83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 115: Great American Bash 1996

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad look back at Great American Bash 1996, which took place on June 16, 1996 at the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, MD. In the main event, we see The Giant take on Lex Luger for the WCW Championship. Other notable matches include Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight title, Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan in a Falls Count Anywhere match, DDP vs. Marcus Bagwell, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs. Mongo and Kevin Greene, and more! Did you know you could be enjoying 83 Weeks days, even a week in advance on ADFreeShows.com? ADFreeShows.com is a SUPER Patreon page that brings all Conrad's podcasts under one roof, early and AD FREE! Not only do subscribers get the regular shows, they also have access to BONUS content you won't see or hear anywhere else! Join ADFreeShows.com for as low as $9 a month or choose a higher tier for more access to your favorite podcasts! You can enjoy this episode and other clips of 83 Weeks everyday on YouTube! Subscribe and turn on your notifications at www.83WeeksOnYouTube.com Let us help you save some money and get out of debt today over at www.SaveWithConrad.com If you want the world to hear about the exciting things your doing in your business then you need to advertise on 83 Weeks! We can help make a difference in your company today over at www.AdvertiseWithConrad.com We are always coming up with new hilarious t-shirt designs over at www.EricBischoff.com head over there now and check them out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, everybody. Thanks for checking out the podcast. We greatly appreciate your support. But right here at the top of the show, before we get started today, I wanted to send a shout out to a friend of the show, Jay Frat, who tweeted me a picture yesterday, and I just wanted to give him a shout out here. He says, I'll just leave this here. And then it's a screenshot that says old mortgage, number of months left, 317. New mortgage, number of months left, 240. 40. Months off of loan, 77. Think about that. 77 house payments going. Years off loan, 6.4. Total savings. 206,9606.5.53. This is what Jay saved at save with Conrad.com. He made sure to put in the tweet, Oh, by the way, my monthly payments went up a whopping $13. Thank you to Larry, Jennifer, Phillip, and the entire team for making this decision super easy to go through.

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Get out of debt now. Keep more of your own money. Go to save with conrad.com. 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 am doing so great, Conrad. It's Father's Day morning as we record this.

And, you know, I heard from my kids and got a couple nice pictures. and social media that somebody posts it and it's just an awesome day it really is well happy father's day to you and all the dads out there and i'm happy to say that we're covering a father's day show uh the show we're covering today happened on father's day 1996 of course this great american bash from the baltimore arena and baltimore maryland we've got nine thousand fans there on june 16th seven thousand three hundred and twenty three of those fans paid a gate of $123,000, $406. It does a 0.48 buy rate for around 1.34 million.

So WCW is not quite at the peak yet, but man, things are moving in the right direction. We're well into the Nitro era that launched the prior Labor Day, and we've got a little momentum here in WCW, and off air before we clicked record, I said, man, I watched this show yesterday and I got to tell you I just love this shit and you said man me too that you could probably feel the momentum and the winds of change on the way watching this show could you not well yeah I mean you go back and watch it some 20 years later and of course it it has a whole different feel and vibe based on what we've learned over the last 20 years and what happened over the last 20 years but I so enjoyed going back and looking at the show

And I probably have said this too many times. But there are moments where there are seismic shifts in business, in any business. And sometimes it's something that, you know, you've orchestrated, you, meaning someone who's in the business orchestrates. Sometimes it's just timing, you know. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's not great. But this is one of those shows when I watch it. This really, if there's any one moment in time, I think this show that defines the drastic change that was about to occur after the show and for several years afterwards, this show defines it.

This was WCW on the precipice of some really amazing things that would impact the industry for, decades to come and and what was so fun about this show for me is when i watched it i'm going to try not to go off on a tangent here but you know we're it it's like a perfect combination of the old the old style of presenting wrestling at least within wcd and what was going to become kind of the new evolution of the industry and as a whole not only just in wcdb but as a whole but you see it so clearly here the contrast between the matches and the style in the in-ring performances were so clear to me in watching this show you know watching and we'll talk about raymistero you know in his match between milaco as we go on but therein lies a perfect example

of an incredibly impressive performance a whole new style of presenting the product And then you have, you know, the four horsemen and, you know, Steve McMichaels and Kevin Green and that storyline. And it's just such an obvious contrast to me between the way the business used to be presented and the way it was about to become presented in the future. So it was really just so much fun for me to watch. I can't recommend it enough. I mean, especially if you're about my age, you know, if you're in your mid to late 30s, early 40s, this is so fun to go back and watch because this is for a lot of us when we were about to be or are at our wrestling peak fandom and wcw is really on fire at this point especially by comparison of where they had been and it's just going to get hotter of course it all started really i guess on may 27th we see the shocking debut of scott hall which we've covered a lot here on the show on june 10th we see kevin nash show up uh of course the former diesel and you said that Tuesday morning back in Atlanta, you're going to try to set up a

fight for them. You ask them to show up Sunday in Baltimore at the Bash and the Beach pay-per-view. And Nash says something like the measuring stick just changed around here. You're looking at it. And all of a sudden, two of the biggest stars of the last three years of the World Wrestling Federation are here on Nitro. So the internet is still in its infancy at this time. to the average fan, we think we've got Razor Ramon and Diesel on Nitro, it starts to look and feel

like an invasion. And it's a really cool time to be a wrestling fan because everybody wants to know what's next. And I don't think many people would have predicted what it would be. And it's not going to happen at this paper view. It's the following month. But this is not the main event sort of segment. And that's what's interesting about watching this era of WCW is the NWO is not really the hot topic it's going to become we're still building the story we're still building some steam and i couldn't help but think you know the way it's positioned on the show and we're going to talk about it but the interview segment with with you and the outsiders and of course you take the power bomb through the stage and the whole deal but i felt like when i watched the main

event of the giant and lex luger for the world title i think if that same angle and storyline was taking place today, we would have learned who the third man was right then. I felt like we would. Go ahead. No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No,

I just feel like with a more modern era of wrestling, we wouldn't have been able to help ourselves. We would have had a tease in that segment. And then in the very next segment, we would have learned that the third man was Lex Lugar, or it was the giant, or it was some other outside force, or at a minimum,

Holland Nash would have been involved, but you maybe just through discipline or it was just a different time, we didn't hot shot it. We took our time. And as a result, it became the legendary NWO. I just, I just feel like it would, it would not work the same way today. Does that make sense? No, it absolutely makes sense. And again, I'm, what I'm about to say, I want to purpose this.

I'm not being critical, okay? When I reference either WWE or AEW or anybody else, in the context in which I'm about to, this is not a criticism because the world has changed. Television has changed. The ability to service the audience has changed. And we can talk about that. We get into the weeds later on.

But I believe, and this is why I love doing the show with you, Conrader, because we can look back to 1996 and we can find the things that we all know worked. Right. And we can find the things that we all know didn't work, right? And you can kind of apply the lessons or the strategies, tactics, whatever you want to call them, to today's product and see what really worked well. And in a general sense, the formula, the architecture, the blueprint of, storytelling and what worked so obviously well, to this day, NWO merchandise is still one of the

hottest pieces of merchandise in the WWE catalog. Yeah. 20 some odd years later, but the question is why? That's what I always love thinking about when we do these, to these shows. What was it? And there were many things. There's not one thing. But I think one of the things, to your point, is that you can, and I don't want to.

I don't, I don't, I don't want to sound like I'm patting myself on the back. I don't know it honestly if it was disciplined on my part or if it was just a clear picture. Oftentimes when you don't have a clear picture, when you don't have a blueprint, when you don't have a plan that you've really thought through and you've kind of identified the beats, the moments, the high spots, whatever you want to call it, within an arc of a story and you time those high spots, those beats, in such a way that they play out exactly when you want them. And you find yourself not watching an angle, not necessarily recognizing a storyline, but you're looking at what's unfolding as a journey.

And this was a journey. This was, it started off, I mean, this was a classic act one, you know, going back to May 27th. you're taking someone in Scott Hall who makes his way down, you know, through a nitro, unannounced, unadvertised. And this is something I'm going to probably beat the dog shit out of today. And this is really what I'm about to say is adding credibility and substance to your point. Today when we, and it drives to be fucking crazy, actually. And I'm not going to mention the organization's names, but when I see any wrestling organization, especially the bigger ones, advertising a week in advance something that's going to happen, you're deluding the power of live television, you're deluding, you're giving up, you're throwing away, you're shoving down the garbage disposal, one of your biggest advantages when you're do live TV and that's tickling that that need that's that satisfying that need if you will

for the audience to feel like man I got to tune in because anything can happen and I don't want to miss it fuck that's called appointment television that's why you're live and when whether it's wwee or aEW there I go I said I wasn't going to name him but here we go when I see them advertising something that really doesn't have any story there's no buildup there's no journey involved you're just advertising a match i'm sorry the talent you're advertising in a match and this is not a criticism it's just a fact there is nobody that you're advertising that is such a great draw that advertising in a week in advance is going to move the needle and not only is it not going to move the needle because it doesn't have a story and the talent

by themselves are not big enough draws they're not rock they're not steve austin they're not Rick Flair, they're not Hulk Hogan, you know, none of it. They're not John Cena. There's not a story. The draw isn't big enough final zone. So what do we do? Oh, let's just promote it. Let's make sure the audience knows what we're going to do. Well, how about not? Right. How about instead of that, how about creating a really good story that feels like it's, it's it's combusting spontaneously before your eyes in an in the moment now you're capitalizing on live television and I think that's what we did with the NWO and whether it was because I had a clear picture in my head or at least a vague picture in my head I think would probably be

a truer way to characterize it this story had a premise the Scott Halls Kevin Nash used to work WCW left, became big stars, came back to take revenge on the company that didn't give them the respect and the opportunities that they felt they deserved. It's a simple fucking story. It's a simple premise. You don't have to be a creative genius to come up with that. And I certainly wasn't. But it was a believable story.

And what we saw, starting on the 27th, that's now going to play out in front of us on the 16th of June in 1996 that is going to continue for the next couple years was a journey that everybody could understand. We were going to follow the NWO's journey into trying to take over WCW. It was so simple in so many ways it's almost embarrassing, but yet when was the last time we've seen anything remotely similar to it? And I don't think we have. There's been some great stories. I'm not saying there hasn't. But the reason this story is still relevant to the industry today is because it was a simple story that was structured over over a period of time originally and the beats played out in a very specific way in a very specific time to

enhance that journey but before we go too much further because i feel like we're about to really get into it let's just kind of set the tone 1996 do you know what the number one movie it was for for that weekend, June 16th, 1996. I love that you're doing this. It's about to be Independence Day, but I don't know what it was this weekend. Oh, it was the cable guy. Oh, shit. With Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick, it was directed by Ben Stiller.

It grossed like almost $20,000, $1,9,806, $226. So it drew about $20 million over the weekend. Now here's, you like college football. right love it you know who wrote the original screenplay for this movie i do not do you want to know i do what if i told you his father is a legendary college football coach would you would you be able to guess no who are the who do you think are the top five top three most significant college football coaches let's go top five in history as of right now well i mean if you're saying now sabin's on the list but i don't know that he would have been back

then but yeah i mean bear bryant uh jo paterno back then bobby bowden i mean there's some there's some some studs along the way okay how about lou holz oh my gosh yeah lou holz junior actually wrote the original screenplay for the cable guy i didn't know that is that fucking awesome that's a cool little uh trivia fact that i don't think many of our listeners would have known all right so let's dig into okay so the cable guy now um i think if i'm not sure independent no mission impossible mission impossible was the big hit it was like number one three weeks in a row it did about 45 million dollars um it's opening weekend so it was a big big movie but let's go to songs number one song in the usa this weekend

i know you there's no way you would know this right where this is not a music podcast no but it was bone thugs and harmony by the crossroads i don't even know who the crossroads are well you got it backwards bone thugs and harmony is the is a rap group crossroads is the song well there you go shows you what i know number two is maria carey always be my baby oh that's terrible i know right the number one country song No, I'm a little closer to country music than I am to top 40 stuff, but the number one country song was Time Marches On by Tracy Lawrence. So now, and President Clinton, Bill Clinton was the president.

So now we have, now we have June 16th, 1996. We kind of know what's going on the world of movies. We've got an idea of what we're listening to in music. And here we are, the birth of the end of the end. W.O. What would be? But I think we're going into labor here. We haven't gone into, we haven't, we're not, we're not birthing yet, but we're, we're definitely into labor. June 16th, 1996, the world is about to change. Hey man, remember when you were a kid and your biggest issue was your parents, you know, it felt like your parents just didn't want to let you do anything fun.

I just didn't understand. Well, every now and again, I still have that sort of relationship with my mom. I feel like she just doesn't understand. She was not. not a fan of me eating cereal as a kid and uh well i won one for the good guys and you can too thanks to magic spoon you see growing up cereal was one of the best parts of being a kid but then eventually you realize well you probably don't need all these carbs and sugar and all this unhealthy food but then magic spoon changed the game i got to spike the ball on mom because magic spoon has zero sugar, 12 grams of protein, and only three net carbs in each serving. And I know what you're thinking. Well, that must mean it tastes like shit. It does not. It's freaking awesome.

