal Rumble back in San Diego, man, I couldn't poke holes in his

stuff. And I thought, man, this guy's going to be a big star. And of course, that didn't really happen the way I would have hoped it would have on the WWE side of things. I like him as a part of House of Black. I think it's an interesting look. I think it looks and feels different than. And just as a wrestler, I think if you just threw a kid a blank sheet of paper and a couple of crayons and said, draw me a couple of wrestlers, they would draw something that looked like Andrade and buddy matthews and let's let's talk more about that but i want we also skipped over the harbbs and marshall promo that was a part of the show okay uh and then we'll go back to matthews and and roddy not to take anything away from that fact i want to talk more about it uh harb the hobbs

marshal promo was it was decent it was functional um i'd love to see And it's funny. So, you know, Alba asks me on strictly business, well, what would you do differently? You know, if you, you know, and it's, look, there's no one thing. There's a lot of, as we're talking about here, there's a lot of little details, which is why I want to focus on them here and not skip over them. There, there needs, somebody need, and it's, this is not hard, by the way. In fact, other people have done it.

So it's just steal their shit. It doesn't matter. Find a more authentic presentation for that narrative. The backstage stuff just doesn't cut it anymore, folks. It doesn't work. We've seeded it a million times. And unless your talent is really, really good and their characters are so well established that the backstage entertainment or segment itself is entertaining as a standalone,

the narrative just nobody, people are tuning out of it. It's not that good. and there are better ways to achieve the same thing. And they need to find that. OTFs, Google it, on the fly. Go watch some really good reality shows, especially competition reality, right? Learn how to produce that.

It's not that tough. It takes a little more time, and it's different than what you're used to doing. But that investment will pay massive, of dividends and we'll make sure that you're maximizing that minute 30, two minutes or whatever it is that you're doing a backstage promo on that honestly people tune out of. They're not buying it.

They're not paying attention. Make them pay attention by coming up with a better presentation. To be clear, when you're saying OTF, you mean like perhaps Hobbs is pulling up in the back and a camera crew approaches him as he gets out of a car. It doesn't even have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that complicated. You can catch. We used to do these in impact all the time when Jason and I were there is you can catch

him in a cafeteria. You can get someone sitting on a step. Catch somebody sitting in a locker room. You can catch. We had to do this when we were confined to a little freaking soundstage and we were looking for ways to make the background look different. Right. So the presentation felt bigger even though we were stuck in a football size field soundstage

is what it felt like. Just imagine, tight shot. talent looking off camera answering a question you don't hear the question you don't need an interviewer i just need a producer to cameraman candid kind of a candid on the fly you caught them walking by and said hey do you mind if i ask you a question but the camera's off to the left or off to the right so the talent's not looking in the camera i understand that feels phony as fuck i got you it's not real and it's not entertaining and no one listens to them but if you catch that candid here's what I'm thinking, here's what I'm feeling, but it's in response to a question you never

hear. It allows you to tell the story without the phoniness of it all. And it works. Do it. Hey, let me ask you about Hobbs. Uh, I know we didn't get to see him in action. You know, we certainly saw him, uh, on camera here in that backstage pre, not a pre tape, but the backstage interview. But there's a lot of folks who watch that program on a regular basis, myself included. who think Hobbs is going to be one of the top guys in AEW sooner rather than later. Like I think the upside on that guy is off the charts. And just to see how he has, I don't know, transformed himself in just the brief time he's been with AEW. I'm on the Hobbs train.

Are you? I haven't seen enough yet. So I can't. You've seen him in action more than I have. So I'm, I'll, I'll withhold any opinion until I've spent a little more time, paying attention. Are you ready to talk about Andrade and Buddy Matthews now? Yeah, let's go back to that. Here's my note.

Fucking awesome 9.5 out of 10. Okay. There you go. There's, okay, but here's my note. The post finish blackout almost took me out of it.

Almost took me down to a seven. Because, A, because we've seen that so many times. But fans get excited. I mean, I get excited. I mean,

I know that you've seen it a bunch and you're talking about it from a television producer standpoint, I can say going back to the ECW arena days, which I realize was 25 and 30 years ago. But when the lights go off, the lights go on, we're conditioned for, oh, here it comes. And especially with, you know, this group that buddies with, I didn't necessarily think it was going to be a surprise, but I was ready for it. I might like to have seen a different shot as soon as the lights came back on. So the reveal would have been a little more instant.

But I like it. I thought it was cool. And I know we're sort of glossing over the match. If you didn't watch this match, go out of your way to watch it. You can't poke holes in their stuff. It's stiff. It's hard hitting. It looks competitive.

That elbow, that And Andrade hit. God damn, what an elbow. And then the finish, I don't know that you put this together, Eric, but, uh, and there was a little thing. I'm glad that Dave Silva, if you're watching over on YouTube, we're showing Buddy's knee. They've been working on the knee for a bit. He tries to do the power bomb.

knee gives out and adds to the realism, then here comes that elbow from hell out of nowhere. And, uh, the figure eight, Eric, you know, we, we heard lots of woos and stuff as he's setting up the figure four. I don't know that anybody would have predicted, oh, he's going to use his wife's finisher. I mean, she's obviously on the WWU program, buddy Matthews lady is as well. They were both using their, their significant others finishes. But to use that as a finish, I thought was a nice little tip of the cap. And if you're paying attention, and you know, you know, I thought it was a fantastic match.

