83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 265: The End Of The 83 Week Streak

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff, Eric and Conrad revisit April 13th 1998 aka the night WWE RAW ended WCW Nitro's 83 week streak of dominating the Nielsen ratings. Eric discusses his immediate reaction to the turn and what the company did next. The guys also touch on the sale of WWE and what it could mean for talent, AEW going across the pond for their big Wembley Stadium show, and so much more on this week's edition of 83 Weeks. SUNDAY - Sunday is offering our listeners 20% off! Full-season plans start at just $109, and you can get 20% off when you visit GETSUNDAY.COM/83WEEKS at checkout! 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. 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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NMLS number 65084 Equal Healthy Lenders. As an adult, don't we all miss spring break? Nothing like taking a week off from all your responsibilities. Well, here's the next best thing for adults. A spring break from house payments. SavewithConrad.com can help you get rid of all your credit card debt, just like that. We're routinely helping our listeners, say 5, 6, 7, even 800 bucks a month. And you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to do this,

but check this out. No house payments for two months. It's savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Godman Thompson, and you're listening for 83 weeks. Hey, Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you, man? I'm good, man. I'm just rocking out here in Cody, Wyoming this Saturday morning, anxious to talk to you, Admiral.

Admiral, I have to refer to you now as Admiral Thompson, since you've acquired that massive ship that you're going to be. floating around i just i'm so envious i'm i'm i'm so excited to see that i can't wait till the top guy weekend in huntsville and hopefully you're going to take me out and oh yeah let me christen that boat in my own special way absolutely we're going to have fun and we're going to have fun today man you know you and i put one in the can before ressalmania and now rasselmania is behind us and i know you've recently discussed it on this same feed with our pal john alba on strictly business but Now's our chance to catch up, man, with the benefit of a week behind us now. WrestleMania, the biggest WrestleMania in history, most profitable WrestleMania ever.

And yet somehow that's not even the big news. We've been talking about it for a while here on the program and it finally happened. WWE has a future. It wasn't necessarily a sale. It was more of a merger. We talked about this possibility and now it's come. now it's come to come to pass were you surprised isn't it weird with all the conversation that we've had about this over the last couple of months leading up to it but when it was finally

announced it kind of felt like hey i guess because we've been talking about it so long yeah that the idea of it had had kind of matured at least in my mind and it just seemed like a natural kind of evolution to me. Didn't strike me that odd. It does a little bit now that I think about it. You know, I just still never, you know, you and I discussed a number of times. And you said two years ago, I think, a year and a half ago that you were convinced that WWE would eventually sell.

Yeah. And I didn't agree with you. I just couldn't imagine Vince McMahon finally handing over the keys to his baby. But he did. And he handed him to R. Emanuel. Vince McMahon has a boss for the first time since, I don't know, he worked for his dad. 1980, maybe. Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, Vince McMahon has a boss. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Can you imagine? Think of the, you know how it is when you get three really strong alpha personalities in a room. Yep. Now you've got Ari Emanuel, Vince McMahon, Dana White. I don't know Mark Shapiro or Nick Con well enough to, you know,

kind of get a read on what their personalities are like. And I've never really engaged with Dana White, but certainly we know of him, you know, through media. Right. And the things that he's done. But man, there's some powerful personalities in that room. It'd be fun. Can you imagine being a waiter or waitress that serves them at dinner sometime when I get

together at a, you know, fancy restaurant, four seasons, you know, in Beverly Hills or something? and you're the waiter or waitress or server that is bringing them their meals. Can you imagine the conversations you'd be hearing? Wow, it would be great to be a fly on the wall. It's going to be interesting. I do want to talk. I don't mean to go immediately negative.

But we've seen when the UFC was purchased by Endeavor before, they cut $70 million in costs of the UFC, which meant there were going to be a lot of spending cuts. and a lot of layoffs. And I'm not saying that's going to happen here, but if we really are trying to prove out this is a $21 billion operation, you probably are going to make some different decisions.

And I suspect there's going to be, you know, whenever you hear people say things like synergy or efficiency, those are corporate words for layoffs. a lot of times you think we're going to see significant layoffs with w you know john alba brought that up to me the other day when we recorded strictly business and and my response and i've had time to think about my response my initial response was i don't think so because i think a many of those cuts would have come early on and and i i say that based on again my only

experience that i that i had with a merger or sale hold on i got to throw off my I got a little ham radio here that I listen to. Oh, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. I was not prepared for this. Wow. You are a ham radio operator?

Yeah. Yeah, you want me to call somebody in my radio? Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what's happening right now, but I love it. Hold on. Kilo, Kilo 7 Echo Foxtrod Alpha calling CQ.

maybe there's nobody on the air right now all right well we won't we won't kill the show with this but what i don't even know what to say have you always you've told me before when you were a kid you did ham right when did you get back in the ham radio well when i was a kid i had a neighbor next sir his name was bob morris and he was a friend of my mom and dads him and his wife irene and And Bob had a citizens band radio, but he had a base station, right, in his little workroom. And I was fascinated. Now, this is, okay, you know, your telephones were still mounted on the wall. This was before push button telephones.

This is still when you had a, and in Detroit, we had what's called a party line, which means, you know, half a dozen or more people shared a single phone line. So oftentimes you'd pick up the phone to make a phone call and there'd be somebody else talking. And you had to hang up and wait your turns. so to speak. We're going back to the early 60s now, right? So when I was old enough and I went next door, and our neighbor, Bob, had the citizens band radio and the thought that you could just turn this box on, grab a microphone, and just chat with people without having to pick up a phone, I thought that was amazing. It was fascinating to me. So I had a paper route at the time, and I went out

and I bought a mobile radio, one that you put inside of your car. Now, obviously, I was like 10, so I didn't have a car. But I talked my dad into letting me put it into his car. And I would sit out on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon. I'd just sit out there and just listen and occasionally, you know, chat with people on a Citizens Band radio. Very, very low power. Maybe a five-mile radius or 10-mile radius on a good day.

Then as I got older, we moved to Minnesota. I'm telling you guys a story. You probably no one else wants to hear. But since you ask and I'm full of caffeine, I'm going to let it fly. then we moved to Minnesota and now I'm about 14 or 15 and I had a neighbor behind me that had a ham radio now a ham radio allows you to depending on weather conditions you can speak to people all over the world and I found that fascinating and I used to go over to his house and just listen to him and ham radio is a little different you licensing is much more difficult

and you got to kind of know what you're doing to operate a ham radio. But I would sit and I'd watch him and listen to him. And in about a year ago, I went, you know what? I'm going to get my ham radio license just because there's no reason, no motivation other than I like to learn new things. I like to challenge myself and kind of dive into things that I have absolutely no experience in to kind of learn it. So I thought, you know, I'm going to, I've got some time.

I'm going to dive in. And I got my technician license about a year ago or so. And then I got my general license. And every time you step up, you get more and more privileges across the various radio bands. And a couple weeks ago, I got my general license. And I was going to test for what they call the extra, which is the highest license you can get with the most privileges.

And I was going to test today, studied most of the week, but decided to hold off for a week or two. But yeah, I think it's a cool thing where you can sit down and just dial in different frequencies from around the world and engaging conversations with people. And I don't know. I just dig it. So I'm setting up, I'm looking for a ham radio, a base operation. This is just a little mobile gimmick that I carry around. It's great for, you know, 20, 30 mile radius.

I'm looking now for my base station and antenna set up so that I'll be able to communicate. communicate all over the world with people. So if the internet goes down or sell towers go down, it's not like I'm a survivalist or anything like that, but you just love the idea of no matter what happens, I'm going to be able to communicate, not that anybody wants to talk to me, but who knows, maybe we'll be doing this show via ham radio someday. You never know. I am convinced you're one of the most interesting people I've ever met. I just did not see a ham radio discussion in my future this morning, but here it is. Um, let's let's get back on task and let's talk about this uh this piece of business here layoffs

i think it's going to happen um shapiro has even estimated that there's a hundred million dollars in cost cutting wow between ufc and w w with this merger which of course means cutbacks but also job losses he notes synergies there's that word in human resources finance legal communications, productions, distributions, and marketing, saying they can be combined. Quote, across every area, you're going to find cost synergies. You're going to integrate and ultimately highlight and appoint the best and brightest teams. Listen, I know this isn't popular, but that just makes sense, you know, like if they're really going to do this merger, and even though everybody says, well, we're going to run it the way we always

have well not if you're going to find a hundred million dollars in cost savings and a hundred million dollars in cost savings is a lot of money it feels as if i worked in stanford i might be updating my resume you know i'm going to go back to before i interrupted myself and got distracted with ham radio conversation but when i was talking to elba earlier this week on strictly business, my response was, I don't think there's going to be that many layoffs because, again, going back to what I was saying, you know, when I was at Turner, when the AOL time order merger, before it was really being discussed much in the media, there was a, and this is where I have a real bad taste in my mouth about mergers and

acquisitions when it comes to this type of thing. But there was so much effort, early on before, before anybody really started talking much about the merger, cost coming. You've heard me talk about EBITI. You know what EBITI is, but earnings before interest, depreciation and all that other stuff. It's an accounting term. But there was a big effort, six months or a year, six months at least, eight months before the merger at EOLT, Tom Warner and Turner became a thing to cut costs. Every, business unit with internal broadcasting. I remember this. The mandate, it wasn't a goal, it was a mandate, had to be operating at a 17 or an 18% EBITL. And as a result, there was a

tremendous amount of cost cutting. People were laid off. There was a lot of intercompany allocations, expenses that were normally attributed to one business unit, somehow mysteriously was moved over to another business unit or revenues from one business unit was somehow moved over through this intercompany allocation process was moved over to another business unit that maybe was struggling so that across the board going into the actual merger or sale it provided a much more interesting financial picture that increased the value of the stock. So a lot of the layoffs and a lot of the financial and structural changes that were a result of the merger occurred really before the merger. Once the merger happened, there wasn't a significant amount of layoffs or cost cutting or anything like that.

it all happened before but in thinking about it since that conversation with elba earlier this week on strictly business that's a plug um i you know i thought about what i said and i realized that it's a different situation here and i yes there will will there be cost cuts of course it will because there's a lot of duplication yes and anytime you have duplication you're going to go okay well do we need 20 people, you know, stapling papers together, or can we get by with five? You know, bad example. And I think there will be, but this is a guess. I suspect that there'll be more layoffs as a result of synergies.