It tastes amazing. It's honestly too good to be true because you've got four incredible flavors. I like them all. I started with fruity. Now I'm on to cocoa. Tremendous. My mom actually served a bowl of the frosted and against her will. She tried it. And it was a incredible because the deal is she just assumes if I'm eating it then it's probably not good for you and she was pleased to see that oh my gosh this is awesome but this has got to be bad for you it is not mom it's keto friendly it's gluten free it's grain free it's soy free it's low carb it's GMO free it's unbelievable that they can make something this good also good for you Blueberry, by the way, is the flavor that Mrs. Thompson likes to rock.

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So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. That's magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks and use the code 83 weeks for free shipping. And we thank Magic Spoon for sponsoring the podcast and, well, let me get a W over mom, who now loves frosted her favorite flavor from MagicSpoon. Check it out, man, magic spoon.com, 83 weeks, and the promo code is 83 weeks. it is remarkable and by the way even though you know the NW is not here business is so far up compared to the prior year and a lot of that is based on the success on Nistro your average attendance in June of 95 is 2400 fans we're up 69% by June of 96 we're averaging 4,070 fans our gate it's not up 69% it's up 125% back in June of 95% we're only averaging 24,000 and change here we're over 55 grand we're still not quite selling out house shows but man there's more folks there and ratings by the way they're up 11 percent so in every

possible measurement every metric you could look at business is up for wcw and you've got to be feeling pretty good coming into this uh we should mention uh some bad news as we head into this though the day before, Dick Murdoch passes away at just 49 years old. Did you ever get to work with Dick Murdoch?

I don't know that we've spent much time talking about him. I mean, work with him, like in the ring or interviewing him and things like that.

I may have interviewed him once or twice over the years. Nothing pops out in my head, but I'm guessing I probably did. Never worked with him obviously in any kind of an angle or anything like that,

but certainly around him enough. You know, You know, Dusty Roads, Dick Murdoch, Terry Funk, you know, they were all from that, Wahoo McDaniels, although Wahoo wasn't in WCW, but they were all kind of from that same, Manny Fernandez was another guy that I remember kind of out of that class of wrestlers that represented kind of that era. I would probably, you know, the 70s, I guess, would probably be the peak of their respective careers, maybe early 80s.

So I do remember him, but I don't know that I ever had any real, I don't think I ever really worked with it directly. Let's talk a little bit about where business is. On June 7th in Buffalo, New York at the Memorial Coliseum, WCW draws a near sellout of over 15,000 fans for a gate of around 200 grand, which at the time is the biggest gate in WCW history. The prior gate was 190 grand for Great American Bash. 1989, also in Baltimore. Buffalo, New York, would you have ever guessed that that would be the tippy top gate for WCW? No, and I think that was another thing. There were so many, I just called them indicators, so many kind of random points of information that you start connecting the dots and a picture starts to unfold. And I think one of the most exciting things about that house

wasn't necessarily the dollar amount, although obviously that was, you know, caused for celebration. But when WCW was able to, really, for the first time, start stepping outside of our comfort zone, you know, our comfort zone was typically the southeast. There were certain markets like Norfolk, for example, you know, Baltimore to a degree. Obviously, you know, we're here, but for this pay-per-view. But there were always certain markets that we could go to where you're pretty sure. relatively speaking you're going to draw a decent house or a good house and there were certain markets that we just knew it was just not a WCW market either because of the WWF you know footprint which had been there for so long generations I might add even at this point there was just certain markets that we had a hard time cracking and Buffalo was one of those markets yeah we can put on a show there and we can do okay and we can not completely lose our ass but There was no real reason to go there because you're not going to do anything special.

And to be able to go to Buffalo and draw that big of a house, not only was the money, you know, exciting and the success that we had, obviously, that was exciting. But the fact that we're now able to kind of broaden our footprint and start going into markets that up until that point, we would struggle in at best, we would struggle. And oftentimes they were so expensive to go to that given the struggle, we had to put asses and seats, so it just oftentimes didn't make financial sense. But now we're starting to open up our map a little bit, and we can start going into markets and up until that point we really couldn't justify going into.

And I think that was the most exciting. For me, that was the most tangible benefit in terms of what we have been doing up until that point, because now it's like, well, wait a minute, we're no longer just that Southeast wrestling company. We're no longer, you know, those guys down south. We're going to be able to start going into bigger markets that have, you know, more money in them, you know, people with more discretionary income. And we're going to be able to start taking advantage of the success that we had been having on television up to that point. So it was exciting in so many ways. It really was. And really one of the exciting things is, you know, even though it maybe was in

lied you weren't explicit you're you're in w wf territory i mean for years and years it felt like there was almost a threshold of baltimore and you guys would do really great baltimore but you didn't usually venture too far further north on that i mean occasionally you'd have some big shows in wcd but baltimore was a stronghold to a lesser extent philadelphia but maybe not boston maybe not new york maybe not new jersey um but here to maybe maybe maybe not a lot of places. And there was a couple reasons for that. One is, again, this is 1996. WCW

had really only been around for what, six or seven years at that point. Out of those six or seven years, it had been struggling miserably, never was really able to get out of that, you know, regional kind of feel that it had, you know, partly, in part because it was, you know, a flagship show

on TBS, but TBS, you know, back in 90, you know, the early 90s, even into the mid-90s, was still considered kind of a even though it wasn't a regional cable provider, it still had that vibe. Right. And that was one challenge.

The other challenge was, um, WWF, you know, they had some pretty solid relationships with the right venues. And they toured often enough between their TV tapings and their live house shows that they were effective, they were able to effectively block in a legal,

in a legal way, but by booking the, buildings in advance by having very close deep personal relationships with building managers and the people that controlled schedules, they were able to, even if we had been hotter in the years earlier, we probably wouldn't have been able to leverage any success into getting into the right buildings at the right time. So we were blocked because of our own kind of branding or lack thereof. And we were also blocked because WWE or WWO at the time had most of the good buildings, the buildings you would want to run in, locked up. So you couldn't book the building if you wanted to

because they'd have a month before and a month after their previous events and the first right of refusal or last right of refusal, however the contracts were structured. But they were effectively kept us locked out of most key markets. Now, once we became hot, And the television property became successful. You know, go back a couple of weeks on this podcast when I mentioned that my strategy in killing the house shows and putting all of our resources into television and upgrading our production values and creating a demand for our product, all of those things that I was doing in 93, and 94, 95 are now paying off at 96 to the point where it became harder

and harder and harder for WWF to block us out of some of those buildings because the property was just so hot that a lot of the building managers we were dealing with that previously would have said, yeah, we're kind of booked up. We can't really make that date happen. We've got previous commitments, that type of thing. We're now saying, well, you know, I think we can make that work. And that was the beginning. That was the, that's, I guess, why it was so excited. When I mentioned earlier, it was so excited to be able to open up markets is because we were overcoming kind of an unwritten, unspoken blockade to some of the better buildings. But once we started getting hot, even some of those attempts to block us out of some of those bigger markets and better buildings started to fail. And that's where I got excited.

When you talked about personal relationships with the buildings, you did a big Eric Bischoff throat clear. Is that a legitimate throat clear? Are you insinuating that perhaps somebody was getting a little pocket money? I'm almost certain that the relationships that existed at that time involved one form or another of enrichment. Maybe it was just a bottle of wine. Maybe it was a suitcase full of money. Who knows? But I do know, you know, when it comes to interruption,

entertainment agents building managers um those who work for companies who are trying to negotiate best dates best rates i'm sure there was i'm sure there was some nice gifts under the christmas tree every year copy that that would be that would be my bet well a couple of guys who aren't going to be getting some extra christmas presents the road warriors officially quit the promotion on may 28th. Meltzer would say it was the same problem that had been going on for a few weeks when they heard what Hall and Nash were getting and thought they should be in the same league and management thought otherwise. We haven't spent a ton of time talking about the Road Warriors in WCW. Once upon a time, they were the top drawing act in wrestling. This was of course the territory

days. Things are different in 1996. Their WCW run at this point had been rather forgettable in this era and they had maybe burned a bridge with the WWF. So I was a little shocked when they decide to pull up stakes and quit, especially over protest over how much money they're making, considering that while business may be on the uptake, it wasn't exactly on fire because the road warriors were there. Were you shocked that they dug their heels on on this? Or what do you remember about their departure?

I wasn't shocked. You know, the road warriors at this time, They were pretty good friends of mine. I had known them since Minneapolis. Had a pretty good feel. We had a lot of mutual friends. It got along, fine, socially. But business-wise, they were still kind of stuck in a different mentality.

And I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed that they drew a line in the sand. Not in terms of losing them. as talent, and I don't need to diminish their value when I say that, but they just weren't that important to the direction we were going at that time. Right. And so to draw a line in the sand, I mean, it was, it was the worst possible time for them to do that. I mean, here we've got, what we all knew was lightning.

We didn't know how, we didn't know how big of a lightning bolt we had, but we knew that we had something. Sure. And we were excited about it. I mean, so much so that this is about the period of time. We've talked about this many times. But I think it was this week back in 1996 after this pay-per-view that Hulk Hogan called me from California. He was, you know, he was locked down on a movie set.

He couldn't leave. And he said, hey, man, can you make it out to California? I want to talk. You know, he was aware of what we. I mean, everybody knew that we had something really special and to draw, for the Road Warriors to draw a line in the the sand right now, right here, right where we were coming off of Buffalo, as you just pointed out, coming off of some of these other things. It was just a really bad timing for them. And I was disappointed in that. And it wasn't a loss. You know, they drew a line in the sand.

They made their demands and I couldn't let it happen, even though they were friends of mine. I just couldn't make it happen. So we parted way. So I would say it was more disappointed on a personal level than I was on a business level. it is fun to think about though you know like in you know once the outsiders get up and going they're going to have matches with the steiner brothers and with harlome heat but they could have also worked with the road warriors and man that would have been some cool stuff i mean especially when wcw needed guys on their side you know if they were around perhaps that war games could have been you know sting and the road warriors and i don't know it's just it's fun to think about

what could have been but they knew better um Well, and I got to say, I hate saying stuff like this because they're, well, obviously, only one of them are with us today. But they weren't that hot. Right. You know, they overestimated their equity. Their equity had probably seen its peak as a team as performers three or four years earlier. and they were kind of on the downward trend of that value proposition. So, again, it was just really, really bad time.

And I don't think there would have been great matches, you know, between Hall and Nash and the Road Warriors. I just don't think they would have been. The Road Warriors in 1996 weren't the same Road Warriors in 1992 and three and four. Again, I don't know that it would have been great matches, but just on a poster road warriors on one side outsiders on another you know that's going to get some people paying attention yeah you're got to put some garnish on it probably in 96 but it could have been an interesting attraction and it's a shame that it didn't happen you know

those guys were difficult to do with at different times and and i understand let's uh let's talk about the briefly we've talked about this a lot but there are some legal ramifications of what you're trying to do with the NWO, you're going to continue to get some back and forth with the WWF. And I feel like we've sort of beat that to death. But one of the things I don't know we've spent a ton of time on is that Scott Hall actually got a letter from the WWF. And it says this letter is to serve to put you on notice of your deliberate infringement of Titan's intellectual property rights and connection with your appearance this past Monday on WCW's Nitro show. Having reviewed the tape of your appearance, the text of the various statements made by you during

your appearance and the explicit references to past and ongoing storylines of Titan sports, it's obvious that you were attempting by your appearance to suggest to the consuming public that you and others from the WWF were now going to be appearing on Turner Networks in WCW programming as part of some intra-promotional matches. The entire theme of the program, buttressed by WCW personnel afterwards, was that WWF wrestlers were going to be wrestling WCW performers and that you were leading a group of WWF talent in that effort. this is of course completely false and was intended to confuse the viewing public to further this attempt to mislead and confuse the public you could you stayed completely within character of the portrayal of razor romone a registered trademark of titan sports during your appearance on nitro indeed both you and wcw personnel never even mentioned the name you intend to wrestle under at wcw choosing instead to tell the audience they know who you were you dressed like razor romone and utilized a Hispanic

accent given to you by Titan as part of the character portrayal. We've broken down in the past, Eric, that really the Razor Ramon character is just a spinoff of the old Diamond Stud, WCW character. So we can debate that, but we've probably beat that up enough. My question here is, when Scott gets this letter, I mean, we know what you thought of it, but when Scott gets this letter, does he bring it to you and say, hey, Eric, you won't believe the shit I got or is it like oh fuck man I might be in trouble take a look of this no I mean he brought it to our attention he didn't overreact to it it was it was business like his reaction was

very business like and he brought it to our tension right away the letter went from uh Scott to our legal team at Turner broadcasting and at that point I really wasn't involved in it I had to be aware I had to listen to Turner legal's opinion about it I had to take their guidance in terms of how to best. And we'll talk about it during the interview on this show because there's a moment in that interview where I have to, I've got a little disclaimer in there. And I'll point it out when we cover the interview.