I can't imagine a better return for Andrade. Honestly, I didn't notice that detail or the connection. I just can't say enough about this. Now I feel even more strongly about it than I did when I watched it this morning because that's again, what are we talking about here? What do we keep going back to?

Little tiny details. And the way this was executed to, your point, Conrad, and it was a great one, great observation, is that if you know, you know, and if you don't, you're not put off by it. Yes. And it sounds like I'm saving everything to the end. I better not do that because I'll forget what I want to say. One of the other things that I really loved about this show, as is if they took somebody's

advice when they said, shut up and wrestle. Oh, gosh. There's a lot of wrestling on it. You're right. Not only that, but there was not one reference, not one juvenile, unfunny attempt at comedy. There's nothing worse than bad comedy other than bad music. There was no attempts to take a shot at anybody. We weren't comparing to anybody. We weren't overstating anything. We weren't changing wrestling history. We just, put on a fuck of a show and that's what I meant when I said shut up and Russell do the best you can with what you've got and let the audience put you over and quit putting yourself over and taking shots at the competition when the competition is outperforming a 10 to 1 5 to 1 whatever get my point this show was perfect in tone yes perfect it's It stood on its own.

Yes. Yes and more yes. Anything else you want to mention on Andrade and Buddy Matthews? Nope. I think we covered it. Buddy Matt. Yeah, we'll say.

Excited to watch more Buddy Matthews. Absolutely. I got along with, you know, I met him, talked to him quite a bit in WW and it quite a bit, but several different occasions, you know,

getting to know each other type of thing. Yeah. It was always, Paul Heyman was a really big. buddy Murphy fan that what he was in WWE but yeah yeah I think the announcer even called him buddy Murphy when he came out yeah yeah a big deal yeah I agree anybody criticizes that they need to be smacked in the face no shit really it's not a big that's a perfect example of somebody that's never done it you know I mean there's not a great announcer in a world that hasn't dropped

the ball at some point in time on a live television show anyway Paul Heyman was huge big supporter saw big things with buddy and i worked with buddy he was in the ring we got him involved in a couple things when i was there at smackdown never really got the opportunity i see what paul sees now yeah i didn't see it then not to the extent that paul did but i see it now and i know why paul felt as strongly as it did so i'm anxious to see more i think paul was uh in the andrida camp as well i think paul was booking that show when andrida got the u.s championship for the first time, you know, and here's the thing. I think this, the theme of this show feels like a lot of quote unquote second

chances, you know, punk is back, Andrade is back. And all these guys are hitting home run so far, uh, improving, hey man, they have value. There's, there's more to their career and there's more substance here than the nonsense narrative that sometimes exists only on social media. And we get to see another return in Miro. Uh, are you ready to talk about Mero? Is there something else you'd like to touch on before we get to me. Uh, well, we saw the score.

Scorpio Sky package before we saw that. Oh, yeah. We hadn't seen Scorpio in a while. And man, when they first rolled this program out way back when in 2019, he was so prominently featured in a lot of the packages and stuff. You just assumed he's going to be one of the first breakout stars. He's one of the first tag team champions with AEW. And then, man, it's just been a crowded space. He did have a couple of bad injury bugs and that sideline him for a bit here and there, but it's been hard to stand out. But we got the Scorpio package. I'm excited to see what he's going to be able to do. What did you think of that package? Yeah, you, you touch that at second chances, and I've got another perspective on that.

We'll say that to the end. But, yeah, Scorpio has been in the witness protection program, basically, for a long time, which has baffled me because he's an amazing talent with a great look, super professional, like a pros pro type, has every element. can cut a promo, he's going to get better, and a good director, somebody that's really working with him and kind of customizing his delivery, his narrative to his character, but he's already really, really good, borderline great. I love seeing him back.

I gave the package an 8.5 out of 10 in terms of its effectiveness and the overall feel of the show more of these please that's my second note more of these please three exclamation points that's now we're getting a little bit more of an OTF on the fly feel balanced with the action in the package i think that tells a much better story than two guys we're adequate on a mic with an announcer who's adequate on the mic doing a backstage promo. This is how you get people over. Awesome. 8.5 on a scale one to 10. Very effective. We see Tony Neese getting some old school heat riling up the crowd talking about being a personal trainer and how fat and out of shape these fans are. And you know,

we're going to get in shape together. And then here comes the return. The Redeemer. Miro is back. Comes in does a lot of his signature moves. Gets a pretty easy win. Impressive. Impressive showing for Mero. Of course, you can't do it without a great dance partner in Tony Neese. What did you think here? What did I give this one? Oh, I give this one an 8.5 out of 10. I didn't really, you know, the old school cheap heat up.