Yeah. I hate that word so much. Yeah. There'll be more layoffs within UFC than there probably will be in WW. And I say that because WWE is a very sophisticated, mature business compared to UFC. UFC is relatively new. It's been around for 15, 20 years, obviously, and longer probably. But really, as a successful enterprise, it's really been about 10, 15 years.

Whereas WWE's been successful and has been building its infrastructure for, what, 40 years? I think if you look at WWE's licensing and merchandising, for example, I think in terms of its sophistication, it is probably as sophisticated as any other media company out there, including Disney and some of the other ones that most notably have IP that the world recognizes everywhere. WWE, I think, has a much more sophisticated licensing and merchandising. I think they have a more sophisticated international telemarketing.

television distribution. I think they have a much more sophisticated marketing division and sophisticated only because they've been doing it longer. So I think there's going to be layoffs. I know there will be, but I think the majority of them are probably going to come on the UFC side as opposed to the WWE side. There'll be some for sure. But I'd be more concerned if I was working for UFC right now then if I was working for WW. As a reminder of this $21 billion billion valuation, 12 of it is their value for the UFC.

Nine of it is the value of it. That surprised me. Doesn't it surprise you? No. UFC in the last five years has entered another stratosphere. And I hear what you're saying. WW has certainly been more successful

in the long term. Because you're talking about, you know, just the success of WrestleMania, it was 85. So with the exception of a handful of years there in the mid 90s, this has been a, you know, a money winner from day one. Whereas UFC, man, they really limped along for a while and operated really deep in the red.

And they were losing tens of millions of dollars a year. Yes. For a long time. I read somewhere that at one point, before they actually hit pay dirt with tough enough when things started to really change for UFC. There was a point where they lost over $30 million in one year. You said tough enough.

You meant Ultimate Fighter. I've been Ultimate Fighter. I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. I do want to remind everybody that the pay-per-view model was one of the things that changed for the UFC. And they went to that they sort of abandoned their traditional pay-per-view model and got a guarantee from ESPN trying to grow ESP and point. plus and they also changed the sponsorship opportunity for the fighters that was pretty

controversial at the time because they were the guys were able to negotiate their own deals and you wanted you know to have your company's patch on a ufc guys trunks no problem you just negotiate directly with him and that's his money ufc took the maybe the w w approach and said well we're promoting it it's on our broadcast we're paying we're footing the bill we should participate so now everybody's got reboc uniforms and that was a pretty controversial decision but it's what they did and i imagine there's going to be a lot of those changes and you would also see this is worth mentioning since the endeavor acquisition happened man they you know if a fighter if if he overvalued himself based on what the

UFC thought he was worth. See ya. And that has not been the case really in WW for the last, I don't know, four years or so since AW's been around. There's been this, you know, Edd wants to come back. Well, he's got an offer from AW.

Oh, WW has to beat it. I don't know that that, it feels as if this is going to be a bigger change to me, Eric, like if I were a wrestler thinking I'm going to have some more leverage and my usual leverage that I had, even six months ago, it doesn't feel the same to me anymore. I mean, just based on what we've seen with UFC, I don't know, man,

this is going to be interesting to see how this progresses. I think it will be. And, you know, just taking a quick look at a couple of those examples that you talked about, I don't see a scenario sitting here right now talking to you. I don't see a scenario where WWE talents are going to be able to go out and get their own sponsors. Right. I don't see that.

As far as leverage goes, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a feel for the first time in a long time. When we talk about things like this, I have to admit that I actually don't have a feel for what it's going to be like if you were a WWA talent. I, my gut instinct is that if I was a talent in WWE right now, I would feel very comfortable because I think the business is going to grow. And it's a talent driven business. At the end of the day, you know, creative is such a big part of it, obviously.

But it is at its core, professional wrestling is a talent driven business. And unlike the UFC where you can, there's a lot of fighters out there. There's a lot of great fighters out there. there's not a lot of great wrestling talent out there you know you've got you know with ufc especially now over the last 10 15 years as ufc has become such a thing it gives amateur wrestlers high school wrestlers now have a goal they've got a place if they really love wrestling there is a path to the ufc through amateur wrestling there's a a Brazilian jiu jiu jitsu school on every street corner just like there used to be a karate school on every street corner in every strip mall in

america you you couldn't swing a cat by the tail without you know somehow or another ended up in the parking lot of a karate school somewhere and the same thing is there's a judicious school here in cody wyoming of all places it's becoming so successful that i think the pool of talent that is going to be available in the future for UFC is going to continue to expand exponentially as UFC becomes more popular. I mean, I follow a lot of amateur wrestling on social media. I just love watching amateur wrestling.

And I'm seeing more and more and more of it. And I'm seeing amateur wrestlers now beginning to become characters and handling themselves in competition, much differently than they did 10 or 15 years ago. wrestling was really boring. Unless you were at amateur wrestler, you were really not going to spend a lot of time watching amateur wrestling on television. And that's changed. Amateur wrestling has become much more interesting because of UFC. Whereas WWE, that talent pool, once you finally reach the level of anybody even noticing you or maybe giving you a second look in WWE, you have to have been training for a long time in the hopes of getting a shot. So I still think that WWE, because of the nature of it, especially for talent, talent is going to be fine. I really believe that.

Are you going to be able to leverage? There's only so many, I mean, how many more people can Tony Kahn sign? I mean, how many more people can you? A lot. But what are you going to do with them? Well, that doesn't matter. He's stockpiling them. And trust me, that works for a while.

But eventually that talent. wants to work. Yes. Eventually that talent wants to go out and prove that they can be the next John Senior or the next Steve Austin or the next rock, whatever, Rick Flair, you name it. That's why they got into the business. So, yeah, you can stockpile them. You can send them checks and they're going to be happy with those checks for weeks or

months or maybe even longer. But eventually they're going to get used to that money because everybody does. You know, if you're making $75,000 a year and you're, you know, yeah, you're paying your bills, but you're kind of struggling and all of a sudden you get that opportunity to be making $250,000 a year and you think the world has changed and you won the lottery. And all of that is true, but that shit wears off after a while. You get used to the money, right? You start living up to your income.

And once that happens, the money doesn't feel as important. important to you. And the real reason you got into that business starts to eat at you more, more and more. And we're seeing it. We're hearing about it. I hear it from people that I know that are in AEW right now. Sure. They're frustrated. And that becomes malignant. That attitude, that feeling, that dissatisfaction can become a real issue. So yeah, Tony can do it. He's got all the money in the world doesn't matter he's not accountable to anybody but himself you spend money as long as he wants to spend money until his dad doesn't give him anymore but at some point you've got a whole bunch of talent that are really unhappy and that that's contagious that starts to change

things well let's be honest uh talent being unhappy is based on their spot or whatever you want to call it that's not unique to aew that exists in w that i'm sure that exists an impact that exists in every wrestling organization it it exists not to cut you up brother but it exists in every form of entertainment there is everybody wants to be big jagger yes everybody wants to be tom cruise everybody wants to be whoever is at the top of their respective form of entertainment i get it that's part of that's why talent ends up being talent because they're driven by that you're right it exists everywhere but when you've got 120 people under contract and only 12 spots that's where it begins that's where it begins to become an issue it's a

moral issue let me let me ask this i'm not saying this to be funny isn't that kind of on the wrestler at this point like let's just listen i i i think a lot of him but let's just you know the most recent debut i'm just going to use him because he's the most recent debut but he's a fantastic wrestler i want to say that up front j white like can he really be surprised if he's frustrated in four months with his spot because this isn't new news you know it's a crowded roster you know it's going to be tough to stand out you know it's going to be i mean the damn mcclaimed were one of the most overacts of the last 12 months and they're not on tv every week uh and and and then jeff jarratt just enjoyed a big resurgence and

and he's popping a rating every time he's on TV he's not on TV every week so if you come into this and you know it's crowded when you sign I mean it's not like it slipped up on you and you didn't know right no and it depends on the talent right I don't I don't want to pick out any names in particular here but if if I'm a talent and I've been around the business for 15 20 25 years and I reckon you know you're You got to be real. And I'll use Jeff, you know, and I haven't talked to Jeff about this. But I feel kind of comfortable suggesting that I might be somewhat right about this.

