83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 267: Spring Stampede 1998

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, we are celebrating our 5 year anniversary! Eric Bischoff and special guest host Casio cover the build up and ppv Spring Stampede 1998. The guys also discuss how Eric and Conrad met, the formation of the podcast, Eric's recent near death experience and so much more. SUNDAY - Sunday is offering our listeners 20% off! Full-season plans start at just $109, and you can get 20% off when you visit GETSUNDAY.COM/83WEEKS at checkout! HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit HENSONSHAVING.com/83WEEKS to pick the razor for you and use code 83WEEKS and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. BIRDDOGS - Visit Birddogs.com and enter promo code 83WEEKS to get a free Yeti style tumbler with every order that’ll keep your drinks hot or cold - a $40 value. https://www.birddogs.com/collections/pants?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=83weeks SLEEP.ME - If you need better athletic recovery or are suffering from hot, uncomfortable sleep, you gotta check out sleepme at sleep.me/83WEEKS. Save up to 20% on a sleep system if you use promo code 83WEEKS. FITE + - Fite+ is the ultimate digital platform for live sports and entertainment, and they are now offering a free 7-day trial at TryFite.com EMPIRAA - Sign up now and receive free onboarding, your first 14 days for free, and 24/7 support. Get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code 'wrestlebiz' at checkout. Launch your business plan faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit www.empiraa.com/eric today and start your journey to success!  SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. 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. 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. You don't need a huge down payment.

In fact, you may not need a down payment at all. At savewithconrad.com, we take the stress out of the home buying process. will determine your buying power will even help you find a realtor and unlike the banks we don't say no we say not yet but here's how so if you're not ready right now we'll get you on a plan to be ready stop throwing your money away paying someone else's mortgage with your rent and start the path towards owning your own home today at save with conrad dot com Yeah. Welcome in to another edition of 83 weeks with the man, the myth, the legend. Mr. Eric Mischoff. I'm your feeling host today, Cassio, and I got this for you. Happy anniversary, baby. I got you on my mind. Eric, the fifth anniversary of 83 weeks, and Conrad's out. I love the hat, brother.

Well, that hat just puts me in the mood. I just had this on the desk for the one-anniversary, of oh, you didn't know, with Road Dog. And I saw, who, five-year, got a double dip. Let's reuse the hat, maybe. Well, good call. I just try to change my glasses, but my farcitedness is taken over. It doesn't matter what I put on anymore.

I'm going to look ugly either way it is. So, yeah. Yeah. Hey, Coach Rosie's with us. Coach, good, it was so good, see you at in AZ and having dinner. We have a live studio audience, Eric. Yeah, we've got a live studio audience. Keith Morrison is here, Travis Midway, Medway.

Eddie Prather's here. It's just another good morning. What a way to start the day. What a way to start the day. First of all, real quickly, Eric, as you think back on 83 weeks, what it's turned into, where it is in five years. What do you think about? Does it seem like five years?

Does it seem longer, shorter? Does it seem like 83 weeks? What does it seem like? It seems as much, and I can't believe it's been five years. Honestly, I remember when we first started this thing, and I've told the story a bunch of times. I won't go into great detail. But I remember when he started this thing, I didn't, you know,

I obviously knew who Conrad was and we'd done a little bit of stuff together, but I didn't really know Conrad, you know. I said, well, he said, I got an idea for a name of the show. I said, cool, what is it? He's just 83 weeks. I said, well, that's what, why? And he said, no, because you're 83 weeks. You know, you beat WWE 83 consecutive weeks for a total of over 104, by the way.

But who's counting? But the 83 was the consecutive number of weeks that we had defeated WWE. I said, well, that's pretty cool. But what are we going to do in the 84th week? Because I'm thinking once we get through 83 weeks, there's nothing left to talk about. That would have been about a year and a half. And here we are five years later. And we're just having a blast.