My note was cheap eat out of the east taking this, taking me out of this. And I literally was making these notes as I was watching the show. So I didn't watch the show and sit down and decide how I felt about it. I was giving myself like real time emotional reactions to what I was seeing. as best I could. The cheap heat, you know, with niece, almost took me out of it. What exactly did I say? No, now I'm into so.

Almost took me out of it. But great entrance by Mero, that goofy, corny, cheap heat, old school, silly shit that niece was doing in the ring was almost immediately contrasted and balanced with Mero's entrance. I went from feeling like, okay, I'm watching something from 1982. to oh my god this guy looks like a killer that's very effective that worked it allowed them to get away look i don't know how overniece is with the crowd he might not be over enough which is why he may had to go to that cheap eat to really establish why he was there and who he was don't know don't

have an opinion i'd like to give you mine if you don't mind i think yeah please do please i think tony niece is well respected by fans and this is and i'm not saying this dismissive or negatively, but the more, quote, unquote, work great fans are watch AEW more so than they do WW. WWE is, we're here for the guy, guy, and the entertainment. AEW fans by and large really respect the in ring performers. Tony niece is fantastic. And so I think if they weren't, I saw that.

I think if they weren't careful, then the crowd would be kind to him because they appreciate the work. Whether he's a quote unquote bad guy or not, hey, we respect what you do. we're having such fun here and we're glad y'all are here and this is an exciting time and a new show i think he probably needed to go to 1982 to let's make sure they hate me so they'll be really excited to see mirro come kill me and i believe that's true and i makes me more impressed with with niece as a performer and whoever laid this match out because somebody was paying attention. Somebody knew this going in. And the way you avoid mistakes is to see them

before they happen. Yes. Yes. And another little detail, easy to overlook in the excitement, excitement and enthusiasm and so much going on, a live TV and the pressure. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, easy to forget that, wait a minute, this is a guy that the crowd basically loves the hell out of because they've got so much respect for him. But we need him to be the healingness. So, yep, let's turn the heat up, uncomfortably high. And they did and it worked. And again, the balance with that looked like he's right out of a thriller, mystery murder

movie, Mero, man, if that didn't scare, if that doesn't give you nightmares, knowing you're stepping into the ring with that, I don't know what would. So I loved it. I loved that. I gave the whole thing, 8.5 out of 10 primarily because they did such a. an effective job at reestablishing Merrill. I was excited to see Mero back. I've been a fan of his for forever.

And, uh, I mean, I say it all the time and it sort of becomes ad nauseum with my friends, but that dude wrote a tank to the ring at WrestleMania to take on John Sina. This guy has a huge upside. I'm so glad he's back. Uh, and I have to admit, you know, it's, it's been a while since we've seen him. So I kind of forgot the star, the story. line and the arc of this character and the Redeemer and I wasn't sure what kind of response he would get. I know that when a star comes back, you always get the big pop, but, you know,

where would fans fall on this character? Boy, they were right with him. I think he's going to have a hard time getting booed because he is so good and he looks so great. And, uh, the next up was the ladies match. Is there anything else you want to touch on here before we talk? Yeah, we had a punk, we had a punk package. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Um, excellent. And I made double notes here, perfect length. And again, little detail, but especially with a guy like punk who is clearly good on the mic. Stay away from some of his narrative. But, I mean, in terms of his ability and what he's capable of doing on the mic,

there's probably not a lot of people better right now. And most of them not nearly as good. The tendency that people, producers, can have, is to give that type of talent, let's give them a little more time. Yeah, we could get this done in a minute, but let's give them a minute they have. And you fall victim to your own success as a result in some cases. here they gave us the perfect amount to create anticipation. They didn't over-deliver. Well, they did in terms of effectiveness,

but they didn't give me more than I wanted. It's like going to a great restaurant, sitting down, and having a gourmet meal by one of the greatest chefs, and they give you just enough to leave you wanting more. yeah you're not dissatisfied because you didn't get enough but you're not overly satisfied to the extent that okay let's move on perfect like excellent promo 9.5 out of uh out of 10 um and let me mention too eric we start the show with see and punk we sprinkle in this package and then we're going to finish with punk in the main event and i know that you know punk has his

critics out there but i don't think it's even worth arguing or debating He is one of the biggest stars in the promotion, and this is his return show. And there's been a lot said about, well, this is his show and the other show of so-and-so shows. Table all that internet narrative for now. I'm saying this as far as formatting the show, you know, unique. We all know as wrestling fans, we've been conditioned to hear the open of the show, the crossover, the clothes of the show. And you have been pretty loud and proud talking about the most effective stories told in wrestling, whether it's raw or nitro or modern day, or the threads.