But, you know, yeah, it was an issue. But it wasn't a big of, you know, Scott didn't overreact to it. I didn't overreact to it. It went from Scott to probably Nick Lambros at the time. Nick took it over to his counterparts and turned illegal. And we just dealt with it. But nobody overreacted to it. And I think at this point, you know, I was still laughing it off.

All it did because they were selling, you know, that was a big thing. You know, you talk to guys that have been around, and I know that you do. But, you know, one of the things about Vince that I had always heard before I ever had a chance to work with him was that he just doesn't sell anything. He just doesn't sell. Well, he's starting to sell. You start to whimper a little bit in the corner over here. And the fact that they reacted the way they did. did, all that did was

energize me. Yeah. And again, I didn't know what was going to happen a month or two months or three months down the road from a legal perspective. And I didn't have any experience in this. I'd never been sued by anybody for trademark infringement before. So to me, it was like, oh, fuck it. Now I know, now we're hitting a nerve.

Whoa, it's like landing a punch. I don't know if you've ever boxed or done anything like that. But when you hit somebody, they might not go down, but you know, you can look in their eyes and you know that while they might not go down, they're hurting. And if you just keep up the pressure, they're going to go down. And that's the way I felt at this point. It was like, whoa, I just tagged this motherfucker. One I rolled back in his head and the other one's looking a little goofy and he's starting

to look around the ring like he needs his corner, man. This is a good sign. That's kind of the way I felt. Hey, man, how do you listen to our podcast every week? I don't know why, but I find myself usually listening to podcasts not when I'm in the car and not like through my player in my den or even in my office. I find myself listening with earbuds most of all. And the earbuds I've been using lately are the ones from Raycon.

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That's buyraycon.com slash 83 weeks, and you get 15% off your Raycon Wireless Earbutts. That's buy raycon.com slash 83 weeks. It's one of those deals too where because Hall and Nash have shown up, now everybody's sort of wondering who's next because there is the tease of the third man and believe it or not, British Bulldog joins the conversation and allegedly he has no correspondence with you guys. He's just simply looking to leverage a better deal out of McMahon because he gives notice the day after Scott Hall debuts on Nitro that, hey, I'm putting my 90-day notice

in because his contract expired at the end of August. A Belster would say unlike previous notices with Hall, Nash, and DiBiase. This wasn't the case of another performer giving notice as a prelude to signing a contract with WCW. He was just doing this as a way to renegotiate his existing contract before it expires. And I don't know why, but it just becomes fun in this era to think, about oh man are they jumping ship i mean the monday night wars have really heated it up to where on either side if a contract is coming due uh fans and and and the quote unquote boys

they're going to start to wonder oh man are they fixing a jump or or what's going to happen here you know and that's another thing that you and i've often talked about and most of the time it comes in the in the form of a question from a fan you know you the typical question is something to the effect of do you think we'll ever see another era like the Monday Night War era? And my answer is always no. Right. And it's for various reasons. And one of the reasons that we never really talk about, or at least I never talk about, is, you know, back, you know, 95, 95, 96, the way WWEA, WWF, you know, structured their contracts, it was always possible that somebody could give a 30-day notice or a 90-day notice or in the case of Lex Lugar's contract was expired,

nobody was even really paying attention of WWF. Sorry, Bruce, it's true. Those conditions no longer exist. If you're under contract at WWF, our WWE currently, there's no way anybody's going to surprise anybody about leaving. Now, you may get terminated by WWE, and in the case of termination, you may be available in 30 days or 60 days or whatever the the period of time is but there's no jumping ship

there's no spontaneous combustion when it comes to talent leaving coming and going back and forth it's all pretty predictable everybody knows about it months before it happens for the most part when it comes to names that really move the needle if there are any left it it's just not the same as it was back then You know, somebody could leave WCW on a Wednesday and be working for WWF on a house show on Saturday or on TV on Monday and vice versa. That ain't going to happen anymore. So, and one of the things that I think energized the Monday Night War so much, in addition to, you know, the evolution of the way the product was presented in storylines and more reality-based wrestling and all the other stuff that are obvious when you watch television. But the thing that drove the Monday Night War is I'm going to go back to the beginning of this podcast.

There was so much buzz. There were so many questions to ask. There were so many conversations taking place on a Tuesday morning based on what happened Monday night. And part of the reason was there was speculation. There were questions. Who's the third guy is the most obvious one of that era? because we built an entire promotion around a question mark. We built an entire long-term storyline around an individual

that nobody knew who he was until he revealed himself. And that created conversation and the conversation created interest and the interest created momentum. It's just this wonderful snowball effect. But we did it exactly the opposite. This is the point I'm really trying. hard to make it. I hope somebody that matters, when I say that matters, somebody that can actually do something about it, is listening to this. Quit telling everybody, everything.

Let things unfold. Take us for a ride. Take us for a journey. Create your first goal. If you're a writer at AEW, I don't even know if they have writer. Somebody has to sit down and put a pen to paper. I don't give a fuck what you want to call it. If you're writing for AEW, if you're writing for WWE, the first thing you should think about as you sit down and look at a blank piece of paper is what can we do to stimulate conversation? What can we do to get people on the internet, asking each other questions, having different opinions about what they think is going to happen next? Well, you can't achieve that if you tell them what's going to happen next for god's sake take advantage of your live television otherwise just tape the shit it doesn't

matter but if you have live television for god's sake utilize it surprise me do something spontaneous i don't give a fuck if a light falls out of a lighting grid the middle of a match at least it's different and it feels like i'm at a live event instead of watching something that could have been taped it's just it's fundamental but that's what happened go back and look at the Monday Night Wars. Forget about the angles. Forget about the in-ring quality of the matches. Forget about all the horseshit that everybody over-analyzes to begin with. And look at the very basic fundamentals. Why did this era work so well? What were we doing that stimulated so much conversation and so much interest after the show? Not during the show. After the show. And you do

that by asking questions. You don't do that by making statements. You don't close somebody and I don't know how you work Conrad I've never heard you pitch but generally the most powerful closing statement you can make is it a statement it's a question it's always a question yeah you it's no anybody who's listening to this who's ever sold anything knows telling ain't selling uh it's you're always going from very general to very specific and you get there through a series of leading questions that gets you to the answer you're looking for and the answer we're looking for clearly when we're trying to bump WCW to the next level is a little something called blood runs cold which would eventually be glacier the commercial start in this era

and Wade Keller wrote something that I had never heard that I found out of our research that made me laugh out loud the initial reports of blood runs cold including Adam bomb and Hakushi were the results of intentional planting of wrong information by WCW Hikushi is still actually under contract with the WWF until December, and odds are the WWF wouldn't release him even if he wanted his intention to go to WCW right away. At this point, the latest name is David Ashford Smith, aka Yoshi Kwan, Chris Champion, as one of the members of the three martial arts gimmick team. I absolutely love that there is some scepterfuge at hand and we're planting misinformation.

is this an Eric Bischoff initiative or is this guys like Terry Taylor having fun? No, that was me. I love that kind of shit. I do. And again, it goes to what I was saying before. It's not that I, okay,

I enjoyed it on a personal level. I just love fucking with people. Yes, you do. That's part of my nature. but it also created a conversation. It got people asking themselves questions and debating things because they didn't know the answer. I just, God, I promise, I'm not going to beat that point up anymore today if I haven't made myself clear.

If I haven't articulated what I think the industry as a whole, not anyone organization, the industry as a whole needs is to rethink. everybody likes to use the term reimagined. When I hear people say, I think we need to reimagine anything, right off the bat I don't know, I know they don't have a fucking clue what they're thinking about. It's just one of those terms that makes you sound like you're at a higher level of thought and process than you really are. It's just like the term, when I hear a politician say any politician on either side of any fence, I don't give a fuck.

the minute I hear somebody say we need to have a conversation a national conversation how the fuck are you going to have a conversation with people that can't have a conversation about anything anymore I mean unless Conrad you agree with everything I say if this was a political podcast unless you agreed with everything I said we couldn't have a conversation we'd be yelling at each other sure that's just the way it is but but it's a very elegant way of making yourself sound like you're kind of operating at a higher level than the average person when you say we need to have a conversation or we need to reimagine the way that we're presenting our wrestling characters and stories that's just like a big red bullshit flag in my opinion because it's not you don't have to reimagine anything you don't have to reinvent the freaking wheel you just have to go back to some pretty basic shit that you used to do, by the way, and we're actually quite good at it, but have lost sight of. Basic storytelling, just basic storytelling, a blueprint, an arc that's got some

defined moments in it that's consistent and coincides with your pay-per-view schedule or even a house show schedule or something you're building for on television. It's just so simple. I said I promise I wouldn't beat it up anymore I am not going to say another word about it for another I don't know four shows I'm not going to I'm not going to mention it again talk to me nobody listens nobody listens anyway so what the fuck I mean specifically though when you're talking about announcing matches a week ahead of time kind of mostly talking about AW right no talking about WWE too they do the same damn thing and I have no idea why. And again, if

if and these guys are all, these are people that I, I have nothing but affection and respect for. But it's business is business at this point. Why

promote AJ Styles and I'm sorry, who's the kid bro, who's the bro kid? The long hair. Oh yeah, Matt Riddle. Why promote that a week in advance? Right. why do that

Matt Riddle's not a big enough star nobody gives up fuck who Matt Riddle is right now has nothing to do with what I think of him as a potential talent or a talent has nothing to do with where I think he can go because I actually think he has the ability to be amazing I think he has the ability

and the potential in a not too distant future to become a huge star it's got nothing to do with it right it's got nothing to do with the fact that I think AJ Styles is one of the best performers to step into a WWE ring in the last five years and a guy who I have nothing but the highest level of respect for as a human being and as a talent but neither one of them are the rock neither one of them are at this point John Sina or a stone cold Steve Austin or an undertaker

they're just not so rather than promoting that a week in advance or whatever it was why not create a scenario where Matt Riddle just blows into the scene and something happened spontaneously where a match is made spontaneously with a spectacular finish. That would get him over more, by the way, than promoting a match and giving everybody a week or two to decide if they like it or don't like it and giving all the peripheral media opportunity to chime in and actually affect the way some people are probably going to feel about it because everybody wants to be on some team or another and and and aside from that and how how promoting it a week in advance without a storyline no story no reason for it that i'm that i'm aware of and tell me if

i'm wrong just wow we've got an attraction no you don't you really really don't you may think you do you may feel like you do because you're excited about matt riddle but you don't have it yet You have to build it, and then they'll show up for it. But in the meantime, what you've also done by promoting something that doesn't really matter a week in advance is you're taking any element of surprise, you're taking any element of the power that live TV has, you're mitigating that or diluting it to the point where it doesn't really matter. Of course, it was taped anyway, but it was done so in a way that the information didn't leak out. But you're killing it. You're killing it. You're not killing it.

You're only giving it half of the amount of oxygen that it needs. And it would have been so much easier and the outcome would have been so much better. And the buzz would have been completely different than the buzz following the match that was promoted a week in advance that didn't really have a storyline. There were really no stakes. It was just an attraction. And I would cut, I'd cut off my left hand for Bruce Bridger. That's how much I love Bruce. This is not a criticism of him.

this is the formula this is the process this is what the collective powers to be think is the right way to promote and it's not it's just not and nitro was proof and what became the attitude era a year and a half later was proof fuck go back to what you already did it work i said i'm sorry i'm going to i haven't had it again we're never going to get through the show if i don't change it get off this tangent. So one of the things you know about me besides my love of professional wrestling and podcasting about it is my affinity for saving money. And recently I learned it was reported that Americans are overpaying on car insurance by more than $21 billion. Can you even imagine? It's unbelievable. I mean, that's over $21 billion that Americans could have kept

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Get the best deal possible and avoid the nonsense spam calls. at the zebra.com slash 83 weeks. Let's talk about Chris Jericho. You offer a deal to Chris Jericho after seeing him at the Peace Festival. You also talked with Bam Bam Bigelow, although Bam is still technically not able to leave

because of some agreement with the WWF. But it's written, according to Meltzer, that you want Jericho full time. And of course, we know Jericho is going to come in not long after this. Bigelow winds up landing in ECW, and he comes to WCW in November. November of 98.