I'm so grateful for it. Very interesting because one of the notes, thinking about when you and Conrad first started this podcast, you just mentioned it, you didn't really know Conrad. You knew about Conrad, knew where he, was successful with other ventures. But you guys are teaming up basically as just, what, acquaintances at best. And now with the new Grateful Bookout, available at Bischoffbook.com, of course,

a little defensive, little more combative in the first few episodes. If the perspective of things would be different, if you guys started now. Oh, of course, because we know each other better. you know we've had five you know how many hours is that there's 52 weeks so figure 104 times five we've got about you know probably 600 hours of conversation under our belts which is a lot of conversation and clearly we know each other much better now than we did back then and in a way i really i enjoy i enjoy doing the show i mean i look forward to it every week it's it's a release for me you know i get to talk about things that i don't normally talk about things that i don't normally

about or or get involved with believe it or not so it's it's kind of fun but i also think the beginning of of our partnership was really interesting in it it taught me a lot about myself you know i had when i because i really needed this podcast i'm not going to lie and i'm pretty transparent about this stuff you know i i've i had hit i won't say bottom financial bottom but damn i was close enough i could tell you exactly what it looked like you know what i mean i mean i was close and i needed the bread and i wanted it to work and i knew how successful conrad and bruce were at that point they had really only been going for about a year i think but they were already just killing it i thought man if i could if i could do half as well as

Bruce. I'm still trying to get to that point. If I could, if I could do half as well as Bruce, that, you know, this is going to be a really great thing. So I kind of, I don't want to say I was desperate because I've never allowed myself to be desperate, even though I probably should have a couple times, but I never did. But I needed it. And the first episode or two we did, man, it was tough because I was defensive as hell and i'm not going to take all this on me because conrad was a bit of you know conrad came on a bit strong he was a bit aggressive with me no conrad coming on strong

and i have to put this in context keep in mind that about i don't know how long earlier was six months beforehand i got conrad invited me to his house you know bruce put it over God, oh, man, you can have a great time. It's got to fly you in first class. You'll have some beers. You have a great dinner. You hang around with some of his buddies and just talk about wrestling. You know, it's not my thing.

I normally wouldn't have done something like that, but, you know, I needed the bread. So I did it. And it started out great. Conrad, you know, great host. I was impressed. You know, I walked into the big house and walked by the Maybach that was parking. to the Mercedes, and I'm going, okay, this cat's real, nothing, nothing to worry about there. And the first 20 minutes or hour of this thing going back and forth was pretty cool.

Keep in mind, we're pounding beers now, mostly me. And about two hours through this experiment, it got ugly. Conrad really went, he caught his buzz. and he went in hard well tell me about that well this guy says that this is what really happened and he did it in such way that it and of course i had some pops in me right so yeah i immediately started getting a little defensive and the more defensive i got the harder conrad came on and it just turned into a bit of a shit show and i couldn't wait to get out of there and i remember leaving going man what a mistake this was i'll never do anything like this again i

wasn't so upset with Conrad as I was with myself or putting myself in a position where I had to do something I didn't really want to do what I kind of needed to do I hate that I hate being compromised that way especially when I do it to myself so I just went okay this is over it's done it was a learning experience and then about I don't know a month or two later I'm on the phone go hey maybe we should do a podcast together so it's been quite the journey but I have to see in all that Conrad has ended up being one of my closest friends, somebody that I can I could depend on under, and recently