throughout the show to keep you engaged and keep you hanging on until the end so we start with that punk promo then we get the punk package we got punk on the back end as well but let's talk about the ladies the ladies had a hell of a show you got sky blue and willow nightingale who has more good faith and goodwill with the internet wrestling audience than i think i've maybe ever seen and they're taking on tony storm and ruby soho these are great characters they look the camera loves them they're very colorful they pop and they're in ring action was great too and there's some nasty stuff in here how about willows pounce on ruby on the outside ruby just goes sailing into those guardrails this was uh this was pretty good man and listen that's one of the

criticisms that we've had there's been a lot of criticisms of a w that they don't feature the women enough i thought we checked that box with this match what did you think started out a little a little average for me. I was unimpressed until about a third, almost halfway through the match. And I went, okay, I'm interested in this. Particularly interested and excited and want to see more of, by the way, sky blue, athletic, great timing,

capable of doing a lot, didn't try to do more than she's capable of, but still put on some pretty impressive offense. not taking away from anybody else in the match, but that's what stood out to me. And again, I'm coming to this with fresh eyes. I don't have an opinion. I haven't followed enough of this talent to have a strong feeling,

embedded feeling at all. So all of this is almost like completely fresh eyes, even though I know some of the people have opinions like I do of Scorpio and punk and others. But anyway, I actually, after I got through the first third of the match, the first half of the match, I actually found myself thoroughly entertained by it

and in a good way. It wasn't comedic, it wasn't gratuitous because it was a women's match. Right. It wasn't eye candy bullshit. It was a good, solid, well-executed match, particularly the last half of it.

And for me, as a relatively new viewer, well, a very new viewer with regard to AEW in this show, obviously we all were but that was my first exposure to sky blue and i was like i want to see more of her i see it in her a lot of potential did you say she was trending i gave this one i gave this one a seven point five on a scale of one to ten why did i do that um the finish was a little weird to me for for a second you know four of them in the ring referee standing there doing nothing about that um little tiny nitpicky just like i need something to criticize but still it was

there is a little detail So it matters in a big scheme of things. Also, and maybe because full disclosure here, while I'm watching this, I'm watching it on my Sling app, right? So I'm watching a different commercial feed. Like I didn't get picture within a picture. I got you. I got you.

Okay. So I may not have been looking exactly at what the people watching at home on television were. That said, did I not see? a syriah graphic in the opening entrance of this? I'm pretty sure I did. I don't recall. If I did, why?

And I think I did because there was even, and I didn't want to go back and watch it because I want to hurry up and get through the entire thing and make my notes before we recorded. I will go back and watch it to see if I was just confused or if indeed there was a Soraya graphic during one of the early entrances. And I do believe there was even a commentary reference to it as well.

So that kind of made me go, well, okay, what? But again, you tiny little. And I may have, it could have been just my confusion or I could be right. Either way, she's the leader of that faction, you know, the, the outcast. So she wasn't there though. Right. So that was awkward. Then I was right and shouldn't have been there.

She's not in the ring. she shouldn't be on the on the graphics for the entrance little detail i've i've i've screwed up way bigger way more often than that so get it but we're talking about what does it take to hit a 9.5 for an entire episode anyway little detail overall 7.5 on a scale of a 1 to 10 uh great potential sky blue loved it one of the more overacts in a e w is going to come down and uh do a little in ring segment with Tony Chivani, the acclaimed. So we see, uh, not yet. All right. I'm going to let you drive, Eric. No, but it's just, I was looking at things. I was making notes a little differently than you were watching the show. Sure. Sure. The, uh, Starks package. Oh, yeah,

yeah, yeah. Uh, really, really good. Now, I gave it an 8.5 out of one to 10. However, announcing that he's in the Owen Hart Cup Memorial, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If Starks would have toned down his, I'm doing a wrestling promo delivery and I'm exaggerating it because I'm trying to make a point. Because Starks came in and out of his authentic voice, the way he really talks, what he's talking, even if he's talking about something that's really important. he went in and out of that voice and into his let me tell you something what i see he went into a little bit too much of a i'm doing a wrestling promo voice and he came in and out of it stay in it unless you're out in front of a crowd don't go into your i'm not ruining a wrestling promo voice you're not talking to the rafters you're not talking to a room full of people

You're in a singular environment. You're there by yourself. There's not a large audience out in front of you. Take advantage of that by letting me feel you more than I feel you're, I'm doing a wrestling promo voice. Again, I'm over-exaggerating to make a point. But if you go back and watch it, you'll see what I mean. Again, tiny little fucking details.

Nitpicking, if you will, because I gave the damn thing an 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. all right then there was a jarrots package oh yeah yeah jarrot package by the way eric this was this was not pre-taped on friday on wednesday this was shot on saturday to promote the uh concession stand brawl this coming wednesday uh and i know you probably didn't keep up with much memphis wrestling history he reminded everybody of it but it was 1970 June 15th, I believe, 1979, that the first ever sort of hardcore match like this happened. It was the Tupelo concession stand brawl, and they're not in Tupelo. They're in Chicago.

But it is going to be a concession stand brawl with him and Mr. Briscoe. So, yeah, they had Jeff come in and cut this promo and here it comes this Wednesday. What did you think of Jeff's promo? Same notes that I gave starts. In the beginning, a little bit too much. of the I'm doing a wrestling promo vibe to it. And like Sarks, Jeff went into the real Jeff, the authentic Jeff.