When you're a Jeff Jarrett and you've had a hugely successful career, you still have the drive, you still have the passion, you still have the talent. But you also know that your clock is ticking. You don't have 20 years in this business. You don't have 15 years in this business. you're probably happy if you can squeeze out another three or five and do it in a very in a positive way in where you're not out there grinding 300 days a year and you're on television occasionally and you're in good storylines and you get pay-per-view opportunities you're

still out there and you get to enjoy your craft you get to go out and do what you've done all of your life your expectations are going to be different when you're 50 years old than when you're 20 years old or 25 years old or 30 years old. Your goals are different. Your expectations are different. Your dreams are different. And I would venture to say that Jeff is very happy to be where he's at. He's able to do what he loves doing.

He's great at it. He gets the recognition from his peers and from the fans. It's another reason people do this stuff. He's able to do it, but it's not grinding him. He's not out there doing it 300 days a year like he used to. Right. So for a guy like Jeff Jarrett, it's going to be different. For somebody who's 30, 35 years old,

they might not be as satisfied to be on TV every once in a while or occasionally and pop a rating here and there. It's different and it's different for everybody. But I think, yeah, talent has to go into the business now knowing because there's really two places to work. You got the independent scene. And if you're really young and trying to get noticed, that's a great opportunity. Early 20s, mid-20s, whatever. it's a great opportunity. A lot of great talent has come out of that indie scene and gone on to make millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars.

It's a real opportunity. But when you're 30, 35 years old and you've done all that, you've put in that time. And now you're working for a company that conceivably could put you on TV and help make you a star, but you're in a witness protection program and nobody's returning your phone call. You're not getting any opportunities.

that can become demoralizing very quickly. I've seen it. I've been a part of it. And I'm exposed to it now in conversations with people. Not just in AEW, but also in WW. It's a part of life. You know, you've got to, to your point, though, Connor, it's on the talent. You've got to go, it's a business now.

You've got to go into it knowing that, yeah, you're getting that check every two weeks or whatever it is, and it's a great check. a great opportunity. It's financial security, but you may or may not get the creative opportunities that you were really hoping for. Some people can handle that. Others not so much. I want to mention one more quote from the observer about this whole acquisition that WWE is doing or the merger rather. I don't know that you've read this. On the negative side, people who work in WWE and more so UFC are concerned and perhaps on the UFC side, some were described as panicked.

Unlike in WWE, those in UFC lived through Emmanuel taking over and so many people losing jobs in the changeover. And even being told when cuts were done, only for cuts to continue. UFC employees were also told

before the sale that all the rumors weren't true, so there is now an inherent lack of trust. Later, after the first round of cuts took place, they were told no more cuts would be done by Emmanuel, and that ended up not being true either. So those who have been there since the sale aren't trusting anything. Like with WWE employees, UFC employees got no heads up and mostly found out when the news broke the day before by CNBC and even then weren't clear what it meant until the

next day. I, brother, it's life. Yes, it is. Life happens to you. You're in the mortgage business. Yes. Bet you didn't expect that mortgage interest rates were going to go up to six or six and a half percent two years ago.

Nope. You knew the possibility existed, but a possibility always exists. Yeah. But until it happens, you don't see it coming. And it's life, you know, it's, it's, it's the entertainment business. It's any business, really. And by the way, the business is a booming. You know, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about the financial impact.

to WrestleMania so far, but I think it was something crazy between NXT and Smackdown, just the whole weekend. I think it was like $23 million at the gate and $20 million in sponsorship. And don't get me wrong, 23 million is awesome. I think a few years ago in Dallas, they had 17 million for a one day show. This is a two day show, but it is more money. But man, the thing that jumps off the page to me, right, 20 million dollars in sponsorship that is an incredible indicator of how mainstream outside of our quote

unquote wrestling bubble they think wrestling's hot i mean clearly it is yes it is hot i mean it's been hot and i think and this is me you know i'm being optimistic by nature i'm pretty optimistic. I can get cynical on occasions, but for the most part, I'm pretty optimistic. And I think what we're going to see as a result of this merger is mainstream advertisers embracing professional wrestling even more than they have, because it is now become such a pop culture phenomenon. And I think the merger of WWE and UFC is going to enhance that even more. I suspect we're going to see larger and larger sponsorship opportunities for both WWE and UFC as a result of this murder. Well, another indicator of how hot the wrestling

business is, uh, and we are going to get to our topic today, which is about the streak finally ending. Oh, you had to bring that up, didn't you? Had to bring that up. Well, we'll get there eventually. I, um, I had a little birdie tell me ahead of time that, that, they were going to A.W. being the pronouns pal, we're going to announce a Wembley show. And I raised an eyebrow and said, the stadium? And I was told, no, like the arena. Oh, okay. It's the freaking stadium, Eric.

And all I could think was how awesome this is for wrestling. You and I have both been fortunate enough to do live shows across the pond here. and man, it comes up every time we do a show, that Wembley show, that SummerSlam 92 show, that for that part of the world, that's their WrestleMania 3. And the idea that someone is going back and running a wrestling show in that same building. And I mean, just the idea that AEW is running a stadium. And I know that's been a goal since day one.

You know, and I know once upon a time they looked at this stadium and that stadium. And ultimately, it's finally going to. happen an AEW stadium show and what an arena to do it in and there's whispers now that hey have you noticed they haven't announced it's a pay-per-view but they were sure to mention that it's the warner hundredth anniversary and the Wembley hundredth anniversary maybe it's going to be on HBO max maybe it's going to be on TV whatever the case may be they're running a freaking stadium that's great for the business and as we were getting ready to record, I thought to myself, man, I wish WCW could have done that in like

98, 99, a freaking stadium show. I mean, you ran the, you ran every dome in America, but a stadium show. Did that ever come up back in the day, a WCW stadium show? No, I mean, it might have in casual conversations, but nothing serious. We just didn't have the distribution that we felt we needed, just didn't have the television that we felt we needed. We just didn't have the television that we felt we needed to drive a stadium show in the UK. I think it's great for AEW. I think, and we talked about this on Strictly Business, another shameless plug.

I think AEW is going to do extremely well. I think, I can't predict turnout. Don't even want to try. But I can only imagine it's going to be hugely successful. for AEW, not just that event, because there's still a new car smell, you know, on AEW. And especially in Europe, because now in Europe, they've been hearing about AEW for four years, right, getting bits and pieces of it, however they get it. But now to have that show come to Wembley and a stadium show, it's, it's going to be an event. It's bigger than wrestling.

it's a cultural event and I suspect it's going to do extremely well I think it's going to really prove beneficial a year from now two years from now three years from now because I think AEW's ability to improve their international distribution as a result of this event is going to become greatly enhanced yes sir that's what international markets what I'm I mean, it's what they wanted back when I was doing it, you know. I didn't head up international, but I would take certain, I would take certain meetings with major networks internationally. TV1 and France, I think was one that I took and a couple others.

But what they really want to know is great. You know, we love your show, but unless you're going to come into our market on a semi-regular basis, there's other shows we love too. But I think if AEW can establish that they're going to tour internationally, and they're going to put serious tours together in serious venues, I think what you're going to see downstream is tremendous growth in their international television distribution, and that's where the real benefit is going to be.

Let's just say they break even on Wembley. By the way, it's going to be really freaking expensive, okay? It's not cheap to go overseas, especially if you're producing a pay-per-view or a television show. It's even more expensive. But let's just say they, break even and I'm sure they're going to make a lot of money but let's just for argument sake they're going to break even even that's a huge win because the real money is going to come

downstream yes national television which all that's going to do is open up the international toury possibilities even more this is a big move this is a very big move it's a smart move and it's one that I think is going to be really successful for AEW not only in the short term but in the midterm and long term, especially. Hey, if you don't mind, will you take the palm of your hand and put it on your forehead? Do you think you have a fever? Because you just gave a compliment to A&W. I compliment them.

People only pick up the things I say that are negative. I am honest as I can be about things. Sometimes people take that as an insult or criticism or me being petty or whatever. But I'm honest. I think this is a great move. I think it's going to be hugely successful, and Tony should be excited, as should everybody else in AEW, including a lot of that talent that's currently in the witness protection program, because all of a sudden now, if you've got international touring and you're expanding your, from what I've read, I don't know this. I haven't talked to Jeff about it, Jared, but it sounds like they're going to start touring more in the U.S. Yes, they are. I can confirm.

If that live event business in the U.S. is beginning to grow, now you've got live event business internationally that's beginning to grow potentially. you know a lot of that talent that's sitting in the witness protection program now being frustrated for lack of opportunity are going to start getting more opportunity so it's it's a great thing i want to mention um you know those damn little birdies i heard i don't know if this is true or not the rumor was in like the first i don't know 12 or 16 hours over 25000 people had pre-registered for tickets if you assume now keep in mind folks they're most folks are not pre-registering to buy one ticket they're pre-registering to buy two or four so conservatively that means there's at least 50,000 folks who are interested and I had a conversation with

a mutual friend of ours this week and he thought man anything else over 40,000 is a win I'm not convinced that they can do 91,000 that's just such an astronomical number, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them pull out all the stops, whether that means punk is back, Mercedes is going to be there, maybe they do sign Goldberg for a one-off or what have you. I think they can do 60,000 fans. I don't disagree. I, in fact, I think I asked Elbow, you know, what did WW,

what's the biggest gate the wwees had there in the last five or ten years and i think the number was 55 000 and i think that they'll probably beat that isn't that crazy i'm so happy for them it's a good it's a it's a it's a it's a really good move very good move and i'll tell you what else is a good move especially this time of year sunday listen boys and girls the weather's finally starting to get nice around here and we all want to get outside. Don't you want to enjoy the yard rather than just working in it? If you're like me, you get frustrated when you see, oh, man, I've got to take care of that

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this means no more trips to the store no more hauling heavy bags they're going to ship everything right to your door all you got to do is get a hose and bam if you're applying Sunday. In fact, you can fertilize your whole lawn in less time than it takes you to watch one of your favorite episodes of your favorite TV. By the way, the only use ingredients you can feel good about, I'm talking no harsh chemicals, no long waiting periods, and you don't have to keep your kids or your pets off your lawn. You just simply apply and let it dry and then get back to enjoying your own. Sunday is easy and affordable. I have to admit, I used to pay for some overpriced long care services to do the exact same thing Sunday did.

