83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 266: Dissecting The Aces & Eights Storyline

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad give you a peek behind the AD Free Shows paywall to show you some of the exciting programing we offer on the site. On this special edition, we take you "In-Depth" as we break down and analyze the Aces & Eights storyline like you've never heard it done before. Topics include what Eric learned from his time in WCW to TNA and how it helped shape his creative choices, utilizing an injured Hulk Hogan at that time, and the trust both had in Bully Ray. Plus, who Bully Ray mirrors in today's product, the elements Eric used to make the storyline stand out, what he took from reality television, and much more! ATHLETIC GREENS - Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1x year supply of immune-support Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/83WEEKS. Again, that is athleticgreens.com/83WEEKS to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance! ROCKET MONEY - Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses theeasy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/83weeks. EMPIRRA - 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!  MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  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. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NMLS number 65084 Equal Healthy Lended. Woo! Tax season is here, which means you've received or are expecting that tax refund any day now, and you're thinking about what to spend it on. How about a new home? With savewithconrad.com, we're helping renters become homeowners every single day, and it's more affordable than you think. You don't need perfect credit.

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and today we've got something very special in store for you, something we've never done before. We're going to do a deep dive on one of Eric's, actually maybe Eric's favorite TNA storyline, Aces and Ate's, how it all came to be, what he learned from the NWO and all of his time in WCW, and this is a conversation that used to leave. live exclusively behind the paywall over at ad-freeshows.com. Tom DeSanchez and Dominic DiAngelo are going to join in on Eric's conversation about the breakdown of this fabulous storyline that if you were a diehard T&A guy, you probably are

very familiar with. But if you're like me and you missed a lot of this, this is going to be good stuff because you can apply a lot of these same principles to storylines before and after. Now, of course, Eric and I plan to record this weekend, but as I understand it, Eric's strain his Furnum Snavitz. So by all means, go out of your way to send your well wishes to at E. Bischoff on Twitter and tell him that you hope his Furnum Schnavitz starts feeling just a little better. Speaking of Furnums and their schnavitzes as well, gentlemen, if you didn't know

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with the full package from Manscape. They're going to get you covered head to toe, get you your money's worth this April. I'm talking about the performance package 4.0. It's the ultimate bundle and the star of the show is the lawnmower 4.0 tremor. Nobody in Aces and ATS knew about the 4.0 tremor. Had they? Maybe that storyline would still be going. What we needed was an LED light to lead the way.

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too with Manscaped. Now let's jump into it. Let's talk about a little aces and eight. with Eric Bischoff. Here we go. Hey, everybody. This is Dom McDangelo, ad-free shows.com, and we are back, back with episode four of In-depth

with the star of the show, Mr. Tom DeShanez, but we also have another star here in Mr. Eric Bischoff, the author, co-author of Grateful. Eric, thanks for joining me and Tom, and Tom, thanks for coming back, man, on this show. Hey, my pleasure, I've been looking forward to this.

I know here on In-Depth, we take a look at wrestling angles, from every angle that's right this is super i can't take credit for that that i i got a good delivery of that line but that's all dumb that's good yeah yeah so you're here you know ad free shows got all sorts of incredible incredible programs but you're on one of the more unique shows that ad free shows has here on in-depth eric and what we're so excited to do today is to really take a look go in-depth with you on one of the greatest wrestling storylines that we could think of. That's ACEs and eights. We're so excited to have you here joining us today for this breakdown and really kind of

taking a look at this story, maybe not from a week-by-week perspective, but really by a storytelling perspective, because we know that this is one of the stories that you're most proud of crafting. So welcome to our show. We're so excited to have you on. And I'm so excited to have you two guys welcoming me to your show. I just think that's freaking awesome. And I love the idea of this show because, you know, I first started talking to Tom a couple of years ago.

And I mean, 60, maybe 90 seconds into the conversation, I realize I'm talking to somebody that's really, really smart and really excited about wrestling. And man, anytime I got a chance to talk to somebody like Tom, who's, got the breadth of experience and interest and education that he does,

that's a huge wrestling fan. It's like, okay, that's somebody I got to spend some time talking to. And to be able to break down stories, some of the great wrestling stories, no matter where they happen to when and compare them to classic literature, I think is one of the most fascinating things available to wrestling fans to better appreciate wrestling for more than just who beat who last week and who's going to get the title and who's going to jump from one company the next. That's all fun.

Yeah. That's the bright, shiny objects and the glitter and stuff that, you know, everybody gets attracted to because it's easy. But the art of wrestling goes beyond the art of telling a story in the ring. The art of wrestling, in my opinion, and I know a lot of people will hate this opinion, and you'll think I'm discrediting those athletic, high-flying, risk-taking performers out there, and I don't mean to. But to me, the art that I appreciate the most, even though I appreciate the rest of it, is the art of telling a story.

And whenever you can take a successful wrestling story and break it down with someone like Tom that's capable of doing it and compare it to classic literature or at least elements of it that existed in other great stories, I think it pays a certain respect to what we all enjoy every week. week. I think what's fascinating, too, with Tom is like, and it blew my mind when Tom told me this. I think it was on episode one we were discussing the mega powers. And he was, he was just like, wrestling got me into what I'm doing. I wouldn't be doing anything that I was doing, like, you know, literary, being the Harvard scholar without pro wrestling. And that just like completely blew my mind and how like wrestling connects in so many different ways. And from your, uh, and what we talked about in episode two was the NWO and the classic angle with all that, and the storytelling, simple storytelling elements that Aristotle brought into everything. And Eric,

before we dive into this, how familiar and stuff were you with like the thought process and the philosophy of Aristotle before that, or was it just more from a storytelling perspective of things coming into play where it was just like, hey, that's kind of been embedded in just good storytelling over a course of time? Well, I mean, I had, I won't say I didn't know who Aristotle was because I went through the educational system, the public school system, and I was an average to slightly below average performer throughout the better part of my educational timeline. So I'd heard the name, but I didn't have anything more than that, man. No, I didn't study, I didn't study anything, to be honest with you, which would explain. a lot of things all it takes is three hours of your time go back listen to episode two of in-depth

you will leave there with a full-on doctoral degree in aristotle and the elements of storytelling which you my friend uh you know really laid out so perfectly whether you knew it or not and i think that's one of the big things about about literature and storytelling this is something that's been passed down generation over generation there's something inborn in all of us about what makes a good story that's wired into our brain brains. We are literally wired for story. There's so much great evolutionary psychology and research that's been done on this. And so whether you actually studied Aristotle or not, you were preaching the word of Aristotle and you were telling, again, as we are in episode two, one of the greatest

wrestling stories of all time, and you hit every one of the elements on his beat sheet. So whether you studied him or not, you absorbed it and you were able to tell a story that Aristotle would be proud of. And you know what's interesting is I've got a couple books on Kindle and whenever I'm stuck in an air, you know, I'm not, I'm not a big reader. You know, if a subject strikes me something I'm really interested, I'll dive in, I'll read, I'll explore, but I'm not, you know, like my wife reads, she spends three or four hours a day reading, right, seven days a week. You know, our bedroom looks like a library. Okay. I'm not that guy. But I do have a couple books and one of them I think it's seven essential stories I think is the title of the book

and I was just I glanced at it the other day and I think I read the book about six years ago when I downloaded it right and I looked at it the other day because I hadn't looked at it in a long time I was stuck in an airport and when you say Tom you know we're conditioned we really are as a culture as a race conditioned because storytelling goes back to guys in caves with fires and sticks that killed the dinosaurs for dinner and drew a picture of it on the wall. I mean, storytelling has been around for a long time. And the elements of that story, I think all of us, if you're paying attention or you're a movie fan or you love to read or whatever, you probably begin to become conditioned to good storytelling technique without even knowing

what a good story telling technique is because you know what you like. And someone like me gets thrust into a position to try to figure shit out without an education and a background in it, you go to what you kind of know or what makes you feel certain ways. And that's probably how we stumbled into some of those parallels, not consciously but subconsciously because of what we've been exposed to all of our lives. Yeah, you know, it's funny, Eric. I don't know if I've ever told you this or not, but I've always had great admiration for you. But you earned bonus points.

When I heard you reference the seven basic plots, this was years ago. I had, I think it was, I forget if you were on Stone Colds podcast or if it was one of your early 83 weeks podcast with Connie, but I was cleaning the house, had 83 weeks or whatever on the background. I was listening to you talk, and I heard you talk about the seven basic plots. And again, to Eric's point, this is a book that everyone should have on their shelves. It's over 1,300 pages, so it is a heavy-duty read, but don't worry, you can dip in and out of it. You can go to this kind of plot, that kind of plot. It's an incredible book.

It's by Christopher Booker, an English journalist, and I remember, as I'm cleaning, I'm listening. I'm listening, but when I heard you mention that book, Eric, that perk me right up, and I said, oh, wow, okay. So Eric, Eric knows even more than I initially thought he did about crafting these great stories, although I think I've heard you say, during your time in WCW, you caught lightning in a bottle. You were telling these incredible stories. You were laying the tracks as the stories were unfolding. However, when you had your chance to join TNA, you had done all sorts of new stuff in television since then. You did all sorts of new, you know, programs with Jason Hervey. I know some of the ones that you did, some of the unscripted shows that you had at the time,

you know, Scott Bay was 45 and single, Scott Bay was 45 and married, see Dad Run. That was a 60 episode sitcom. Don't forget Scott Bay was 46 and pregnant because that was a great episode. That was a great season, I should say. Well, yeah, you did all this amazing storytelling, both unscripted and scripted, between the time you left WCW and the time you started at TNA and correct me if I'm wrong, but did you tell Conrad or whomever it was, whatever podcast I was listening to you, that it was during that sort of time that you were creating all that content,

that you really started to get into going back to the basics and understanding those seven basic plots and really studying storytelling. So when you arrived in TNA, you had a whole new bag of tricks and new tools when it came to storytelling. Do I have that right? You really do. And just to fill in a little bit of the middle, you know, it was a process. Again, you know, I don't want to say I caught lightning in the bottle, like it just boom, popped up out of them. Because it was, a process that led to it, but it was so unrefined and it was all just, it was loosely formed. And then going through that year or year and a half, when you go, whoa, okay, trying to figure out why it's okay and better than okay, and then trying to maintain that, that's the learning

curve, you know, because getting a huge base hit, that's great in a rest of, wrestling, but you only get a home run if you understand how you made the contact to get to the base hit, right? That's where I had to really start thinking. And that process took a long time. And I'm still learning to this day. It's why I'm so fascinated about, you know, that's why I like talking to Tom about stories, you know, because I learn a lot. And reading and analyzing things that I like and trying to break them down according to what little I know. But I really came to T&A with way more horsepower, not necessarily because of my successes. But I did a lot of shit that didn't work too.

