83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 264: Diamond Dallas Page

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and host Conrad Thompson, discuss the career of Eric's long-time friend and former colleague, Diamond Dallas Page. Eric has a unique perspective on Page's career, having worked closely with him during his time as the President of World Championship Wrestling. Eric spoke passionately about Page's journey to becoming one of the most beloved and respected wrestlers in the industry. He highlighted Page's determination and work ethic, noting that he was not a natural athlete but worked tirelessly to improve his skills and become a star. Diamond Dallas Page's career was both insightful and inspiring. Through his personal anecdotes and deep knowledge of the industry, he highlighted the many reasons why Page is a true legend in the world of professional wrestling. HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit HENSONSHAVING.com/83WEEKS to pick the razor for you and use code 83WEEKS and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. GAMETIME - Snag the tickets without the stress with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKS for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  EMPIRAA - Sign up now and receive free onboarding, your first 14 days for free, and 24/7 support. Get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code 'wrestlebiz' at checkout. Launch your business plan faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit www.empiraa.com/eric today and start your journey to success!  SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC -If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9 over on AdFreeShows.com. That's less than 15 cents an episode each month! You can also listen to them directly through Apple Podcasts or your other regular podcast apps! AdFreeShows.com also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content including popular series like Title Chase, Eric Fires Back, Conversations with Conrad, Mike Chioda's Mailbag and many more! Plus, live, interactive virtual chats with your favorite podcasts hosts and wrestling legends. All that and much more! Sign up today at AdFreeShows.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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No house payments for two months. It's savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Pischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? Viva Las Vegas. Viva. All right, I'm not going to do my Elvis impersonation, but me and Mrs. B are heading to Vegas tomorrow morning, 7 a.m.

We'll arrive by 1203 and by 2.15. we'll be arriving at the mob museum in old Las Vegas and I'm looking forward to it. I love it, man. It's going to be fun. I just know it. I wish that you and I were hanging out together in L.A. for WrestleMania weekend. Of course, as you're listening to this,

WrestleMania is in the rear view. Eric and I are recording in advance. So if you're looking for our WrestleMania thoughts, hang out. Maybe we'll create some bonus content for YouTube later this week, but we will certainly be talking about it next week here on the program. In the meantime, though, while I'm in Los Angeles, supporting our mutual friend Cody Rhodes and his quest to become WWE champ, why are you in Las Vegas? Our daughter, Montana is running in her fifth or sixth, maybe seventh, I can't keep track anymore, marathon.

She's attempting to qualify for the Boston Marathon. So I think she's going to pull it off this time. She's been improving on her times each and every marathon. And I think she's close enough now where she feels like she may qualify. So her and her boyfriend are going to be there and my sister's going to run a half marathon with her. I, of course, are going to be running no marathons. But I will be doing a marathon.

I will be doing a marathon of sorts at some of the better restaurants in town. So that'll be my contribution to athletic endeavor. Hypothetically, you're going to go hang out at the Betty Boop Club or no? It's not the Betty Boop Club anymore, unfortunately. You know, we make a buy there just for old time's sake. And I'm really disappointed that Cleopatra's barge at Caesar's Palace is no longer there.

Wow. And I mean, the memories, just the memories that exist in that bar for me. The stories that I could, I probably have told, but the stories that bar could tell, which is so much fun, but it's not there anymore either. So I'm going to go over to the old side of Las Vegas. I haven't been to the old part of Las Vegas in probably 20 years, 25 years. And I'm going to see something different. I don't want to go back to the strip and see the same.

That's cool stuff. Don't get me wrong. It's really cool, the strip. But I'm back in there, done all that. I want to go see something different. Well, I'm excited to hear how it goes. We'll be talking about it next week. We'll be talking about WrestleMania next week.

But this week, we're talking about maybe one of the, the most long-lasting and perhaps important relationships you have in and around wrestling. The one and only Diamond Dallas page, he's turning 67 years old. And it's happening this Wednesday. God, he's old. Wow. You know, you know a funny story and he'll get hot when he hears this. Uh-oh.

I promise you he will go, God, bring it up, bro. um i think he's older than that i think he's at least two years older than me and i've been busting his balls about that really since i met it i looked at him in no way you're my age did you're at least two or three years older oh that would get him hot he'd get so hot all right well on that note let's encourage everyone go ahead and tweet him today happy 69th birthday at yes dp yes wait and do it on win not do it today do it today happy early 69th birthday to at real ddp and we'll take our lashings when we see him i love that that's such a good idea you're the way i love it he'll think it's funny

when it says 69 and then he'll start responding to a few and then he'll see you and i tagged and he'll be like wait a minute i know what this is about oh it used to drive him crazy dude i mean like literally in fact i you know at one point he you know dude dude you're driving you know just like proving it to me like it meant a lot to him and once i realized how much it meant to him i went well screw it i'm gonna i'm just gonna be ribbed him about this for as long as i know him because he reacts so much so it's fun it is fun and you know here's the thing too you want to talk about maybe one of the most interesting stories in the history of professional wrestling and you and I have had conversations offline about man this guy's life could be a movie and

and that deserves to be told on the silver screen and you know there's so many great stories like what cody's trying to do that could be a movie what paterson did way back when that could be a movie what sputton and then rose experience was with a von erics that is actually going to be a movie i'm in Dallas page could kind of be a movie could he could he could it's interesting you brought up Sputnik Monroe because I worked with a guy a couple years ago that was really he was an actor very successful actor I'm not going to drop names because that makes me sound like a dick but a very very successful actor and he reached out to me he was wrestling fam reached out to me on Twitter ended up going out and visiting him and his wife in their home and we became pretty good

friends and I'm sure he still does he wants to do that movie so bad and the amount of research did he put into it when I met with him. It's a fascinating stories, but it's, and it's relevant. It's relevant to today. So I hope somebody tells that story. But yeah, I think with DDP, I mean,

certainly Cody, I mean, Cody's story, like DDP, is very inspirational to me. Yes. I just, it's full circle, it's family, it's legacy, it's, you know, challenge, it's risk, it's frustration, it's pain, you know, the injury coming back. I mean, oh my God, there's just so many

plot points in the Cody Rhodes movie. And DDPs, I think, is a different kind of a movie, would be a different kind of a movie here. I'm talking about it like it already is. I'm going to manifest this some bitch right here on his show. But, you know, DDPs is really, it's the underdog story. I mean, if you think about I mean,

you know, Page Falkenberg before it became DDP, probably one of the least likely people that you would meet on the street

that you would guess someday would end up being a big damn deal in a world of professional wrestling. He was a hustler, you know, and when I first met him,

he was kind of, he was tall, you know, but he was kind of skis, little skinny legs, you know, kind of gangly. And, you know,

I'm still, you know, very athletic, don't get me wrong, but he looked a lot more like a basketball player than he did a professional wrestler at that point. Right. And just so unlikely, you know, he breaks into the wrestling business as a manager, a six foot, four, I don't know, five inch manager. Yes.

That doesn't happen. That goes against conventional wisdom at the time and probably still would to this day. but he did it you know he's he's overcome you know he was dyslexic he's overcome so much and has become he's become the best version of page falkenberg i think there could possibly have been but he's worked every day at it nothing came easy nothing came easy he's had to fight for every I say fight he's had to work persevere perseveres the word that's that to me defines ddp in a word perseverance one of my favorite lines you may not have seen this movie chief

dan george the outlaw josie well oh yeah yeah he was talking to josie wales chief dan george and said his people came up with the term endeavor to persevere i actually named i had an llc once 10 years ago 15 years ago i had to come up with an LLC to hold some stuff and it was etp LLC endeavor to persevere i love that phrase i love that movie by the way chief dan george was great at it and and that perseverance word man that is the story of ddp you know i don't think a lot of people even talk about this i mean they know that he's wrestling at an older age they know that he was taller than the average manager they know he exceeded his expectations in the ring by the way along the way my man somehow managed to marry

a playboy centerfold and as if that wasn't enough he did all of this and this is a story that nobody talks about anymore but it just is one of those things with with ddp got to give him credit for he didn't know how to read this is a guy who teaches himself to read while he's in WCW and we're all watching he achieved all that success and overcame that and he ran nightclubs and ran bars and he had been very financially successful in his life and couldn't read and overcame that and he overcame the doubters who said that you're too big to be a manager you're too old to be a wrestler you could never be world champ blah blah blah And then he did it again with DDPY.

And man, at first, man, everybody was probably poking fun and chuckling and, uh, me, I was one of them. I was one of them.

And look, he just, in the deal, the story to me is don't give up. Just don't freaking give up and keep going. That is the Diamond Dallas page story. He is perseverance personified. This sounds like a mutual admiration society because it is.

We, we both hold him in such high regard. for what he's been able to do and we're going to talk about his story here today of course the master of the diamond cutter because let's not even pretend that's not the most over finisher in the history of wrestling it is they're still doing versions of it today and making memes out of it today but think about how much mileage randy orton has gotten out of that and a long time before he was even in a wrestling ring ddp was doing it and that move again man he made it like his own version of Jake Robert's DDT, fans were hot for it.

But long before any of that happened, he's living the dream life in his early 30s, running nightclubs in Florida. Yeah, Brown and a pink Cadillac, having a lot of fun. Fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. Fair to say. And, you know, this was hold up right there for a second.

When you kind of step back, you know, and take a. a macro, you know, snapshot of DDP's life. And in the, in the things that he overcame, right? When that world running nightclubs, especially in Florida. Yeah. That is a universe unto itself. When you, when you start working, and you know, I used to work in bars. I was a bouncer in Chicago for a while.

I was a bartender in Chicago for a while. when that becomes your life, it's very rare that people who are successful in it walk away from it. Correct. Because it's a lot of money. You know, when you're in your 20s and your 30s and you're either bartending or you're waitressing or DDP's case, you're running a club, you're making way more money than you could make doing anything else that doesn't involve surgery or practicing law. which, you know, in your 20s and your 30s, you're not doing anywhere, right?

Right. You can make so much money at such a young age, but it becomes, it consumes you. It becomes your lifestyle. You get home at three or four o'clock in the morning. While everybody else is up and going to work and having lunch and, you know, the world is turning in your sleep and you're kind of a werewolf in that respect. You know, you start coming to around 6 o'clock. and your world, you become somewhat isolated within a very fun and exciting world,

but you become very isolated. Very few people get out of it when you're at that level. So just the fact that he didn't end up getting sucked into that lifestyle and isn't running a titty bar. Did I as you say, Titty Bar isn't running a gentleman's club somewhere down in Florida at 69 years old? is amazing to me. I agree totally. Like those guys who get in and enjoy some success in the bar life, there are so many perks, the hours, the fun, the money, the extracurricular.