Tell us about signing Jericho and thinking he would be a real asset for you on Nitro. Well, I mean, there was nothing spectacular about it. It was so obvious. You know, when I say spectacular, there wasn't an aha moment. There wasn't any, you know, I didn't have any master plan in my head. It was just, he was such a great performer and had such a great look. And he just reeked of charisma and the athleticism to go along with it. with with the

the cruiserweight division as it was back in the at this point 96 I just I saw him and I went okay this this this is a guy that has to be in the cruiserweight division he has to be in that group of telep because that was his style you know Chris wasn't a really big guy back in 1996 compared to you know what was

considered to be the the traditional standard of you know what makes a main eventer um so i i i don't want to say fell in love with them because people go nuts with that but i fell in love with what i saw you know at that event uh way killer would uh report bischoff told wrestlers after the may 13th nitro about nitro expanding to two hours it was his first full-fledged pep talk to wrestlers and he was really a beat among other things he said the expanded nitro time slot will give them more breathing room him to do more interviews and longer matches, which started already with the Flair Guerrero match

on the May 20th episode, which was expanded for a 90-minute nitro, which should remind everybody, and this seems crazy in hindsight, Raw was a one-hour show, and Nitro was going to be a one-hour show. Nitro experiments with 90 minutes and then ultimately lands on a full two-hour time slot. Eventually, Raw would follow suit. Nitro would then expand to three hours. It's hard to imagine, giving that we all have to sit through a three-hour raw and a two-hour smackdown and a two-hour AEW, like two hours has become the new standard. But once upon a time, it was just an hour, right? And who set that standard? Who led the way? Who cleared the path for 120 minutes is some of the most exciting action that has ever been seen in the world, not just here in the

States, but in the entire world of professional wrestling, that would be Nitro. Eric. And as you pointed out, as you pointed out, WWF would follow suit and then would follow suit again with a three-hour show. If you write down all of the ways that WWF followed suit in terms of what we did at Nitro, and you'll understand why I say, Nitro changed the wrestling landscape, not only during the Monday Night Wars, but to this. very day. Our fingerprints, our choices, our decisions, our tactics, our strategies still live on

today. Not just in a form of the NWO merchandise, just in terms of the format that you're watching. You're watching live TV on Monday nights and Wednesday nights and Friday nights when things are back to normal because of Monday night nitro. Just remember that. Not you. Right. I want to mention, we've done a full show on Brian Pillman and one of our early your episodes but on June 1st he winds up signing with the WWF his contract with WCW expired on April 17th two days later he's in a horrible accident early June it looks like you and him have an agreement on a three-year deal for just over a million dollars in total he wanted a couple of provisions you guys go back and forth he winds up landing in the WWF we break that down in great

detail in the archives so we won't spend any time on it here but I did want to mention that it's happening in the background of all this uh, Wade Keller would report some wrestlers aren't thrilled about the number of dates they'll be working this summer. Many signed their WCW contracts expecting to work 10 dates a month. Instead, it looks to be in the 20s.

Since they're on guarantees, they'll get paid the same no matter how often they wrestle. Do you remember this being a gripe from anyone in particular? No, I think that was overstated and ended up in the dirt sheets. I'm sure there was somebody complained. Look, you're you're always going to have people who are going to want to bitch about something

um our contracts i think you you could probably correct me if i'm wrong on this i don't remember off the top of my head they called for either 150 or 180 dates throughout the year and most people were excited this i know that you know scott hall and and Kevin Nash, certainly we're excited. Anybody coming from WWE or WWF at the time to WCW was thrilled to death to sign a contract with a maximum 180 days to it. Now, some of those people may have signed a contract for 180 days

and they were doing half of that because we were still building our business. We were still getting to the point where it made sense to go out on tour more often. We weren't quite there yet. But as we got increasingly more successful, and then as our schedules started getting closer and closer to that 180 days, guys weren't bitching about the contract they were signed. They were bitching about the fact that, hey, I only worked 20 days less, or 10 days

last month, and this week I got to work 20. It probably felt like more work than they really had hoped for, but it was certainly within the terms of the contracts. And I'm sure there were some people bitching about it. And the stooges, you know, the parasites, the guys that, you know, we don't want to feed, you know, the dirt sheet writers like mouse or information so that Dave would write nice things about them in his newsletter or at the very least wouldn't bury them, would often feed Dave shit just to stay in some kind of proximity to Dave. You're always going to have those kind of stooges and leeches and, you know, the guys at Jim Cornett, you know, depended on for all of his inside information, which were nothing but. Stooges. One of my favorite tables for three that I ever did was with Michael Hayes and Jim Cornett

myself, and Jim Cornett's going on and on and on about knowing all the things that he thought he knew was going on in WCW, and I asked him how you knew that. He said, oh, I have my little birds. You know, there were stooges, and it was Michael Hayes that pointed it out to him. Not even me. I just had to sit back and laugh my ass off. But when you rely on scumbags and stooges for you. your inside information, 75% of the time you're getting garbage that they're just feeding you

for the sake of feeding it to you. And I say all this to suggest that if there are any grumblings about the WCW schedule back in 1996, it was probably coming from the lowest level of talent who wanted to do the least amount of work possible and still get their checks, not from the people who are used to working 250 and 300 days a year who are now only required to work 150 or 180. I love breaking down this old stuff with you, especially about the contracts and the business end of all this. And I'm sure we're going to get to more of that.

But first, let's talk about the actual card here. We've got three not necessarily dark matches, but preliminary matches before the pay-per-view. VK Wall Street pins Jim Pack. hours with a Samoan drop in three minutes and seven seconds. Jim Duggan pins Disco Inferno in two minutes and nine seconds with a close line and what was described as a total squash. Rocco Rock beat Jerry Sags in just under two minutes.

It was scheduled to be a tag match of public enemy versus nasty boys. A rock comes out by himself and says Johnny Grunge is injured. So he asks for a singles match. And Brian Knobbs goes to the back. So it's just one on one Rocco and Jerry Sags. of course johnny grunge comes from under the ring and hits sags in the in the with his cast which is just tremendous um the injury to grunge's thumb that's a broken thumb happened at that big show in buffalo that we were talking about but i like the idea of

hey let's just make it one on one and the other guys under the ring the whole time that sounds fun doesn't it i didn't see that but that sure sounds fun the uh the write-up for the great American Bash goes like this, according to the observer. Paper review shows come and go with a few new ones every month. Whether they're good or bad, because there are so many, few leave any kind of lasting impression. However, the Great American Bass show on June 16th was one of those rare exceptions. It's hard to believe that a WCW show could be compared with shows in the level of the

J Cup, but this show for Angles was the single best paper review show ever. For wrestling, it was very good as well. Dusty Rhodes, who was nowhere to be found until minutes before the show went on the air, came up with his strongest performance as an announcer on the show. It's easier to be a good announcer when the show was clicking, and Tony Chivani was good here as well, although there was a spot where he was hyping the bash at the beach and brought up last year's fiasco,

saying there were 100,000 fans at the show. Speaking of announcers, Pedro Morales, who does the Spanish language broadcasts on pay-per-view for WCW was injured after the show. They had set up several gimmick. tables for when it was time for Bischoff to take the bump. So in case he missed one, he'd hit another. And when Morales was coming back from the broadcast, he accidentally stepped on one of the gimmick tables, which of course collapsed and he fell four feet and landed on his

elbow. His elbow was all swollen up and his hip and knee and back were all injured in the fall, but he refused to go to the hospital. A lot to unpack here. We'll start with the last thing first. Do you remember Pedro's fall after the pay-per-view? No. Well, what about What about a little love here saying that this is perhaps the best WCW paper review ever for angles? Well, even an idiot has to acknowledge the obvious sometimes. So take it for what it's worth. I don't, I don't, whether Dave buries something or put something over, they each have the same effect on me. it just doesn't fucking matter because I don't value his opinion in any respect.

There may be times when I agree with it, but it doesn't mean, that's a coincidence, right? He's an idiot. But the one thing I would like to say about announcers as long as you brought that up, and I would agree, here's a perfect example. I agree with Dave Meltzer. I think Dusty Rose, I laughed my ass off during the show, listening to his commentary. He was so entertaining, but he was entertaining in a way that added to the quality of what was going on. In other words, Dusty's attempts, and it wasn't an attempt, Dusty was naturally a funny guy.

Dusty could just, Dusty would say shit not intending to be funny. That would be hilarious sometimes. That was just Dusty. That was a magic of Dusty Rhodes. But oftentimes, you know, I hear announcers over the last 10 or 15 years. they try so hard to be funny or they're waiting for the opportunity to get their lines in they work it you know it's like bad comedy have you ever watched a really horse shit stand-up comedian yes all the time they they force it they force it there's nothing natural about it and dusty was the opposite

of that and dusty could be funny and entertaining while elevating the action while it was happening as opposed to being funny and entertaining at the expense of what is happening in the ring. And it was so refreshing to throw myself back into 1996 to watch, because I haven't watched this before. I sound like I sit around and watch old tapes of shit that I've done. I don't. Unless I'm doing a show with you, I don't watch anything. Or somebody sends me a clip in social media. I go, oh, yeah, I remember that.

But for the most part, I haven't watched this since I did it live. so it's just so refreshing but to hear Dusty Rhodes in his commentary it made me miss Dusty even more and I said to myself that old saying

you don't know what you have until it's gone Dusty Rhodes is the personificate Dusty Rhodes here in this paper view is the personification of that old saying and I'm going to add something to it as long as we're talking about

announcers Tony always does a great job to me Tony Tony is like the most consistent great announcer he's not the best he's never going to get the the accolades of being the best play-by-play announcer in the world but nobody has been consistently as good as tony as tony as long as he has that i can think of in a variety of different situations but mike teney in the match that we'll talk about in more detail between ray mysterio dean mullocho i put mike teney

over as a color commentator, not as a play-by-play person, but as a color commentator, I put Tenae over quite regularly because he deserves it. I think this was his best yet. He Mike Tenae delivered the perfect balance of information. He did it in a way that had energy and created anticipation along with the information. It wasn't just information for information sake. It was information that helped create anticipation, which added to the enjoyment of watching that match. He added so much credibility to that match that Dusty wasn't doing because Dusty was Dusty. Dusty was funny. Dusty could get you inside a competitor's head. And Dusty would tell you things that were probably going on inside of the competitors' minds that really enhance it

and add that layer of color to the picture that we were seeing and hearing. that might not be obvious to the eye. That's what Dusty did so well. Tony was calling the action. Tony was the perfect traffic cop. But Tenae came in and laid some knowledge on you at the exact appropriate time and in a way that had so much credibility

and added even an additional layer of color and dimension to the action that you were seeing. It was so perfect. It was just so finely tuned and so perfect. I'm getting excited. My heart rate's going up right now, just talking about it you know what i absolutely loved about this show is as we start with you know the on camera of uh tony looking dapper as he can and there's dusty with his signature red leather

jacket with the snake skin at the top but we were a tour to force of his commentary him flipping out when they're wrestling in the false count anywhere match and they go into the bins room and there's a lady there and oh my god it's just so laugh out loud great stuff and one of the things that i forgot that dusty did routinely in this era is whenever someone has a submission move on he's always going to uncle him and the just using uncle him as a way to say he's going to submit him it's just tremendous and he's going in all this repertoire so hard that at one point when shivani has uh mike to nay join him Tony during a deep breath says Mike do you need me to translate any of that for you just such great dusty stuff watch this again just for the dusty commentary you're in for a real real treat our first match or before we get to the first match I should mention this this is not on the pay per view but it's on the countdown show as we're trying to sell the pay per view to close the live TV show after those three matches we ran through Rick flair does a great interview that even is mentioned in the observer

because he's bringing up his old routine of bright lights, big cities, all that. But when he says big cities, he looks down Elizabeth's top and everyone has to bite their lip in the scene to keep from cracking up because big cities rhymes with something else. Typical great stuff from Rick Flair. And then we get our first match. The Steiner brothers. And by the way, Scott Steiner has a mullet here of epic proportions. I don't know that there was ever a mullet.

in 1996 that stood a chance against his unfortunately he doesn't have his best performance ever it's not necessarily his fault uh fire and ice are his opponents with his brother rick of course fire and ice train and scott norton we think the world of scott norton on this show ice train a very capable performer but lord the finish to this is the nastiest frankestine you've ever seen not in terms of it's brutal it just didn't fucking work i can't imagine trying to even ask Scott Norton to take it. Scott is very visibly trying to apologize to Steiner for the way he took it afterwards. But they have no choice, I guess, since it was the planned finish and the called finish. They just go with it. But it probably in hindsight shouldn't have been the

finish. But still, Meltzer liked it. He gave it three stars. Thought they did a lot of stiff clothes lines and tough shoulder breakers and German suplexes. There's a lot of hard hitting quote unquote Japanese style stuff in here, typical of any Steiner match. But the finish and that Frankensteiner, ugh. Ugh is right. You know, and it's funny, Conrad, first of all, the chemistry, you know, between the Steiner's and especially Scott Norton.