Yes. Authentic voice, Jeff. Same exact note. And I love the content of the narrative. I love what Jeff was having to say. I just wish we would have gotten a little bit more of the authentic Jeff as opposed to I'm doing a wrestling promo, Jeff. again love Jeff he's a good friend he's a good man

this is not meant to be anything other than how could I possibly make that better if I was producing it I would tweak this instead of that that's all that is now the acclaimed in the ring with Tony Chabani Tony Chavani and Jim Ross must have been drinking the same Kool-Aid because Tony's voice was a little raspy as well

what did you think of the acclaim segment of course max castor comes out does a baby face rap talking about how excited he is to be back here in chicago and then encourages all of the uh fans here to go ahead and wish daddy ass a happy father's day this is silly and it's fun and tony shivani being scissured on live tv it's not something i ever thought we would see tony did a fan too even with the raspy voice. Tony had so much fun doing this segment that I had fun watching him have fun. I was living vicariously through Tony Chivani in that in that segment. It was, look, 8.5 on 1 to 10. Why? Because it just served its purpose. It brought everything up and had a lighthearted moment and allowed the audience to relax

before they got into an intense main event. It absolutely, absolutely served its purpose, a very valuable piece of business in terms of managing the audience's emotion and taking control of the timing of the emotions for this entire event, absolutely perfectly executed, well produced. I had a blast watching it and it served its purpose. Is it time to talk about our main event now? God, I thought you'd never get here. what do you think um how old were you in 1967 negative 14 i was going to say uh your parents were kids in 1967 i think your parents are younger than i am so yeah they were kids because i was only 12 yeah my dad was born in 57 yeah he's

two years younger than yeah two years younger than i am so back in 1967 your dad probably won't even recall the monkeys Michael Nesbit Peter Tork David Jones hey hey we're the monkeys yeah and you know one of their fate one of their biggest songs back in 1967 was what I'm a believer I couldn't leave her if I try I didn't yes yes hey hey then I saw her face yeah yeah The Monkeys. I'm a believer. That's how I felt about the main event.

That's how I felt about this whole show. This was a great main event. I understand why they opted to put this in a six-man tag or trios or whatever the hell it is. I understand it. Punk's first time back. Bring rust. Let's get him established, re-establish who we are. his why he's here what he wants to do going forward let's tell that story they check that box

twice they did a great job with it great job with it um how about every time samoa jo got in the ring with see and pa that crowd crowd went nuts right man crowd went nuts let's not in my enthusiasm because i want to try to say so much and sometimes i skip over the important stuff um absolutely love seeing samojo on tv again Yes. Now, I love the person. I really learned to respect Joe a lot in the time that I had to work with him. So to see somebody like Joe in this position, get the reaction that he got made me feel really good.

Now, taking my feeling about Joe as a person out of it, the crowd reaction to it, the history, the backstory, all of it worked it was a it was like watching a great orchestra just everything worked i'm excited to hear you say that because sometimes when you and i have talked offline about the history between this guy or that guy and a w maybe didn't beat you over the head with it you would say well i didn't know any of that i didn't i didn't i didn't watch i didn't get that referencing old stuff of course it's been 19 years now but back in the summer of 2004 man one of the greatest trilogy certainly the in my opinion yeah the greatest and most important trilogy in ring of honor history was seeing punk and samojo and the newsletters

of the time were just talking about it like it was the greatest thing ever and at the time ring of honor was a DVD company so you had to really go out of your way to snag those i just loved it I was excited to see punk in there again with Samoa Joe. I tweeted because I was watching this live. I could just tell how excited Dax Harwood was to be there and with this crowd and doing this match. And I tweeted, does anybody enjoy being a pro wrestler more than Dax? And Dax replied capital N.O.

And I love the other side. I think Juce Robinson is a character that maybe a lot of the AEW fans or American wrestling fans aren't totally. familiar with just yet but man he has been he was great in nxte he's been great everywhere we've seen him including new japan i'm excited that this feels like he's going to get more of a platform here and of course jay white the former new japan heavyweight champion man that dude has a pedigree he can go i just think maybe we haven't had enough time to really identify the character with this audience yet but being in a main event with ftr with samoa joe with c and

punk it's a heck of a step in the right direction for all those guys i really enjoyed the match uh i was just excited to see joe and punk in there from the nostalgia of it i'm looking forward to what they do maybe in singles action in the future but i i kind of didn't know what to expect here today eric that you were going to dig the show like i did i think when i sat down to watch the show i knew we would see a lot of great wrestling but i didn't know what else to expect but when it was over with i thought you know man they were trying to set a new pace here and show that, you know, showcase what they're really good at, which is that in ring bell to bell. But to your point, all the stuff in between the packages and whatnot,

it checked a lot of the boxes. I really enjoyed the show. And I can't believe my ears. It sounds like you did too. No, I more than enjoy the show. I'm, I'm, it completely erased the last 12 months of my opinion of AEW. Wow. And I'm going into it with an entirely clean slate we'll see what happens you know i mean here's it's just the reality let me cover a couple things first yeah one again i cannot over emphasize how impressed i was with kelly and mcginnis more of them please or maybe not keep them right where they are because to your point early in our discussion you don't want to overexpose them right and you've got and the rest of the talent is great too it's not like there's anything lacking it's just that this combination for

my taste in a more traditional approach to color and play by play. This was the closest thing that to my color and play by play nirvana is I've heard in a long, long time. So more of that, please. The formatting of the show. I said jokingly, you know, on social media right before recorded, who booked this shit? Because I know what people are expecting out of me.