And it's nice to have that in an inventory so that if you're thinking about something, you can go, let me go back and check in the back room and make sure I don't have one of those somewhere in there already. or if I do, why didn't it work and bring it out and try to fix it? But why I felt more confident in my creative ability in TNA than I had in WCW despite this success was because I had a couple years to think about it and read books like the seven basic plots.

I'd go, damn, I wish I would have found that book in 1996. I was almost there. A life's work. It took Christopher Booker 34 years. He was an English journalist, 34 years to write and comprise that massive book. So I mean, he truly dedicated his life to it. But this is something that, you know, the idea that there are only a certain number of stories that just continue to be retold over and over again. You know, that first started to come around just a few hundred years ago with Ben Johnson, or not Ben Johnson, excuse me, Samuel Johnson, the great playwright. Samuel Johnson, for those who don't know, he was a literary historian. And he was probably, probably the most educated man of his time, you know, some of his accomplishments when you think of what Ben Johnson, or I'll keep saying Ben Johnson, I'm sorry, being a Shakespeare scholar, one of the time, and being a guy that lives in Wyoming, when you said Ben Johnson, I thought you meant, you mean that Western actor? And see, being that Shakespeare nerd, I don't even know there's a Ben Johnson Shakespeare

Western actor. But it's funny because that is something that we're going to be getting into in just a little bit. The idea of Ascens and Ates coming out of, you know, the sort of, you know, gangster, motorcyclist, Western sort of really American sort of story. It has its roots. Yes, you guessed it in Shakespeare, which we're going to talk a little bit about. So once again, Eric, maybe you were telling a story of the Great Masters without even knowing it. I love this. I'm going to record this. I'm going to get this recording and I'm going to play it to myself over and over and over again. single morning because I'll walk away feeling better about myself. Screw Christmas music.

You got this audio he can play on loopover. There you go. That's right. That's right. I look forward to that, but I'm not kidding. Well, and it's funny because I promise viewers and I promise Dom, we're going to get into the the wrestling talk here in just a minute, but I love peppering in a couple little fun facts. And yeah, Samuel Johnson, British intellectual from the 1700s, he was a poet, a playwright,

a critic. He really is kind of the critic who made Shakespeare famous. You know, he was around about 67 years after Shakespeare died, so there had been some time. He was Shakespeare, St. Meltzer. That's right. Five stars. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And what's funny is at that time, an intellectual, like Samuel Johnson, could have actually read all of the major works of literature that came before him that were available in print.

and he could have read everything sort of being printed in that time period. So this is a very dedicated, intelligent, intellectual. And as he read over all of these different books, he determined that there's just such a small quantity of real fiction in the world and that the same works with very little variation are told over and over and have served all the writers who have ever written. So that's sort of a paraphrase of one of his quotes. But it wasn't until Christopher Booker came along that he said,

okay, I'm going to dedicate the next 34 years to actually seeing just how many categories there are. And he came to seven. One other fun fact about Samuel Johnson, he actually created the first proper English dictionary back in the 1700s with over 40,000 words. So for anyone who loves reading about, you know, just fascinating individuals, pick up a biography of Samuel Johnson, fascinating guy who had more of an impact on perhaps Western literature and also our language than just about anybody else. so that's the nerd sort of you know but that is so cool because i'm i actually i'm going to i'm going to spend some time i'm i'm going to read that i because i just find like what you just said to me what i just heard you saying is just the most fascinating conversation i think anybody's

going to hear in anything that could be considered wrestling related anywhere in the world i just think it's awesome i think what's great about this show is that aspect of it like the whole idea of, hey, we're incorporating error style, incorporating Shakespeare, incorporating all these different elements of these classic, you know, legendary people that wrote, you know, and created the basis for storytelling. And then you apply it to something that can be simply told as wrestling, the good versus evil aspect of it all. And to get, this is what I really cherish out of it, because, like, I formed a kinship with macho man Randy Savage after hearing, like, Tom described the mega powers to me and everything. It's just like, so.

many different, it gives you it, it gets you in depth and gives you those layers. So this is, it's great, Tom. So anytime you want to go off on a sidetrack, I may okay for it. All right. Let's dig in. Let's dig in. Absolutely. Let's dig in. So Eric, from your time in reality and scripted television leading up to your time at TNA, what were some of those sort of elements that you said, okay, now I've got this. It's quite exciting, honestly, the fact that you have this new opportunity to come into TNA. At the time, I know I've heard you talk about how you really weren't necessarily coming in for any sort of creative aspect except for to focus on how Hulk Hogan was used, how his character was used, what characters he'd be interacting with, the creative. And I think

I remember hearing you talk to Conrad about how you'd come in sort of one day a week at the very beginning. You didn't care necessarily what other stories were being told, but you were specifically focused on how the Hulkster was being used on TNA television and in their marketing and branding and stuff like that. Did that give you some sort of additional sort of stress to rather than just coming in as a creative consultant, knowing that for this great business partner of yours and this great friend of yours, this guy that you did incredible business with that you changed the industry with, he's putting you in charge of his creative direction. Was it helpful having maybe some of those skills that you learned in scripted and unscripted television? Some of those

things that you picked up from the seven basic plots and some of your research going into TNA and and kind of having that lens on to look out for the hoaxers creative there? I don't think in that case, no. No, I think what I did learn during that period of time that I didn't have in WCW, obviously, and obviously when I did my run in WWE as a talent, I wasn't in the position to apply anything that I've learned along the way, so to speak, in terms of writing. But with regard to Hulk,

By the time I went to TNA, I knew, because Hulk and I grew very close, professionally business-wise, I worked on the other side of the negotiating table against him, so to speak, you know, negotiating deals with him. I was on the same side of the table with him on a number of occasions and a number of deals. So the result of that, which all took place after I left WCW, the result of that, gave me a real feel for what was important to Hulk Cogan, what was important in terms of his character, what things he felt most strongly about,

what he was comfortable with, what he wasn't comfortable with. Being involved at the level I was involved with gave me a high degree of confidence, more partly it gave Hulk a high degree of confidence to be able to, as Hulk said, when he would do business with people back then, Eric speaks for me,

Eric can sign for me, I'm doing what I'm going in that direction, whatever that direction is, if it's the what Eric wants to do. Now, I had, you know, A, I had to earn it a little bit, you know, with integrity and trust and all the things that you should have. But it was really more just being involved in so much and having an opportunity for so many, on so many occasions, to listen to what was important to Hulk and, and sometimes his attorneys, that it was not that difficult for me to, to take in the role I was taking on. Now, on the creative side of that, um, yeah, I had walked out of WCW and had learned enough along the way, working with great

producers, great writers, great directors in television, you know, showrunners that do far more about, you know, reality television than I ever did. I came from wrestling into reality. They were already into reality and they were good at it. So you get a chance to learn from those people, right? And that was just, I just got fortunate. That was just luck, you know. But that process made it a lot easier for me to filter the creative. I had, because one of the things that I learned in reality that I eventually, especially for things like ACEs and AIDS, really applied,

was the emphasis on formatting and telling multiple story, you know, Because if you look at a lot of reality shows, you've got an A story, a B story, a C story, and a D story. Because not any one of those stories with those particular talents generally are strong enough to carry an hour. So what do you do? Well, you've got to mix up the cast because you need five or six personalities to fill up an hour that's relatively interesting, right? Because you don't have one person that can do it. So you have to get really good at formatting those. stories and and structuring them, I call it ABCD stories.

I never used to do that until I got into reality television because I learned that in order to keep the attention span of the audience layering your stories that way and knowing when to arc each one of them throughout an episode or throughout a series is the key to making something work. So it was all, to me, everything's format, format, format, format, still is to this day. Obviously, the creative that goes into those formats are important, but the format is, I learned, in reality television, it's do or die. It's, if you don't have a good format, it really doesn't matter what the story you're trying to tell is. It's not going to resonate with that particular audience.

Oh, go ahead, Tom. Oh, no, I insist, Dom. You go. Real quick, yeah. Did you find, when you got those applications of, of, what? what, uh, you did throughout that reality television stuff, was it, did you find it easier to apply into wrestling or was that more of a challenge going into wrestling and then trying to execute it through wrestling? No, you know, here's a fun thing about TNA, you know, because I know

oftentimes, because it's what I get passionate about. Sometimes when I'm passionate, if it's not a negative, not a positive story, it comes off like I'm angry and I'm not at all about TNA. There's a lot of things I'm grateful for TNA. You know, I got to work with my son. That was his dream. I got to help fulfill my son's dream because of T and A. And that's something that I'll take with me to my grave. And so will my son. I'll be eternally grateful for that. But there were a lot of things that I was a little bit frustrated with at times too. But here's the deal with TNA. Once I started, now fast, we're going to fast forward a little bit. By the time, you know, Aces and Ates came along, I had been involved in the creative process for probably a year or so, a year and a half, two years,

whatever it was. So it was a different time then. But one of the great things about being there is you could try anything. You know, it wasn't a situation where, you know, if we had an idea, we couldn't get an answer on that, William, 20 minutes. You know, sometimes in the creative process, you want to do something, especially if we want to change formatting or something significant. Man, it's like you could, you could probably clear a heart transplant waiting list quicker that you can get an answer on creative sometimes in the process, right? All right, folks, by now you know, I love talking about saving money. One of my favorite ways to save money is with rocket money because they found ways to save

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Stop throwing your money away, cancel those unwanted subscriptions, manager expenses the easy way by going to RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. That's RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. But with T&A, man, we had the flexibility of trying things. And I think Aces and A's is probably one of the best examples of taking some of that. The benefit that I got, not just from producing reality, but from working with really good showrunners and working with network executives

that really, really understood reality television because they understood formatting in a really, really powerful way. And when you can find an element here, an element, okay, I can't take everything that works in reality television because there's two different things. But here's a really good element that we can apply because this audience will appreciate that. And it's just mixing and matching. And, you know, if you look at, I know we're here to talk about Aces and A's and We will. I promise, I promise. We'll get there.