Ice train was super god. He was easy to work with. It's not that there wasn't any chemistry there, but Ice Trin didn't have the experience of Scott Norton. And Scott had worked so often with the Steiner's, against the Steiner's in Japan. They're, you know, the Steiners and Scott Norton, you know, in terms of toughness,

it would be really hard to pick who the toughest of the three was. I mean, they were just triple tough guys. And the chemistry was so good between each other that I'm sure if I called Scott right now, if I get done with this show and I pick up Scott, Scott, pick up the phone and call Scott Norton and say, hey, Scott, you know, Conrad and I were going over the June 16th, 1996, Great American Bash, pay-per-view, and you were the opening match with the Steiner's. Scott, what happened in that finish?

I would be on the phone with him for no less than two hours, listening to him, apologize, not making excuses. He would feel so bad to this day right now. If we got him on the phone and brought this up, he would be, first he would be embarrassed, and he would be shocked that we decided to talk about it. And then we'd have to listen to him apologize. He would feel so bad because he was such a pro. And again, he had a great relationship with those guys. They were capable of having an amazing match.

But I think that's probably what happened here is we all thought, we all knew that they were capable of having great matches because the chemistry is right. And their styles were actually complimentary in many respects. but the chemistry with ice train in there and timing or whatever it may be it just didn't click and I'm sure Scott Norton felt horrible. I was watching when I watched the match this morning getting ready for this when I saw the finish falling apart I paid particularly close attention to Scott Steiner's face and Scott didn't sell it, you know, not noticeably enough to me at least.

He may have sold it backstage after the fact. He might have been frustrated, too. But I was waiting for Scott to react to the botched finish, but he really didn't. So I don't know whose fault it was. I don't know if it was just, I don't know if that spot should have never been called in the first place. I'm not the expert to, it's easy with 2020 hindsight to say, oh, yeah, they never should have done that. But they may have done it a hundred times before that, and it worked out great. You know, I don't know.

but man it didn't it sure didn't and you could feel even the audience was like they weren't really into the match to begin with it wasn't one of those matches that had the audience on their feet right from the get-go but the finish certainly killed whatever momentum they did create during the body that match was certainly they let the air out of the tires with that finish save with conrad dot com makes saving money fast and easy just asked Grady from High Point North Kakalaki. He said this was a totally different experience than when he used his local credit union

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housing lender. And oh yeah, we're licensed in more than 40 states and you get to skip your next two house payments you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket so what are you waiting for go to save with conrad.com right now well it's worth mentioning you know norton an ice train we're not necessarily over with this crowd but baltimore was popping big for the steiners when the steiners come out they get a hero's welcome and and they're ready for the big steiner moves and it was a little flat i think in hindsight everybody agrees they probably would have called an audible and done something else maybe even tried the move again but they went for it and there it is one of the ugliest frankenstiner finishes ever next up we get an interview with mean jean talking to jimmy heart and the taskmaster kevin sullivan they're talking about his match with chris benoit which is going to be a false count anywhere match and sullivan says uh this isn't about anybody but him and benoit he knows benoit's a member

of the four horsemen but that won't save him tonight and just like i took out brian pillman i'm going to be taking out chris benoit tonight and i'm a fan of all old school Kevin Sullivan promos. I actually just went down the rabbit hole with some of my friends a few weeks ago watching his old stuff from Florida. But this version of Kevin Sullivan as a promo, I don't know. It just doesn't click for me. Maybe it's the shit he has on his face.

Maybe it's the fact that he's looking below the camera. I don't know. It just doesn't feel like it's Kevin Sullivan at his peak. Now, the work we're going to see later as a totally different tale. What did you think of the promo here from Kevin? I fucking hated it. I really did. And I think there's a lot of reasons why you and I probably both feel the same way about it,

but maybe for different reasons. I agree, you know, the fucking lightning bolts, you know, that he puts on his head with a magic marker. It's just absolutely fucking ridiculous. The most ridiculous part to me was that Kevin Sullivan's out there with, sorry, I love you, Jimmy, but a rodeo clown. I mean, Jimmy Hart looks like the guy. If you've ever been to a rodeo, you probably haven't. They're not really big, you know, unless you're out in the western part of the United States, for the most part. But at the intermission of every rodeo I've ever been to, here in Cody, Wyoming, we have a rodeo every night of the week, seven nights a week, starting the middle of June and going to the 1st of September.

And every rodeo that you go to, including the big 4th of July rodeo, the stampede, the big one of the year, there's always an intermission and there's always a clown car and there's always a clown and Jimmy Hart looks like the rodeo clown that comes out of the clown car so if there's any intensity any believability any danger any anything that should matter and it's not Jimmy well in this case it is because he's dressed like a clown to come out there dressed in that silly ass gimmick for no reason there was no reason for no reason for it. Absolutely none. And it took away, in addition to so many other things that, you know, Kevin just missed the mark on, it just took away from a completely, I was, I was literally

cringing while I was watching this this morning. I was gritting my teeth. My dog was looking at me like I was in some kind of pain. She thought I was having a seizure, you know, or going to some kind of an epileptic fit. It just, it was horrible to watch. couldn't wait for it to be over. Damn it. Thankfully, it is over. And the next match is, uh, well, rather interesting. It's Conan defending the U.S.

title against El Gato and I have to admit, when I first see El Gato, I see what looks like a tiger mask outfit. And I'm thinking, man, I don't remember this guy at all. And he's being introduced as being from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which is a vacation hot spot. And then I start to watch his physique and then move around. I'm like, wait a minute, that's Pat Tanaka. So it took me a minute, but. I eventually got there.

Conan comes out, and this is a different Conan than what we would see in the NWO were these days. He's still the Mexican heavyweight champion. He's also the United States champion, but he's got more of the Aztec vibe going with a very interesting lucha mask that doesn't exactly hide his face. But I guess that's not the idea. But it's also a different style Conan. Conan is, you know, doing all sorts of springboards and stuff.

I mean, it is a different presentation from Conan, and I really liked it. And I know that in hindsight, we would look back at this and we would say, boy, this is a shit match or this is throwaway or I don't have a connection with El Gato. This is just one one challenger or one random challenger for a title in a seemingly throwaway match. But for whatever reason, I don't know. It just felt appropriate for the time and I dug it. It went six minutes and three seconds. Conan gets the wind after a power bomb and a jackknife cradle pin. It gets two stars in the observer.

I kind of thought it was cool. What did you think? I thought it was cool. And I think the reason that you know, you know, I both probably felt like it was, you know, cool, you know, on a scale of one to ten, I'd probably give it a five and a half or a six. But the fact that it was a unique,

it was so unique. Yeah. You know, there was a, there was a, there was an organic kind of credibility to Conan that, you know, while we had seen other, you know, wrestlers from Mexico or supposedly, you know, from Mexico before in the past, it didn't always feel

organic. Here it did. And because it was. It was really Conan. I mean, Conan was very proud of his heritage here and he wore it well. He wore it in a real way, in an organic way that was true to the culture and to the character. And that's one of the first times it had ever been done before. You know, up until this point, you know, in the mid-90s,

whenever you had a wrestler who was supposedly or originally, you know, Mexican heritage, it was almost like a parody of it. It was like, you know, a garbage, you know, a guy played a garbage man or a dentist or an IRS agent. It was a gimmick. That's what I've tried to say. A gimmick. Whereas with Conan, it didn't feel like a gimmick. It felt fresh and different as a result, which is one of the reasons I think I liked watching it.

In addition to seeing early Conan, because early Conan, you know, as he got older and had the injuries and got heavier and all kinds of, you know, things that come along with age and gravity, he had to modify his style like all good performers eventually do in order to, you know, end longevity to their careers. But this was a point in time where Conan was still more or less at his physical peak, not his character peak. I think his character peak came afterwards, you know, in the NWO. But here, it was really interesting. Now, I had to actually Google El Gato. You know, I did. And here's what's embarrassing. I used to hang out with Pat Tanaka and AWA.

Pat would come over to my house. He used to have this really badass white Camaro that he would let me drive. Back when I was driving a 1976 Ford F-250, four-wheel drive with holes rusted into the floor. That was my whip, and Pat had this really badass, I think it was a brand new Z-28 Camaro, and he'd come over to the house sometimes, you know, and I had no inflow. I was just an announcer in AWA, so we just hung. And I got to know Pat pretty well for a period of time, a long period of time. And I see El Gato coming down from the ring, and I'm thinking, well, Conrad's going to ask me about this El Gato guy.

And I don't want to say, I don't remember. so all these fuck wads that listen to the show and bust my balls about not remembering shit from 22 fucking years ago when they can't remember what they had for dinner yesterday but I'm supposed to remember details of shit that I had nothing to fucking do with because Dave Meltzer wrote about it

in a magazine or dirt sheet, whatever, but I thought, okay, I know Conrad's going to ask me questions. He's going to dig into this character named El Gato and if I don't know who the fuck El Gato is, I'm going to sound like an idiot on my own podcast. I do that enough already. I don't need to do it knowing I'm going to do it. Sometimes it happens by accident.

Why would I knowingly go into a podcast with Conrad Thompson, who I know is going to give me the third degree on some shit, not knowing who Okato was. So I went to Google, and I googled it, and it was Pat Tanaka. And I thought, Pat, you look like shit. Dude, your kids are weak as fuck. Because I know what Pat was capable of, but this was not the Pat Tanaka that I worked with in the AWA.

is not the Pat Tanaka that I used to see. He had some great matches and when it came to integrating martial arts into his wrestling presentation, Pat Tanaka at one point was one of the better performers doing so. But he must have left

that bag of trips somewhere in Cabo St. Lucas because he didn't bring him with him for this match. He looked like shit. Well, we should mention there is one pretty dangerous looking spot here where they do a sunset flip over the top rope to the floor and turn it into a power bomb on the floor.

I mean, it is a spectacular visual, but yeah, I'd rather not see that one again. I actually liked the presentation of this match, though. I don't know why, but it just felt like, uh, I don't know, there was a lot of pride in Conan being the United States champion and this felt like, uh, I don't know, a big moment for Conan, who by the way, you know, has been described once upon a time and maybe some of our listeners don't know this, but he was the most popular Mexican star at once by a time. I mean, he was on TV and I mean, this is a guy who's, uh, the Hulk Hogan of Mexico driving a Ferrari in his 20s. I mean, he's crushing it down there. And now he's a big act for

WCW. So it makes sense that he's the United States champion and we're, uh, trying some new things. And this one worked for me. And what didn't work is the sting interview with me and Gene. Sting gets going and then catches himself when he's about to say stick it up your ass and realizes he's on TV and can't say that. And he says, Gene, you take it for a minute. But he's acknowledging that Steve Regal is a fantastic wrestler. We're going to find out who the best wrestler is tonight, not the best sting promo we ever saw here. He wasn't focused at all. I did notice that. Every once in a while that would happen with Steve. Um, Sometimes because he was thinking so fast in his own mind, he'd have ideas popping.

Because, again, our promos weren't scripted. This is the downside sometimes of having unscripted promos. And he'd go into a promo having a pretty good idea where he was going to go and what he wanted to do. And in this case, he was putting over his opponent, which is fundamentally the correct thing to do. You can put your opponent over while not taking anything away from yourself. In fact, you can put your opponent over and put yourself over more in the process if you really know what you're doing. and I think that was the attempt that's what Steve was doing

here but because it was live and he had so many things running through his head that I don't think you know look you could say ass on a paper view right you could say that and even in Singh's character at that time you could still get away with that that wasn't the issue the issue was I think he got lost

he was in the middle of his promo and he just got lost and was looking for any reason to bail and that was the most convenient one Let's track it here. We'll play the promo for our listeners. Sting, come on in, if you would. Coming up, we know the background between you and Lord Stephen Regal. This guy, to me, kind of comes off as somewhat of a sissy or a prissy,

but we know better than that. Looks are deceiving, and his actions are a little deceiving. This man could be one mean, son of a gun, as they say. You're trying to stir it up a little bit, aren't you mean, Jean? You don't have to stir the stinger up when you say he's a little prissy. To be honest with you, I gotta wonder myself because he's talking about the Stinger painting up nice and pretty.

Well, your lordship, you also drink tea like this, don't you, that little pinky out like that? I gotta wonder about you myself. Is that the way they breed the boys over there in England? Let me just square something up with you right now. That ain't the way we breed American men here in the United States, and that's exactly where you are on U.S.

turf, U.S. soil, you can take... God, I can't say that. I just can't say that. Mean Gene, we're on TV. You take it for one second. Well, I'd just like to point out one thing. This man has wrestled, actually, as a youngster in the sand pits of India. We've known what he's done here at World Championship Wrestling. I think you've got your work cut out for you, quite honestly.