Right. A lot of them are just ignorant and whatever. but whoever booked this shit whoever was in the room whoever had the most influence over the formatting and the pacing don't ever let that person out of your sight well keep that person close and maybe it was tony i don't think so because i've never seen anything out of AEW come even remotely close to the level of near perfection that the formatting, which includes the pacing and the timing, the length of the matches and length of the in rings and all that stuff, all those little details.

Whoever signed off on that final, keep that person close, number one. We'll see where the creative goes. think I'm hoping that like me, a lot of people are going, whoa, this was really good. Yeah. Now you've got to deliver next week in the following week, in the following week. And there's been times on 83 weeks where I've made a reference to the idea of, hey, go back and watch something, figure out what worked and what didn't work and do more of the things that did and less of the things that didn't. Right. Right. Same thing here. You've, you, Tony and Company, have delivered what is, in my opinion, an excellent product.

Now, go back and figure out why it was excellent. Study the things that you did really well and why they worked as well as they did and how they worked as well. We already know why, how they worked and where they were placed. Format, format, format, format, because you could, Tony and Company control the flow of emotion, the acclaim spot right before. serious and intense main event that was built up and threaded throughout the show that was

tied to what's happened in the last six or 12 months, but not in a way that made me feel like you were beating me over the head with it. It's just everything. It was like an orchestra in terms of formatting and an orchestra with a harmony background occasionally. It just everything works so well. Do more of that and less of some of the things that we've been seeing for the last a month. Please figure out a way to do the OTF backstage. It's not hard. Anybody can do it.

You don't have to be Steven Spielberg to figure it out. But please somebody take a look at the backstage promos because they really hurt the overall product. And they've demonstrated here that they have the ability. They just need to lead into it a little bit more. Everything was so good that I'm hoping that they can maintain the momentum. Now, here's what's the downside? Here's a note.

This show was so good. that if they if it is consistently as good and by the way i didn't even talk about the set off the charts good yeah i didn't specifically mention the set mentioned the open and everything but the set was killer now if they can keep that same set keep that same lighting package don't give me less than next week or next month or six months from now the minute you give me less than i'm going to start losing interest not me but the audience but if you can just maintain Why am I going to watch Dynamite? Oh, come on now.

No, I'm not being a smart ass. That's what happens when you are competing with yourself. Because the difference between collision in its overall presentation to dynamite is night and day. Creatively, from a television production point of view, including formatting and pacing and length of matches and interviews. and all that these were not produced by the same company you know what maybe part of it is and again uh i know what people say about me in this regard but maybe our man tk just needed some more help i think a lot of people forget that you know he's running a he's got a he's got a stack company he's got a soccer club he's got a football team uh he's he's running wrangle bonner at the time he was

doing two YouTube shows and Dynamite and Rampage, you know, there have been some new hires and acquisitions. There's been rumors that Chris Hero was at this show and Will Washington's come on board and Jimmy Jacobs is around now. So it feels as if he's beefed up the support staff and if that's the case, because it is necessary. I mean, you've talked about that when you added thunder, you had to add more personnel. Uh, perhaps, you know, my man just needed a little more help and it feels like he got it because my takeaway was, you know, I don't know what I was expecting, but it exceeded my expectations. I enjoyed the show.

I'm, I can't wait to watch this weekend. I'm not going to be as generous as you are on this because Tony's had access to a lot of help. Yes. Over the last four years, the choice that he's made is to not listen to it, engage it, or haven't figured out a way to integrate it. That's not poor Tony working overnight because he's the only one capable of doing it. That was a choice Tony has made. That's fair.

I am not. I don't talk to anybody who is there. Haven't for a long time. Something decidedly different went into the show, whether it be Brian Danielson or Daniel Bryan or whatever he's, whatever it is, or Hero or Williamson, or maybe just Tony going, whatever it was, whatever that combination,

that collaboration was, Stick with it. Learn to give them more rope because somebody took control of this and made it work. Yeah. And this was not business as usual, creatively speaking. This was not business as usual, whether Tony admits it or it leaks out or whatever. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to.