But what was the, there was another show that Jason and I created. and it ran after Impact, it was called, oh, I can't believe, I can't remember the name of that show. It got like, we did like a million two viewers after Impact was over. Wow. And all it was, you're going to have to Google that. I'm going to Google right now. Yeah, because it'll drive me crazy.

Because it was a really great show. And I got huge ratings, and the audience loved it. And you know what it was? they were sit down in reality television they call them OTFs or on the fly so Tom and I are in a reality scene he wants a chocolate chip cookie he goes into the cookie jar there's no cookies there and we do a flashback to when Tom and I got in a fight over who ate the last cookie all right so when we so we see the action Tom goes for the cookie no cookie he looks at Eric you pig you ate the last cookie again Tom I didn't eat the last cookie, you did. No, you did. No, you did. And they cut back and you see the footage. The last time we got into the cookie fight.

And then the format mandates that you go off in the room when Eric's not around and we have a one-on-one interview and we hear Tom's side of the story. That's called an OTF on the fly. It's an interview that Tom is doing referencing live to tape action that we just saw, a confrontation. Now we want to get inside of Tom's head when he's alone without any undue influence from Eric, right? That's an on the fly. So we took these on the fly, we took that on the fly format, that technique. It's just a technique.

It's not a format. It's a technique, a tool. We took that, which we knew was working really well in reality because everybody did it and still does. But we went, wait a minute, that would work really good in wrestling because when you see a wrestling, promo back then all you ever saw is all right standing guy oh there's randy orton go by randy come on in here let's talk about your match tonight boom you've seen that interview that promo you've seen that style that technique about a million times and nobody was doing the on the fly style not consistently at least you see them every once in a while but not as a part of television usually they were part of a

package or something like that so we just said shit let's do that so we now we created a show Did you find the name of the show? So I have a list of the Hervey Bischoff Entertainment shows here. So I got Hardcore Pawn Chicago, C-Dad Run, The Devil's Ride. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's that. Is it too later on? There's Confessions of a Teen Idol. No, those are all the shows that we create and produce for other networks.

For other networks, okay. Yeah. I'm going to think of it before this show's over. We'll get it. We'll get it. But we took it. took those we took that technique in time i'll finish it up and the other thing that we also did and this was so important and very few people understood why they liked it as much as they did

and it's because in reality for television we were doing we were shooting in uh what was it was three Sony 5d we're shooting in a digital format that the the Sony 5d camera was the only camera that you could shoot that format in. And it was cutting edge format because it was a, and when I say format, I'm not talking about a paper format. I'm talking about the form, the digital format of the camera. Right. And at the time, it was the only camera that allowed you to shoot at a speed that made your, major shots look like you shot them on film. Right. And it was really sensitive to light, which means you could do a lot more with a lot less. And we knew that worked in digital and that's where all of the big digital or all the reality producers that were

much bigger than we were they were going to that because the networks loved it it made it feel so real and just you can almost taste it because of that new format and we thought well fuck we got a guy working for us that knows how to do that so we had tna hire him to be our photographer for this new series that followed impact and the audience it's everybody loved it so it was a combination of that style of promo which nobody else was doing and using that canon or that it was canon 5d yeah canon 5d that digital the digital format that looked like film that nobody in wrestling was using and it really made that show pop and that's just another example you know it's not going to change the world but interestingly enough about a month

after we started doing that we're all proud of it because nobody else was doing it. I was in Nashville. I was having a beard of bar and WWE was on television and they started doing it. Of course. Of course. D in the same digital format, I thought you bitches, I immediately reached for my, I immediately reached for my Twitter and I started posting, put myself over. Well, you know, it's funny, Erd, because you say, I was just a little thing, but no, I really think that's one of the things that for me as a viewer really stood out, about the compelling storytelling of Aces Nates. We were seeing something on TNA television

that was very different from what we were seeing on WWE television at the time. And I mean, truly, yeah, it looked cinematic. You know, long before we had cinematic matches, you know, those segments of people either being, you know, kidnapped and thrown into a van, the clubhouse, where Sting and Hulk Hogan are being, you know, sort of negotiated with as Joseph Park is being tortured,

in the background where I believe you were actually the person sitting in and sort of playing the role of the president, at least your voice was in that early sort of segment, but that was so different from anything that WWE was doing at the time. And so it wasn't just, you know, the long-term, long-term storytelling aspect and the great way that you structured that true mystery story with ACEs and 8, but it was the way that you were telling that story as well through the format, through that camera, through those, you know, behind the scenes, OTF, sort of, you know, segments. But when you look at what WWE was doing at that exact same time, and you look at their storylines, you know, there were mostly short-term feuds.

They were feuds that were really just matches more than anything else. One of the biggest ones, I actually had to look this up. What was going on in WWE back around the time that the ACE's innate storyline was going on? And one of the biggest, quote-unquote, stories was the big show, Seamus. feud. I was watching WW Weekly back then. I don't remember that feud at all. Honestly, their most, perhaps

lasting ones were the long-term stories that they were telling by barely telling them. So you had the end of an era, which was obviously the story between Triple H and the Undertaker, but both those guys really weren't on

TV anymore until like WrestleMania time, but they had so much history with the audience that it felt like a long-term story. And then the other one was Rock and Sina, which again, Rock was maybe on TV once a month, building to his big WrestleMania match that was going to be months away, you know, with John Sina. So really, when you look back at that 2012 time period, you know, Aces and Ates really stood out as a long-term story that unfolded over the course of 18 months. I mean, truly, that's what we all agree is what made wrestling great in the 60s and the 70s and

the 80s. But then as we started to get into the 90s and the 2000s and started to get a little bit more toward, you know, crash TV and stuff like that, you know, and maybe wrestling lost its way a little bit, maybe it became too much in the moment. And then by the time that WCW closed and ECW closed and really the WWE was the only story in town, the only show in town, again, it kind of felt like to a lot of the audience that maybe they just kind of sort of rested on their laurels a little bit and maybe didn't focus as much on that long-term storytelling because we can just put rock and scene it together they'll fight well we'll do a feud with Seamus and big show who knows what it's about but they'll have like 15 matches over the next few months so I think that a lot of credit definitely goes to the

work that you did and the creative team at TNA for really again just kind of helping to to jolt the wrestling industry again with that long-term storytelling and with the way that you brought in those those cinematic elements so those are things that got big credit in my my book. And you got to think, too, at that time, that was, like, a really big golden age of, like, primetime quality television. You had, like, Breaking Bad was right in the swing of things. You had Suns of the Anarchy, obviously, which we'll talk about. I'm sure where Mad Men was really on everything. People were really looking for, like, quality kind of television and good storytelling that had so many layers to it, too. So, like, you know, W.E. not really giving

the wrestling fan that kind of, you know, satiation over a course of time where it was, like, good, long-term storytelling something like aces and ace was like boom it kind of even popped really more on the wrestling product so you know what i think happens and i'm guessing here i was obviously i wasn't in w w at the time but you know when you when you have so much success with the rock and the sina coming off austin and that you had a basically two generations wrestling generations as far as superstars go uh of massive success and then you have guys like the undertaker and the the bank that's just instant you know that's insta cash as they say at my bank um you just know all you need to do is hit a button and it's going to spit money and that's a wonderful thing

however what happens is it allows you to find comfort in short-term planning because just about anything you do is going to be pretty awesome yeah exactly you've built so much momentum behind you it's like it's tsunami of fandom behind you and you can make a change and go from the long-term storyline that created that tsunami the long-term storyline process which creates that tsunami and then once you create it you can you it's like a surf you could ride that thing for a long time And you don't notice until you're getting a little bit out of wave that you no longer have any momentum behind you. And I think that that period of time between, hell, this wave's never going to stop. This is easy to, holy crap, we're going to fall off this board in a minute.

Right. That's the period of time when you take your eye off the ball. You forget what got you to the dance. You're not as disciplined about your long-term storytelling. You're not as disciplined about your continuity. You're not looking for those big beats to advance your story to the following week. You're just kind of getting by with what's really working because, well, we're surfing. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a great point. As a fan back then, too, simply as a fan, how all I was, was I remember being like, kind of like, oh, what's going on? Okay, I can kind of skip this week, a raw or whatever. But then WrestleMania season started picking up, and boom, you know, you'd be hit with those big stories. Okay, things are feeling big time right now. And then, you know, so to your point of riding the wave, it was very much. about you talking about how do you feel about that yeah you know it's kind of funny when we look back on the last you know maybe 20 somewhat years or so of w w tv television that's maybe a little bit too

broad maybe the last 10 15 years you know i kind of consider it as the lost generation because i do feel like there was such little storytelling happening such little character development or at least such illogical character development and there was such a reliance on those great old legends from 20 30 years ago that i feel like you know we lost out who's going to be inducted into the of Fame in 2027, you know, hopefully by that point, maybe we'll be up to the Becky Lynch's and the Sasha Banks and those stars that have really been cultivated in the last couple of years, but there was that long stretch back in the 2010s, that sort of time that we're talking about where, you know, beside Orton and beside Sina and beside Batista and Brock, you know,

there really weren't many talents or at least many characters that I think can be headlining WrestleMania now 10 years into the future, like Undertaker and Triple age and Rock were doing 10 years ago based on their work from 10 years, 20 years prior. So it's really interesting. You know, when we talk about long-term storytelling, I think one of the best examples in modern storytelling is simply looking at the Marvel Cinematic Universe and looking at the way that they introduce Iron Man and Captain America and Thor and, okay, you have proven these are blockbuster successes. You can just keep turning those movies out. And they did. But while doing that, they were building up the Guardians of the Galaxy. And they were building

up Shang-she and they were building up, you know, Captain Marvel and all these other people who are now taking over the franchises and who are now going to be those characters that are going to lead us into the next generation of storytelling with them. And I do feel like there was a missed opportunity there with WWE during that sort of time period. But, you know, it's funny what you just said a minute ago, Dom, is so true. In that time, you're looking at Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Empire. more recently, Succession, and of course, Sons of Anarchy, trivia question, can you guess what all of those great television series, those episodic serials had in common? Is there one

particular author who you think they were all inspired by if you had to maybe take a guess? You know, it might be that guy in the lower right-hand corner of us. Is that Shakespeare fellow down there? William Shakespeare, that's right. You know, it's one of those things that it's fascinating, you know, when you look at the most influential humans in history, Shakespeare, whenever there's one of those lists, is usually in the top three because his works were so prolific and so global. And he really changed the game and his techniques and his stories are still being used today to launch some of the greatest modern stories. And Eric, I got to admit this. I'm a little embarrassed. Sons of Anarchy was inspired by Hamlet, but I still haven't had a chance to go back and watch Sons of Anarchy.