I'm not taking anything away from him. I'm not saying he's not a fantastic wrestler. I'm just saying he's a little iffy. I'm not too sure about him. and if there's anybody that can straighten you out in the course of 10, 20, maybe 30 minutes, it's a Stinger, I guarantee you. Boy, some of that doesn't age well at all, doesn't it? You know, I was, you're playing a, because I wasn't thinking about, I was breaking it down

more than anything when I watched it this morning, and just looking for the elements and why it went off the rails. But now listening to it again in this context, I think maybe one of the reasons Sting was struggling is because he was he was walking a very fine line even in 1996 i mean this whole thing had a very homophobic vibe to it yeah and well as i'm listening to it go ahead but jean sort of started it down there when he said prissy and cissy and even did like the little limp wrist at the camera and obviously we know better i mean times are different blah blah blah we're more aware and more conscious of of what we're doing um but yeah in hindsight

Like, that's one of those rare sting interviews where you're like, oh, that doesn't age well. No. And it's also an example of an interview that you would never hear today. No, absolutely. No, I mean, you might as well just, you know, burn down the building because you ain't coming back. You're not going to come back from that. Next up, we get Diamond Dallas page, retaining the Lord of the Rings ring, pending Marcus Bagwell in nine minutes and 39 seconds.

DDP is going to try to get some cheap heat from this Baltimore crowd when he starts knocking Carl Ripkin Meltzer would write Because Bagwell has such a lame gimmick Few people are noticing what a great worker He's turning into Page's matches are all well laid out

The only weakness of this match is that Page tries to sell in spots like Terry Funk Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad And it was the latter towards the finis of this match Bagwell goes for the fisherman suplex But Paige hooks the ropes then page hits the diamond cutter for the win and the crowd popped big so his finisher is getting over two and a half stars that's my real takeaway uh this is just uh atlanta's finest doing what

they do i don't really absolutely love the match but that diamond cutter finish man there's no denying he is in the process of making it the modern ddt and we know a year later it's going to be a coming out party his biggest year ever in 1997 he becomes a bona fide superstar but at 96 here in the summer, man, that move's already getting over. Yeah, when we talked earlier, when this podcast first started, I talked about, you know, the journey, you know, and watching a wrestling storyline unfold. In this case, this was a real life journey that we were watching, you know, behind the scenes as well as in the ring. Because Paige went from being, you know, again, Paige is a great friend of mine. He's actually coming out here to Wyoming to spend a few days towards the end of the summer.

And I look forward to that very much. But there was a period of time when as much as I like Paige, as a friend, he was so fucking obnoxious that it was hard to watch him on television. His, you know, the last couple of weeks we've been seeing when he comes out with his fur coat and a cigar and the girls. And it was just so over the top obnoxious. And he like, he like ripped off a little bit of everybody. You know, he was a little bit of Jake Roberts. He's a little bit of Dusty Rhodes. He's a little bit of this guy.

He's a little bit of superstar Billy Grapp. He's a little bit of that. He was a little bit of everything that amounted to nothing in terms of it being an effective character. Right? It was like a colitiscope of gimmicks. All you need to do is kind of spin the little kaleidoscope thing and all the pretty little colors would change shapes and all that. He would do that every week. He'd just add another color.

You know, add another gimmick. You know, chains. and two cigars instead of one and a sunglasses. And he was so fucking boring for me, or obnoxious. He wasn't boring. He was obnoxious. But then when he started to really figure out who he was, that's the fun part. For me today, when I can watch wrestling, when they finally get, you know, a real audience back, I'll drop back in again.

But I watch it differently now, as I've said before, than I used to. But I watch it now to watch characters evolve. And this was a case where Page, it was so obvious because every week, because he was so intense and he worked so hard at it. And he would talk to everybody. And he started really refining his character. You know, once he got the diamond cutter, as you point out here, and the crowd reacted to it, he goes, okay, now I got my finish. You know, now I got to clean up my character and figure out who Diamond Dallas Page really is. And we had to help him with that.

You know, he had to be convinced to lose all the stupid-ass gimmicks. I remember having a conversation with him. I remember saying, no, page from now on, you're going to come down through the people because you're that blue-collar champion. You're that one character on an entire wrestling roster that they're going to feel that they can relate to because you look like, act like, and talk like one of them.

And once that clicked in his head, and once he started coming down through the crowd and celebrating with the crowd, he literally became the people's champion of his time, before the rock. but really connected with the audience in a very honest way and then he took off like a rocket ship and that was such a fun journey to watch from behind the scenes forget about what's going on in the ring behind the scenes watching him grow and becoming the character that became such an important part of wcw was a blast great stuff next up we see mean jean interviewing jimmy hart and the giant of course giant is the w c wcd heavyweight champion. Jimmy's saying that everybody's worried about beating the giant, but the only person not worried at all is the giant. And the giant says Lugar will find out

tonight while he's the champion. And Lugar sadly mistaken if he thinks he can beat him. He says he's beating Hogan, Savage, and Sting. And Lugar is just next on the list. And, uh, I enjoy this era of the giant. I think he's probably at his physical peak in 95, 96. And I like the look with the crazy hair. I don't know. This worked for me. I think this is the best version of the giant that we've seen. And I know Paul White went on to have a much more significant career and made a lot more money and did a lot bigger things in WWE than he ever did in WCW. But that doesn't take away from the fact that I think this was the best version of Paul White's character.

Now, with that said, if you're an aspiring. wrestler. If you're a current wrestler or manager or anybody who spends any time in front of a red light in the world of wrestling, please listen to what I'm about to say. Don't ever stand in front of a camera and wring your hands like some kind of crazed, meth-out, cracked-out, mad scientists. Don't do it. If you feel yourself getting ready to to put your hands up in front of your face and rub them together like some kind of a B-movie

classic mad scientist pay somebody to hit you in the head with a fucking board if need be to remind you never to do that again. Let's move up. All right, Eric, let's run a time out right now and tell everybody something they already know you and I love our dogs.

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Solid gold foods are different because they cleanse the digestive system with whole superfoods, balance with living probiotics, and fuel with omega-3 and 6 fatty acids, all supporting gut health and nourishing your pet both inside and out, And this is something you and I can really get behind, right, Eric? Absolutely. I'm passionate about this subject because, I mean, the same holds true for human food. You know, most of the time people don't pay attention to what they really eat.

They don't understand why they're gaining weight. They don't understand why they don't have any energy. They don't understand why they have chronic issues with digestion or whatever it is, arthritis, inflammation. So much of it. And I'm now doctor. I'm not trying to sound like I'm smarter than I am. But my wife and I spend a lot of time doing research about what we put in our bodies in terms of nutrition. And labeling can be so misleading.

And you think if it's tough with human food, pet food is wide open. There's so few controls over pet food. People have no idea of the garbage. And I literally mean garbage that they're feeding their pets. And most people feel, many people feel about their pets the way you and I do. My dog is as much a part of my life as anything. I mean, I would protect my dog with my life. But that also includes paying attention to what I feed her.

And I'm going to give you one quick story here. I was from the time, Nikki, who's the dog I have now, an Australian kettle dog. From the time she was born, I was spending upwards of $75 a bag. for what I thought, with all of my best intentions and my effort and research and everything else, I was convinced that this particular brand of food was the best brand of food to feed my dog. And it wasn't until about a year and a half or two years later, I was starting reading, I'm not going to point people to anything, but I started reading a lot of information that really made me question my decision about this.

I mean, this stuff was like $70 a bag for a 25-pound bag. It was like, for dog food, it was pretty high dollar. But once I read what I read, I went, man, I'm doing it all wrong. And when I came across solid gold, I felt 100% comfortable in the ingredients. And in the way the food is processed and packaged, that's a big part of it. And my fear was that my dog wasn't going to like it. Because no matter how good something is for you or your dog, if you don't really like it, you're not going to really eat it. or drink it, whatever the case may be.

So when I got my first bag of solid gold, I thought, okay, this is it. My dog dove into it, absolutely loved it. And then I paid close attention to, this is not going to sound cool, but if you really are paying attention to your dog, you know, I checked her stool to make sure that everything was as it should be or you would expect it to be, especially when you switch a dog's food, because sometimes your dogs have a hard time adjusting,

or not a hard time, but it just takes a couple days for the metabolism to adjust to a new product. Absolutely no adjustment period, which meant that it was easily digestible, which meant that the quality was good. And she loved it. She loved it. So I can't say enough great things about this particular brand. And I can't say enough about doing the work. If you love your dog or your cat, if you love your pet, please, please, please do the research and Just like you would, your kids, you know, you wouldn't feed your kids poison or garbage or food that wasn't good for them. Hopefully you wouldn't. Don't do it to your pets.

Do the research. If you don't have time, if you're not interested in doing all the research, take my word for it, take Conrad's work for it. This is a great product. Right now, to see the solid gold deal of the week, go to solid gold pet.com slash 83 weeks. That's solidgoldpet.com slash 83 weeks to see the deal of the week. It's solid goldpet.com slash 83 weeks. The next match is a fucking barn burner. It is a spectacle.

You should go out of your way to see it. It got four stars in the Observer. It is the debut of Ray Mysterio Jr. Dean Malenko is going to retain his cruiserweight title over him. They get nearly 18 minutes. Meltzer would say this was the best wrestling match on the show and an excellent technical match. It wasn't the right match to do.

in that it was a great Malenko-style mat wrestling match. Mysterio Jr. showed he was versatile enough as a worker that he could be put in a position where he's not doing Mexican style and still have an excellent match. However, it was Mysterio Jr.'s debut And he got, he has far more potential to get over.

So they should have played to his stylistic strengths. Someone whose potential niche is to get over like Ray Mysterio Jr. As far more of an attraction star and as a kid's, an ethnic hero can't do any jobs until they are overt or fans won't believe them even as little as jobs mean nowadays now of course we know he didn't need any of that but i do think in hindsight if you would have just made it a total feature and you have because don't get me wrong dean malinko is one of my favorite technical wrestlers of all time maybe my actual favorite i think it's probably yeah maybe he's behind

daniel brian but i absolutely love dean malenco's work but ray mysterio is a horse of a different color this is a real life comic book superhero especially in this era before some of the knee injuries and things like that really started to slow him down a little bit or caused him to change his style and he evolved a little bit but this is just hard to pick apart i watch this without the kaleidoscope of hey what could how big of a star could ray be because i know now what a big star he is and became but my god what a match this was four stars i can't recommend it enough uh melzer would say most than wc that had never seen him before and were skeptical of him seeing how small he was when he

showed up wound up raving about this match however he showed less charisma than i've seen of him in any match in a long time and i understand if you have the benefit of seeing all the other stuff that perhaps he could do more spectacular stuff but holy shit did i finish this match and say i can't wait to tell everybody stop what you're doing and go watch this yeah before we get into the match i i just I want to touch on some of that editorial the opinion by Meltzer this is exactly what I mean about a journey

you know now let's just you know I I fucking hate hypotheticals but I'm going to indulge one right now let's just say that we decided to have Ray Mysterio

come out and do Ray Mysterio shit what if we use this as a platform to launch that Reimus Serial character and have him go out there and do all or most of the amazing things that he was capable of doing. What's it going to do next month? Right.

That feels fresh and new. Where does it build? Where's the journey? Where do we create the opportunity rather going, oh my God, we got this guy and he does all this crazy shit in Mexico and oh man, we're going to put it out here and we're going to have him flying all over the place and he's going to get to win and everybody's going to be thrilled, even though nobody knew who he was.

for the most part nobody meaning the mass audience not the people in the industry or those who followed it closely we would have put him out there he would have done all the spectacular shit there wasn't a lot of people in on the roster at that point that were capable of having that kind of match with ray mysterio where he could go out there and do all of his shit and look as good as he was capable of looking so he had a finite pool of talent but even if that wasn't the case. Why would you go out there and give everybody everything there is to give them the first time out of the shoot? I understand if you're a layman, if you've never done it before and your entire career has been conning people out of money by making them think you no more

than you do. I understand why you would present that idea is something that probably could have been done or should have been done in inference the way it was in that comment by Dave. But it wasn't the right thing to do. The right thing to do was to introduce this guy, show what he's some of us. Give us the tip of the iceberg. Don't give me the whole freaking iceberg. Don't give me an eight-course meal. Give me an appetizer. Make me hungry for more. Make people talk about it so they look forward to seeing him again and build upon it over a course of time, which by the way is what we did. And oh, by the way, yeah, Ray Bacera did become a pretty big star. But if he would have gone out there and laid everything out there that he was capable of doing, or even 75% of it, or even 60% of it, where was it going to go in the weeks and months to come?