Why do you give that up? Well, he did because he had a dream. And you wrote a great story in your first book. Controversy creates cash about how you in Dallas did not gel one night in Rochester, Minnesota, when you're both hanging out in the AWA, he wrote, during my time with the AWA, I crossed past with many guys who'd play an important role in my later career. One was Diamond Dallas Page, though things between us started out very rocky.

At the time, Paige was managing the tag team of Paul Diamond and Pat Tanaka. We were in Rochester, Minnesota for an event, which I had put together as the AWA promoter. We were in this bar, and Page was there, along with the other wrestlers. Page was very loud and sometimes an obnoxious individual, and actually still is. They were white leather pants and snake-skinned cowboy boots and looked real flashy with his diamond dolls, which was just a couple of strippers hanging off. Page was being very rude and loud and, well, just being Diamond Dallas Page.

He said something at one point that struck me wrong. I don't know what I said back, but it was probably pretty aggressive. and then he either called me out or I called him out, I put down my glass and followed him to the door, muttering to myself, I'm going to kick this guy's ass. I got outside and the only thing I saw was Page going down the street, driving away. On one level, I was proud of myself, I didn't get into a fight in the bar, because that would have been inappropriate. I was probably somewhat relieved that we didn't end up getting in a fight in the parking lot, because even if I had kicked his ass, and I sure thought I could, it would have caused a scene. And my ego was pretty happy that

his loud mouth who thought he was a tough guy. I thought twice about it and left. I went back inside and proceeded to pound a couple more beers. Then my wife and I went back to the hotel. We got in the elevator to go to our room and when the doors opened, Diamond Dallas Page stood right in front of me. We had a few more words. I don't remember how intense it was. And I don't remember how or why we decided not to get into a fight right then and there. They went back to his room and I went back to my room. I woke up in the morning and I felt like an idiot. I knew the way I'd handled myself was wrong. So I went to Page's room and knocked on the door. He came out looking like a hundred miles of bad road. I'm not sure what he was thinking. He's got his

version of the story naturally and I have mine. But I said, hey, I just wanted to come by and apologize. He kind of chuckled and shook my hand. What a story. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. There's a couple. It's really interesting is yesterday the day before something popped up in my social media feed, Twitter feed, and it was an interview, I got tagged in it. It was an interview that Paige did with somebody that I had interviewed with on another podcast a month or two previous, right? And I feel bad. I don't remember his name, but I suck with names. But the guy Paige was interviewing and I said, hey, you know, I know you've got an interesting story about you and Eric. Tell me that story. So I listened to Paige's version of it. And the part that I left out of

the book, was when I went to Page's room the next morning, now Page's version of the story, and I think it's probably true. It sounds like something I would have done back then. Was it I knocked on the door, he opened it up, and I said, hey, you know, things went south last night. My bad, there's one of two ways we can handle this. And one of the options, I gave him was, if you feel the need, and I popped up my teeth, I said, just, you get one free one. I deserve it. And he, obviously, he didn't take the, he didn't take the free shot. So I just plugged my teeth back in and we shook hands and that was the end of it.

I was going to give him a free shot. I just didn't want to break my fake teeth because I couldn't afford to fix them. It's amazing, you know, these Genesis stories of how relationships come to be. and you two had a very similar career path, oddly enough. He gets an announcer tryout in 1990 with the WWF. And if you've ever seen the clip of him and Lord Alfred Hayes online, you know why. He maybe didn't land that gig. Did you two ever discuss your mutual WWF announcer attempts in their early 90s?

Never did. Never did. You know, I knew that I guess I didn't believe it or not. And so just now I didn't know that he actually tried out or. or a role as an announcer. I knew that he went down there for a WrestleMania, used his pink Cadillac as part of a in Toronto. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I remember him telling me about that, but I don't remember him. And he may have. I just don't remember it. But I don't remember him talking about, you know, trying out to be an announcer. It's pretty crazy.

I'll send you a link. Maybe we'll post it to social media as well over at 83 weeks. I'll tell you this, though, if no one believed in DDP like himself, you know, pretty high on him too, was he not? Dusty Rhodes was a Dallas Page fan. Yeah. In fact, uh, I mean, truth be known. I know, you know, I get lost in these kind of abstract thoughts sometimes. But page met dusty first out in Florida, right? Right. That's how that first happened.

And then because of Dusty, Page ended up in WCW. I got my guess. I got my guess. in WCW, not because of Diamond Dallas Page. I got it because I was hosting a show on ESPN Monday through Friday, you know, back in the 90s and I had some, you know, I was halfway decent on camera. But even with that, I don't think I might not have got that gig if it wasn't for Page. He really helped me in my audition. He knew, and if, if, if, and this is the rabbit hole part, you know, the abstract part of this had page not connected with Dusty in Florida and ended up in WCW,

I'm not sure I would have either. Yeah. I'm not sure I would have made it past my audition. I don't know. Maybe, but I don't think so. Truth be known. So it's all, it's funny how all that stuff comes together. Would start really thinking about it.

So for everybody out there who, uh, who blames, who thinks that Eric Bischoff is, uh, the person who ruined wrestling. it was dusty roads fault so yeah there you go is the original dusty finish when turn her handed over the keys of Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon on that night 22 years ago that was the ultimate dusty finish I love it I am the original dusty finish you heard it here folks of course we know DDP comes in as a manager of the freebirds here in WCW but maybe most notably managed the diamond stud in Vinnie Vegas uh from 91 and 92 who's also doing some color commentary here that leads to your eventual wcw

audition and the man you'd be working with as you mentioned i'm in dallas page and you wrote in your book oh fuck the guy almost came to blows with in rochester minnesota a few years back this is the guy i have to work with he hates my guts i'm toast i didn't say any of this to keith of course even though i pretty much knew i was sunk i hung up the phone and proceeded to call page who already knew what was up to my great surprise he was very gracious and not only gracious page went out of his way to tell me he knew about what wcw was looking for in a play-by-play guy and that's dallas in a nutshell right right there like he just lots of people say oh the nicest guy ever he'd take the shirt off his back give you the shirt off his back

blah blah blah tdp really is that guy sometimes it's easy to give someone the shirt off your back because you just go get another shirt right right but when you actually help someone in a way that probably not too many other people could. Right. That's a different kind of cap. And that's DDP.

Yes, is he generous? Of course, he's generous. The saying, you know, he'd give you the shirt off his back. It certainly applies. Yes. But it's beyond the shirt that he may have in his closet that he's willing to share.

he's he and it's not it doesn't just with me i mean you go back in wcd and i don't want to jump too far ahead i know we've got a derrick sabato did a great job laying out this research i don't want to jump it but you know you go back into wcd and there was a point in time when oh gosh i don't want to get too far into the weeds on this because i'll go off the rails but i had an idea we really we were really going to tour wrestling with a bus and a bunch of young like under 22 year old wrestlers who were just working your way up you know kind of like an independent scene was going to be like a little bit of a road rules vibe to it but really really young talent like really young talent jimmy yang you know came came out of that uh that group a lot of guys did um sure Shane

Hemsley, what's his? Films. Yeah. Came out of that group. Billy Kidman, a lot of young talent that were undersized. You know, back then they were 160, 10070, 180-pound guys, but they were really, really young. And they were doing a lot of really super athletic stuff. This is either right before or during the Cruiserweight Division.

Because I was, it was probably during, because I was really motivated by the presentation. I thought, man, what, what is. if we can find a show that MTV would want to air. Not that I wanted to pitch it to MTV, necessarily, but I wanted to show that if MTV wanted a wrestling show, what would that show look like? And I put, I put DDP, but I said, hey, you know, help me out, brother. If you got some ideas, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's have some fun doing this

together. And he went out and he found these guys that ended up all becoming a big parted, WCW and some have gone on to WWE, obviously. But that was Paige. And he worked, Chris Canyon was another example. Chris was a part of that group. I think Chris and Paige worked together to try to really recruit, find and recruit some of that young talent that I was looking for for this particular project.

But once Paige adopted these young, I'm going to call them kids, they weren't kids, but they were in their 20s to me, they felt like kids, certainly do now. but once page put together this little family of misfit kids it's like he adopted them right i mean they became his family and he you know let him stay at a crash at his house if whatever they needed you know because i wasn't paying him a lot of money but these guys really wanted to do it and page wanted it for them as badly as they wanted it for themselves that's what makes him such a unique cat he's generous beyond the physical things well we should take a time out right now and talk about how generous hinson shaving is this is one of my favorite sponsors and listen uh even if they

quit advertising and this is their last commercial with us i just want you to know they're a part of my life forever i found that hinson shaving is not only better than what i've been doing it's also cheaper i mean down at the walmart or my local drugstore they keep the replacement razor blades behind lock and key. You know why? It's very expensive. You know how much of years worth of blades cost you here at hinsonshaving.com? Three to five dollars. It's crazy. Not three to five dollars a week, not three to five dollars a month, not three to five dollars a quarter. Three to five dollars a year. This is the next level. Let me explain. Hinson shaving is a family owned aerospace parts manufacturer and they bring in that same precision engineering to your

dog on face. These folks used to make things for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover and now they use those CNC machines that are aerospace grade to make metal razors that are just 0.0013 inches. That's less than the thickness of a human hair. And that means a more secure and stable blade. That means a more vibration-free shave. It means less nicks and cuts and scrapes. And by the way, this razor has built-in channels to evacuate hair and cream which makes clogging virtually impossible what i respect most about henson shaving is they didn't build the best razor business they built the best razor let me explain a lot of the other cats out here talking about razors want you to sign up for a subscription there's no subscription here

they also have a lot of plastic on it which means eventually it's going to break this is metal like your grandfather used to use this is the last razor you'll ever need there's no planned obsolescence here meaning they're not going to change their head design and now you can't even get those old blades you got to get this new kind so that means you got to get a whole they don't do any of that what i like best about this is it's a standard old school dual edge blade it's like your grandfather and the boys use except this is new school tech so you get 0.0013 inches thickness on your blade you've never felt a razor blade this thin it's unbelievable and the job is unbelievably. It's the best shave in my life and it's three to five dollars a year.