No. I hate that, I hate that that becomes even a thing. Like, well, you know, so like I saw a talking head on wrestling. Twitter saying, well, Tony Con clearly didn't write the show. What does it matter if he did or didn't? It's his show. Like, who cares? Like, and again, look, I'm not afraid to say this. I, I had the same opinion. Right. And you're hearing it right now. And that's not a criticism. Right. That's an acknowledgement of the fact that somebody that has a better, guess what? Nobody's the best there is at whatever they do. There's always somebody better. There's always somebody

bigger. There's always somebody faster. There's always somebody tougher. There's always somebody tougher. there's always somebody better looking they're blah blah blah blah it doesn't fucking matter it's not a criticism it's the fact that somebody grabbed a hold of this saying and tony gave him the opportunity and listened or let them influence to the extent that he produced a better product and that's all that matters yes it's all that matters i just think uh sometimes credit is a weird thing where people feel like they want the credit or deserve the credit or need the credit or whether it's positive or negative at the end of the day no matter who helped put together the show it's tony's company and it was a win for his company

there is a sad note coming out of the show of course we knew going into the show because jr posted to twitter he uh suffered a pretty nasty fall on friday night or early saturday morning and uh flew to the show and was working hurt with a black eye and uh when they bring him in for the main event which I thought was a great use of JR. I even once suggested maybe a really cool idea would be before they go to a commercial. Maybe we give JR like the Goldberg treatment where we start playing the Oklahoma fight song

and we see him walk out of his locker room and we play that music through the crowd and everybody gives the big cheer. And maybe the other announcer says something like, you know what that means? Your main event is next. And then we come back and J.R. runs down a tail of the tape and we get right to our main event.

I like the idea of making J.R.'s voice feel special. I don't think it's necessary for every match. I love that they brought him in for the main event. Unfortunately, his voice was not cooperating that night. If you heard the start of the show, the start of the main event, he was pretty hoarse. It got better seemingly as the show went on, but I guess he was disappointed in his performance. He took to Twitter after the show at 1026 and wrote, I apologize for the way I sounded tonight.

going to step away to heal. Thanks for your support. And I think that's a good thing. You know, JR has obviously battled cancer in more recent years and certainly a handful of years ago lost his wife, Jan. And now he's, well, he suffered a nasty spill. But you know, J.R.'s attitude, load the wagon. Don't worry about the mule.

So he got there, did his gig. But in the end, probably not the worst idea for him to take a couple weeks off and gets feeling better. get back to his old self and I like the idea though of Jim Ross calling the main event on a Saturday night fight it gives it that it adds to that big fight feel so I hope that when J.R. is back up to snuff that's a that's a thing for him moving forward the main event I felt the same way brother I thought now I was aware you know Jim took a header and you know busted himself up a little bit so I do that going in and obviously this morning I was

listening to the, you know, the horses in his voice, but nonetheless, I, I, I didn't care and I didn't notice it because J.R. in that big time, yes, in that moment, J.R. added the drama in the in the big fight field that you talked about. This, for the same reason that I used to bring in Buffer. Yeah. Michael Buffer was always the ring announcer for the main event of the big championship fights, right? Yes. Um, this, Jim Ross is the Hulk Hogan of announcers. And, Like Hulk Hogan, if you overexposed him and have him out there in every match, you're not getting the maximum value. Well, Sam.

Maximum value is to make him feel special because of Jim Ross is special, so is the match that's going on in the main event. That's another way you manage and you can control the emotion and how people feel about something is by the elements that you bring together in a specific time. I agree with you 100%. use Jim Ross and that Hulk Hogan of announcers vibe, put them in there on Saturday night, big fight. And by the way, if it's not a big main event, because you can't deliver this level of

main event every single week, it's not mathematically possible. They'll let them lay out, only bring them in for the big ones on Saturday night or on the pay-per-views. That's how you maximize Jim Ross, not by dragging them out on Friday nights to call things that don't really matter and nobody's watching anyway. Well, I wasn't going to say all that, but I will say. there's a precedent set for this. You go back not too many years ago,

WrestleMania 33, I think it was down in Orlando, 2017. JR was not on the call for that WrestleMania, but he came in for the main event. So that makes it feel even bigger to me. Like I really like that approach, and I hope it's one that we use going forward.

Like, I don't know what the plans are for Wembley, but to me, if you've got this landmark show and you've got, the largest AEW crowd of all time in this historic venue. No disrespect to Taz or Tony Chivani or Excalibar or Kevin Kelly or Nigel McGinnis. But I think just for the sake of history, when you're playing clips of that iconic crowd and these big special moments, you're going to

want to hear J.R's voice on some of those. I mean, he really is. And I'll go so far, Conrad, to agree with you that if the decision was made, you, you're going to be. made to let's make Jim Ross to Hulk Hogan of announcers so that when you do use him in that position after you've been doing it for a while and you've established your approach to this yes iconic character really um he'll get an entrance on your big main events yeah whether it's a collision or pay-per-view when when Jim Ross comes through that curtain and makes his way down to the announce booth you're going to get a reaction that will be equal to probably many of the reactions you're going to get when the stars come out

to participate in the match. And isn't that what you want? Yes. Isn't that a stamp of approval from your audience? And that stamp of approval is what spreads throughout the television audience. It adds credibility and viability to what you're doing. And anticipation. And as a friend of ours used to say, it means that business is about to pick up. uh so listen man i love the first episode of collision when you told me you wanted to record a bonus episode

i mean i got to admit i went and got the boxing gloves i was ready because i was like i thought this was a good show and if eric bischoff has the damn audacity to come on here and say that wasn't a good show maybe he's not going to say it's a great show but he'll have to admit in a loud and clear voice it was a good show then he showed up and said hey it was a good show i didn't expect this eric this was fun i didn't say it was a good show i said it was an excellent show I'd give the overall show if I had to, you know, this is taking all the little pieces. So there's no real mathematical formula. Right, right, right, right.