And it's my understanding that this was your inspiration for Aces and Ates and one of your favorite TV shows. Is that right? Yeah. Yes, without question. But it wasn't obvious to me. It's just, and again, you know, it's so, I always have a hard. I struggle whenever I try to talk about what, how. Where did this idea come from?

Right, right. Because the come from is a series of little creative data points that pop off in my head randomly over a period of time until one day I wake up and go, oh, well, there's a connect that. Oh, that's a picture. All those dots are, is it actually a picture? But can I tell you which dot happened first? I can't. But here's where I think it truly is for me. I've always looked.

Look, I grew up when Easy Rider came out with Peter Fonda. I was like, I don't know, maybe 12. I can't remember how old I was. I was old enough to think, wow, that is badass. But not old enough to really understand what any of it all meant. I just dug the motorcycle because of those fishtail pipes and a sissy ball. That was it for me. And I thought to myself, someday, you know, I might have been 10.

or 12. Someday, a 20-something-year-old me is going to have a chopper with fishtail pipes. But my point is, I've always been kind of attracted to motorcycles, but I got my first one and I was 13. I've literally been riding a motorcycle since I was on the streets, since I was 14 years old, two years before I had a driver's license. So I've always enjoyed motorcycles and the culture that comes with it. But at this particular period of time, I don't know what year was, 2012, 11, somewhere in there. At that point in time, not only was Sons of Anarchy really emerging as a huge hit for

FX, but it dealt with the world of motorcycle clubs. Notice I didn't say gangs because that's disrespectful. and we don't want to do that. But the motorcycle club culture. And, oh, I can't remember the name of the creator of that, which is unfortunate because he follows me on Twitter. That is something I can look up quick, though. Yeah, thanks, because you help me cover my ass here.

But the creator, the director of that particular idea, had such a good feel for it. Kurt Sutter. Kurt Sutter. Yep. Kurt with a K Sutter. Yep. Kurt Sutter had such a

honest to goodness genetic feel for that world that the stories that came out of that series, you weren't watching a documentary. It was clearly entertainment, but was entertainment with such attention to detail and integrity in terms of that world that someone like me could not help but be interested in it because that world is a little bit like, you know, mob movies, mafia movies, right? It's why we always are attracted to those movies when they're done well is because

that world is mystical to us, right? And it's been, you know, romanticized a lot too over the decades. But it's just a fascinating part of our culture. And to me, so is the motorcycle club culture. And Kurt Sutter did such a phenomenal job of bringing the honesty of that world to the table. Even the ugly part of it, you know, he did, he was true with it. And there were a number of Hells Angels that were evolved in the production and as performers in that show, which I thought was really cool, too. But that's what made me interested in that show.

So my interested sons of the anarchy was because I've always been interested in that world. and at the same time now I'm in a position to try to come up with an idea and I see these elements. I see bully, Billy Rav always just since I started since I first met him on that. This is a special talent. He's got a gift, right? It's really smart.

I love working with him. You know, I got my son. I got West Briscoe. I got some young talent. I got to try to get over, but I've got this great, you know, statesman and bully, this great, a lot of equity in that character, tremendous amount of integrity in that character. I can bring those two disparate kind of cultures together, bring

those young guys in, they can get a rub from this guy if the story works. So it was my little light bulbs went off over a period of time, and I was surely influenced by the success of X, of FX and sons of anarchy. But we were also, Jason Hervey and I, more Jason than me at the time. We're also producing a reality show based on a motorcycle club. And we're doing that down in San Diego. And that was kind of happening while, you know, Jason was developing devil's ride, right? That was the name of the show. It was on Discovery Network, right? So Jason's got that. I'm doing ACEs and AIDS. So he's in that reality world of that bike club with real bike club members, and I'm over here doing fictional bike club stuff in professional wrestling.

So it was really kind of a fun time. And it, obviously, it was successful. You know, if you talk to bully, you know, success in TNA, how do you measure that? You know, you can go back and look at the ratings during that period of time to see how Aces and Aides was doing. You can look at some of the pay-per-view or pay-per-views that were involved with Aces and Aids in the main event and you know look at some of those numbers but you know what means more to me than any of those data points was bully who's a no bullshit kind of character he doesn't blow smoke

to anybody for anybody under any circumstances no matter how much he likes you he just tells you the truth right whether you like it or not yeah and i've heard him saying a number of occasions in interviews that i wasn't a part of that he thinks that was one of the best storylines he's ever been vault with. So that to me is all the endorsement I need. I think Moly was a perfect fit for it too. Even like I remember him saying, I think it was unbusted open that he wasn't, he didn't even know how to write a motorcycle, nothing like that, nothing to that effect. But he conveyed a lot of that like to what you were saying, just like a direct person, no bullshit kind of identity that he could convey that kind of president of a biker club, you know, in a lot of ways. So he really,

he was hitting his stride there, but that helped elevate him, too, I think, to another. Well, it was a little different. You know, and Bulley, I think even did an episode of 83 weeks with us, and we talked about it, you know, because he remembers a lot more of it than I do, to be honest with you. You know, I was involved with a lot of stuff then, and my memory has never been good, but as time goes on, it's not getting any better either. That's funny. That's how you say it.

But, you know, when I first came to bully with you, idea if i remember the conversation correctly bully was like i'm not doing that you know he didn't say that necessarily to me but he went back and his bully tells a story so i don't know anything about motorcycle i don't want to know anything about motor i don't know anything about bikers i don't even want to but you know i've worked him over a little bit and got him a little bit interested and once he in once he embraced it he just he owned it he didn't he didn't he didn't he He didn't step into it and try it on. He owned it from the get-go.

And take us back to that pitch, Eric, when you were pitching to bully, was it primarily just, you know, this idea for this new character for him, this new faction, or was part of the storyline also the idea that, hey, this is going to be something that we're going to tell over the course of months and months. This is going to be an 18-month rollout. Was that at all part of the initial conversation? It was a really more just big-picture sort of thematic sort of discussion that got him excited. Honestly, I would have never pitched it as an 18-month storyline because I knew by then there's no way I have any control over that. And I would never go to bully and someone that I respect and say, this is what this is going to be. If you jump off this cliff with me, because this is a brand new character for you, it has nothing to do with the rest of the stuff you used to do. You're going to put out a whole new set of clothes here, and we're going to jump off this cliff together.

And it's okay because it's going to be 18 months before we hit bottom. And if he hits bottom in three months, I'm the ass. Right. So I would have never promised that. And truthfully, even if I would have had an 18-month plan, I wouldn't have pitched it. But we didn't. My goal at that time is let's create this storyline that gets some young talent over that we can make work for the next 60 to 90 days. I always looked at my story arcs and TMA as 90-day arcs.

or 120 90 day arcs because I would go in and pitch by a com 90 quarterly storyboards or story show Bibles. So I'd have every quarter, they would have a show Bible that would take them through everything that's going to happen for the next three months. So I built my storylines accordingly. Well, you know, it's kind of interesting as Dom and I have kind of been looking, back over this story and kind of reliving that story. It's interesting that you say that now, because it wasn't something I may be noticed at the time. But as I'm reviewing my notes here now, there is that sort of like 90 days, and then a big reveal or reset 90 days, and then a big reveal or reset 90 days. And so I do think, you know, that format worked really well for you. I mean,

take us back, you know, it was July 14th, 2012, the debut of aces and eights of all the people to attack. I mean, if you had to wonder, are these guys' faces, are these guys' geals? They attack Sting as he's discussing his induction into the TNA Hall of Fame. What made you all say, let's go for Sting. I mean, obviously, there appear to be some pretty clear elements. He's the legend. He's just got announced to be into the Hall of Fame. But why Sting? Why not, why not Hogan? Why not Kurt Engel? Were there any other people that you initially thought, ooh, this is going to start us out with a bang if we have Aces and Ate's attack this person? I mean, the reason I wouldn't have used Hogan is because Hogan wasn't capable of taking any bumps.