It sounds too good to be true, but they can do it for you. Say no to subscriptions and say yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime. Visit hinsonshaving.com slash 83 weeks to pick up the razor for you and use the code 83 weeks and you'll get two years worth of blades free. Make sure to just add them to your card. That's 100 free blades. When you head the 8,000,000, H-E-N-S-O-N-S-H-A-V-I-N-G.com slash 83 weeks and use the promo code, 83 weeks. Eric Henson's not only better, it's cheaper too, right? It is. And you know, this is a, this is a me thing now.

I'm a little weird about certain things. But I love it when I come home and I open up my refrigerator. And we've got a big refrigerator in the house. We keep one out in the garage. And I keep one out in the bunkhouse where my office is. And we love to, you know, we freeze fresh vegetables and we like to stock up. I love it when I opened up my refrigerator and like, I've got all the meat and the chicken and vegetables. And I've got a bunch of chili that I've made and venison stew.

I mean, I just love having a well-stocked refrigerator and freezer. It gives me a sense of comfort and stability. It lets me know that when if shit hits the fan, things go bad, I'm going to be the last one state of Wyoming to starve. It's a sense of security. I get that same feeling when I open up my bathroom little window gimmick there where I keep all my stuff. When I open that up and I see a year's worth of razor blades. Yes. It's the bathroom of equivalent of having a full freezer.

I know I can survive. If the supply chain takes a crap and you can no longer buy these $29 raisers that last three times that are behind a lock and key, guarded by a fully automated security guard apparatus, the AI kind of thing, or maybe just a guy with a gun. Now, I don't need to do that. I don't buy that stuff because if I put up my mirror, my bathroom, I'm looking at just a box of razors that are going to last man. I only shave about once every three days because I don't really see too many people. But man, I'm good to go. Hansen's the best.

Prepare for the worst. Have the best. There you go. Hansenshaving.com slash 83 weeks. Use that promo code 83 weeks. We're going to be glad you did. So let's talk about, you know, once you're signed up and, and you nail this audition and you get the gig um you got to be thinking man i'm so glad i ran

into him that bar in that bar that night and i went and apologized and made it right like if you had not followed up and went to his room and tried to make amends and write the wrong and hold yourself to account maybe you don't nail this wcw i maybe he's not willing to help maybe he goes the other way and just buries you i'm not saying that's in his character i'm just saying because you did the right thing once upon a time it kind of came full circle here did it not it did but i again i and what what happened when i came out of the elevator pager's with three or four guys i was with my wife we started yaking back and forth and it was it was on again it was actually a

pull apart got a little physical but there was enough people there to keep us off of each other and then we went our separate ways but i think had we even tangled had there been nobody there to pull us apart and had it had come to blows i think page would have probably done the same thing that's who he is right he would have i think he would have looked at it like, water under the bridge. And, hey, I'm going to point something out here.

You know, I'm, I'm, you know, beat myself up here for, I was an idiot. I just was. I'm ashamed to admit it. But Page was not like an innocent victim either.

He was really being obnoxious. Right, right, right. And what set me off is that I had sponsors there. You know, we had that we were doing this event in the night club. And this was at a time when Vern, gone, you had a real tough time getting sponsors. I sold a beer sponsorship for 90 grand, which was unheard of at that time, to a Schmidt, a Heilman Brewing Company, which was a regional

beer company out of lacrosse, Wisconsin. So the really big sponsorship package and had local radio people there and had contests going on. So it wasn't just like a bunch of wrestlers hanging around the bar. Wasn't that? It was an extension of the actual event with sponsors who we were courting. I was courting in particular. And Paige was acting a fool, in my opinion. Could have been a little classier, put it that way. So it wasn't like I was just being a jagoff not wanting to pick a fight. That wasn't it either. But nonetheless, I think had we to come to blows, I'm almost certain Paige would have been, eh, we were both a couple of idiots. God, that was stupid. All right, let's move on. You know, that's, that's, that's,

who he is he doesn't hold grudges he doesn't you guys wind up working together for a few months on wcw pro at the start of your career do you remember it ever coming up that he might want to become a wrestler himself or were you shocked when he starts that process you know we became such good friends and you know famously people know you know he lived right down the street for me um is that the first house you bought in georgia is that the first place you Okay. And so was he already there when you got there or he came? Yeah, he bought a house a couple months before I did from, um, Michelle, right of Dusty's wife. She was a real estate agent. She was a real estate agent. So when it came time for me to move to Atlanta, um, about a year

later, because I didn't move to Atlanta right away. I commuted from Minneapolis to Atlanta back and forth once a week, uh, for for about a year, year and a half. And then they said, okay, enough of that. You got to move here. You know, I was anxious to at that one time. I kind of got myself pretty well situated in WCW and I was ready for a change. So when it came time to move, of course, Dusty, I was very close to Dusty at that point and just was a natural thing. Michelle sold me a house literally one house away from DDP.

Wow. Nice little subdivision, too. Nice little house, a little four bedroom, probably about 2,500 square feet, 2,800 square feet. paid a hundred and forty nine thousand for it oh wow wonder what that's what i mean it was a nice house i have a million now got to be right yeah yeah but yeah we live right down the street and because of that our relationship went from two guys that worked together that had some history together to you know we were spending a lot of time together when we were away from the office or away from the venue you know weekends especially we'd get together i'd spend some time with my kids

and do the things I need to do around the house. But usually Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, Paige and I were riding around and either as Pink Cadillac or he had a Mercedes convertible at the time, an older one. I think like a 77 or 78. It's kind of cool, two-seater, 450 SL. And we'd just drive around and talk wrestling, you know, ideas, frustrations, you know, just talking wrestling all the time.

And that's probably when it first came up, it being, you know, Page's desire to actually get into the ring. But it wasn't until probably, I don't know, it wasn't early on. It was probably late 93, I'm guessing, 94. I can't remember. What was Mrs. B's first impression of Diamond Dallas Page? Oh, she loved him. Now, Paige is a lovable guy.

you know he i mean my neighbor diamond delis page he loved the kids in the neighborhood right all the kids in the neighborhood loved him you know christmas he was like i yeah yeah yeah i can't even explain it it's it it would be a waste of valuable time

to try to oh i don't know valuable valuable but it would be a waste of time to try to even described how enthusiastic pages about Christmas. And of course, the kids in the neighborhood love that, right? He'd have all the kids over helping him decorate his house. He was just a super cat. Halloween too. He loved Halloween. Was anybody more than DDP and Mick Foley?

I never met anybody who likes it. No. No. And I don't know which of them are probably equal in their own ways. Yeah. But no, and you know, Paige would come over and he he spent a lot of time at the house he was really great with our kids he loved our kids and our kids loved him and he just became part of the hand his wife just became part of the family really uh in august he debuts as a wrestler did you see any of his early matches as he he was famous for recording his matches does he ever bring over a tape to your house and say

oh okay that's a yes And you know, it's hard when it's hard when it's hard when you got somebody that's as close to you as Paige and I were to each other. And it's harder for me because when I'm critical, it doesn't always come off constructively. Pretty straightforward about it. And I'm the same way with myself. I love that you're so self-aware because, boy, when you just are giving your real opinion and you don't like it, we don't have to guess where you stand on it.

You're pretty clear about it. I love that about you, too. Yeah, but I'm the same way about myself. You know, I'm harder on myself than most anybody else would be willing to be. Yeah. At least to my face.

But that's just so it's hard. You know, you want to encourage, but you want to be honest. You know, what good is it, you know, if I wanted to be a wrestler and somebody that I respected and I wanted their opinion, I wouldn't want to say, oh, no, you did great when they're really thinking, you're forgetting, you're forgetting, dude, I want the truth. So I give the

truth. And that was a little awkward at times. Sure. And I honestly, I didn't think he'd stick it out. I really didn't. And it wasn't the physical part of it. I knew he'd get that. he because even though he was kind of tall and gangly for a manager you know he built he started working out hard he trained he you know he got into his diet heavily heavily i remember used to going on road trips with him and i'd go you know i'd drive by his house to pick him up where he'd come over to my house and the whole back seat of the cars like filled with tupperware full broccoli and chicken and beans and my god and of course i would drive and he would eat nonstop yes all the way we're driving now but in georgia

two and a half hour drive two and a half hours of eating out the window it was crazy but he started building himself up but i didn't think he could handle i didn't think he would handle i knew he could if he wanted to but i didn't think he would want to handle none of the naysayers and the people inside that i think bothered him more than anything you know is people that are people that were his peers saying page i don't think so i i think thought he, I thought that would wear him down, but it did the opposite. It just fired him up. It did fire him up. And we're glad he did. I mean, I don't think anybody would have ever looked back in 1991 and said, hey, see that guy who just lost a Z man in 90 seconds? He's going to be

world champion. That's just hard to imagine. It's hard to predict. But everybody starts somewhere. And that's the, that's the Diamond Dallas story, you know, perseverance. And the story is eventually, I think Kip Frye puts his foot down. It says, no, he can't be a wrestler. And it actually takes a petition for him to return. His first big match is against the WCW champion,

Sting in a non-title match. Happens on Saturday night. And of course, obviously he loses. But hey, some progress here. And I'm wondering in hindsight, you know,

we mentioned that he was at times managing Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. They're a raven into the mix, too. they're kind of in a bad spot too because normally if you have a manager he's like a pipsquee type of guy he's not necessarily as tall or almost as taller in raven's case taller than you and also trying to wrestle kind of putting the guys in a bad spot there too is he not accidentally yeah certainly didn't intend to and the other thing about page and this is one of the things that i used to try to talk to him about occasionally back when he was managing was he he would eat that he would just suck the air out of the room you know a manager is there

to enhance right just like announcers are there to enhance the product their garnish on the plate and speaking as a former announcer i i feel comfortable saying that you're just the garnish on the plate you're not the main course you're not even a side dish you're a garnish but when page would get that microphone he became the main course right and that's not great for a manager now if you have talent that can't talk you know that absolutely you know can't even stumble their way through a promo okay but that wasn't the case with scott hall certainly and and some of the other people that that page manage but he would just once that once he saw that red light he'd like he had one gear

fifth he didn't have a first year he didn't go through the gear box he didn't do that he just came out of the box burning tires and he had one gear but he made it anyway

he made a much better wrestler than he did manager sorry for sure it's just true uh well if anything that you could say he is or is not knowing would ever accuse him of not being a hard worker and uh he's written in his book and and by all accounts everyone agrees he was at the power plant as much as possible back then and think about this now we talked about this at the top of the show this is a fellow who once had life kind of made man he's making a bunch of money and running some clubs and has a cool schedule and lots of fringe benefits and perks and

he throws it all the way to now go grunt it out and grind it out for not nearly the same amount of money at the power plan and he winds up uh tearing his rotator cuff in a match against what would become the godwins tech slasinger and shanghai pierce and then he even winds up fired in December of 1992 are you in touch with him i mean he's he's he's on track for his dream he's he's thrown it all away uh you know what he was doing in his prior life. Now the rugs pulled out from under him here in December of 92. Who fired him? I don't remember that. Well, he's gone and eventually works his way to get back, but it takes a whole year to get back. Who would have fired him in 92? Who would have been

in charge of 92? That was the, uh, right before you take over. So the bill, it was, it had to be Watts then, right? The Bill Watts and then the Kip Fry era. And then he winds up, uh, coming back in December of 93. Do you have anything? to do with him coming back? No, that would have been, because I didn't have any stroke at that time. Right. That would have been dusty for sure. His off period.