And they were charging me over $1,500 a year. But the full season plan from Sunday starts at just 109. And Sunday's offering our list are 20% off of that. Full season plans started just 109, and you get 20% off. When you visit get sunday.com slash 83 weeks at checkout, that's 20% off your customer. plan at get sunday.com slash 83 weeks. So Eric, the reason we're here today is not just to talk about the WW merger and WrestleMania and Wembley.

We're here to talk about an anniversary. And we celebrate a lot of good anniversaries on this program, but unfortunately today might be a more somber one. As I understand it, this Thursday is going to be the. exact 25th anniversary of the 83 week streak coming to an end raw would finally beat nitro and i mean listen this streak is the masked head of the program you're listening to do you have that date committed to memory april 13th no no what what you were at 98 right yeah yeah no i don't i don't i don't think about it too much only when shows like

this come up and people bring it up to me when you take a look i mean we've talked about a lot of the really fun times in nitro history you know the the first one obviously at them all and you know the when scott hall came down and the first time sting repelled and i mean there's so many big iconic moments that happened and we've celebrated most of those here on the program already well not most a lot of them but i'm sure When you're living it, Eric, it probably kind of all runs together because you're just so focused on what's next that you spend a lot of time looking at the windshield and very little time looking at the rearview mirror. Did this, when you finally did lose a week, did it feel any different? I mean, do you remember being thrown off your game even a little bit?

Was it something that was caused for concern or stress? or was it just another day at the office? It was a little bit of both. And again, I saw it coming. It's not that I was surprised. You know, with the Mike Tyson thing, the angle, Mr. McMahon coming out of the woodwork and now becoming, you know, recognizes the guy that's running the ship and all of the,

and it was great. It was phenomenal. I've talked about this before. I knew I was in trouble long before, April, whatever date it was 13th, when I got a phone call from Zane Bresloff, tell me that they were bringing in Mike Tyson to work in Angle with Steve Austin. Right. I went, whoa, this is serious.

So I saw it, I saw the train coming. It's not like it snuck up on me and ran me over. So when it happened, it was more, for me, it was more about, okay, time to reevaluate. time strategically time to change our game here we've got to figure out how to react to this but it wasn't i wasn't like angry or frustrated or shocked or surprised or depressed or any of the things that other people might suspect it was more just okay this has happened we've got to up our game we've got to change our game how do we up it how do we change it it was more analytical than anything than emotional for sure i'm not saying this to be funny i'm genuinely trying to

just learn about what the process was were you was there a sense of anticipation around the office every tuesday waiting on those ratings to come out was there a day part did certain people gather around the office and we're all sort of waiting on it to come in and then we discuss it and high five and then move on or you know in the beginning of course there was especially in the beginning when we launched nitro, 95, that was, because we didn't know, we didn't know if we were going to be successful. So you're kind of on pins and needles and the ratings came out on Tuesdays. I think we're on 430 Eastern. So absolutely. And about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I'd make sure my appointments were cleared. No one was in my office. And I was just

sitting there waiting for that information to come in. There was a lot of anticipation. um in the beginning and and then afterwards once we start in people you know we talk about this all the time yeah we're this show's called 83 weeks because nitro beat monday night raw 83 weeks in a row right 83 weeks in a row but we had been beating wwee off and on since the day we started yes we were competitive from day one but we'd win one they'd win two we'd win another one they'd win another one we'd win three they'd win two you know it was back and forth for a long time until nitro or excuse me that was during nitro once the nw o hit is what i meant to say that's when we ran away with competitive that's when the 83 weeks we streak started

but in the beginning again because we didn't know how the audience was going to react to Nitro. We were on pins and needles waiting for those numbers to come in. And once we realized that we could be competitive before NWO, we realized we could be competitive. It was fun. Of course, you know, 3.3.30, Janie Ango was my assistant at the time. She knew, don't book any calls. Don't book any meetings between 3.30 and 5 because Eric's going to be preoccupied. I'm waiting for that information to come in. And it was fun, especially when it became, we became so dominant. And of course, I'd wait for those ratings to come in. They'd usually come in around 430, about 4.45. I'd get a phone call from Ted Turner. That was fun. I ain't going to lie. That was fun. I always enjoyed getting

those phone calls from Ted. And it happened pretty much every week. Ted and Brad Siegel both. but by by April of 98 throughout 96 throughout 97 we got pretty cocky we got pretty comfortable that anticipation of those ratings coming out we just got used to it it became old hat yeah you know I was the old hat but you you were no longer you no longer had that same feeling right it it just became okay great we did it again let's go do it again next week as opposed to early on it was like oh i can't wait can't wait for those numbers to come in so it changed over time when the news comes that you lost do you remember that day Was it, was it just like any other Tuesday or did you think, boy, anytime now?

I mean, had you anticipated it for weeks, I guess, before it actually happened? I anticipated it for months. So when it happened, it was, it wasn't a surprise. I wasn't shocked. Again, I wasn't depressed. I wasn't angry. It wasn't frustrated. It was again, you know, you kind of saw it coming.

Right. And again, you go, you go back. And I know, I've talked about this before. I'm going to try to change it up a little bit so it doesn't sound so familiar. familiar. But, you know, in, I think it was November of 1997, when Vince McMahon came out and basically threw in the towel in terms of the way, in terms of his creative business model, when Vince McMahon came out and said, we're going to change the way we produce our product. We're no longer going to insult our wrestling fan. Basically, what he was saying is we're going to go after the 18 to 49 year old demo. Yes. Because that's what Nitro did. And that's why WCWB. WWE and Vince McMahon so badly for such, you know, almost two years. And I knew then, I didn't know that, I suspected then that something significant was going

to happen. Now, fast forward a month or two later, I get a phone call from Zane Bresloff. They're bringing in Mike Tyson, holy crap. All of a sudden, now you could feel their momentum. So I was well aware of their momentum going into April so that when they finally did beat us, it was again it wasn't an emotional response on my part it was more of an analytical one i'm curious you said you got a lot of calls from ted and it happened almost every week when you lost was that a call you got from ted as well no no no by then things and i didn't know

at the time but things had already started changing within turner broadcasting it was already moves being made in anticipation of a there were discussions being had right about mergers and acquisitions that i was totally unaware of so it it wasn't the same company any longer for such a long time it even though turner was a very very big company obviously it still had that small company feel to it. It didn't feel like you were working for the government. But by April, that small company feel, even though it was a large company, that small company feel started to change.

I wasn't aware of why. I didn't even pay close attention to it, really. I didn't take any of it personally. But things had started already to change. And I never, you know, I never got a call from Ted that was any thing but positive. So if there was anything negative to be said, it usually came from somebody else, not from Ted. You know, listen, we wrestling fans, uh, I consider myself the first listener of this program. So we listeners, we would obsess about what the ratings were compared

to each other, who won, who lost. That's the way we look at it. From a business standpoint, that's kind of not what's important it doesn't really affect your revenue yes it's nice to be competitive i think there's a competitive spirit in any business however the more people watch the more you can charge for commercials that's what we're after we want to make as much money as we can yeah it's cool to beat competition but at the end of the day the real scoreboard is the bottom line and the more people watch the more we can charge the more profitable we've been come etc etc that's what television stations want so i've always just been curious like with these calls that you would get from ted does wb even come up i mean is it you beat the bastards again

or is it more about damn eric there there he is right now let's just put him on the phone and see what he has to say all these years later um i you know i never got the sense that it was personal with ted and it probably was based on things that i I've read and heard and conversations I've had with others. But Ted never brought up Vince's name. Ted never really even mentioned WWF at the time, or WWE. It was more about how we were doing as a company. Keep in mind, Ted loved professional wrestling.

When I say he loved it, I'm not so sure he loved it as a wrestling fan, perhaps. Certainly was a fan of it. Right. and understood the value of it. But as a business, Ted was our biggest fan. There was nobody that was a bigger fan within Turner Broadcasting, including the people that worked in WCW. There was nobody that was a bigger fan of WCW

and professional wrestling than Ted Turner. So much so that the people around Ted and the executive committee, all of whom, from the day I got there, I was made aware that there were people on the executive Committee at Turner Broadcasting that wanted to pull the plug on WCW. And they had plenty of reasons to do it. It was not profitable. You know, there was, there were a lot of reasons to pull the plug on it.

It was mismanaged in many different ways. There was a lot of negative PR issues that came as a result of it. There was a lot of lawsuits that came about as a result of WCW. So that a lot of the people on the executive committee just said, you know, it was like every month, it was like, Ted, why don't we just, you know, let's put national. Geographic on it Saturday at 6.05. It's a much less headache, right? And Ted was the one.