All right. And I'm a firm believer, and it's funny, I just had a discussion last evening with someone who has to remain unnamed because he's currently employed. And I don't want to get him in trouble. There you go. I'm putting undue heat on him. Right. but this individual call me looking for some help or just some ideas not help that's the wrong way of saying it there was no desperation involved it was a conversation that sounded something like

hey i really want to go pitch something but i want it to be different i wanted to stand out and would you mind working with me on something and i thought you know what i've got time that when i say i have time i have to make time for things like that because that kind of of creative process exercises of muscle in my brain that I've kind of forced into retirement because I don't want to get back into television this time will tell you I don't want to get back into television when somebody pitches me ideas and evolve creative I typically point them to somebody else that I know they can do a better job than me because I'm really not interested in it and I don't want to be but as a result of that that part of my brain is getting a little

soft and I recognize that so I agreed so I listened to this person's idea and the first thing I said was cool when you make your when you show up are you a heel or are you a baby face and the response and I'm paraphrasing this because in case he's listening I don't want to make him feel bad but he said well you know I'm not really sure I kind of like being a baby face but you know I know I know I know they need to heal, but I'm not, but I can do both. I said, I know you can do both. You're a talented guy, but that's not the question. For you, for me to be able to help you with your idea, I have to know what do you want to be. Let's start with who are you? Let's start with

that. And once we, once we know who you are, then here's what I told him. I said, let's not think about a story or an angle or matches or anything. Let's think about the match you're going to have three months from now. Imagine the most exciting last five minutes of any match you could possibly have. In other words, give me your best finish. And I want it in detail. I want you to walk me through the last five minutes of your 30-minute match and tell me exactly how it ends.

And that's where we're going to start. And so I'm literally walking him through this process because he's a good dude. I really like him. But more for me so that I can get that thing working again. Right. Just flopping around inside of my head. it's like a fish at a beach

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ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Well, it's, you know, it's funny you say that because you're right. You know, for audiences to really believe in a character and relate to them, you have to be able to understand them. Whether you, whether you are cheering them or whether you're opposed to them, you need to know what their motivation is. And I think that was one of the brilliant things that you did with this storyline. When the time finally came for bully to explain why he did what he did and laid out, nine months, looking back, nine months of storytelling, this is what we did here. That's why we did that. This is why we did that. We did it for that reason. You know, it all made such great sense,

but I think what was so exciting for us on that first nine month ride was really all the questions and wondering, you know, why are they attacking Sting? Why do they want to cause chaos and run roughshot here in TNA? You know, who are these guys? And then as they started to be revealed, you know, and we keep hearing about this higher power, you did an excellent job of telling that mystery and getting viewers to tune in week after week and keeping them compelled to know, okay, I have to get to the end of this story.

I have to find out who this is that's orchestrating all this. And I think you're right. I don't think you could have picked anyone better from the TNA roster than Bully Ray. And I think that was made quite clear from the amount of garbage that was thrown in the ring at him when he was revealed as the president.

You know, and again, that's, That's one of the cool things that, and you touch on it right there. One of the things, and I figured it out with Nitro. I mean, I had a basic fundamental understanding of formats, very fundamental, like formatting 101. But I knew cliffhangers work. I like them. Most people do. and I was so focused on creating cliffhangers even early on,

but I got better at it. I was much better at it in T&A than I was in WCW because I had a better understanding of it largely because of what I learned on the reality side of the process from studios, from studio executives at the highest levels. I've worked with some of the biggest ones in the industry. I've worked with Mark Burnett. I've worked with a lot of them.

Mike Darnell, who was there for a long time. It was Mike Darnell and Mark Burnett is the two most prolific, you know, reality producers in the industry during that, the peak of its payday. And I got to work with both of them, some more than others. But a lot of guys like that. Tom Beers, I got to work with extensively. Tom Beers is one of the most successful, prolific reality. non-scripted producers in the history of television. The guy that created, you know,

Deadliest Catch and Monster Garage and any number of testosterone-driven life-or-death extreme-type shows in extreme environments, there's probably a Tom Beer show. And I got to work extensively with Tom. On projects together, developing them. So you just learn a lot by being able to work with smart people.

And I was able to take that and really apply to Aces and A's in a way that focused on the episodic cliffhanger. And you've touched out it a couple of times there, but it was really the focus of it all for me. Even more than the cliffhanger elements of it was creating questions. I learned by accident, not by design, I got lucky, but I learned up creating the who's the third man and all of the horsepower and energy that that created, I knew that I had to keep a whole, I need to keep that card in my pocket

because that's a card you should use. You can't overuse that card too much. You know, getting people, and I'm, and you have to be smart about it. You have to be creative about it, like everything else in television, if it's going to work. It's not easy,

but the more you can create, subtle, almost indiscernible, indiscernible elements to a story that create questions, consciously or subconsciously in the viewer's mind. They're coming back, as opposed to telling them things. When you tell them things and they don't have anything to think about, you're missing half of the equation. You're leaving half of the value on the table. but if you can get them to enjoy what they're washing but at the same time create ways

to get them to ask subtle questions of themselves and you own them and that was the other thing with aces and aides and i might have overdone it sometimes but creating those questions was really my biggest goal creatively a lot of those shows though back at that time too at the golden area stuff yeah like breaking bad created so many questions at the end of the episode where it was just like, and the tension just created so high where it was just like, I have to tune in next week to see what's going on. And so it really spoke to a lot of that time period as well, too, of like, what is engaging about the storytelling of that area and like the standards, the expectations of people that had

back then. Yeah, and look, we probably, you know, I'm going to put it professionally and say, oh, I'm sure I was influenced by things like Breaking Bad. I stole their shit. Right. There you go. Hey, that's what great literature is. Again, it's the seven things, seven stories told over and over.

Yeah. I didn't invent stealing other people's shit. They've been doing it for centuries. Right. Well, you know, what is quite funny, what you're talking about here, Eric, and Dom, what you're referencing to about, like, this binge-worthy television now and, like, sort of episodic television, how do you get people to stay around for the next week to watch the next episode? Or how do you get people after a long day to click that, yeah, play next button? And yeah, I want to watch another one play next. And it's all about that.

And where this all started, this whole idea, Eric, you coined the term Sarsa. I believe that's an Eric Chopp original. Is that right? Yes, it is. That should be somewhere. Because honestly, even I had to like Google it and be like, okay, did Eric create that? Or was that in some sort of like screenwriting dictionary or manual or reference or something? I'm very impressed by that.

Because, yeah, I think that's a great motto to live by as a creative. it's story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action. Sarsa, Eric, that's, you know, that's brilliant. And what you're doing there is you're distilling down really what Charles Dickens was trying to figure out on the fly. And this will be my last sort of tangent, but what you've hit on here is really aligns well with how Dickens really came to prominence. He was credited with creating the serial story, the episodic story. Now, that's not a chapter book. There were novels before Dickens where you could sit down and read it and be done in a weekend and you could have compelling chapters that got people to keep reading. But Dickens published his novels in a very

quote unquote novel way where he would have it in weekly installments of a magazine. And these novels would run over the course of a year, 18 months, two years. And he was really pioneering this sort of new way of telling stories. And he had to figure out, how do I get people who bought my magazine this week to come back and buy it next week, tell their friends about it, get them to come and all of them buy it the following week, and then keep buying it over the course of 18 months to two years. And so it's fascinating because Charles Dickens, what he discovered was you really need to build in certain elements in order to get people coming back for stories for those good episodic serial stories. One of the key things is to really create characters

that audience, we've talked about this before, would invest in. that would get audiences to come back for more. They got attached to these characters. These couldn't just be boilerplate characters. These couldn't be stock characters. These couldn't just be flat characters like we've talked about, Dom, in the past. These have to be multidimensional characters that audiences will want to go on a ride with. So Dickens was really a master of characterization.

But also one of the things that he discovered was if I'm just telling one story, that story is going to run out of steam probably pretty quickly, or I'm going to be adding in a lot of padding at the end to draw this out. So what he did was he came up with the idea of telling multiple storylines at once and then interweaving them throughout and bumping them back and forth. And that I think is one of the things too that you did so masterfully with the Aces and Ate story. You've got the Aces and Ates going after Sting and Jeff Hardy and all the different good guys. But then over here you have this other really compelling story that seems totally divorced from the

Ace is an eight-story with bully, falling in love with Brooke falling in love with bully, but Hulk the legend doesn't want his daughter dating the bad boy, but come to find out this bad boy, he just wants to be like you, Hulk, you're his hero. He wants you to believe in him and give him the shot to team with Sting and represent TNA. So it's really interesting. That was one of the things that Dickens discovered as well that you implemented perfectly, having multiple storylines running that don't seem to necessarily be intertwined, but that do come together. at different points and ultimately come together in the day new month at the end but the last thing i'll say the third big thing is retrospective was key okay and what retrospective means is this is the other thing that i think you know really the aces and eight story deserves a lot of credits for it was at that midway point nine months in where bully is revealed as the president and he looks back and he takes us the audience through everything and now all of a sudden via retrospective by looking back on the story everything was

right there in front of our eyes. And as we were all trying to answer those questions that you just talked about, those red herrings, those swerves, those different things along the way, you know, we could have figured this out, but we weren't able to. And that, I think, is the great art of a great mystery story. And I'll just read from you here from 1861. There was a critic who talked about the success of Charles Dickens' great expectations. And he said that Each surprise was the result of art and not of trick. Okay, and that's really important because what you all did with Aces and Ates was an artful story. And so each surprise was the result of art, not of trick, for a rapid review of previous chapters has shown that the materials of a strictly logical development of the story were freely given.

Even after the first, second, third, and even fourth of these surprises gave their pleasing electric shocks. to intelligent curiosity, the denouement, basically the peak of the story, the big reveal, was still hidden, though it was confidently, or confidently foretold. So that's a guy, you know, 150 years ago looking at an Aces and Ates-like storyline and basically laying out the things that you mentioned here, Eric, that went into making that recipe, those ingredients for making a compelling story that would last 18 months, that would keep audiences coming back, asking questions, looking back, that power of retrospective, that power of episodic serial television. So again, you know, whether you knew it or not,

you were doing something there that was quite Dickensian, you and bully and the other members of the creative team there at TNA that were telling that story, it's really, it's almost goosebumps, you know, when you think about, you know, just how much you followed the game book, the game plan, rather, that a lot of people don't even know is the game plan that couldn't pinpoint it as accurately as that critic did back in the 1860s. You hit a home run with that one, I think. God, this is just fascinating. Right.