Are you still his neighbor? Is he still coming over? Yeah. Yeah. Are you trying to encourage him or are you trying to be the realist and more pragmatic about, hey man, maybe it's time chase another dream here. What I'm really trying to do is remember that period of time. It must have been, I really don't remember that one.

Well, just, you know, he was still wrestling. He's still hanging out with Jake. They're going down to Mexico. They're doing some international tours. He's still chasing the wrestling. Okay. Then that's probably why it doesn't see. It's not like he was sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

He was keeping himself busy. Yeah. So, yeah, we stayed in touch. Of course, we stayed in touch. But I don't remember much about that period of time. Well, here's a fun little piece of trivia. His first match back. in WCW and what's going to start, although it doesn't seem like it at first now.

This is December of 93 and we know he's not really going to start to get hot until 97. So we got to just toil through 94, 95 and 96. We got a little bit of time before we're getting there. And he gives that diamond cutter to Scott Hall on Nitro. His first match back, his opponent, Scott DeMore, the president of Impact Wrestling. How fun is that? Really? Yeah.

I didn't even know, God, what happened to me? What was I doing back then? A lot of drugs? No, I wasn't. I didn't do a lot of drugs back then. You know, the 80s were fun for me. By about 1984, 85, I was, I was out of that scene. So no, it wasn't drugs and it was just a blur.

That period of time was just a blur. I don't know. Well, here's the thing. That's around the same time that you're starting to take over and get bigger and bigger and more roles within WCWCW. be more responsibility. So I'm sure you're just drinking water out of fire hydrant, as we'd like to say. Yeah, I was focused on a lot of different things. Kimberly is going to come along with Dallas this time. And really that first rise of DDP, you can't really talk about that story

without Kimberly. When do you first remember meeting her? What were your impressions of her? And were you shocked that she was going to come along for this rassling ride? I, gosh, I remember the first time I matter. Kimberly was very shy. And I just remember thinking, this is like beyond opposites attract. Right. There was nothing. There could be no female on the face of the earth more opposite of Diamonddale's page than Kimberly was at that. Right. You know, I think she went to Auburn. Yeah. She was very, very smart, like not the pages is smart. He's, he's just kind of street smart. She was like, look smart, yes.

Yeah, absolutely gorgeous, not the page. Well, yeah, he wasn't. I mean, he wasn't. Let's just, I mean, she. No, he's in the B. Come on. Yeah, come on. Yeah.

She was just so opposite of it and quiet. That's really the opposite of page, right? Yes. Very quiet, very shy, seemed to be very focused. And it was one of those things. I was like, right? Oh, don't, you don't, kid it but good for you page good for you and as i got to know her a little bit more she

you know she opened up a little bit more and i got to learn you know more about her personality and all that but yeah initially it was like what the hell it's like i'm curious a lot of guys you know have have sort of issued warnings hey be careful bringing your wife around the business and all that sort of thing uh did you know that was it was a thing when by the time she's joining him here or were you still relatively new enough in your business or in the business that that didn't even register with you it didn't it didn't register with me i mean i wouldn't have you know i brought my wife occasionally to events like for shooting at disney and things like that but she didn't come to the tapings she didn't come to you know whenever we had a big pay-per-view she'd

come to the city with me occasionally depending on what city we were in but she wouldn't hang out at the venue and socialized backstage it's just not well you you know, Lori, but for people that don't, that's just not her scene, right? She's very friendly and likes people, but just not in that environment because she's like I am, you know, people are working here. Yes. It's backstage, but those people are all freaking busy, right? You don't want to feel like you're imposing on them.

So, no, Lori never came, but I wasn't aware of, you know, I learned later on and, of course, witness what happens sometimes when you bring. your significant other and they get too involved backstage it turns into a drama fest but at that point in time it didn't didn't occur to me listen mrs b very smart very well read very capable very articulate very personable why did you never or why did she never consider being a part of the wcw operation she certainly could have worked in the office or something like that why was that not something you were willing to do no that's just not my thing okay not my thing at all that would let's keep going here and let's talk about uh max muscle he's going to add max muscle to his uh

presentation so it'll be himself Kimberly and max muscle he starts building a stable i guess here much like he had before with veney vagus and raven and the diamond stud um the story would begin with him holding an open arm wrestling challenge and max would always help him win And, uh, you know, listen, this is a fun little story, I guess, a nice way to involve him. But then we had a interesting plot point. As the story goes, he amasses $13 million by winning these challenges all over the country. And somehow, some way, he's put in a program with Dave Sullivan. Yes, Evad Sullivan and Sullivan is going to defeat Dallas in an arm wrestling contest to earn a date with Kimberly.

this is not 1983 this is 1994 well got to start somewhere some of these I thinkers are better than others I was either Rick Flair or Dusty Rhodes and I would say it was probably Rick Flair mm-hmm your father-in-law yeah his first pay-per-view match is with Dave Sullivan batch of the beats 1995, Huntington Beach, California. Tony Chivani would have us believe there was 100,000 people there. We know better. Dallas gets the win with the diamond cutter after multiple distractions, but you can start to see that this package of himself, Kimberly and Max, is getting a little bit attraction. I mean, I don't know that this is ever going to be a main event opportunity,

but a little bit of traction. What'd you think of that pairing? Max Muscle is as heavy and Kimberly on his arm. Max is a super guy, by the way, but he just didn't have it. If you could measure charisma by the ounce, if Paige had 10 pounds

max muscle, may it had three or four ounces. He just didn't have it. He had everything else. He had a good luck. He was obviously built like a tank. He could move. He was athletic. But there was just not only was that it, Missing. It was a vacuum. Oh. So it, it, it just wasn't going to play well.

Well, we know that, uh, the feud with Sullivan is going to continue and include Ralph the rabbit. That's Dave's pet. Ralph the rabbit. Listen, we can make fun of this, but let's not forget our friend McFolley made millions of dollars with a sock puppet. So it's all in the execution. Uh, Renegade comes from Sullivan's rescue on a WCW show. And leads to fall brawl where ddp is going to earn his first wcw title shot and believe it or not he wins the tv title listen i'm sure he earned it he put in the work but do you remember there being some uh chirping amongst the boys about wait a minute what ddp has a belt or he earned everybody's respect by this point do you think i think he had pretty much earned everybody's

respect okay there were still people who just because people are shitty sometimes some people not all people those people are really pretty good people especially back in a locker room it's a camaraderie you know you may not get along with everybody in that locker room but you you respect each other for the most part um always exceptions but by that time there may have been a few guys that were kind of friends with dusty's friends with Eric but for the most part he had earned everybody's respect well that leads to a program that becomes a pretty prolific program maybe the first significant one of ddp's career it's a feud with johnny b bad and uh it's going to feature one of the most classic angles i guess when

done correctly ddp is scheduled against johnny b bad on wc w saturday night but bad is unable to make it because he had some car trouble johnny b bad is going to accused ddp and max muscle of having something to do with it and then when max makes mention of how unlucky it was to have all four tires go flat the jig is up because bad says wait i said i had a flat tire i didn't say i had four flat tires and then they start their brawl that's old school territory stuff but it still works when it's done right right i like that i do too it's it's just it's good story it's plausible it could be true you know wrestling isn't real, but this is close enough to being possible that it's kind of fun.

That's what makes good wrestling work. It doesn't always have to be like Shakespeare. It doesn't have to be a literary work of art. But hopefully your story is one that people could go, yeah, it's wrestling, but that could be true. And you allow yourself to enjoy it. That's a small example of that. I like it.

Johnny B. Bad had been getting a push in WCW for years at this point. So just having an opportunity to, work with him is a pretty cool deal and uh it leads to Halloween havoc 95 in Detroit Michigan and man that's a big show um that was a big show man Muhammad Ali was there I believe um Marvin Hagler was there I met Marvin Hagler Tommy Hermes Tommy the hit man hers he's a Detroit guy couldn't wait to me Tommy Hearns he's a legend of Detroit still is um yeah that was a fun that was a fun night Are you thinking about, I think you're thinking about, uh, 94.

94. Yeah, I think not because 95 is when you had the Yeti come out and butt fuck. Oh, no. In 95, I went to North Korea with Muhammad at least. So yeah, it would have been 94. You're right. Sorry about that. That's okay.

Listen, all these big shows run together, but there's a big show out there that you're probably thinking about. And we want to tell you, you don't have to stress about getting tickets. Buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful. Game time is the fan. an easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater near you. You'll get killer deals on last minute tickets and their best price guarantee means you can stop stressing over the tickets and start getting hype for all the fun you'll have.