It was just, he'd shut that down. Like, people were afraid to even bring it up because Ted would be so firm in his position about WCW. Even when it was failing miserably, even when it was an embarrassment to turn or broadcasting, even when we were getting sued and making headlines with negative lawsuits and all of those things, Ted was still there for WCW so that when we turned it around and now all of a sudden WCW was successful and delivering great ratings and outperforming the competition and making headlines because of our success, Ted, I don't think there's anybody happier, including me,

than Ted Turner, because it validated Ted. Not that Ted needed any validation because I don't think he gave a fuck what other people thought but it's like I was right this is a valuable asset and I was right all along that was the sense that I got from Ted but it was never personal he never said anything like I'm Derek good job beating that Vince McMahon glad you did that he deserves it was never personal it was all about the business I um I also want to know, you know, when, when this finally happens and you get the number and you know that we're all one, do you call a meeting with Kevin Sullivan or Terry Taylor? Do you get up, do you get all the, a meeting of the minds? Does that happen after you get the number? Not as a result of the number. Okay. It wasn't like a reaction to it. Like Tuesday when the ratings came out, I didn't send an email to everybody and said, okay, meet me in my office at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. We've, we need, we need to get in.

into the war room. It wasn't that. But it was, how do we tighten up our ship? How do we grow our business? How do we, how do we improve our product? What can we do? Those, but those conversations happened anyway. Those are conversations that we'd been having for a year and a half for two years. As a reminder, Mike Tyson and Steve Austin went face to face on Monday night raw for the first time in January. And the gap between Nitro and Raw at the time, is a point four four and if you look at nitros from that point forward your main events are all big time matches lex luger versus scott hall randy savage versus sting the outsiders versus the steiners it definitely feels like once tyson popped up you're like okay i'm playing for keeps now

i'm going to put my best foot forward every week and then you get a gift the next month in February the damn dog show preempts Monday night raw and you get to load up that card Hogan and Savage teaming up against Sting and Lugar you do a 5.1 rating over three hours that's averaging 3 million 694,000 homes based on the metric that they used to use Eric what is that over 7 million people yeah I don't even remember anymore Yeah, close to it. I think they've, they determine there's like two or two point five people per household.

It was the metric that they used at that time, I think. So yeah, it was pretty big. It was a big number. How much of an impact do you think adding that third hour had on the ratings? I understand that, you know, it was a, it was a Turner edict and you had to do what you had to do. And you hired a bunch more talent. Da da, da, da, da, da, da. But now nature was three hours and you've added thunder.

Did you think at the time, boy, if this was still just a two-hour show and no thunder, our ratings would be higher. We might be making less money, but we would be that less is more approach. Do you think that would have netted a higher rating or no? Oh, absolutely. That was the biggest concern I had at the time. And also I want to to kind of keep this conversation in context. Keep in mind that in 1998, even though WWE was now knocking on our door and, in fact,

beat us on April 13th in 1998. in terms of ratings for the first time in a year and a half, almost two years. The reason I don't think that that had as significant of an impact on us from a morale perspective was because financially we were making money hand over fist. We were very, very profitable in April of 98, which is probably another reason why I didn't get a lot of panic-stricken phone calls from executives. Harvey Schiller wasn't breathing. down my back. I didn't get any phone calls from anybody going, what are you going to do next,

kid? Oh, things are different now. What are you going to do? There wasn't a sense of panic, largely because the things that people were, most people were concerned about, which was the financial aspect of it, we were printing money in 1998, early 1998. So that wasn't an issue. One of the reasons why I don't think there was a sense of, oh my gosh, here they come. What do we going to do. There was none of that. Now, to answer your question, though, and you made the same money, even though you made more money going three hours, no, we didn't. I didn't get, we didn't get an extra nickel. First of all, we didn't get paid for Nitro anyway. There were no license fees. Turner Broadcasting didn't pay WCW. Like Turner pays AEW. That wasn't the case. All I got was a phone

call saying all right we're going to go from two hours to three hours buckle up let's do it that was it that was a conversation i didn't get to vote and the thunder issue same thing i didn't get to vote but we knew all of us knew not just me all of us knew that by going three hours what were we in effect what were we were we doing we were diluting our product yeah it is much harder creatively to produce a three-hour wrestling show every week, that it is a two-hour wrestling show every week. It's hard to keep the audience satisfied over that extended period of time. We knew that. I knew that. And then add to that thunder, which quadrupled that impact, that effect, now we were really diluting ourselves. That we knew going in. I certainly did.

So did Brad Siegel. So did everybody else that tried to talk Ted Turner out of going with thunder. So did Harvest Schiller. We talked about it. We had long conversations about it. What's going to happen? How is it going to affect WCW?

And I raised my hand and said, we're going to dilute ourselves. We're going to go from a must-see TV to, yeah, maybe, maybe not. Because of the three hours and the additional two hours in prime time. In March, Raw and Nitro would combine to reach over 6 million homes watching professional wrestling on a Monday night.

A Mike Tyson segment on March 2nd actually tied Nitro. And I know what you're thinking, boy, if what they had on Nitro was tying Mike Tyson, it must have been a hell of a segment. It was a Jim Duggan match, Jim Duggan versus Scott Steiner. And it's the first segment that had tied Nitro in almost a year. when you're getting the ratings way back when because we hear these days that people are breaking it down minute by minute and you can read the observer and boy he just he loves that analysis I just skip it but it's not my business I'm sure you were more invested are you looking

at quarter hours and minute but did you have the ability to look at minute by minute back then or no sure I did and by the way Bobby at Keelow Foxtrot 5 golf tango x-ray in the chat along with a lot of our fans here coach rosy's there brian homoza is there any pray there's there a lot of our regular fans from ad free shows are here with us live they're enjoying this show live but bobby suggested everybody in this chat please hit the like button like and subscribe thank you bobby for that we encourage that we love you for for doing that um what was the question minute by minute oh minute by minutes i i did we have access to him sure

quarter hours i tended to pay attention to a little bit more minute by minutes or i mean i'm sure there's information in there you can glean patterns from watch from from from looking at it but i i found people getting way too deep into the weeds on the minute by minutes And you've heard the same, you know, numbers lie and liars use numbers. That's really true when it comes to ratings. I could, I used to love it when, because these minute by minute ratings would somehow end up in the hands of talent occasionally. Oh.

Too often, right? So when it came time to negotiate with a talent, it cracked me up every time someone, someone would come in and say, Eric, you know, I know I'm making X amount of money. And I, this guy over here is making X amount of money. money. He's making a lot more than I am. And the reason I think I deserve what he does is look at these minute by minutes. Yeah. Oh, God. Give me a freaking break. I looked at quarter hours because quarter hours to me were more helpful in terms of formatting. But minute by minutes, this is, I never paid too close attention to minute by minutes. So,

would this be on your radar or when when jim dougan and and and scott steiner tie mike tyson and it's the first time you've been tied in a year would you have even noticed that back then no okay no unless somebody brought it to my attention you know if jim dougan would come in and said eric i deserve a race because well no i mean that's not a good thing if they came up you didn't necessarily anyway march 9th you We've got Hogan, Hall, and Nash taking on Savage, Giant, and Sting. I can't believe this is real. It does a 9.5 share.

Now, listen, let's just pause for a minute. We're going to break down all the other numbers. But understand what we're saying here, folks. In 1998, if you had cable or satellite, you probably had conservatively 60, 70 channels. and of all the folks who were watching television on that particular Monday night, nearly one in ten were watching Nitro. That's unbelievable, Eric. It was a great time to be in the wrestling business, right?

It was, yeah, it was unbelievable. And it's, you know, one of the reasons why, and I've brought this up many times. You know, ABC had the rights of Monday night football at the time. Now, this didn't happen in the spring, but this was starting to happen early on where other networks that typically wouldn't even acknowledge that wrestling even existed were starting to panic because the combination of WCW and WWE were taking a lot of that audience on Monday nights that typically networks would enjoy. it was it was pretty significant somewhere somewhere i've got a full page ad that i'd love to get my hands on it i'm going to probably reach out to somebody at the wall street journal and see if i can find it because abc took on a full page ad right before the up fronts trying to convince advertisers not to advertise in professional wrestling that's what you call selling like a bitch

that was awesome and i had it framed i had it in one of my offices in l.A. for a long time and And somehow I got stuck in a storage unit somewhere and I haven't seen it since. But yeah, that was that was kind of a big damn deal. When you look at the combination of WCW and WWE and the chunk that they were taking out of the television audience on Monday nights, it was massive. It's such a huge show here, this 9.5 share. It's March 9th, 1998, 4,188,000, 188,000 homes. it's a new record on cable and just a month later raw would beat it it's crazy the next week the audience seems to grow even more raw's preempted here so the average viewership is over four

million homes you got hulk and savage taken on sting and luger and this is the most watched cable wrestling match in history 10.7 is the share 4,840,000 homes my goodness that's a little over eight that's a little over eight million people right it's nearly nine million people watching your program here on 316 you're growing and growing in the following weeks you're still pumping out amazing main event attraction savage versus piper and then hogan versus piper with raw back on the air and they're trying to to build you know after russamania the gap is going to close big time the night after mania.

Nitro does a 4.2 overall rating and Rawl actually defeats Nitro's second hour with its first hour. This is the infamous Sean Waltman promo and it's Austin's first time coming out as WWF champion.