The fact that you can pull that out of thin air like that, just, oh, man. Tom, I feel smarter. I'm going to go have a salad in about an hour, and I feel like 10 times smarter when I do. top out of any all the like literary names to think about like i would have never guessed charles dickens was going to pop up on me right for anyone who's really bored over the holiday break if you're looking for something fun to do go read a dickensian novel he is truly perhaps the greatest storyteller uh you know shakespeare had his powers jane austin had her powers there are certainly lots of different uh arguments that can be made for many writers but

Dickens in some ways kind of created the suspense novel, the mystery novel. I mean, it's no surprise that then the 1800s after this serial form of storytelling started to really take root that, you know, just mystery fiction, detective fiction, you know, Gothic fiction really started to blow up. But it is those elements of suspense and mystery. Get their audience asking questions, have logical stories. We go back to Aristotle, that parapetia, that logical, those swerves, those, you know, those sort of red herrings along the way.

This is that sort of elemental storytelling that, again, I think you can look very clearly at what Dickens did, what Aristotle did, and lay Aces and Eighths, the Aces and Eighth storyline over that and see a lot of those same similarities there. Can you imagine what you and I could do book in the territory? Holy moose. We would have a lot of fun, no doubt. I think we could do some really big things. And even if we had some swings and misses, I'm pretty sure I could.

still find some way to connect it to a to clap you tied it in you would tie it in for sure somebody would have a gimmick too one of somebody would have a samuel johnson gimmick going on i think on there well you know it's funny you mentioned that about the gimmick eric and and dom i mean just as wrestling fans open question here uh why do we think that there haven't been more biker gimmicks in professional wrestling i mean when you think of you know those sort of cool stop characters that have been so popular in television, in film, in books, you know, you have the, you know, the cowboy, you have the gangster, you have the biker dude. Why is it that, looking back, I can only think of the disciples of apocalypse, which I would not say were the most compelling faction in WWE and

then, you know, the American badass version of The Undertaker, but that too is something that with all of these stories, again, there doesn't seem to be anything fresh or new in stories. Everything is kind of regurgitated, but when it comes to pro wrestling, I couldn't really think of a really great biker club or biker characters, with the exception, of course, of The Undertaker. But let's face it, that that gimmick was secondary to his dead man gimmick. You really kind of, did you realize, I guess, when you started to tell the story that, ooh, we have the opportunity here to tell a really compelling story about a biker club. And I can't think of any other stories on the WWE, WCW, ECW television, TNA, that have really done that story justice.

I didn't think about it going in at all. I mean, I realize it, I guess, after the fact. But, no, that, you know, the newness of it wasn't what appealed to me. What appealed to me was, I knew it was something that I could produce well, given the talent that I had, the situation we were in, and the resources that we had, that was still a story. And because of my own sensibilities and interest, that was a story that we could do a great job with.

And I didn't think about any of those other elements at all. From a fan perspective of mine, I mean, yeah, Undertaker immediately stands out. But like, and the Disciples of Boglips, Tom, like you said it too. They were, they had a cool look, but they didn't, there was nothing really to it. Look, that's another thing that we tried within the framework of what we could do on a wrestling show. To keep some of the integrity to the biker club culture, that was a part of it. Because I knew that it was an important part of it for Jason as he was producing Devil's Ride for our production company. Staying authentic and true to the culture was very important to a lot of the people that were involved in that show.

And a lot of the people that were involved in that culture in a real way. Read between those lines, if you will. Right. So it was important to Jason. And recognizing that integrity, creative integrity in art and sons of anarchy made me even more convinced. We had to do everything that we could do to reflect that same integrity to that world. And I think with the case of the undertaker, no disrespect to undertaker because I think he's one of the most, first of all, he's a great dude just as a dude. He's just, that's a guy you want to go turkey hunting and have a beer with.

Down earth. Yeah, Sid watched the sunset on the back of your pickup truck with a six-pack of beer and a dog. That's all you need. That's something I'll take to my grave if I ever had that opportunity. But that being said, that whole, you know, biker taker was short-lived. Not sure why they did it. But it didn't change who that character was. He wrote a motorcycle to the ring and he wore the headband and, you know, he had the look.

But it really didn't change his character. and just dressing people up as bikers and having them ride motorcycles in the ring will actually it won't offend the audience because they don't know the culture enough to be offended by it or not lack of integrity but everybody can see through it it's just okay now the wrestlers riding motorcycles I'm supposed to take a wild jump and go oh they must be bikers you can't suspend your disbelief enough to buy into that because there's no reason to buy into it they just showed up day dressed like that i'm still disappointed we never got the chance to see paul bear in the side car i know that was always person joke when tager decided to go to the paint type picture of yeah so

my time was done because i mean what you're gonna put me in the side car you know i say little things like you know having you know when we'd go backstage for interviews well they were into clubhouse yeah and by the way that was just like a steam room that seconded as a broom closet but that gritty, funky, you know, underground look played into that world because it's a subculture, you know? And so it was just really easy to make it feel credible and not just guys riding motorcycles of the ring wearing, you know, leather vests. Well, it's interesting because I think one of the things that came across to me as a viewer is the fact that, you know, I certainly wasn't on Aces and Eighth side. As an audience member, I viewed them as heels, but at the same time,

they were heels with a code of conduct. They were heels that, you know, you could almost take them at their word. You know, when they are in the clubhouse interrogating Sting and Hulkster, and, you know, they promise, we're going to hold on to Joseph Parks for the next few weeks. If you win, you get them back, and we're not going to harm them. And, you know, you see all these different sort of deals and negotiations that they were able to make that it almost made me feel like you know these aces and acees and eight characters even though that I felt like they were bad guys I still felt like it was almost some a code of honor that they know what you hit it right on the head and now you've never seen sons of anarchy you've admitted that but if you were to go back and watch a

few episodes that's the part of the culture that was important to bring to wrestling that gave it its believability because that's a subtle element but that code of honor is the most important thing in a biker club and that's what was intriguing about sons of anarchy is like you you had those guys that you could root behind like they were bad guys but you still like to jacks you still like tigs or whatever as a name was too because there were there were many things about that they had many redeeming qualities they were heels but there are heels with a heart and that's what the audience was interested in, still is. All right, time out.

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That's Russell B-I-Z at checkout. Launch your business plan faster with less effort than ever before when you visit Empira.com slash Eric today and start your journey to success. That's EMPI-R-A-A dot com slash Eric. Empira.com slash Eric. Yes. And well, along those same lines on Eric, were you anticipating that the audience might be divided with Aces and A-E-S that there might be some folks cheering them just as loud as other folks

booing them? Were you anticipating for the T&A audience and that studio sort of audience that was there watching the television tapings that they were going to be clearly, you know, booed by these maybe less sophisticated wrestling fans that were in the, you've talked before about in the studios, watching the studio format? So that's interesting because, yeah, these are guys that have a code. They do have a sense of honor to them. Were you expecting maybe a 50-50 reception? Were you expecting, like, full-heel reception? what did you think going into it and what it I'm so glad you asked that question

so in your world Tom in the world of literature and your world of professors and Harvard and all the things that you do have you ever heard the saying the end hangs on the beginning ooh I don't know if I have heard that one so maybe the person I stole it from maybe he made it up but I was

in a meeting once this is too long of a story but let me i'll just i'll condense it i was in a meeting once with a big time producer at the time can't remember his name see the pattern here but he at the time um was also managing like uh jennifer lopez and ben afflick and you know just really really he was a super high level manager but he also had his own production company i'll think of his name in a minute but anyway, Jason and I were in there pitching him an idea that we had one day, that we wanted to get into business with him out. And he loved to talk, right? He loved to get up there and pontificate.

But he was really good at it. He was a fascinating guy and really, really smart and really, really successful. So, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm free education here. Here we go. And he opened up by saying, my success is due to the fact that I firmly believe, that the end or the beginning, no, the end always hangs on the beginning. Yeah, the end always hangs on the beginning. I went, wow, that's fucking profound.

I don't know how to make that work for me, but I'm all in, right? And what you just did, Tom, and your question was give us a perfect example of how the end, which is what we're about to hear, hangs on the beginning, which is one of your first questions was, why did you go after Sting first? Why not? You know, and I said, I got sidetracked by saying, we didn't go after Hogan because we knew Hogan couldn't do anything physical, right? Kurt Angle may or may not have even been active at the time. Who knows, but he was married in a storyline. The reason we went for Sting, though, besides that, was because I was 100% confident, 100% confident that if Aces and A's went after Sting, there would be no ambiguity in their

character didn't matter what they look like and bear in mind the audience hadn't seen those elements of respect in code of honor yet right this is new but the reason i tied in the story about the individual i'm trying to help out a little bit is because while he was saying um you know i'm happy either being a healer or baby face and why i tried to impress why it was so important to pick one because you have to know your character and who you are in order to advance the story or who the character is in order to advance the story, amongst other things. But the other issue was this particular individual is fairly popular. And there's a chance, especially, and unless he decides that he is going to make a definitive statement from the get-go.