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Okay. That's cheap. Yeah. They're available. That's for tonight. Friday night, $98. The Laugh Factory in Las Vegas, there's all kinds of stuff going on. And for someone like me that doesn't always plan ahead, like, it's the bait of my freaking

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And that is something you can't get anywhere else. I've used other apps before, and I have had conversations with my seat mates to the left of my right, because I want to know. Hey, how much did you pay? And buddy, when you overpay, you feel, ugh. Well, what if you knew? I'm going to get 110% back if that's the case. You can't beat it. You get images of your seat before you buy. You know exactly what to expect when you arrive. You buy your ticket in a matter of seconds. Two taps. You're all set. The tickets are sent directly to your phone. You don't even have to dig out your email. Snag the tickets without the stress with

game time. Download the game time app. Create an account. use the code weeks you get 20 bucks off your first purchase terms apply again create an account and redeem the code weeks for 20% off i'm sorry 20 dollars off 20 dollars off download the game time app today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed use our code weeks and get 20 bucks off uh so hallowing havoc 95 brother it's in detroit whole kogan of course is going to murder the giant throw him off the roof of the building uh but that same night diamond dallas page is going to drop this tv title to johnny be bad after 17 minutes max muscle's interference is going to backfire cost him to match but still a 17

minute title match on pay per view you're asking a lot for a guy here you know it i don't think so i mean 17 minutes was a good it's a good that's a good that's a good time for someone at it at pages at the stage of Page's career, he was at that point in time. And keep in mind, Johnny Be Bad was the more experienced of the two and could certainly help to carry that if it needed to be carried. But so I think 17 minutes was about perfect. We know Dallas is going to demand a rematch for this TV title. And when Johnny Be Bad sees how poorly Dallas has been trading Kimberly,

Matt agrees to put the title up for grabs if he's able to get the services of Kimberly as well. and the problem is the money Dallas had won was really the diamond dolls from playing bingo it was revealed that he had embezzled the money from her so diamond's going to lose the match his valet and Max Muscle and him break up and then he starts to get all of his stuff repossessed this is like a bad country song

he loses his glittery robes his expensive cigars his jewelry everything it's kind of a fun although a little silly story but that's 1995 for you and then 1996 rolls in and somehow this feud with Dallas and back continues but eventually due to a contractual issue Johnny Buebad leaves and WCW is now sort of high and dry with this storyline so we need somebody else to tag in and pick up where we left off with bad out so with bad out Brutus the freaking barber beefcake is in and Eric of all the ideas we're going to call him the booty man

and I say to myself self if this is the reward of being Eric Bischoff's friend I don't know if I want to be his friend I had Johnny be bad and now you've saddled me with Ed Leslie as the booty man the booty man I good that was just freaking horrible

you should apologize to Dallas when we finish sorry brother no I should I mean talk about a no-win situation the booty man yeah yeah somebody should have drugged me out back my ass over that one I had that one coming

yeah you did no doubt first one's free maybe the second one too uh not being funny the last appearance of bad on tv features him getting hot at Kimberly for being distracted I know that's not how it was supposed to end the booty man now at the booty babe by his side is going to defeat Diamond Dallas page and a loser leaves WCW match at uncensored and it looks like his career is done again but it's not December of 92 now it's March of 96 and vignette start airing on WCWT with DDP now what broke down on his luck homeless man he's going to beg for money by washing

for people's washing people's car windows and selling tickets to events that already happened and you won't find that on the game time out by the way and DDP is even on the sidewalk panhandling when all the sudden a limousine pulls up next to him the door opens and DDP gets in and before you know it a high powered attorney convinces WCW management to allow ddp back into the company dude this mysterious benefactor idea this feels like soap opera stuff i kind of dig it its story it's a little different wasn't just a hot shot angle on a set interrupting in the interview or some other typical thing so yeah it was a it was a to intrigue and drama well i'm glad you like it now because i don't think he liked it back

then you see ddp is going to return to wcw seemingly with money again and the announcer start to wonder who was in that limo the ddp got into whose limo was that who is this mysterious benefactor that saved ddp in his career who was this rich man but we never find out and it's reported after it's dropped with no resolution no explanation no explanation nation, which we would see a few times over the years with WCW. It's reported that DDP wanted an angle to continue to play out and have a proper ending of this story. And as the story goes, according to Wade Keller, he approached you and asked you repeatedly

on multiple occasions, try to resolve this angle. And your answer was always no. And when Page continued to press you for a reason why, according to DDP, you simply said, because nobody cares. That's why. and just like that the mystery of the secret benefactor was never revealed that feels like the most Eric Bischoff answer of all time oh gosh some things never change because nobody cares that's why sometimes you just got up you know you love the horse

you used to pet the horse and you take the horse for a ride on the weekends and it was there's a period of time when that horse meant the world to you but there's a point in time when you've got to put the horse down because the horse don't run anymore. And it's always painful, but it needs to be done nonetheless. And evidently, my feelings about the benefactor was that it was a horse that you need to go down. Somehow now randomly with no explanation, DDPs back in the company, he's going to be a part of the lethal lottery at Slambury team at the barbarian and get a victory of Raming and Hugh Morris and and then Booty Man and Rick Steiner somehow gets in the Lord of the Ring Battle Royal.

Got eight dudes in here. DDP, the Barbarian, Johnny Grunge, Rocco Rock, Rock, Scott Norton, Ice Train,

Bobby Eaton and Dick Slater. These are eight guys fighting for a title match as advertised for the Great American Bash and DDP wins because Nick Patrick never saw him get thrown out 90 seconds in, that he wins the ring and the title shot. And thankfully, the match never happens at the Great American Bash, but Dallas's contributions to this time period cannot be understated. From your own book, you wrote,

Scott Hall was friends with Diamond Dallas Page, who lived near me, and he would occasionally stop by on a Saturday afternoon for a beer. One Saturday, Paige came by and we started shooting the ship. He said, hey, I've been talking to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, they're interested in making a move. man, when you think about the importance of Diamond Dallas page to your career, not only in that first audition, but just that conversation, goodness gracious, it changes it all. Isn't that bizarre?

Yeah. Just you think about how easy it could have been so much different so easily. Yeah. I could have bought a house two miles away. Right. Right. I could have. There's so many things that could have happened.

We've already discussed. The relationship could have ended up being much different. But the fact that we did develop the relationship we did, and Paige did have the relationship, the longstanding relationship to be able to Scott and Kevin, just it all worked. How many times have you heard me say timing is everything? You can be the smartest person in the room.

You can have all the talent in the world. You can have all the resources in the world. You can have so many things, but if the timing isn't right, and conversely, you can have things going against you and seemingly struggling and just not being able to dig out of a hole or get out of your own way, and then all of a sudden something happens, the timing is perfect, and things fall into place. It's fascinating, but that's what this was. That's this period of time, the relationship between people.

age and the opportunities that that were born out of just these random relationships and moments in time that all came together and became the catalyst for something really, really big. It's fascinating. What's fascinating? What's most fascinating about this to me, Eric? And again, this is another feather in DDP's cap. A lot of guys who have this relationship, who have this leverage, I mean, let's be honest. Dallas has been floundering creatively. He wanted to finish to this other story, and you just flat shut him down and said,

no, nobody cares. And it would have been really easy to do what a lot of people would have done and say, hey, I've been talking to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. I've got an idea for us. He doesn't come and ask for anything. He's not trying to leverage some sort of relationship or opportunity to better himself.

He just thinks, hey man I can help my buddies out and by my buddies I mean Scott Kevin and Eric he just wants to help the company that's Dallas in a nutshell right there he absolutely didn't try to leverage that's amazing that is so true yeah so true because that usually I mean it's the wrestling business it's the buddy system you know exists for a reason um but Patriots really I mean look were there periods in time, I think, when Paige really wanted to, I don't want to say, take advantage of that would be saying, would page, would page try to get the most out of our relationship? Of course he would. He wouldn't. Yes. He lived right down the street from the boss

and, and we're, and we're buddies, you know, and we go out and eat Mexican food and drink beers together now who wouldn't take advantage of that opportunity right to try to you know dig in and improve one situation and page did do that in the beginning but not for long and it wasn't because i drew a line in this nothing like that it just we just kind of both understood that hey our friendship is our friendship our business is our business and we'll talk about business as long as it doesn't cross a certain line, meaning what about me, you know, his point of view. And we, and he always respected that. And, and that's probably why we were able to get as long, get along as well as we did, as long as we did under the circumstances we did, especially after tagging him with booty man,

for God's sake. Listen, I, I didn't know that we would be talking about this, but it just sort of occurred to me as we're talking about the Scott Hawke, Kevin Nash thing, that he brought that to you and didn't try to use it for leverage and that makes me think of something and i guess i'm fast forwarding years at this point but ddp didn't get along with everybody and everybody didn't get along with ddp and one of those guys was a guy who used to be a friend of ours i don't think he likes me anymore but mr mark madden would famously be a thorn and ddp side and go on the radio and say things that weren't always positive or flowery for ddp and he would refer to him as dd me the idea of that he was only out for himself and blah, blah, blah,

the total opposite of what we just laid out. Why do you think Mark Madden and DDP just for oil and water? Because I don't think Mark really got to know DDP. And look, I joke about it all the time. But, you know, people ask you, do you do GDP? Why? I don't want to call it yoga because it gets hot. Yeah.

but I say no not that I don't believe in what Page is doing and I know I need it but the idea of listening a stretch breathe it I listened to Page

for so long when Paige is passionate when page is on a roll a conversation with Paige is more like sitting in the middle of a six-lane highway. You're just getting a run over. You're listening.

It's not a, there's not a volley. You're just dodging serves. He's relentless once he's on a roll. Now, once you get to know page, you know that eventually there's the other side of that. And it becomes a balanced discreet. But if you don't know him really well, your first impression, back then, he's different now, obviously, we all are, but back then, if you get Page in the venue, now he's at work, he's on, he's only thinking about one thing and that's work, in his work, and what he hopes to achieve, or hopes to try to improve upon, or hopes to include. or hopes to eliminate.

I mean, he's looking, Paige looked at every aspect of everything that he was doing and tried to make it be the best it could be. So if you don't know him really well, that can become tiresome. Right. It's just overwhelming. And I think that's probably why Mark never got to see the other side of page.

Mark never got to see the help the page gave people. Right. That probably to this day, some of us don't even know about of course you know you didn't get to see that all he saw was the intense part of page's personality and did sometimes that come off as page being self-centered yes but guess what name somebody who isn't like that right successful in a professional wrestling person in a wrestling business name one person that you can think of that is a selfless easy to get along with only cares about what's best for others character name one they don't exist yeah

they're fucking unicorns right page is no different but page could be tiresome if you didn't get to know well we're not tired of that finish man he hits it uh at the great american bash on buff bagwell he was supposed to get a title shot instead he gets buff bagwell but more importantly he hits the diamond cutter and it's noticeable how the crowd responds it's starting to pick up steam when would you say you remember first noticing the diamond cutter and thinking oh because i'm sure part of you is like yay i'm pulling for dallas yay i hope it works out yay good for you but also too in the back of your mind hey it's my friend i know i have that bias but there has to be a moment where you see the finish and you see the response and you go okay uh maybe this is more

than I thought. Wasn't so much the finish. I mean, I thought the finish was cool. It was the crowd's reaction to him. And what made me a believer, it's not that I was a disbeliever, but what really drove at home for me, I think we're in Macon, Georgia.