Where's the anticipation? And then add to the logistical challenge of, well, you've really only got five or six people that are capable of having those types of matches with Ray. So what are you going to do when you get through all of those? Right. So I just, it's a different way of thinking. one is oh if you want to get the guy over you got to give him a win bullshit bullshit i don't i don't agree with that if you want to get a guy over give him a character that's believable a story that's believable create a story build anticipation do something different give him give him a journey or her

give them a journey that the people can that the audience can identify with and follow and that's what we did with ray and i'm not looking at this in hindsight pat myself on the back for it it's just we got lucky. It wasn't that we sat back and said, well, certain people want us to really put him out there and let's show him everything he's got. I disagree. I think we should tell a long-form story with the guy. I didn't do that, right? But intuitively, we knew that the best way to expose Ray is to give the audience a taste of what he's capable of and build upon it. So I disagree with Dave. It's really easy to have these opinions about what should have been done. especially if you've never done it before but I think the way we introduced Ray

and and putting him in a in a match with a guy who could make Ray look as good as Ray looked and there was only a hand not even five or six people that could do that Dean Malinko was the guy to do that Dean Malinka was the guy to make Ray Mysterio on that particular night not because he got the W but because he put out a show put on an event and a match that made people want to see more therein lies the magic not giving somebody a win the the people that put so much especially num nuts like dame lacer who put all the emphasis on oh you're going to get a guy over you got to give him a win bullshit you got to you want to get somebody over you give him a story not go out there and put out a a five-star

match that has no fucking story what did you think of this match though I I God, I just, here's the deal. You want to bust my balls for the finger poker doom, have at it. You want to bust my balls for all the stupid shit that I was involved in. Come get it. I'll take it. Because this match made all of that pale in comparison. And I wasn't in the ring.

I had nothing to do with it other than putting it on the show. But this match, I think, set the stage. If you're wrestling today, if you're getting a paycheck in the mail and you weigh less than 240 pounds, thank Dean Malenko and Ray Mysterio because this match made it possible. This match and the cruiserweight division made it possible

for guys and gals. You know, if you're under, you know, if you don't have that 240 jacked veins popping out of your fucking forehead kind of look and you could work in the ring, these two guys in this match and the cruiserweight division that happened

before and after is the reason you. you have a job today a tremendous match go out of your way to watch it but then immediately skip the lex ligger interview with mean jean uh nothing to it he says he's doing the interview out of respect to wc wcb but his mind's on the goldenite of course at the time he's a tv champ he's a tag champ he's looking to become world champ uh next up we get john tinta and big bubba john tenta picks up the win with a power slam in five minutes and 24 seconds it's a one star match. Bubba's working hard, but Meltzer would say they're in a bad spot after having

to follow that previous match. He also says Tenta can't get over as a baby face, which I agree with. And, uh, after the match, Tenta grabs the scissors from Jimmy Hart and cuts a little bit of the beard off of Big Bubba, but just a throwaway match. Two big time performers from the WWF are the former big boss man, the former earthquake, but, uh, kind of a time wasteer here. I let me upmatch, if you will. What did you think? Yeah, I felt the same way. And again, you know, in the beginning of this podcast,

we talked about how this pay-per-view in particular was really WCW on the precipice of engaging in a new form of presentation, for the most part, not completely, but really taking a different direction in terms of the way we presented the product. And kind of being rooted still very much so in the old way of presenting wrestling, the old formula and the older characters, not older in terms of age, but the older types of characters. And this was a perfect example of what we talked about at the very beginning of this podcast.

This was a classic late 80s match that back in the late 80s probably would have worked. In 1996, it was a dud, just a complete dud. Yeah, not good stuff. But next up, we get a pretty hilarious interview. it's me and Gene talking to Steve McMichael and Kevin Green who are going to be joined by their wives. They're going to be taking on Rick Flair and Arne Anderson.

Of course, Randy Savage is going to be helping out with this team. But, uh, I'm going to play part of the interview here that Kevin Green does because I don't know, maybe says a lot about me, but I laughed out loud at some of this. Here we go. Let's track it. I must say that haircut has not improved one Iota since we last talk to. Big John Tenta. The macho man, Randy Savage, outside of this locker room, he is pacing up and down like a cat.

He has been reinstated to World Championship Wrestling. We'll see him tomorrow night on Nitro. Joining me at this time, Deborah and Steve McMichael, Terry and Kevin Green, tonight. These two gentlemen are going to be facing Arne Anderson. And, of course, his partner, the nature boy, Rick Flair, who has really stirred the pot. They're going to be coached tonight by none other than Bobby the Brain Heen. And Steve McMichael very quickly. plan we know about game plans i don't care about a game plan jean baby i don't care if the roof

comes off this building flare anderson we're coming to get you baby all right kevin green all i know baby is this like go line baby is short yardage i'm coming hard i'm coming heavy we're not giving up an inch baby watch out we're coming hard that's it i can't believe this is a real promo i can't believe we i can't believe we don't have a blue chew spot to cut right after this oh my god this is awesome i'm glad you pointed it out because that is exactly what it's happening but uh either way though we get this promo randy savage does a little bit of run in tries to help out but then we get the other great thing on this show and there's a lot of good stuff on this show but my two favorite pieces we just talked about one it's dean malinko

it's ray mysterio but next up crispin juan kevin solvin false count anywhere they get right about 10 minutes. Meltzer would say just for the record, all the bruises on Benoit and Sullivan's face on Nitro the next day with a result of makeup applied and not because they really hurt each other in the brawl. They finally made Benoit a star and Dusty Rhodes was actually hilarious in this commentary when the two men were brawling in the bathroom. The brawl in the bathroom was great, particularly Sullivan slamming the bathroom door on Benoit's head. It was missing Benoit flushing Sullivan's head down the toilet. Either way, they're using everything that they have, really an unbelievable spectacle of a match brawling in the bathroom really stood out

knowing what we know now about head trauma and the way that ultimately Chris Benoit left this earth and all that happened I wish I wouldn't have seen them slam the door on his head but the match itself was fucking unbelievable it gets four stars and after the match of course we're going to get Benoit continue to beat on Sullivan Arne Anderson is going to come down and throw him off they're teasing that Arne is going to to turn on Benoit, but instead they double down and just start beating the shit out of Kevin Sullivan. And this Baltimore crowd is loving it. So to put this in context, Kevin Sullivan is the leader of the Dungeon of Doom. Of course, Aaron Anderson is the enforcer for the four horsemen.

They're both heel groups, but they are just absolutely loving the horsemen putting a beat down on Kevin Sullivan, Bubba, Max, Ming, Barbarian, they all come out to try to make the save. just great stuff. And then afterwards, Arne does a hell of a promo and officially anoints and sort of makes Chris Benoit. He's a member of the horseman now. A great spectacle, a great match.

I loved it. What'd you think? Surprisingly, I did too. And I say surprisingly because anybody that's ever listened to three minutes of this podcast knows I hate gimmick matches. Yeah. And Falls Count anywhere and all the other kind of horse shit that we usually see.

This was the exception of that. And I also want to say, if you're listening to this, I encourage you to go to the WWE network, not because I'm going to make a frickin' dime, but because this is a match, if you don't watch anything else on this pay-per-view, watch this match. First of all, if you don't watch anything else on this pay-per-view, you're an idiot, because there's a lot of good stuff here to watch, including the aforementioned match between Dean and Ray Mysterio and there are others. But the reason this match stood out to me the way it did is because it's something we'll

never see again. I'm not talking about the head shots and all that. You will, go back and watch this match. This was an actual crowd that was in the concession area that found out there was a match going on in the bathroom.

Yes. This was not okay, all you WCW employees, they're not busy right now. All you that are working and catering, come on in, we're going to make you look like a crowd. You're going to look like one of the fans in the bathroom. This was not that. This was these guys

going up, fighting up the stairs through the back side of the arena where there are all kinds of people going back and forth to the restroom or to the concession stand or looking for their seats, congregating, whatever the fuck. And they followed the match into the bathroom,

right? No security at first. Doug Dillinger shows up eventually because things were getting out of hand and then a legitimate police officer, Baltimore police officer, comes in. He's trying to keep the crowd from getting too close to the action. In the bathroom, this was legit. These were not crowd plants.

These were not extras. These were not relatives of the production staff that worked on the pay-per-view. This was the audience now coming into the bathroom to watch a match go down, this type of match. you will never, ever, ever see this again on any mainstream wrestling show, ever. And it was scary as hell for me watching it this morning thinking, oh, my God, to think about all the things that could have gone wrong. Forget about the match and all the things that could have gone wrong in a match. And the fact that these guys were beating the hell out of each other. But the actual staging of this event and letting it take place where it did, how it did, you'll never.

ever see it again for the rest of your life in your children's children's lives you will never see anything like this again go check it out as far as the match goes i loved it because it was believable you know and these guys were beating hell out of each other i mean hell chris benoit got thrown down two flights of concrete steps come on i mean you can't fake that you're not working that you're falling down concrete steps it's just amazing to me it really was in a commentary the commentary was just dusty roads was at his best i think during this it was so good it was so entertaining especially when he flips out there's a woman in the bathroom oh my god i popped this morning i woke my wife up i came downstairs to grab my computer took it up to my office and started watching

this my office is down the hall from from the bedroom I am there's a woman oh my god there's a woman in the men's room he was so excited about the fact that some chick walked into the men's room it was it was real it was spontaneous it told a story the action was great and and this coming from a guy that hates this kind of a match right it's tremendous though I mean go out of your way to watch it probably the best false count anywhere match or one of the best of all time. There's never been a better time to save money than right now at save with Conrad.com. Just asked Derry in Tennessee.

She left us a five-star review said our service was fantastic and says she got an even lower rate than what she was originally quoted. I already have my son sent your way and I will send more when I know someone looking to refinance. If you're looking to save money, look no further, then save with Conrad.com. MLS number 65084 equal housing lender and oh yeah we're licensed in more than 40 states and you get to skip your next two house payments you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket so what are you waiting for go to save with conrad dot com right now as we mentioned after this we get that horseman promo where i aren't sort of anoints bin juan

proclaims war on the dungeon of doom but what's interesting here is bobby heenan is sort of he's there Randy Savage on this team to get set up for Flair and Anderson with Bobby in their corner and then across the way it'll be the football players and Randy Savage in their corner but Heenan is at his best here his old school WWF just really really good stuff and more good stuff with the next match it's sting finally wrestling Steve regal they get plenty of time 16 minutes and 30 seconds Meltzer would say regal's been in a role lately with the mic the match for the most part was Regal's one-man show and what a show he put on when it comes to all the facets of doing a realistic looking totally worked wrestling match complete with some schick and interviews

the guy's probably one of the most complete performers in the company. Sting made a big comeback after sailing almost the entire way, three and a half stars. Of course, the Scorpion Deathlock gets it done. I agree with what he's saying here. Steve Regal, who's another one of those guys who's looked 40 forever, is a young man here in deep water with Sting, sort of the flagship of WCW, and he more than held his own. What'd you think? I agree with everything Dave said and your comments. I think this was a, this was a case where Steve Regal rose to the occasion and raised his own personal bar, and Steve Borden, aka staying, his opponent helped him raise it even further. I mean, hats on

off a thousand percent to Steve Regal here. He put in the work, he did the work, he put in the work years and years and years before this match. To be able to go out there and have this kind of match means he put in many years of hard work and studied and thought. But I'll also give a ton of credit to Sting here. Of course. Because Sting raised his own personal best.

This wasn't the type of match that Sting would typically have. this was sting adjusting his style in order to make regal look even better than he already did so i think as much credit as i give steve uh regal i would also have to suggest that sting is coming in at a close second in terms of you know what he contributed to the the eventual outcome of this match in terms of its quality i love this version of steve regal i always am fascinated you know where guys are in their career and things like that he's like 28 years old here and to be 28 on pay-per-view like this working your style match and really carrying the match with with a big time performer like sting it's a big performance from steve wriggle go out of your way to watch

it if you're a fan to either one of these guys and next up i i can't believe i'm going to say this the mongo and kevin green match against flare and arne anderson wasn't bad they get 21 minutes and Meltzer would even say these four and Terry Taylor, who trained McMichael and Green with help from Flare and Anderson deserve a ton of credit. The idea of putting two guys in their first match, even against Flair and Anderson and with the angle and notoriety, and going 21 minutes sounds like a recipe for disaster. But Michael and Green did a great job considering their obvious limitations.

I don't think I disagree here. I mean, obviously the crowd is, they're behind the bad guys, Flair and Anderson, because that's who they're more familiar with. then maybe don't love the idea of there being a couple of football players, especially since, you know, we're in Baltimore and we got a bear and a panther. But either way,

three and a half stars, I thought it was pretty good. I mean, especially considering the expectations. I went into this thinking it would be just a shit show, especially because I've been watching so much of that Mongo Twitter account lately. It was not bad at all. What did you think,

Eric? No, I liked it. I liked it a lot. And it just, I miss Kevin Green. You know, he's such a,

a larger than life he's a cool dude if you ever met him oh great guy i actually met him randomly at a cracker barrel my parents and i were traveling uh somewhere to florida maybe we're doing a road trip to florida for beach vacation or something and we stop at a cracker barrel off the interstate to get lunch and as my parents are paying of course i'm sporting my nw o shirt and someone pushes me this is real life and i turn around it's fucking kevin green he cuts a promo in the cracker barrel and I'm just like, what the hell is happening? This is like a 15-year-old version of me. And then he puts his arm around me.