So there is no ambiguity as to whether or not he shows up as a heel or a baby face. If you don't commit to something and you get that half positive, half negative response, you're starting out of the hole. You're digging out of a hole immediately in your story. And for that same reason, I suggested an approach that would guarantee him to get heat. But that only works if you're going to commit to being a heel. If you're kind of wishy-washy, not sure if you're going to be a baby face,

it's probably not the idea for you. But if you are willing to embrace being a heel, then here's how you do that. And the reason it's so important is the same reason it was important for Aces and Aides to go after Sting, because Sting was such a beloved character. There was no ambiguity in his character. Nobody wasn't sure whether or not they should cheer for Sting.

he had 100% of the audience. That gives me 100% confidence that I'm going to be able to turn them on me if I do a dastardly act. See, and that's, you know, you certainly help reinforce that throughout the summer of 2012. You talk about the 90-day sort of pitches and you only kind of look 90 days out with this. With the Aces and 8th's debut, July 14th, 2012 attacking sting, they run roughshod over that summer, over TNA, over the baby faces. antagonists to Hulk Hogan. They're attacking Jeff Hardy, Austin Aries, bully Ray, who at the time, again, is someone that the audiences see clearly as a, you know, someone who's an emerging, you know, sort of white night, a hero, that sort of next generation who's going to stick up for Hogan and Sting

and TNA and, you know, all the way through, you know, Bound for Glory, October 14th, 2012, that all of a sudden, you know, that's about three months later, about 90 days later, That's when all of a sudden sting and bully face, you know, the members of the Aces and Apes, and we get our first reveal of Devon Dudley, Sergeant of Arms. And what's interesting was, again, we know retrospective is so important many, many months from now when Bubba Ray is revealed, correct me if I'm wrong, but when he's looking back and talking about his motivation as a heel, leading up to Bound for Glory, or rather leading up to no surrender in the Bound for Glory series, his match with Jeff Hardy, where Jeff Hardy beat him.

bully Ray, this whole time, the first few months, was running Aces and Ates just to kind of create chaos and hopefully, you know, unsettle all these different wrestlers on the roster, giving him an advantage to beat Jeff Hardy, to win the Bound for Glory series, to go on for, you know, the championship. And so that was initially his whole purpose for Aces and Ates. It wasn't until Hulk Hogan was one step ahead of him, locked out Aces and Ates, and kind of, you know, was a step ahead and foiled his plans. He then loses to Jeff Hardy. He loses his chance to go on for the World Championship that he then set his sights on Hulk Hogan. And we kind of get our next 90-day story where he starts romancing Brooke and getting into the, you know, into the good graces of Hulk Hogan only to turn on him. And now he's going to use his thieves, not just to, or his brothers in arms, so to speak, not just to run roughshot, but to go after Hulk Hogan and take down TNA. Do I have that basically correct?

can we look at the motivation or at least the initial motivation that you had in mind. Those first 90 days was leveraging Aces and Ates to kind of disrupt TNA and give bully a chance to go for that championship and secure it while everyone else was really just always caught off guard. And then the next 90 days was, okay, that didn't work. So now I'm sitting my sights and we're putting our full force on overturning our general manager, Hulk Hogan, NTNA, and ruining his life and his daughter's life and so on. Yeah, no, that was.

And in the beginning, you know, as you described it, you know, just to create havoc and get everybody looking in another direction. I mean, it's divide and conquer, right? It's distract by creating that distraction and getting people to the point where they didn't trust each other. And that's the quickest way to take over an organization is to get everybody in it to not trust each other or a country for that matter. Now, I don't want to get political, but that's how. But, I mean, it's classic storytelling, you know. And a lot of that probably came from sons of an anarchic because that show, one of the threads in that show

was always who's the mole, who is in this club that knows this information that could literally put us all away for life, you know, who can we really trust? And guys would use that concern about trust against each other for their own agendas. Well, I was taking some of that, one of those seven basic plots and putting it in one of my seven basic plots but that was an element that that helped create that story and and again gave it a little bit

of credibility yeah and again when we think of you know what makes dickens serial stories so successful it was that idea of the multiple storyline so here we have things branch off in november of 2012 all of a sudden aces and aides they start setting their sights on curt angle and he's feuding with you know devon at the helm doc is revealed as the next member he starts feuding with Joseph Park at Turning Point, November 11th. They were running roughshot over a lot of the young guys, Magnus, Eric Young, Samoa Joe, Garrett, Wes, and still going after Hardy, Angle, Sting, and others. But then over here on the other side of the story, it's Brooke and bully and Hull and those

complex stories. So it does kind of, again, you just talked a moment ago about distracting the audience. you're really in a great way distracting the audience from what's going on over here and what's going on over here and not thinking that they could have anything in common until all of a sudden, you know, in early 2013, after the reveal at Brooke and Bulley's wedding, where Taz, the best man, all of a sudden turns out to be a member of the Aces and Ates and other people are revealed like Mr. Anderson and Knox. all of a sudden we're realizing that wait a minute here maybe these stories are somehow intertwined and then finally you know we see in march 7th of the following year delo is revealed as the BP and then at at lockdown 2013 that's when bully ray defeats jeff hardy and it's finally revealed after all the other members have been unmasked and are now fighting proudly as members of the aces and eights that higher power as tas mentioned that's still out there is finally revealed in the swerve of swerves certainly probably TNA's greatest swerve in their 20 year history. It's revealed that it's Bubba. It's

bully. It's bully. The man who we thought was, you know, winning Brooks heart and who was going to make Hulk proud and who's going to defend TNA. It was him all along. And again, it was one of those great reveals that I think the power of it can be seen simply from, you know, watch, watch bullies turn with the volume down even. You know, they always talk about, you know, when you can really see the impact. watch it with a volume up first. His promo was amazing. And the crowd reaction was amazing. But if you watch it totally on mute and you just see the crowd reaction and the garbage being thrown into the ring and people being pelted by bottles and bully reveling in that. This is exactly what he wanted. All of you fools played right into my hands. It's that vindication for that character that just feels so good. Dom, what was your reaction to that whole sort of evolution and reveal? And were you as surprised as everyone else that was there in the audience that night when it was finally revealed that it was

bully all along? Yes, I was. And I think to the level of him delivering that promo just hammered home the fact that how dastardly and evil of a son of a bitch bully rate could be as a heel. And it made me

think too. And to almost to bring this to something on today's product is what MJF did to William Regal this like It was a couple weeks ago as we were reporting this and just hit it. It's just like you made a deal with the devil, and Bully Ray was a devil in that whole aspect of the game of unfolding it to everybody. And I see a lot of like the similarities of like just being that pure heel that you do not get a lot of times these days. And Bully just fully embrace that.

And it just, that promo, that angle, it just set him to that next level of like Bully Ray is a viable single star as, you know, his own act. You know, what's really interesting, and I'm really glad you pointed that out about bully and MJF, because there's a big reason why I'm, you know, I'm a big fan of MJF, I mean, as a character. And we have a little bit of a connection. We stay in touch, you know, social media type of thing, text every now and in. Because he knows how much I respect, how much respect I have for what he's accomplished so far. And he's, you know, he's a baby. when I say I have shoes older than him sometimes I say that as a joke it's not a joke it's the truth

I still have shoes and wear them that are older than him and you look at how good he is how natural MJF is and one of the reasons even though I don't know him well I don't have to I know he loves being a heel he doesn't like it he's not willing to do it he loves it so does bully and when you look at two i would argue today even though bully is not on a big platform he's not in wwees not in AEW, I still put bullies heel work on the mic, in the ring, out on the street. I put bullies heel work right up there with anybody that anybody thinks is the best in the business today. And with the exception of a MJF, because I think those two are neck and neck.

I agree. In terms of talent, and I think the common denominator is, they, both freaking love it and the other thing too is it's the believability you speak to like who bully ray is he doesn't he's not a bullshit and it's just like that comes through that conveys through and him is he'll work and him just like being and even on busted open if he wants to give an opinion he'll give his opinion it's not he doesn't sugarcoat it he says things and it conveyed a lot through that character that he portrayed on tna because it was believable you know and It's funny, you know, you guys talking about these great villains, and it's so true.

You know, some of these guys are born to live out these roles, but they need those stories written for them, and they need that opportunity. They need that camera time. And I think what really, you know, we can give additional props to bully and MJF4 is when they got the time, when they got the story, they delivered, and they brought it beyond maybe even what people's wildest expectations are. Eric, you know, maybe as we are closing in on the 90 minutes here, you know, the story was so compelling. There was such a great rise. Bulley Ray is revealed. However, it's crazy to think that just a few months after that, you're no longer with TNA. You've moved on. And just about maybe six months after that, Aces and Ates are totally dissolved. What, you know, how do you feel about, and Dom, as a fan, too? How do you guys feel about? the way that the Aces and Eighth storyline had such a great build, such a great reveal, but then maybe seemed to have the wheels fall off in some direction, or rather, you know, as the story got to an end, is that what you envision for the end of the story? Help us just understand, like, what that timing was like, and is that how bully,

and the other members of the Aces and Ates wanted to wrap up that story? Oh, I can't speak for any of them. You know, I will tell you that that story and the production of it, I mean, I directed it, I wrote it, directed it, and my fingerprints were all over it. And I had help from other people. I don't want to suggest that I did everything by myself. That's not true. But in terms of the conceit of that story and the execution of it,

and the development and continuation of it, that was 100% mine. Here's what happens when they get rid of the guy and the story that he created 100% that was his nobody wants that story anymore and what happened is john gaburek big as he's referred to came over from wwe and you know deep down inside he wanted to be the guy he wanted to he didn't want to be a part of a team he wanted to be the guy he came in initially as a part of the team but he had his own plan and i don't know you know we've sensed you know we're we're good you know we hug each other when we see each other it's all good but it is what it is and was what it was and when john started getting a little bit of leverage and it started

to become a little bit uncomfortable between he and i because i'm not one to back down too quickly um and it got to be in this thing and i was gone i was asked to leave john was the new shiny object i'd been around for a while and i was a little contankerous to begin with so you know easier to make this guy go away and let's take the new shiny object that we think is going to change everything for us. And John came in and John did what anybody would have done in his position is he took that Eric Bischoff storyline and just unwound it. And it certainly didn't have anybody that had a feel for that story overseeing it. Nobody really wanted to be involved in producing or directing it and they're thinking about it creatively. So it just died essentially

a natural death. And from my perspective, it was a fan back then. I wanted more. I did. I wanted more to see who would join the club, what the club could turn into more. I just thought there was a lot more potential in.

And there was any original idea was, I got this veteran, this guy that's over, Bully Ray. I got these young guys, but they need something that'll give them credibility without over-exposing them too soon and just putting them out there in matches.

What do we do? with this, this being aces and aides. But the original idea was for members of the aces and eights to then spin out of it. Either turn on the club, turn on each other, start another club, which eventually would become a rival. I mean, there was a million ways to go with it. Once you establish the characters, you could have gone any number of directions with it. But like I said, nobody wants to inherit somebody else's idea. It's almost like the NFL where a GM, a new GM comes in.

There's an established quarterback in there. And, you know, they want to draft a new QB because it's their own, you know, it comes into that same thing. Same thing. It's not nefarious. It's not, doesn't mean he was a bad person. It's human nature. And it's probably the right thing to do.