I'd bust my balls over that. Average out all my, you know, my ratings, but you were wrong. If that's all you got to do with your day, go ahead and do it anyway. I don't give a fuck. But I think the overall show, for me, it was an 8.5 out of a scale of 1 to 10, knowing that 10 isn't available. Right, right, right. like this I don't know how you could have made this show realistically other than the 2020 hindsight notes that everybody has including me other than addressing a few of those minor details um I don't know how it could be better I really don't here's the challenge as you said how do you follow it up how do you make it consistent and I can't help but wonder do we still have enough TV time even though we've doubled our prime time to because we got two hours on Wednesday and now two hours on Saturday not not discounting

rampage just saying there's four hours now there's double the live prime time TV there's still a lot of talent still got to fit a lot of folks in I could still see how that's going to be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle but I'm excited man I'm encouraged for a first effort I don't think they could have done much better me neither well I loved it mark the date and time boys I can't believe this is real Eric Bisse off liked something from AEW. Of course, we would like to see you make a donation

to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Eric is going to look a little different for our next episode. It's going to be sporting a bald-ass Lex Luthor type look. It's cuterick's hair.com. Go make a donation right now. We're going to have the top two bidders

to go ahead and take turns shaving Eric's head off here. Can't believe this is real. We're going to find a way to document this and celebrate this. because it is all for a great cause it's cut erics hair.com even if you can't come to huntsville even if you don't think you can be the top bidder it's for a great cause it's tax deductible it's helping kids and families who really need our help uh and hey man we're taking something

that's fun that we enjoy silly stuff talking about wrestling and helping some folks with it so check it out make a donation go to cut erics hair.com when you make that donation snap yourself a uh a screenshot if you will post it to social media and use that hashtag cut Eric's hair. And sometime this weekend, Eric, we're going to be, I'm sure, even if we say, don't take photos, and why would we say that? It's going to be all over social media. And so will the talk about forbidden door this weekend.

You'd have to go back and give you a little credit for partnering up a Turner television wrestling outfit with New Japan Pro Wrestling. It's happening again. this weekend, the Forbidden Door, we see Brian Danielson versus Okada, we see Tanahashi versus MJF, and we see Will Osprey versus Kenny Omega. Are you looking forward to this show? Is this just another show for you? What's your expectation with Forbidden Door in Toronto, which I believe is sold out?

Well, I think we're going to be watching this together, aren't we? We are at our Top Guy Weekend. And our Top Guy Weekend. So I'm looking forward to that. If I wasn't looking forward to that and I wasn't, is it going to be in Huntsville. I don't think it would be on my schedule because I'm not invested in any of the storylines thus far. Although with what I saw Saturday night, I'm, I'm open-minded, certainly very open-minded and looking forward to it. But I don't know that I'd invest quite yet,

but I'm definitely looking forward to it at Top Guy weekend. And hopefully I'll feel half as good about that pay-per-view as I did about collision. We're going to have some fun this week. weekend. We wish that you would have been there to join us. Uh, you can be there next year. It's ad free shows.com. It's Top Guy weekend. We get together once a year. You can leave your wallet at home. And, uh, this will be our third time we've done it. The prior to we're in Chicago piggybacking at EWs all out. This year we're doing something a little different. A friend of mine in business once told me that you can be better than less than or different than. Eric, you know what we've got planned. I don't want you to spill the beans yet. But this is

different than with a capital D and the more you and I talk about it, the more excited we get about it. I'm not going to say it's going to be a home run this first year. I think everybody's going to have a great time. But I think this will evolve and become quite the extravaganza in years moving forward. Yeah, we, we have the potential of doing something great. And we're going to have fun as hell. It'll be fun as hell doing what we're doing. But it's the idea is, let's put it this way. It's a big enough idea that there's plenty of room to build upon it and looking forward to that. It's all happening this weekend. Top Guy Weekend. It's part of ad-free shows.com. Thank you guys for tuning in to a special bonus episode of 83 weeks today. We'll be back next week. I'm sure we'll

talk about Forbidden Door. I'm sure we'll recap Top Guy Weekend. It might be a little later than normal because we're going to be together this weekend, but we want to be topical, which is why we sat down today and recorded Eric's review, a glowing review. Of course. Collision. So go tweet that. Mucker Fother. Thank you for that. We'll see you next week right here. On 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

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