In this era, I mean, I think you could probably even point to that particular show and say this is when Monday after mania, became a real big deal. Like, I know there have always been significant shows, but 98 felt different,

maybe because Stone Cold was champ, maybe because of the Sean Waltman promo, but it feels like in the coming years, that became the raw everybody wanted to see. Yes, the go home from WrestleMania is important, but the night after, man, this is a big one. Did you feel like, I mean, clearly you did,

didn't, but at the time, with the benefit of hindsight, Waltman was a shot in the arm for them, was he not? Well, well, man was a huge shot in the arm for them. Yeah. Well, you know, I've, I'm sure there were plenty of people who have disagreed with me and they may be right. I may be wrong, but I'll never change my opinion when I tell you that I think

Sean Waltman was as important. to the turnaround for WWE than just about anything else, including Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson was a bigger shot in the arm. It got mainstream attention. It got everybody talking about WWE. Mike Tyson was at the top of his game. Maybe not as a boxer.

He was still better than anybody else. But in terms of just a media phenomenon. Yes. Tyson was more controversial. He was hotter than anybody on the planet, television-wise. But Waltman, because Waltman was a part of NWO, because NWO was such a dominant part of wrestling at that period of time, that when Waltman left the NWO, I think that was as an important piece of the puzzle for WWE as anything else.

I is any other one thing I'll go even further and say and I know this is going to piss some people off but guess who doesn't give a fuck I don't think DX would have been I don't think DX would have lasted four months without Waltman

I think Waltman was the reason DX worked not taking anything away from everybody else is a great group of talent there obviously that have gone on to become, you know, huge stars that went on to become huge stars in the business. And obviously, Triple H is kind of at the top of his game. But at that time, I think Waltman made that DX invasion work more than anybody else. More than Triple H, more than anybody else in it, Waltman made that work.

That was a real shot across the bow. And if I reacted to anything, I reacted to that. I totally agree, and I don't think history remembers Waltman enough for that moment. Just to add context, the rebel spirit that existed within DX, which is largely focused and centered around Sean Michaels. And he lost the night before, and now he's out of here with a back injury. So if we're going to keep this thing going without the guy who's been steering the ship,

and now we're going to sort of have Hunter take over at the helm. We need that rebel spirit. And who better than Sean Waltman to come out and cut a quote unquote shoot promo on you. It felt, oh, he's saying things he's not supposed to. This is, it gave it that vibe that Sean used to bring. And I totally agree with you. Hunter and China and the New Age outlaws still could have been successful. But they needed, they needed a little bit of.

controversy and Waltman knew how to do that the next week it was it was like the NWO defecting yes it was as close as you could get to Scott hall and Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman saying we're done we're going back to the competition that's what that was it was the NWO a a part of the an important part of the NW leaving WCW to go to WWE that's what that was and that's why I feel so strongly about Sean and his his value and the significance in that in that move creatively. Not taking anything away from Triple H, not taking anything away from Sean Michaels.

Not taking anything away from anybody. But Sean Waltman was as much a part of NWO as anybody else, with the exception of maybe Hulk and Scott and Kevin. Sean Waltman was, he personified the NWO in so many ways. And for Sean to leave, because I fired him, for Sean to leave and show up and cut the promo that he did was as close as you you get is the NWO defecting and that's why it worked otherwise it was just a goofy skit a bunch of idiots jumping on a jeep dressed up like army guys knocking on the door

creating this invasion cool fun I liked it it was great entertainment but it wouldn't have had the impact without Sean Wilman I'm convinced to that nobody can convince me we know what's going to happen April 13th but on April 6th a week prior it's a pivotal show This is the era where raw is not live every week. They're live one week, taped the next. So it's a taped raw, and that would normally mean, well, the ratings are down for a tape show. In the main event, it's not exactly superstar caliber.

It's Triple H in the New Age outlaws taking on the DOA. WCW is going to have Sting versus Kevin Nash in the main event spot. And Nitro does a 4.6, but a taped raw, with the cycles of apocalypse in the main event does a 4.4 that to me in hindsight feels really significant a taped show no disrespect with the DOA on top against the crow sting and Kevin Nash how is it this close finally happens the next week April 13th and what does it of course is a show long thread an incredible story from start to finish Steve Austin versus Vince McMahon and it sets a record a 6.0 rating a 10.2 share and that's

against a rematch from the prior week Sting versus Kevin Nash 4,414,000 homes watch the match Sting and Kevin Nash draw 3,145,000 homes. That's a total of 7,559,000 homes watching professional wrestling at the same time. Roughly 14 million people. It's unbelievable. Crazy. I mean, listen, on the one hand, I'm sure you're disappointed that you lost. On the other hand, seeing that they did a 6.0 has to be motivated.

motivating. Hey, look at what's possible. We just set a record last month. They just broke it this month. And together, you have to be thrilled at the idea that, oh, my God, we're hotter than ever. Over seven and a half million homes were watching. Or did you even know back then some of these folks were being counted twice? I mean, we were aware of duplication. Right. Certainly. Nobody could really put their finger on it. We all, everybody acknowledged that there were a lot of fans going back and forth and some fans being counted twice, depending on what was going on. It's just the nature of Nielsen tracking. But again, I was more analytical than emotional about it.

I, I really think most of my focus was, okay, what do we do? How do we up our game? How do we fine-tune this? What do we need to do? But again, not to be redundant, keep saying the same thing over and over again, a big part of my job wasn't just the ratings. The ratings were an important part of my job. The biggest part of my job was making money. And we were printing money at that time. So the impact of the ratings wasn't as significant. You know, Bryant, Haramza, if I pronounce that right,

you know, asked me just a few moments ago in the chat, you know, was I on cruise control going into this? Was I so comfortable doing, and I'm paraphrasing the question here, but was I so comfortable, you know, where we were at that I was on cruise control and all of a sudden when they beat us, I got re-motivated again.

Not the case at all. Not the case. I was aware. I was thinking. I was, you know, I probably shifted into a different gear creatively because I knew, okay, what we're doing has been working for a couple of years. Now it's time to do something else. What is that something else? But it wasn't driven out

of panic and it certainly wasn't because I was on cruise control. There were a lot of things that we were doing and I wanted to do going forward in terms of growing WCW and growing our business and increasing our bottom line. That was as much or more of my focus than a weekly rating was. I, um, I just love talking about this period because it was hot and it makes me think about how wrestling is getting hot again. Do you, do you think there's a high watermark? Like, do you think we're at the peak of wrestling being hot right now? We're going to be on the way down.

Are we still on the way up right now, Eric? I don't know. I, if I had to bet, I would bet that we're going to continue to grow. Yeah. Eventually, Tony Kahn's going to have to figure out how to produce a television show. And when he does and his ratings start to grow, I think that's going to be a significant evolution of the industry. I think it will further buoy an already successful industry.

So I'm a little concerned about what's going to happen in WWE creatively. I was so excited. I think he probably remembered me talking about this on this show. You know, everybody was talking about WrestleMania, WrestleMania, Russellmania, Cody Roman, Cody, Roland. And I was excited about that as well. But I was more excited,

truthfully, about where WWE was going to go after WrestleMania. Because to me, the stage was set. There was so much great story. Just sitting there, waiting there. It's like watching the Kentucky Derby.

Like my favorite part of the Kentucky Derby is when they bring. the horses into the paddock because the horses are just fired up and they want to go they just want to freaking run but you got to get them in that little starting gate or whatever it's called i called it a paddock whatever it's called but you can see those horses man they're just they're prancing they're fighting the handlers are having a hard time getting a hold of the horses because all those horses want to do is run that's what they're born for that's what they're trained for they just want to run and that's the way i felt about wwee creative going into

WrestleMania is they had so much great story that they had built for six months or eight bonds or whatever it was that to me the most exciting part of WrestleMania was going to be the night after WrestleMania and where those stories go because WWA did such a phenomenal job creatively and now I'm a little concerned not a lot because it's not going to change my life one way or the other but I'm wondering based on what happened Monday following WrestleMania and some of the chatter and I don't pay too close attention to it

but I do know some of the people involved and I find it very difficult to believe that Vince McMahon is going to be able to extricate himself from the creative process. I also believe that if he's even a little bit involved in a creative process, when you get an 800 pound gorilla alpha dog like Vince McMahon, there's no such thing as a little bit involved.

This is not. It's not like Vince McGillan's going to come Let me just check out a couple of things here. How are we opening the show? Hmm. You know, maybe that should be a nine-minute match instead of a six-minute match. Uh-uh. I don't see that.

I see a much more wholesale type of an approach to creative. That concerns me. And I'm hoping that WWE doesn't lose creative momentum. And that's no disrespect to Vince because this wouldn't be a $9.3 billion company without Vince McMahon. and his vision, but I think the time has come for creative to evolve without Vince McMahon's involvement. And if that happens, I'm still as excited about WWE as I was prior to WrestleMania. If it doesn't happen and we go back to, let me see that format, damn it, I don't

like it at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Monday or Friday. Let's start over. that that to me could really curtail the growth, at least of WWE, which I think will affect the business in general. As WWE goes, so does the wrestling industry. Vince Russo has said that when the rating came in on the WWF side,

it was a quick, great job, guys, and on to the next one. That's kind of the nature of the beast, is it not? Yeah. You're only as good as, you're only as good as your last outing.

And now you've got another one coming up in six days. Five and a half, really. So you don't have time. There's no, the weekly rate, again, I know from the outside looking in, you would think that that would be the most important thing on any given week. And it was in the beginning. But after four or five, six months, it just wasn't anymore. It was more about the bottom line.