No, Gainesville. I think we're in Gainesville, Georgia, TV. And I had him go up into the crowd for the first time. to page when you went don't go to the ramp that's what everybody else does I want you to jump up and just throw yourself

like mosh pit style into the crowd so I said because the crowd's going to react because they're on TV they're going to be really happy to see you do that because they get to be on TV and they know that but that reaction if we get the reaction that we want

that reaction is going to get you more over than anything you can do in the ring. That's how you get somebody over. It's getting the crowd to react. Therein lies the art. That is the magic. And if a finish helps do that, of course, that's wonderful. But it's not always the case.

It's not always the finish. And the first time he did that, I went, I knew it'd be good. I didn't think it'd be that good. That was a turning point. It's when I knew he was going to be a star. Well, he gets another pay-per-view match at Slambury and gets a win against Jim Duggan in a taped fist match.

And then he's got the bash at the beach. Match with Duggan as well. And then he loses the battle bowl ring, Eddie Guerrero on a clash of the champions. And, you know, say what you want. these styles you wouldn't think would mesh on paper and they did pretty well together like i know that we know now that eddie guerrero is one of the best performers in the ring that there ever was i don't know that everyone was convinced to that by this point i think a lot of people

thought he has potential and all that sort of thing but just on paper it feels like their style is so different that it shouldn't work but somehow it did and maybe that's because edie guerrero was this phenomenal performer but maybe it was also because ddp was meticulous you know, in an era where a lot of the guys wanted to call it in the ring and thought putting a lot of planning into the match was lame and who would do that. DDP was one of the first guys who did that. And it's not from, I don't know why that became this narrative of, oh, it's not cool and this is, who does this and why would you do that or it just means you care, right, Eric?

Like you really care. You really want this to go well. Putting extra effort into something, it's not a bad thing. No, but I think the resistance, and it still exists to this day, not nearly to the degree that it used to, because there's very few guys out there doing it that can go out there and feel the crowd and lay out a match in a real time. Very few people have that ability anymore.

Very few. but I think the resistance to it was especially with someone like Page because Paige was obsessive about laying every single moment of that match out on paper like if there's a point in time when he says the camera picks me up taking it he laid out a match like a director would lay out a shot I stand up I take a deep breath. I wait seven seconds and I go to the ring corner. You know, it's just so detailed, meticulous.

And I think the feeling amongst a lot of guys, the Hogan's, the flares, the pipers, was that if you can't go out and feel the crowd, if you go out there with a pre-planned script in your head, and you're not paying attention to the crowd because you're focused on what you've memorized, and you're not reacting to the crowd, there's a decent chance you're either not going to maximize that opportunity or you could be having a match and they could be having a reaction and they're

not connected. So I think it was that page was so over the top with it and in meticulous about it, that is what got him the most resistance, but it's also what worked for him. Right. and when he finally, and I'm sure we're going to get there soon anyway, but when it came time for Page to work with Randy Savage, because Randy Savage is as much as Randy could work that old school. Yes.

Let's hear what they have to say when we get to the ring, brother. You know, he was capable of doing that, but even Randy much preferred a more, you know, meticulous planned layout for his match. So when those two got together, it was like, oh, my God, he's two, I'm going to run off and get married. Well, when Scott and Kevin come in, they're obviously working with the top guys. DDP is not even sniffing near that area of the card.

But the U.S. title winds up being vacated. And the Page Guerrero story continues. And it even involves them meeting in the finals for that U.S. title. But in the weeks building up to it, the NW does start to recruit DDP, but DDP is rebuffing them.

And finally, the NWO gets their, chance at revenge and they cost Dallas the match and help Guerrero get the win. Was that up? Did you think I don't want Dallas in the NWO because he doesn't fit? Or did you think I like him on the outside battling the NW? Did you have that vision in 96 before the diamond cutter on Scott Hall and the Super Dome and all that?

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taking care of our bits, our dangly bits, Manscape is always the first round draft pick, right, Eric? You know, I can't even imagine any longer what it would be like to walk around

ungroomed my wife would be horrified now she's spoiled yeah you do you get spoiled and you you really learn to appreciate the finer things in life well yeah and the benefits of that 20% off exactly but the code 83 weeks at manscape.com so listen let's get your answer now did you prefer him battling rather than joining the NWO definitely battling. And by the way, I don't think it was really, I didn't vote in that one. I loved the decision, but that was really a collaboration between Paige and Scott and Kevin. You know, and that's, I just thought about this before. Oftentimes we do these shows and the way the questions are posed to me or because of the period of time that we're talking about. Oftentimes

when I answer a question or make a statement, it's within a context. of decisions that I made. And I may have been part of those decisions. I may have been on the periphery listening to some of the discussions while the decisions were being made. But I didn't always make every decision. I mean, like very rarely did I make final decisions when it came to creative. I had a lot of influence.

And there were times when I did call the ball, so to speak. But for the most part, I was a part of a team and preferred it when people with more experience that I did, that I had were taking an idea and shaping in a way that made me feel good about the idea. Right. And that's kind of where this one landed with Page and the NWO. Had Scott and Kevin and Paige come to me and said, look, here's the idea. and we're going to have Paige join the NWO

probably would have gone along with it because I did trust Scott's instincts and Kevin's instincts. I did. We'd had a lot of success trusting those instincts. Right. But that wasn't the case. And I think a lot of that had to do with Paige.

I think Paige saw himself as the outsider. and I've never had this conversation with him, but I bet you when I do. Page will say if I would have joined the NWO, I would have gotten so much heat because I'm your friend. Page was well aware that being my friend was a liability, not an asset. I was much harder on Page than I was on other people. My expectations were much different when it came to Page than they were of other people. page knew that and i think it would have been such an easy thing you know oh you know buddy said buddy's just to be in bro and it would have been so obvious not just to me but to to the rest of the

roster that it would the heat that would have come with it wouldn't have been worth it that was a part of it but i think the bigger part of it is page just saw him as being a wcw guy he was that blue color guy he was the guy that was going to do the right thing so i think it was i'm guessing this is as much page's idea as anybody's but i think the collaboration with page and scott and kevin is what made that such a beautiful thing well we've covered the night that ddp says no to the interviewo in the archives so go check it out it's one of the biggest pops you'll ever see and it's a nitro from the super dome in new orleans and the diamond cutter is just on absolute fire after this and so is dallas but even with rejecting the outsiders

we're not going to program we're not going to program Dallas with either Scott Hall or Kevin Nash maybe it's because they're doing the tag team thing instead he works with Randy Savage and Savage does whatever he can to help elevate Dallas and boy he does a damn good job and so does creative

we get some really great high points in Nitro history and certainly DDP's history DDP comes out dressed as LaPaka surprises everyone in a match against Savage on Nitro hits the diamond cutter for the pen and then takes the mask off to reveal himself. It is a classic all-time Nitro moment. Man, I need more of that in wrestling.

What a great moment that was. It wasn't have fun. We just watched it. I think I don't watch a lot of a couple weeks ago. It was fantastic. Randy's going to continue to make Dallas. They're going to have three tremendous paper. reviews, Dallas and Randy here, probably the few to 97. I think PW, uh,

Grossing Illustrated called them the few to 97. And let's bear in mind, that's the same year where it's Sting and Hollywood Hogan. That's the same year where it's Brett Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin. What wins the poll is Randy Savage and Diamond Dallas page because they got so personal. Springstampede, Great America. American Bash, Halloween Havoc, we've covered them all in the archives, but with the benefit of this feud now under his belt, DDP is, he's a top guy come 1998. Does he not? Without a doubt.

Yeah. Without a doubt. And soon to transcend, whatever, make his way into mainstream media, you know, becoming friends with Carl Malone and working with Jay. Lennon and all that super high profile stuff that he ended up doing Dallas of course gives all the credit to Randy Savage for being unselfish taking the diamond cutter losing to him and then uh the big show starcade 97 ddp gets the biggest singles win of his life because he's no longer in the television title category he's now the united states champion beating car

Henning and it does seem as if he's starting to lose a little bit of steam as 1998 opens because he doesn't have this hot feud with Randy Savage but he is the US champ eventually he loses that US title to Raven at Spring Stampede but after this great feud he had with Raven and for that matter Chris Benoit the next night Raven drops it to Goldberg you know you've said before timing is everything I can't help but wonder if Goldberg didn't exist but ddp have gotten there faster i'm glad that goldberg exists it was fantastic fun in 1998 but he was the u.s champ has this great feud has this you know series of matches with uh

randy savage and now he's in a new feud with both crispin wah who's a baby face and they're having great matches together and raven who's this new hot heel they're having good matches together and as soon as raven takes the belt off him literally the next night Goldberg takes it from Raven and it just feels like whatever momentum Dallas had we switch gears to to Goldberg boy it sure does doesn't it when you when you say it like that it kind of hurts yeah but that was I mean it is that's what it was it yeah in retrospect man which we could have figured out a different way to look and it was weird because now the pressures we got built right you've got this machine you've got

got this lightning in a bottle what are you going to do wait give it some time brother it was there it was in do i think we could have done a better job of course but it did absolutely suck all of that momentum clear out of page you did well here's the thing we'd say that but let's not cry for him because once he drops the belt it's because he's going to start working against Hollywood Hogan with Dennis Rodman and Carl Malone so listen yes okay it's unfortunate that he loses the title we would have liked for him to kept it but was it really necessary hey uh good news bad news dallas bad news is you're dropping the belt okay what's the good news you're working with Hogan and two guys in the NBA finals all righty sign

me up the belt the belt wasn't it wasn't necessary that page would have held out of the belt but that quick flip of the belt on page to Raven to Goldberg in a matter of hours. Yes. Didn't absolutely, didn't do any, but it didn't do Goldberg any good. Certainly didn't do Raven any good and it didn't do

page any good. If we could have played that out over a six week window, much better for everybody. Agree. We're going to, to cover in great detail, the Great American Bash.

We're coming up on the, I'm sorry, the bash at the beach. This is the biggest buy rate in WCW history, uh, along with Sarkade 97. And so we'll cover that in long form for the 25th anniversary of that. So stay tuned. We cover that soup to nuts.