He's like, oh, man, I love that wrestling stuff. Thanks for digging WCW, man. And I'm like, this is the coolest thing ever. He is such a great guy and so much fun to be around. And the personality, now obviously he's got the volume turned up in the promo that, you know, we played earlier with Steve McMichael. But he's not faking it. That's Kevin Green.

I can't imagine what it was like playing. football against him because when when he hits the switch and he decides to turn it on he's got one speed and it's really scary he's intense he's funny he's a positive guy easy to work with you know no ego and it's in a legit legit badass as an athlete so it was it was fun to watch this and the match was great. Now, you know, and Meltzer, you know, rightfully so acknowledged, you know, oh, hey, well, I was working with Rick and Arne. That came off as a little bit of a throwaway line there.

I don't think there's any two guys that they, that McMichaels or Kevin Green could have worked with on the entire roster that could have come even close to making sure that this match came off as great. great as it did. There's a lot of time. And hats off to Terry Taylor. I busts his balls for being a stooge, which he's always been. Maybe he's not anymore. But there's a lot of things I didn't really appreciate about Terry. I liked him in many respects, but there was so many things about him that I didn't feel comfortable with. It made it hard to work with him. But when it came time to teach, Terry is really good. I mean, Terry is a good, good teacher. I've said

this before. Some people are really great at doing things and not so great at teaching them. Some people are decent at teaching them. Not so great at doing them. Terry Taylor was one of those guys who, you know, as a worker, as a performer, was pretty

damn good, but also a pretty damn good teacher. He had that magic that unfortunately not too many people do. But between Terry Taylor and the time Terry put into it, the time that Arne and Rick put into it, um it it was worth the effort it paid off really really well well what's great is the end of this

match uh steve turns on kevin green and to-da the four horsemen are officially reformed chris benoit as a member and now steve mcmichael has joined the four horsemen i kind of forgot this happened but going back and watching it here was uh was pretty good stuff and and um Meltzer would say, given Kevin Sullivan the credit for basically laying out the particulars at this angle, McMichael has a tremendous heel presence and charisma as long as they can keep him in tags with Anderson and Benoit. He won't have to do that much in the ring to get by three and a half stars. And he would also note, or Wade Keller would say that after the show, a lot of fans were trying to track down the wrestlers. They eventually find the hotel where the boys are staying.

And they say that Kevin Green is in there drinking at the bar, but he's still limping around the bar after the show. selling the figure for just great stuff what a great time to be a fan and it's cool to see the horsemen sort of reformed on this show yeah it was everything clicked absolutely everything clicked next up the thing we've all been waiting for um mounser would say then came those two large dreaded nameless heels known as we know who they are the men with no name come out to a huge baby face pop then as a way to avert a threatened lawsuit both men said clearly they don't work for the World Wrestling Federation and said to forget about the past and talk about the future. That's sort of what you were talking about, maybe that Turner Legal said, just make it clear

that they don't work there. And then once they get that out of the way, you guys can continue the angle, right? Absolutely. That was our version. You know, when you listen to a television commercial about this new prescription drug that's on the market and you sit there for 30 seconds or 60 seconds, and you, you know, you see this couple, you know, maybe they're in their 50s or 60s and you're holding hands in the beach and they look like they just came off the cover of some travel magazine and the world

is beautiful and everything is great. Well, that's because they're taking a particular prescription medicine, of course, otherwise their world wouldn't be good or wouldn't be great. And at the end of this gorgeous commercial on the beaches of Hawaii or wherever the hell they take them and see this loving couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and then you've got to find out about the drugs they take in order to do it. And there's like a 30 second disclaimer. It's going to make your feet fall off.

It's going to make you go bald. You may go blind. You may have seizures. Heart attacks are not uncommon with this particular medicine. You know, ask your doctor about insert name of medicine here. That disclaimer, we kind of buried on the front end. Yeah. Right?

So we just want to make it clear. That was a little note that we got from legal. Just make it clear that they're not with WWF and you're gold. And that's exactly what we did. it's tremendous um bischoff accepts the challenge announces the match for bash at the beach of course it's going to be those two guys and their surprise buddy and of course kevin nash is wanting to know hey who are the opponent's going to be who are we going to be wrestling and of course scott hall wants to know is it the huckster is it the nacho man and uh then he says nobody

jacks us around boom you take a shot kevin nash shoves your head between his legs flips you up boom sends you for a little bit of a ride through those tables it gets a baby face pop amongst some of the fans but a lot of fans are stunned and melzer would say it was so great as shivani left the broadcast position in roads that a strong unity of the promotion interview and uh it is one of the more memorable moments of this era and way killer would report another idea that was scratched involved dusty roads interviewing in this incident with hall and nash and Bischoff, uh, well, you wouldn't be here. It would instead be dusty taking the jackknife through the table,

but that was apparently overruled because Dusty was bigger and has a better chance to get hurt. Uh, but they're confident that he could pull off a great speech before getting slammed, but they make the alternative to say, hey, it should be Bischoff. Do you remember how this came to be where you're the guy taking the bump and were you nervous about it? Obviously, you didn't practice at that day. you've told us before that I think you wanted to do it one time

and do it right because if you did a walkthrough and he got hurt, then it meant you couldn't do it. So if we're going to do it, let's at least fucking air it on TV. What do you remember about this coming together? And what can you tell us about it? Well, I don't know where Wade Keller got his information, but there

was nothing further from the truth. There was never any discussion about using Dusty Roads in that spot. It's just complete and utter nonsense. So wherever Wade got, and look, I respect Wade Keller.

I read his site to this day. It's not anything personal. But in this particular case, he was probably falling victim to the same kind of disease that Dave Meltzer

still has to this day. And listening to information that was completely fabricated, that was not true. The whole, I mean, look, if there's anybody out there, I don't expect everybody to believe every word I say. That's unrealistic. But if you're having a hard time believing me because you're a Dave Meltzer fan, I'm going to be kind here, go back and look at what happened on May 27th, the angle was with me.

It wasn't with Dusty. Dusty was nowhere to be found on May 27th when Scott Hall made his appearance and May 27th. the threat, you know, Dusty Rhodes was nowhere to be found when Kevin Nash came along a week later and we started ratcheting up the intensity of this storyline. So to suggest that Dusty Rhodes was going to be the guy, on its surface, anybody that would have been thinking about it for just a little bit. Wait a minute, I'm not buying that. That doesn't make any sense. And then forget about, you know, the fact that from a storyline perspective, there was nothing to suggest even remotely that somehow Dusty Rhodes was going to be involved in this angle, to even suggest that

for a moment, even for a split second, there would have been any conversation between anybody that wasn't really fucking high about Dusty Rhodes taking a power bomb is absurd on its face. the fact that somebody suggested that it had been being discussed to me tells me everything I know I need to know about the source of that information to Wade Keller and I'm embarrassed for Wade that he was dumb enough to present it and to print it nothing further further from the truth that was my idea it was never going to be anything but me from the get go so that's all I got to say about that. Now, as far as doing it, you know, we've talked before. I'm not going to repeat it.

I, I, I am superstitious about rehearsing bumps because I'm not conditioned for, I wasn't, conditioned for it. I wasn't, I didn't do it on a regular basis. You know, I was pretty durable at the time. I could take a lot of abuse. I'd never really had any significant injuries, so I didn't have a bad back to work around or bad knees to work around or elbows or shoulders or any of that kind of stuff. And physically, I was used to a lot of contact throughout my life. so taking a bump was not that big of a deal for me but since I didn't do it on a regular basis I was honest enough with myself to know that there's a pretty good chance I'm going to get hurt not hurt bad not go to the hospital hurt but you know ribs you know knees back you know

not tuck my chin knock myself out all of those things would have been possible because I wasn't trained at it or in it um so i didn't i wasn't superstitious for no reason i was pretty aware of what my abilities were and weren't uh and i didn't want to rehearse it and i didn't want anybody to see it i didn't want the world to know about it i didn't want the way kellers the day messers of the world you know to run out to their hot lives or whatever they else they had at the time you know and start talking about this thing was going to happen i also didn't want a lot of the talent to know about it you know people you know, this is something

that doesn't get discussed that often. But I think please, you know, if you're listening to this, correct me when I'm wrong, not if, when. But for the most part, announcers were off limits. Nobody manhandled an announcer.

That was one of the unwritten rules in wrestling that you, you know, no matter how big and bad the talent is, you can't lay a hand on the announcer. Now, part of that is because as an announcement, you'd have to challenge a heel. If you want to advance a story, you know, and a heel would come out and say something completely

inappropriate, out of line, storyline-wise what I'm talking about, you had to have an announcer that could come back and advance that story by challenging it. Well, if you're a big badass, you know, kill anybody in your way, kind of a heel, and you've got a mean Gene Oakland or an Eric Bischoff, you know, somebody of smaller statute that you could easily squash like a bug, you know, get in your face and challenge you, and if you had the ability to beat the fuck out of him, you would in character, right? Well, the way you kept that invisible wall there in place so that the announcer, no matter who it was, could do his or her job was to create this rule that you cannot touch an announcer. So this was breaking, this move

on this night, I knew was going, because I came up. up that way. Verda Gagne, she said, I never touch an announcer. You know, any time that I was as an announcer, and I'm holding the stick and I'm interviewing anybody, Larry Zabiscoe, or anybody else that was a heel, you know, the minute the talent got too aggressive with me as an announcer, Verdon would, damn, cut, right? God, damn, you can't do that with an announcer. So that was my, that was the way I came up.

And I knew doing this was going to completely break that kind of unwritten rule and paradigm within professional wrestling, which is exactly what I wanted to do. And you've told us before that when Kevin Nash got you up for the power bomb, your hog meat was so substantial. He couldn't really see where to drop you, right? That's one of the reasons, you know, Kevin and I became such good friends is because, you know, he had a certain amount of respect for me. just by virtue of the fact that I could hire him and pay him a lot of money and I was you know the boss and all that kind of stuff but when he got up there got a bird's eye view what I was packing was like holy fuck dude dude come on let's move on the giant is going to pin lex Ligger to retain the world heavyweight title it's the main event but I'll tell you it's

an afterthought from everything else mouth would even say they had no chance following all that had gone on sting winds up chasing jimmy hard away from the ring trying to to help out his paddle legs Lugar and even it up. It is an interesting finish though. Luger's trying to go for the rack once the giant has already positioned himself on the top rope, but ultimately he collapses under the weight and then giant picks him up, choke slams him. That's all she wrote, a star in a quarter.

It's a nice finish to a hell of a pay per view. Check this rating out. 1.2% thumbs down, 0.3% thumbs. in the middle 98 and a half percent thumbs up one of if not the best reviewed WCW paper review of all time the best match poll it's a runaway Ray Mysterio and Dean Malenko in first place Kevin Sullivan and Chris Benoit in second place and everyone agrees that John Tenta and Big Bubba were the worst match I agree with all of this I'm going thumbs up Mysterio and Malenko is the best what a great show

two thumbs up for me buddy I was I was proud of this all that silly shit that the finger poke of doom and all the other silly shit all the mistakes i've ever made in my life you know wrestling wise all the bad angles whatever you want to you want to bury me for i'll take it all because this made up for it by the way speaking and making up for today as we know you know we're recording this on father's day our good buddy bruce pritchard just sent me a text it's a picture of his fingers he had a he had a manny-pity for father's day and he's sitting outside having a stoli doly and he holds up his fingers. I'm going to post this on Twitter.

Oh, God. I love Bruce. He's great. My goodness. Well, listen, that's going to bring this week's episode to a finale. We have had a great time talking about Great American Bash 96. It was fun to revisit 95 last week. Stay tuned to next week.

We're going to be back your way. and I think we've got something pretty special planned we are going to cover great American bash 1997 on top it's Randy Savage and Diamond Dallas page we've also got the outsiders working against Flair and Piper Kevin green working with Steve McMichael and on down the line but what I'm most excited to do with you Eric is this month's bonus show you and I are going to clip out some portions of shoot interviews where various guys have varied you over the years, whether it's Mike Graham or it's Fern Gagne, whoever it may be. Greg Gagnon, you're correct. Either way, everybody has taken a payday to shit on Eric Bischoff

and you get to respond and we're going to do it on ad free shows.com. This is going to be a blast. Is it not? I am going to be so prepared for this. I am going to, I'm training for this like I would if I was going to run a half a marathon or something. I'm going to watch my diet. I'm going to, I'm not only going to eat right. I'm going to make sure I get enough physical conditioning in so that my mind is crystal clear. I'm going to order this really exceptional coffee that we get out of Hawaii. I am going to be so ready for this show. Greg Ganya, I hope you're ready. I'm ready. Check it out. Addfreeshoes.com. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks. I've been telling you for a long time that save with Conrad.com can save you money, but don't take my word for it. Good morning. Hey,

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