It was more about the gate. You know, it was growing the business. I talk about growing the business all the time. And that's where all of our focus was. Was it growing the business? I was way more excited about a, and I don't remember how big the check was. I think it was $8,7 or $8 million check that EA sports handed to us

as an advance against royalties for a game. I was way more excited about that than I was about beating wwe by two ratings points or whatever it was it's really about growing the business well I'll tell you what w to v business is growing right now as you and I are recording on Saturday morning the ratings have just come out for Smackdown 2.291 million viewers number one across all TV about that pretty amazing right right pretty amazing and it's a friday night yeah the majority of your demo is out they're going to movies they're going to parties they're hanging out in a nightclub they're you know they're doing

a lot of other things that sitting home and watching tv to to be able to deliver that big of a number on a Friday night what was the demo probably 0.40.45 um um 18 to 49 was 799,000 viewers okay I can't do the math in my head while I'm talking but that's pretty significant yeah you're looking at three quarters three quarters of a million people in the demo yeah over a third of your viewers are that um the thing that I want to point out you know it's nice to say 2.29 million and 800k and all that number one across all TV that's cable that's broadcast number one that's amazing here here in alabama number one is as high as it

can go is that the same out there in wyoming can they go higher i haven't checked i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to there's a guy down the road get that fucking video out and ask he you know i'm gonna get hey does it go higher the number one echo all right hey listen we got a lot of folks hanging out in the chat uh and before we get to them I want to go ahead and talk about bottom line because you were just mentioning, hey, the ratings were important, but we were monitoring the bottom line.

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henson shaving.com slash 83 weeks let's do some questions man you mentioned it earlier we got a lot of great folks hanging out with us shout out to coach rosy and bryant and Eddie and everybody, Eric, over in the group chat. By the way, we say that whenever you sign up for ad free shows.com, you get the shows early and ad free. It doesn't get any earlier than real time. Thank you guys for joining us here in our live studio audience. Coach Rosie wants to know what was your initial reaction when you saw the rating sheet

and WW beat you for the first time in 83 weeks. Was it a down day or was it just, eh, what's for suffer? I'm a fighter by nature. Yeah. It was like, sometimes, you know, when I used to, I don't like to talk about this stuff too much because I just don't. But when I was competitive as a fighter, I never really got interested in fighting until after I got hit.

It's like, okay, now here we are. Like, I'd have to get hit two or three times before I get interested. And that's kind of how I took it. It's like, hmm, all right. now we're going to fight this is fun because i like to fight i enjoy i mean when i say i like to fight not physically but i mean i i like being in a battle whether it's with myself to lose weight or or to try to improve my life in some way shape or form compete against myself battle against my you know i i focus on discipline i you know i try to stay positive i try to challenge myself in as many

ways as I possibly can. In business, I like to be challenged. And if I have to get kicked into teeth to kind of find that fire and find that fight that works for me, that's okay too. I don't mind that. I kind of dig it. My wife used to get hot when I would say this. So I'm going to be careful about how I say it. But there was a point in my life where I would rather fight than have sex. I don't think he used those words either. I didn't say it that. way, I said it differently. Which is why my wife would get so hot at me, but that was part of who I was, not so much

anymore, but part of who I was. So, you know, when that rating came out, all it was to me was a motivator. It wasn't a, it wasn't anything other than okay. Here we go. Now we're a real fight. It kind of felt like I did back in, you know what? We launched Nitro. I had nothing to lose, right? Right. Just like, I, I mean, I actually, I had a lot to lose, to be honest. But, my feeling was, all right, I'm going to get in a ring with the big dog.

This is going to be fun. And not that I lost that feeling, because we were still in a fight every single week. But just because of the way I'm wired, it's not the worst thing in the world for me to get kicked in the head. And that's what this was. It wasn't even a kick in the head. It was a kick in a knee's. but it was a significant one but all it did was maybe it inspired me more than depressed me just so I understand you just looked right in the camera and said you like fucking more

than fighting these days right yeah things have changed uh Bobby wants to know Eric did you experience any changes when Turner merged with Tom Warner in 96 another one changes with the AOL Tom Warner merger no that's and that's an interesting thing and this came up on strictly business the other day when in 96 when the time warner thing happened i was told so and i wish i could remember who it was but somebody who is much more senior than me and turner who had been through mergers and acquisitions previously i never had pulled me aside one day and he says eric you're not going to feel anything you're not even going to notice it for the first year maybe a year and a half, that's when you're going to start feeling the changes.

And I think the same thing is probably going to happen, possibly going to happen with WWE and Endeavor insofar as for the first six months or a year, everybody is going to try to get familiar, try to understand each other's business, get to know everybody, right? Bring the team together because you've got to find out where the synergies are. You've got to find out where the duplication is. You've got to find out where the redundancies are. You've got to determine through analysis where you can cut costs or where you can increase opportunity. All of that takes time. So initially, I don't think we're

going to see, like I didn't see in 96 to answer the question, didn't see hardly any changes at all. It wasn't until 97. It wasn't really until 98. For me personally, it was August of 98. I remember it specifically is when I went, what the hell? What are you people talking about? Why are you even in a room with me? Why am I in a room with you? You don't know anything about my business. That was when it dawned on me that things were going to get really bad for WCW.

But until then, yeah, didn't notice the thing. Brian wants to know from the WCW side and from Turner's side what was more important being profitable or winning the rating being profitable yeah of course being profitable ratings were an indication of potential profit being profitable was the most important thing Eddie Prather says do you think you might have underestimated how beloved Mick Foley was when you had Tony announced that Mick had beaten the rock for the world title thinking no one would switch channels. Probably. Yeah. I guess that would be obvious, I think. I,

but I liked Mick and I respected Mick. I just thought it was another, you know, it was a typical stunt that had worked for me really well in the past. So I thought, well, I'll just pull that rabbit out of the hat again and see if it works and it didn't.

But I don't think it was so much that I underestimated Mick is it was I overestimate, estimated WCW's position at that time. I underestimated the interest in WWE as a whole. That definitely, but it wasn't about Mick. It wasn't about Rock. It was really about underestimating the interest in WWE as a whole. That was the mistake. Francis Reyes says, do you think the company or yourself got a bit complacent in part when the ratings came in and you got beat by the other side? Do you think you guys are ever complacent? Not a bit.

I've never been complacent about anything, and the company certainly wasn't. The company was focused on the bottom line. Did we get too comfortable in our formula? Did we not challenge ourselves enough to find new ways of keeping an edge on our product? Yes, guilty as charged. But that's not the same thing as complacent. we got comfortable in the sense that, okay, we found a formula that works. Let's keep doing this formula.

Let's, you know, we tweak it. We come up with new ideas. It wasn't like we do the same thing every single week. But there was a formula. There was a pattern. There was a format that we felt comfortable with and had every reason to be comfortable with it until we weren't. But that way, it's not, and maybe it's the word complacent that I'm getting hung up on because to me complacency is like I don't care anymore right whatever happens happens

never ever ever I will never be complacent ever in anything I ever do I'll never be satisfied with myself or anything that I'm involved with that to me that's like being dead I just can't imagine that can't imagine getting up and go yeah I don't really care what happens today I'm kind of happy with things the way they are I just that's alien to me but I do admit that we became overconfident yeah and perhaps a little too comfortable with the formula that I will admit to Peter D says hi Eric in the end could it be said that the WWE won the wars due to having better and especially younger main event talent guys who were fresher fresher and edgier than the top WCW stars no I don't

think so. I think that's a, you know, look, the WWE for a long time, you know, when we launched Nitro, tried to do the, try to position themselves as being younger, stronger, faster, right? All those WCW guys are all old guys. Remember that? We saw that. And we kicked their ass. All of those older guys were kicking Vince McMahon's ass every single week for 83 weeks in a role in well over two years across the board. What won the war for WWE was Vince McMahon waking up and recognizing that his future was in the 18 to 49-year-old demo. He needed to be live and he needed to have more of an edge.

And how did he wake up and figure that out? I spent two years teaching him every single Monday. And he finally threw in the towel in November 1997 and said, okay, we're going to do that too. That was the turning point. When Vince abandoned his teen and preteen business model and embraced the 18 to 49-year-old model that had been kicking his ass for two years, that is what changed it. I mean, that's it. Anybody that wants to look deeper into it or to find some adjacent kind of reason,

reasons why have at it. It's fun to do. But the real turning point was Vince waking up and realizing that he could no longer compete in the wrestling business unless he followed the formula that I created. That's what got. And that's why it's a $9.3 billion company because Vince made that change. He went, as you pointed out, he realized it because I was live every week in order for him to be competitive, WWE to be competitive, he had to be live every week. He had to deliver the quality of wrestling,

and in terms of marquee quality, not in terms of five-star match quality, but had to deliver bigger names on TV every week. Had to do a lot of the same things that we had been doing for two years at that point, a year and a half at that point. That's what changed, That's what won the war for Vince McMahon.

Nothing else. Tony Flowers, NCO, says, I understand people gravitate towards rating because it's a win-lose scenario that's easy to understand like a sporting event. That said, isn't the competition really your own? Does it matter if you lose a head-to-head rating when you're killing it financially? I feel like everyone pretends wrestling is a zero-sum business when it isn't one at all. That's well said.