I'm curious from, from your perspective, for you getting any shit about DDP being in this spot to work with Dennis Rodman, Carl Malone and Hulk Hogan, or at that point, man, DDP was a made man even in the locker room. No, he, he, even people that didn't necessarily like DDP. Right. when complaining about the position he was in. He earned every bit of it. He earned every bit of it. He was outworking everybody,

not technically speaking necessarily in the ring, although some of that too. But in terms of the effort and just doing the work, there was nobody that was outworking DDP, nobody. And by that time, everybody recognized it. Let me give you some props here too. You know, the narrative on you for a long time has been from the Eric Bischoff detractors.

Oh, he just used Ted Turner's money to hire the stars that Vince made. He never made any stars. And whatever anyone would say, okay, besides Goldberg, uh, DDP, uh, Booker T, three of the biggest stars that WCW ever had. And oh, by the way, even though he was made before he got there, Sting, none of those big stars were WWF guys. But for some reason, people kind of forget that, Eric. Yeah, they kind of forget that.

They also don't, you know, don't want to acknowledge the fact that, you know, when you see Kevin Nash doing a personal appearance, signing autographs, he ain't wearing a diesel shirt. No, he ain't. We made him a bigger star than he was. WWE made Kevin Nashy and Scott Hall bigger stars when they left WCW to go to WWE. WCW made Scott Hall and Kevin Nash bigger stars when they left. wwe and came to wcw in addition to you know goldberg and page so yeah we we made our first year of stars we reinvented sting arguably sting became a bigger character under my watch than than he was before i got there so yeah i don't take that criticism too too hard i really

don't makes me chuckle the bill to road wild is going to start right after about at the beach and it's going to feature some more celebrities this time it's j leno and you're also going to be in the ring and you wrote in your book that since the whole angle was sheer entertainment you couldn't pair leno up with sting flare breeder goldberg it would hurt their credibility why was ddp different why would why would it not hurt his credibility but it would theirs i don't know why i said that he makes the whole match though does he not i mean without him. I know he makes the whole match and part of it was a function of practicality.

Somebody had to train that talent. Somebody had to go in there and bump with that talent. Somebody had to be willing to be on the receiving end of bumps from celebrities. And Page was all about it. He had the best attitude for it. And he was a good teacher. So he could help in terms of getting everybody ready for that match. so there's a lot of practical reasons for it then I think probably outweighed any

adverse impact it was going to have on in terms of credibility well the credibility is restored because on the other side of this he's going to be working with goldberg he's first going to be at war games at fall brawl and he's going to have an epic match against goldberg at Halloween havoc we've talked about that before this is the one where they went long and unfortunately a lot of folks missed the finish but it was a fantastic match, maybe one of the best of Goldberg's career, a huge moment, and even Dusty has gone on record as saying, maybe we should have switched the title that night. We didn't. We kept it on Goldberg, but he's rewarded with a big contract bump. And with all the pay-per-view made events

and all the success that he's had at this point, he was only making $300,000 a year, which was not exactly top guy money. And there were cats running around like Stevie Ray, he were making a multiple of that. But in 1999, he gets that well-deserved bump. He's making a million bucks. He earned every nickel. Did he not?

He did. I think he was making a little more than a million bucks. But yeah, he earned it. He earned it. He got no favors. He didn't make any exceptions for him. I didn't pull any strings for him.

Could have. Didn't. And he never bitched about it. So when it came time to write him that new contract i i was more excited to do it than he was to get it i love it well speaking of things he earned it finally happens spring stampede 1999 and this is why i say his story is a lot like a movie let's just recap where we are so far this is the guy who gets into the bar business starts doing very well making a whole lot of cash and does all of this

running these clubs without the ability to read lands a stone cold smoke show who's going to wind up being a playboy centerfold starts being a manager even though he's taller than the wrestlers gets on national TV because it becomes a color commentator with no history in wrestling and no history in broadcasting whatsoever becomes a wrestler in his 30s wins a TV title gets fired perseveres comes back wins the U.S. title gets involved in the hottest angle trades paper view main events with the macho man randy savage closes Halloween havoc event against goldberg really at the peak of wcw that according to eric bischoff was their ressalmania halloween havoc he's in the main event of that

gets the million dollar contract and now he's going to win the world title and you might say well who's he going to beat jeff charit who's he going to beat booker t is he going to beat booker t is he going to beat. Scott Steiner? Those are all his contemporaries and great Hall of Fame performers, but nay, nay, who's he going to beat? Rick Flair, Hulk Hogan, and Sting. Well, who was the referee? Randy Savage. This is the most star-studded match in wrestling history. I mean, let's just call it like it is. And the guy who gets his hand raised at the end and holds the belt up high, Diamond Dallas Page. That's a movie, Eric. It really is. You know, it's, It's so funny, I hesitate sometimes when we're doing this show to say, God, I don't remember that because, of course, the haters out there on social media, you know, like to make it sound like I can't remember anything.

I actually do remember quite a bit, but there are moments that escape me, just moments, because in the big scheme of things, they weren't that significant in terms of the direction of the industry or a pivot point. point that changed, dynamically changed a number of things. But there were those moments like you just described that while perhaps they didn't change the direction of the industry or create a important pivot point, where nonetheless, magic moments, magic. And the one you just laid out is a perfect example of that. And when you think about it the way you've laid it out and set it up as this, is a movie this is the most aspirational underdog rudy disney movie it should be a movie damn it

yeah damn it somebody should do the movie damn it yes maybe somebody will uh the wcw is looking for a shot in the arm the w f is clearly winning the war here and maybe there's uh time for a shakeup so we make a new guy here in diamond dallas page and the torture report page's title win is being seen in the locker room as a favor by eric bischoff to his long-time friend and neighbor also the belief is it may have been a trade-off to get page to agree to turn heel as he continued to lobby against the turn who said this wayd keller way you douchebag page's popularity probably peaked about 18 months ago his nitro title defense the night after the paper

review against Scott Steiner do a respectable 4.5 and 5.4 rating in two segments. Uh, buddy, if anybody got a 5.4 today, there'd be high fives all over the county. So, uh, that's a huge opportunity in a big time rating, but something I hadn't heard before. And I know you take issue with the report. It was a favor. But I'd never heard before that you wanted him to turn heel. And he wasn't as receptive to it. I didn't either.

I didn't either. Okay. Now, and look, Wade is certainly got a much better job in the way he covers the industry. There was a point in time when Wade Keller was like Dave Meltzer light, right? And pretty much presented opinion and information merged with facts in much the same way as Meltzer. By the way, isn't he turned into just a world-class piece of garbage that everybody's now recognized, Dave Meltzer? Come on now. I'm so happy to see that.

People are finally beginning to realize why I've been so vocal about him. And I've been saying for years how bad for business he is. And everybody, well, why would he be bad for business? He's just a dirt sheet writer. Well, you're seeing it unfold right before your very eyes. Once again, I'm right. Preciant, if you will. Anyway, but there was a point in time when Wade covered a lot like Meltzer.

And this was a perfect example. A favor. I did all this for him as a favor. He didn't earn any of it, Wade. He didn't earn any of that. It was all just handed to him as a favor on a silver platter you want to be. You wouldn't know what it's like. Don't be mean to Wade now.

Come on now. Don't be mean to Wade. I'm just, I'm being being to Wade back then. Okay, okay. All right. Now now. All right, all right. I respect the.

fact that Wade has evolved and improved the quality of his coverage of professional wrestling because it is important. I think there is a place for good coverage of the industry, but it needs to be done respectfully and with integrity. Anyway, no, that was news to me. I didn't know I tried to talk him into turning heel and you didn't want to do it. First of all, if I wanted to turn him heel, he would have done it. There you go. Well, you did turn to that conversation. The turn is slow, but it goes into overdrive in a match with Goldberg on Nitro, where he's going to destroy Goldberg's leg and his runoff by Kevin Nash. Two weeks later on Nitro, he drops the title to Sting in the first hour of

Nitro and then regains it in another four way over Sting, Nash, and Goldberg in the main event. God, I hate that. Oh, I hate that. Lame. Lame sucks. He drops the title back to Nash at Slambray 99. Savage comes out, interferes to cost Kevin the match, and somehow you're a baby face now, and you order the match to continue, and Nash gets the win after a power bomb.

I mean, listen, DDP's title runs, maybe not exactly what we hope they would be. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a flop, but this era of crash television, I would have liked to have seen a more sustained DDP title run. He's still proud of it, still sporting a cast copy of the actual big gold. And if you see DDP at a function or an event or an autograph or meet and greet signing, there is an actual cast copy of the belt he won with him. So he still holds it in great pride and as well as should. But I would have liked to have seen maybe a different run for him.

I agree. It was a bad time. It was unfortunate. You know, like you said earlier in the show, you know, timing is everything. You can really work in your favor and timing can actually work against you. And this is a case where page got to ride. of those waves, man. He got, he got the best of timing and the worst of timing. The, the turn that Dallas fought against is going to happen now. And it sees him drop

down the card immediately and start teaming with Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Canyon as the Jersey triad. They're sort of the new freebirds. They win the WCW tag team titles, but they can have any two members defend them. I know that he thought the world of Bam Bam and certainly Canyon. He's positively paid. That's not a book. That's not a book. That's really him was he taking all this in stride and seeing the bright side or was he a little irritated that things weren't going as according to plan maybe trying to remember you know he i'm sure he was frustrated there's no question of my mind he was frustrated but page is pretty good keeping it to himself and just making the best of it rather than complaining about it that's

also part of who he is he'll bitch he'll complain yeah he'll get it off his chest and then he's done with it then he's just going to make the situation the best that it can be so i'm sure he was frustrated but not not not not to the extent that i had to listen to it let's talk uh about when you take a hiatus when you're sent home uh are you guys still neighbors are you still living a house apart or have you all yeah okay and so when this happens Are you in any sort of regular communication with him or no? Sure. I mean, we talked, but I didn't want to talk about wrestling.

Okay. I, I, when, and he would, you know, of course, bring it up, and I would, I would just, I would just, I wouldn't tell him to stop talking or anything, but I would just, like, I'd be thinking about, you know, duck hunting while he was talking about the match he was going to have next week. You know, I just, I didn't, I just didn't want to have that conversation. And he, you know, he figured that out. He eventually just quit talking about it. and we talked about other shit we can't talk about ddp without mentioning david rquette i know they're big

friends now they just recently uh diamond actually just recently did a little streaming session of viewing party if you will of ready to rumble and facet during the q and a and when you come back to wcd the plans are put in motion for ddp and jeff chariot to be the top guys fighting over the title in a spring stampede ddp and jeff face off and kimberley turns on DDP to help Jeff win the belt. And I assume that all of this is happening because we're trying to help cross promote the new movie too, right? It's absolutely, you know, the word,

the word of the day, every day and Turner at that point was synergy, synergy, synergy, that, to this day, when I hear people use that word in a sentence, my, my bullshit meter goes off. Right. Because it's like this catch-all term that, you know, there's so vogue and corporate speak, you know.