Because when you come in and take over something, you've got the people around, you have to believe, you know, you're in 100% control. And it is what it is. Like I said, John and I are friends now. We don't care. We laugh about it. Have a beer of charcoal. No big deal.

Way to do it. I was going to say, yeah, Eric, you said before in the perfect scenario, it would lead to a bully versus Hulk, sort of in that sort of big final battle, so to speak. Was there any discussion, we know obviously Hulk was really beat up at the time, going through multiple surgeries? Was there any discussion of cinematic matches? You have this great background with, you know, reality television and scripted television. We'd seen some, you know, cinematic matches at the time,

even though we didn't necessarily call them that, things like halftime heat or the boiler room brawl. So it wasn't totally unheard of, but is that something that ever sort of ran through your minds and creative at TNA doing some sort of a create or a cinematic style match on a set or was helped like in such rough shape at the time that even that, We heard from Undertaker that is that his Boneyard match was probably the most taxing match he'd ever been in because of the number of takes and just how rigorous it was as compared to, you know, 10 minutes in the ring. Was there ever any consideration of that? And by the way, you named us some very famous cinematic matches and you excluded what I think is probably one of the earlier ones, if not the earliest.

And I think one of the most profound because it was live. Well, it was actually light to tape. But it was on the back of a moving semi-truck, blacktop bully. That's right. Justin Rhodes. They're wrestling on the back of a semi-truck, a flatbed, going down the highway. If that's not cinematic, I don't know what is. I still remember to this day sitting as a child watching that being transfixed and having every member of my family walking by the living room and actually stopping.

None of them were wrestling fans saying, what is this? What's going on? That's a good one. So was blacktop bully and Dustin Rhodes. They were going, what are we doing? What is happening here? Oh, that's funny. Look, there was a conversation because Hulk wanted it so bad.

I mean, it involved his daughter. It was a great story. Hulk really, really respected bully and trusted bully. And he wanted so bad. And there was discussions about it. but ultimately we decided against it. But there was no discussion about any kind of cinematic match. That would be cool.

Hindsight's 2020 because it's like you see how the cinematic matches. I don't think he could have pulled it off for the same reason that Undertaker described as it being so tough because it looks, you know, yeah, shooting that kind of in that style. Take, no, sorry, lighting is a little bit off. We're going to shoot that again. Okay, yeah, can you do just one more? Here's one thing you hear when you're on set. if you're a talent, let's just do one more for safety.

Yeah, right. No, that was good, but, you know, one more safety, just one more, because that one was, I think you could do it a little bit better. You get one, you do one more for safety to death on those things. And that would have been way harder for Hulk to getting into the ring in an environment that he's familiar with, having a guy like bully who would be able to camouflage so much. But it was at that point where Hulk would even have a hard time getting in and out of the ring so doing anything in the ring would have been too risky what if you did it

on the back of a flatbed truck with a whole bunch of hay no if i'd have thought of it i'd have thrown it out there who knows maybe somebody would have bit you saw that an episode of thunder and paradise already perhaps one of the seven basic plots perfect that's right and always hangs in the beginning with that i got to go guys thank you very much thank you guys for taking yep and hey everybody yep get grateful too on it i got it right here so get great thank you you're welcome yep tom it's been great man yeah as always dumb it's a pleasure taking a look at wrestling angles from all angles today's episode was really exciting getting a chance not necessarily maybe to do an episode by episode breakdown but really get into the mind of the

person who like eric said had his fingerprints all over the story hear about some of the decisions that they made some of the planning that they did the rationale behind uh some of their uh some of their ideas. To me, this one was really fascinating. It'll be interesting to see where we go next with in-depth. We've got lots of other great storylines to break down. And who knows what other guests we may have on in the future. Again, we encourage folks to watch this, download it, listen to it, and give us your feedback.

You know, we've been so happy to see the feedback from the prior few episodes, and we can't wait to share with you what's next. And yeah, give the listens to the old episodes. They're timeless. So if you haven't gotten to dive into the mega powers, I don't know, Tom. Are you a wrestling figure fan? Have you, like, have you kept your eyes peeled on some? Did you see?

Did you see what's available right now? I saw. I saw, and I'm very tempted, very tempted to pick it up. It's funny. I was one of the people who right as the major wrestling figure podcast started to blow up. I was like, I've been sitting on these yellow card, Hasbro figures since I was like, you know, 10 years old. I'm finally going to sell them.

my HBK mint on card and my Kamala mint on card and all these different things. I sold them off, made a nice mint on him. But boy, do I miss him. And I'm like, am I really going to start collecting again? And that mega powers figure that just came out, I'm like, man, alive. I feel like I need that. It's a slippery slope, Tom. I mean, you can, if you get the wine, maybe, maybe that's all you need.

But it is, it does kind of open the floodgates sometimes. It's just the warning. But there, it's damn cool. I was like seeing it. I'm tempted to get it because of what we talked about. It's awesome, right? Well, yeah, and I think that's the key thing. For folks, we know over the holidays, there's lots of road trips.

Maybe there's some downtime. Maybe you've got five hours in front of you of cleaning the house or wrapping presents or whatever it might be. Go back, you know, we've debated before. Oh, gosh, my favorite episode was the NWO episode, but no way that Megapower's episode was really cool. Sibling rivalries, Kane and the Undertaker, the reaction that folks had to the,

We broke down the Brett Hart and Owen Hart feud. I hope we continue to top ourselves and just provide great content that audiences love. And hopefully folks walk away from here having a great stroll down wrestling memory lane while also picking up a couple of fun things along the way from the world of literature and literary criticism and stuff like that. We're learning about Aristotle. We're learning about Charles Dickens, the seven, what was that again? The seven what, Tom?

Seven basic plots. You've got to pick it up. The book is about that big. it's it's well worth it to have it if for no other reason even if you never read it it just looks really good on the bat that's exactly what i was thinking to look it i have all these like along with grateful here i have all these wrestling books uh and i have probably one read one or two of them but it's all just for like the appearance i've got to read them i saw my list eventually right yeah when we hit the megabucks and have nothing else to do but

read wrestling books that's my dream too my friend there we go cool well hey guy tom anything you want to Is there any Christmas ideas that you might be pitching to fans or listeners here that they could maybe dive in for you? Well, if people are interested in learning a little bit more about Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Paralyptic Characters, that is my book. It's available on Amazon. You can pick that up any time. It's a great introduction to Shakespeare and basically the art of character, which is what we get into a lot here on In-depth. And also, if you're looking for a fun game to get the family around the table, quest for the antidote, my board game. They can support up to six players.

So those of you that have big families, big kitchen tables, you can get everyone around playing and having a good time. Those are some of the things that I would probably suggest to folks along with, obviously, a copy of Grateful. I have mine on its way. It's in the mail, but I haven't received it yet. So I'm excited to break into that. How about you, Don, what should people be thinking about this holiday season? Not so much on my personal end, but I will say, I have to shamelessly plug my brother Marcus. He just started the podcast with Jake the Snake, the Snake Pit Pod,

and it's just him and Marcus, and they break it down. They started off with, oh, my God. Oh, the Snake Bite, the 1991 Snake Bite with Randy Savage and all that stuff. So, like, yeah, Tom, it's like even something that you can tune into. Then the episode two coming up here is going to be Hulk Hogan. The man we were, that was heavily talked about in this episode, and in the Mega Powers episode and in the NW episode. So tune into the Snake Pit Pot.

It's been a lot of fun to see my brother be able to do that and kind of flex his hosting muscles a little bit because he's a natural. I've told him about it already. He's a natural at it. He is awesome. I was so glad to have had the chance to meet him on the recent watch-along for AAA. You invited me on to join the team. To me, as an ad-free show subscriber, that was one of the funnest nights I've had since becoming a member years and years ago. So if there's anyone out there that's listening that hasn't participated in one of those, they're great.

is an awesome host. It gives the conversation live. You never know who's going to be doing a run-in. And it's just such a fun way to watch wrestling with some great wrestling fans. When's the next one? Are we looking Royal Rumble? Or when's the next AFS live show? Is it on the calendar yet?

So they're always popping up. I know, nobody talked about this. I know they have R.O.H. Final Battle coming up is the one in here for you this weekend. I have not heard anything in regarding to a live watch-long. but I know if you guys and I mean we're preaching to the choir here because it's the ad free show listeners but they do they put on their live watchalongs on their own like sometimes it's like it's just once in a while we'll do some of these but they'll get together have their own Zoom call and have their own like just power out going on so but yes I mean I could only imagine something like you know around the rumble time you know and as things start to pick up here you know AEW is always cooking with some stuff too so it's just like there's always incentive. There's always something going on in wrestling, so why not have a watch along? And always something going on at ad-free shows, I tell you. There is. That's money and pro wrestling, without a doubt. And you get your bang for your buck, especially

right here on it in-depth. So, guys, we will see you next time here on. It will be episode five of in-depth. And thank you, Eric, for the time, too. All right, guys, see you next time. Hey, guys, Tony, Shavani. I need to call the time out real quick. Wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling me what happened when listeners for a while now about all the cool. About all the cool things happening over on ad-free shows.com. Jim Johnston created the soundtrack for generations of WWE fans

with some of the most iconic themes in history. Jim sits down with Conrad to take us behind some of those classic teams, including the Ultimate Warrior. And then I recorded that. And then just over that, you're just doing you know, it's so

simple, but that's what felt like him. Plus, an all-new edition of The Book is here as David Crockett takes us page by page, gate by gate, through the JCP booking logs of April 1985. On Sunday, April 14th, you start the day with a 2 p.m. show in Richmond, Virginia, 43 grand. An hour later, Asheville, North Carolina kicks off, and it's another 63-63. But then that night, You guys all cruise to Atlanta, $31,000 at the gate.

Talk about a banner day for Jim Crockett promotions. This is hard to beat, man. That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you. With four levels to choose from, see for yourself. Why, AdFree Shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now at ad-freeshows.com.