Yeah, that's a really, really astute comment and question. It is all about, look, wrestling, a week ratings are an indicator. A weekly rating, no. Winning one week and losing the next doesn't, no, zero. Patterns matter. If you're starting to lose ground every week for a period of three or four months, now you've got to, now you've got some analysis to do. Now you've got some work on your hands, right?

But any given week, you know, and that's why I get a kick out of sometimes, you know, the internet and dirt sheets and everybody's comparing. I always love it when I say, WWE loses, you know, loses audience from last week. They lost, what, 75,000 viewers? That's a rounding error. AEW, you know, loses audience from the week before. They lost 5,000 viewers.

Gives a shit. It's a round. error. When you really realize the functionality, how Nielsen actually works, you realize that those numbers on a week-to-week basis mean almost nothing. Now, there can be significant jumps or significant losses that could possibly mean something. More often than not, it can mean weather. If you live on the east coast in the northeast part of the United States in the springtime and you get your first 70 degree day on a Monday or 75 degree day on a Monday early in April. Guess what? The number of people watching television is going to diminish and a rating

is going to go down. We see it in competition with basketball or with football. We know that at certain times of the year in the summertime. The number of people using households, it's a term called hot levels. Households using television. The households using television in the summertime drop significantly because it stays light till 10 o'clock a night. If people are outside messing around doing shit that they should be doing, instead of sitting in front of a television watching wrestling. It happens. It's seasonal.

So you see patterns over periods of time that matter, but the week-to-week thing makes absolutely no difference. More often than not. I like that we're able to sort of bring clarity to the wrestling. business and what was really important, you know, dollars and cents versus ratings. But that's not always easy for people in business. And that's why they need to talk to Empira, right, Eric? Impira, this is such a fantastic tool. If you're a small business owner, if it's just you,

if you're working out of your garage and you're making widgets or your, whatever it is, you're doing. You're a one-man band. You need Imper. You need Imper, probably more than anybody. Because you're, yeah, you're everything. You're doing everything. You're coming up with the ideas, you're doing your marketing, you're doing your promotion, you're putting your widgets together, you're putting them in a box and shipping them out the door. You're doing everything. You need a tool that helps you keep track of all of the things that go into being a successful one-man band. Or maybe it's you and your wife or you and your friend or you and your brother or sister, mother, father, whatever. It's two or three of you working on a project together. You need to be able to track expenses and costs and sales and success. You need to be able to track your business, whatever the pillars are in your business that determine success or failure, profitability or lack thereof. You need to be able to track those things. Everybody knows you need to have a good business plan, right? If you're going to launch a business, I don't care how big if it's a $10 million business, you really need a good business plan.

Or if it's a small business, you still need a good business plan. Because a business plan forces you to think about the littlest details about your business. business in ways that you might not otherwise think about them. You have to in order to come up with a good plan. That's why you have a business plan, right? But Empira is a tool that allows you to track the elements of a business plan so that you can make the business plan work. It doesn't do any good to have a great business plan, flip the switch, launch your

business, and not ever think about it again. You've got to track it. You've got to track it. the pillars that indicate whether you're on the right track or not. And you need to be able to communicate that with your team. Now, if it's just you in your garage, ain't that hard. But if you've got five or 10 or 15 or 20 or in your case, Conrad, how I don't know how many people you have working with you in your mortgage company,

tracking performance and tracking those pillars and communicating it to your group is critical to success. Empira gives you those tools. it costs you less than two cups of coffee a month you get a live human being when you call imperil when you sign up you're going to get a live human being on the other other end of the phone that's going to walk you through and teach you how to set up your dashboard customize it for your business and and help you learn how to use it I am a high-tech redneck despite the fact that I like ham radio despite the fact that I love learning new things when it comes comes to technology, I'm kind of a tough nut to crack.

It's a little, it comes slowly for me. I just lost the light. See what I mean? Impera gives you the tools to do it. They'll help you do it. They'll get you on the phone. They'll walk you through that dashboard. They'll customize this tool for you so that it will work for you.

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And you want to go to Empira.com slash Eric. That's E-M-P-I-A-A-A-com slash Eric. We'll do a few more and then we'll wrap this one up. Brian Fuller wants to know, did Eric think the Vince versus Austin match was just a one-off gimmick to pop a rating

at the time? Or did he see they were going to go all in on this feud of the WWF owner versus the Texas rattlesnake for a while a la NWO versus WCW. I don't think I've thought about it in that in that context whether it's going to be a long-term story or short-term story. I just knew it was going to be a good story. I don't think I gave it too much thought about where it could possibly go.

By the way, I just want to remind everybody, you know, when they're talking about, you know, this heel Mr. McMahon angle being the one that, you know, sort of won the war. that's the story that won the war for the WWE. Hmm. A heel authority figure on a wrestling show. The first time we saw.

Who would do that? Was that April of 98? Because I feel like I saw that 96. Showed me. Show enough did. Yeah. Next week.

Roddy Piper called me out. Speaking of Roddy Piper, I'm going to get his daughter, Teal on the phone. I'm going to do any interview with Teal Piper. We're going to have it right here. on 83 weeks in the near future. I ran into Teal and I can't wait to talk to her.

When I ran into Teal Piper a couple of weeks ago down in Florida, she was on an event that I was at. And I could hardly talk to her. I had tears in my eyes. I got so emotional seeing her that I probably looked like a babbling old idiot. But I can't wait to talk to Teal Piper. But it was her father who called me out, exposed me for being a duplicitous piece of crap that I was.

next week we're going to be covering spring stampede 1998 uh this is going to be the same month of the the show we're talking about now that goes down in denver scott randy savage taking on sting for the wcd tv title in a no dq match raven taking on ddp for the u.s title a baseball bat on a poll match hollywood hogan and kevin nash taking on roddy piper the giant Lex Lugar and Sting. I'm sorry, Lex Lugar and Rick Steiner are going to take on Buff Bagwell and Scott Steiner and a whole lot more. That's what we'll be doing

next week. Before we get there though, man, I want to encourage you to go check out my latest conversations with Conrad. We sat down with the legendary Jim Johnston. This guy has had an impact on wrestling

greater than most. Think about all the legendary themes. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Undertaker, The Ultimate Warrior, on and on and on. We talk about how we first got into the biz, why it came to an end and all the fun in the middle over at adfreeshows.com. And I want you to try it for free right now on me. Get a taste of what ad free shows is all about.

Start a free trial at adfreeshows.com. You get over a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcast starting at just $9. Adfrees.com is the place to be. By the way, if your business targets men 25 to 54 years old buddy, there's no better place to advertise than right here on 83 weeks. I mean, listen to Eric do those ad reads for Impira. Shit, I want to get it. You should too.

You've heard us do some of the same ads for the same companies over and over and over. Why is that? Because it really works with our super targeted audience. There's very little waste. Go right now to advertise witheric.com. That's advertise witheric.com. To find out more about advertising here. on 83 weeks. If you haven't already, pick up Eric's great new book. Grateful over on

Amazon. You can also check it out at bischoffbook.com. Really appreciate you guys checking out our YouTube channel. It's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. I'd love to have you leave us a comment there. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don't like. Hit the like button. Please hit the subscribe button. It's free. Why wouldn't you do that? Help a brother out. And you know what else? You get to hang out. Isaac Riston is with us here in our chat. Isaac is a Grammy Award winning musician. How about that? And one of his dreams, we actually interviewed Isaac Riston on Strictly Business.

And one of his goals was to kind of be like the Jim Johnson of wrestling. He's a studio musician, like I said, a Grammy Award, been nominated a number of times for Grammys. One won, most recently, big, big wrestling fan and a member over at every show. so come join us check it out ad free shows.com by the way we got lots of fun merch and swag you saw eric hold up his fired coffee mug just a minute ago well we've got a context as king we got shirts and hats and hoodies and big gold stickers and the tumblers this time of year man I love it outside by the pool maybe you're at the beach whatever you're into on your new boat on your new boat old time uh by the way we'd love to have you interaction on social follow us

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Eric, I don't know what I expected today talking about the street coming to an end. But man, we talked a lot about WWD at the top of the show. I wanted to ask this last. If you had it to do, if it was your call, Would you have pulled the trigger on Cody on Sunday night or would you have been a longer story? Yep. I'm, I'm, and look, I hope I'm dead wrong. I hope I could not be more wrong when I say what I'm about to say.

But I fear that they did such a great job building it up, the anticipation, the audience was ready for it. You let them down. And you've got to be careful about letting the audience down. A year is a long time. And I hope I'm wrong. I hope there is so much great creative laid out for Cody, as well as everybody else in WWE, that they do not miss a beat.

That's what I hope. I fear the opposite. I fear that it was a missed opportunity. We're going to find out. We'll be watching and we'll be discussing it each and every Monday right here. on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey guys, Eric Bischoff here and just want to call a quick timeout. I want to tell your listeners about what I've been telling everybody over at 83 weeks for quite a while now,

about all the cool things that are happening over atpreeshows.com. He created the soundtrack for generations of WWE fans with some of the most iconic themes in history. Legendary composer Jim Johnston sits down with Conrad to take us behind the themes that we all grew up on. including Randy Orton's voices. You know, tell me things that I will do to show me things I'll do to talk to me. You know, I wanted it to be a little bit creepy. Right. That's what it felt like to me.

It was dark, mysterious, creep. That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you. With four levels to choose from, see for yourself why ad-free shows is the best value in wrestling. today. Sign up now at everyshows.com.