I hated it then and I hate it now. But that was, you know, I'm working for Time Warner Turner. I'm doing what I'm a, I'm a member of the team and I'm doing what team members do, which is deliver for the people they report to. Time Warner had, Warner Brothers wanted to do this feature, a very, very successful producer, still successful to this day,

a guy by the name of Leonardo de Bonaventura, very cool cat, very young director at that time. Spent a lot of time with him. Helped him lay out the basic script of the movie early on. I was supposed to play myself in that movie. But then I left, the movie kept going forward, obviously. But the intention was to, let's do a rest of, movie because we have a wrestling property to us promote it with.

Dallas wins the title from Jeff on Nitro on April 24th, which sets up that infamous tag match where Arquette pins you to become the WCW champion. We've talked about it before. It's available in the archives if you want to hear the deep dive on that. And there's even a production snafu at the following Thunder where they had a planned stunt where Page was going to take a bump through a ramp. And then, well, Asia and

David Arquette accidentally fell through it just by walking over it before that could happen. But Slambery is the big night for the big Arquette turn on Dallas, but it almost didn't happen. According to the torch, Dallas Page came very close to not making it to the paper view. While orienting himself to the Triple Decker Cage, he was on the hardcore middle level talking to Jeff Jarrett. He was moving about on the top level. Page was looking up and stepped right into the hole in the middle of the second tier. He fell and caught himself with one leg and one. arm but injured his shoulder in the process. Had he not caught himself, he might have broken his

neck. He felt relatively okay the rest of the day, but the next morning was incredibly stiff from the fall. Page and Jarrett requested that a trap door be put on the floor of the middle tier to protect them from following through the cage accidentally at the paper view, and the door was welded on the spot on Sunday morning. During the match, Jarrett closed the trap door shortly after both he and page began fighting on the middle tier were you there for this when he nearly falls did you see that no i didn't see it heard about it certainly didn't see it when everything goes down with hogan at bashed the beach with hogan and rousseau and you're caught in the middle were you in touch with dallas again there or were you still continuing

to say i don't want to hear it bro no i mean no i never i i didn't i didn't i didn't i didn't shut page off to any degree, but at, again, at that point, there was, there was, there was, there was not much for us to talk about. Right. You know, I wasn't in the day-to-day business. So therefore, you know, the typical conversation about what we're going to do at TV next week or coming up with ideas and sharing ideas and what if scenarios and just riffing, which is what we did a lot. Um, there was no need to do that anymore. So, but he'd so come over the house. I think at that time I was brewing beer. I got like really excited to to learn how to make my own beer. So on the weekends, he'd come over and I'd crack open my newest brew. And you talk

about all kinds of stuff, but not wrestling. We, uh, we've talked before about what a big part Dallas would have been in WCW had you wound up purchasing it. But I don't remember if I've ever asked. Did you see what he wound up doing in the WWF? Are you watching any of the that, his feud with The Undertaker and all that? Yeah, I did. What did you think? It didn't work for me, brother. Didn't work for anybody.

It was, it was a, it was, it was a failed effort from the get-up. It was destined for failure. Absolutely destined for failure. By the office, not Dallas, right? Correct. Yeah. ultimately when it's all said and done politics i think is what ends the push but it's a neck injury that ends his actual in ring career uh he does do a brief run in t and a he works

some indies uh but what he's really enjoyed in the second act of his life is not autographed conventions and all that and he still does all that but it's ddp why and with the amazing businessman he's wound up being you know being on shark tank and really helping people change lives. That app is legit. If you're on the fence about it, by all means, please check it out.

But what is probably going to be remembered for in this more modern era, it's helping change the lives of some people that we all grew up caring about. Scott Hall and Jake Roberts, maybe most especially. And these days, Buff Bagwell. But that tells you, you know,

we've been saying it from the beginning. This dude has lived life like out of a movie. like there's you always say there's a there's a three act story for storytelling and maybe that's what diamond dallas page has had oh he's definitely and he's at the he hasn't even reached the peak of his third act yet it's amazing this is the best is yet to come for diamond delis page that i know absolutely positive that the best is yet to come and yeah you know you mentioned names like scott hall and and others that pages help people that we know there's a lot of people we've never heard of that he's helped like change their lives maybe even

save their lives yes in some cases that to me speaks volumes uh how honored were you to be the one asked to induct him in the hall of fame in 2017 it was bittersweet to be honest how so um it should have been dusty i knew i knew i was a second's choice and i was grateful very grateful and honored to be that second choice. But man, I wished it would have been dusty. What do you think DDP's legacy will be in the wrestling business? Hardest worker in the industry. You know, I think was he the best performer, no.

Was he one of the biggest superstars in the history? Will he, will anybody vote for him to be on somebody's Mount Rushmore? Probably not. Will you be able to find anybody who overcame or obstacles, challenges, politics, egos, age, gravity? Will you find anybody that's been able to overcome any combination of those things, more or less all of them? Right. And become successful? I don't think so.

I doubt it. Be anxious to meet that person, whoever he or she is. but if if if perseverance were to get you to a mount rushmore page would be there item lason wants to know what's the best story eric has about living next door to ddp just christmas he was so goofy about christmas he come over my house saturday morning 11 o'clock dressed like santa claus he's just He was a kid. He was like a little kid.

And Javani, I don't know if he's related or not. He has a great question. Did you ever pretend you weren't home? Yeah. Oh, because he could see my car in a driveway or in the garage. Now, a better question would be, did you ever wish you could pretend you weren't home? That's a different answer.

listen we had so much fun with ddp and we hope that everybody listening to this will go tweet him at real ddp and wish him a very happy 69th birthday uh that's at real ddp next week eric we're going to be talking about the end of the 83 week streak we'll talk about how it all happened what led to it the tracking of the ratings how wrong got hot ultimately what did it austin versus mac man your reaction afterwards and we got a whole lot more to discuss here about what's coming. But first, I want to give you a minute. Just tell everybody what you think about Empira, because I know you really believe in this, and it's a service that you and I can both get behind. Empira is absolutely an amazing tool. It's a tool whereby if you're self-employed,

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I love this service. The great guys who, by the way, massive wrestling fans, massive wrestling fans. of wrestling. Check it out right now. You'll be glad you did and you'll even receive free onboarding. When you sign up, you'll get your first 14 days free too. And oh, how about this? 24-7 support. Get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code wrestle biz. That's wrestle B-I-Z at checkout. Launch your business plan faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit impura.com forward slash Eric today and start your journey to success. That's E-M-P-I-A-A dot com forward slash Eric and start that journey today. Next week, man, I'm looking forward to talking about the streak ending.

I should also mention ad-free shows.com. You know, we're giving a free trial right now. You can try your first week on us for free. What you'll do is you'll get access to more than a dozen podcasts early and ad-free for just nine bucks. Tons of bonus stuff on there as well. We want you to try it for free right now at ad-free shows. by the way, you never know who might be calling you when you're a member over at

freestows.com. Eric, as I understand it every month, you're going to be getting on the horn and randomly surprise some AFS members with a phone call. How cool is that? There's a lot of fun perks we don't talk about, but this might be the one that people talk about the most on social media. And I, you know, I have more fun doing it than the people that get the phone calls because I mess with people. I just have so much, like I'll call somebody, say somebody's name is Bill. I'll kind of hide my voice just a little bit. Nate, don't recognize the number.

It's a Skype number, right? Bill, what are you doing? Of course, on the other end, it's like, uh, who's this? Bill, it doesn't matter who this is. I'm asking you a question. What the hell are you doing? And it's this awkwardness.

And then I say, hey, Bill, it's Eric Bischoff. How the hell are you? And of course, they have, you know, they reacted. I just love doing stuff like that. I always have in about once a month, sometimes more, depending on what I'm doing. I'll just send a Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon. I'll ask Evan, Evan Polisher over at AdFree Shows. He's the Captain Kirk over there.

There you go. Evan hit me with some names. Just give me 10, 15 random names. Pick them out of a hat. And the numbers will go with them. And I'll just call people. And I have, like I said, I have more fun doing it than the people getting the vocals. Add free shows.com.

By the way, if you'd like to advertise on this show, maybe your business targets men 25 to 54 years old, well, there's no better place to be than right here with us on 83 weeks. You've probably heard some of the same sponsors week after week, month after month, year after year. You want to know why? Because it really works. With our super targeted audience, there's very little waste.

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is available over at box of gimmicks.com. Eric, I don't know what I expected to do. today, but I thought we did our best to do justice to our good friend Diamond Dallas page. I had fun. I had fun. It's always fun to talk about positive things and positive people and stories that turned out great. And not all of them in wrestling do, but this one, this one certainly does.

And it's been fun for me. Thank you. Thank you, boys and girls. We'll see everybody next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey, guys, need to call a quick time out here. I wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling my listeners. over at O you didn't know for a while now about all the cool things happening over

at ads-free shows.com. A brand new series has arrived on ad-free shows. Top of the card unpacks everything you need to know in the wrestling trading card space. And we're starting with the granddaddy of them all, the 1982 Wrestling All-Stars Series A set. Now, this set was not exclusive

to any one territory at the time as we were still right at the tail end of the territory era of professional wrestling. So it was a basically who's who in professional wrestling with card number one being Andre the Giant others included in the set include Hulk Hogan Rick Flair dusty roads Ted DiBiase and others 20 years ago Eric took on stone cold in the main event on raw but the real main event was the confrontation that happened backstage before the show now the next week I'm

sitting in this chair and that same guy I don't think I had said a word to him that day I don't I think I had seen Rick up until the point he came through that door. And he's, you know, getting me, just telling me to get up, get out of the chair. He's so pissed off. He's bleeding. I'm on the phone, and he's got blood running down his chin because he bit his lip. He was so mad. He bit the inside of his mouth.

He's got blood on a backstage conference. I hadn't even gotten out of the chair yet. Ad-free shows members got to sit shotgun alongside Kevin Nash and click this co-host, Sean Oliver. as they watch back some of the worst matches in history. None more so than the Yeti. Randy now. The mummy is not Frankenstein. You don't walk with your arms straight out.

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