I'm not going to go into great detail here, but I recently was in a situation where I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out for me and health-wise. It was close. Got life flighted to another hospital and had nine units of blood. I wasn't going to talk about any of this, but this is just

appropriate, I guess. I got into, I got into some trouble and, and wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out for me. And, you know, the one person I knew I could call that understood business, there's a lot of people I call, a handful of people I call, but that really understood business and would know what I meant when I said, depending on how this turns out, please keep an eye out for my wife. Because there's other business things going on in my life aside from this podcast. and I wanted somebody that was involved in it to know that I was concerned about my wife. And Conrad was that guy. That's what that relationship has evolved from that silly little personal appearance I made in his basement where I'm pretty sure Conrad was having a blast but couldn't wait to get me out of his house

and I couldn't wait to get out to now when the chips are down, if I've got to make a call, you know, I'm going to call my brother, obviously sister, but when he's, comes to business and someone that I can trust with my life and my wife's life, that was Conrad Thompson. That's what I think of Conrad. So it's been a trippy evolution, but a friendship that I'm, I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am for it. He's a very, very good man and not to embarrass anybody that's on this podcast with us right

now, Dave Silva, but he surrounds himself with really good people. he attracts good human beings that work hard and are talented but more than anything they're good people and i'm just grateful to be among that crowd well buddy uh i i was going to mention it anyway i wasn't going to go in to any details but from the limited uh updates i got from mr conrad thompson i was excited to see your face this morning brother i was i was pumped to me here in you. Okay, so here's a deal because I shouldn't have done it, but I did it. Now I got, I just leave it hanging.

Because this is a, this is a crazy story. I'm pretty healthy. I'm actually very healthy. I hardly ever get sick, you know, occasional cold or allergies probably get me more than anything once or twice a year. But overall, I would rate my health that I'm 68 years old. I would say I'm probably eight or nine on a scale of 10. I take no medications.

You know, I take a lot of supplements and things like that. But, you know, I'm not in any prescription medication. I don't have high blood pressure. None of that stuff. My wife and, you know, he met Lori. We eat really healthy.

You know, she's really, she's really focused on it. I benefit from it, but she's the one that's really, so, man. But we eat healthy. I get a fair amount of exercise. Just no issues, no aches, no pains, nothing, right? So in this quest to be even healthier than we already are, I'm reading about blood sugar. Now, I'm hypoglycemic, meaning if I have a candy bar, I'll pass out.

Sugar has the exact opposite impact on me that it has on most people. Most people, if they need a jolt of energy, they'll have some Gatorade or eat a candy bar, something. If I do that, I'll, I'll just pass out. Whatever I'm doing, I'm done for about an hour, hour and a half. Then I wake up, I feel like I've been drinking Tijuana for a week, you know, just horrible. But anyway, long story. I'm dragging this out way too long. But we're reading about blood sugar. And I'm actually thinking about getting this monitor, glucose monitor, because it it enables you to really tell which food spike your blood sugar the most.

Sometimes it's things you wouldn't expect, right? Because we're all different. So I'm reading about all this stuff. I'm reading about all this stuff. And one of the things I read was using a supplement like metamusal. Or in this case, I used a search with an eye. I can't remember the name of it. I haven't had enough coffee yet.

Cillium. Cillium husks. So I'm thinking I'm going to add this the cillium husks to my repertoire. Even though I eat a lot of fiber and all that stuff, I don't have any issues in that regard. But I thought, no, it's even better. You know, if one is good, two is better.

So I get this big canister of cillium husks. And I bring it home. And I'm looking at the directions. Mrs. B was busy. She was doing something. I'm looking at directions. And it says recommended one to three tablespoons. going well that's for the average person since i spent 30 years in a wrestling business i know

that if one to three is good for the average person that i need a minimum of four to five because that's how that works so and that's why i stopped i didn't read the rest of the directions especially the important part that said don't start out with a maximum dose right away work your way up to it i didn't get to that shit I just looked at one to three. Well, three is good for the average person. I'm good for four or five. So I take this big scoop out.

I take these big gigantic scoops of cillium husk. And I throw it into my smoothie because I'm drinking a smoothie because I'm a healthy some bitch. I'm drinking this thing that's going to make me even healthier, right? I'm feeling good about myself. This is like three o'clock in the afternoon. So dinner time comes. Mrs.

B, sit down. We're eating our super healthy dinner because we do. We love with a big salad. and super, super healthy. So we're eating it, we're watching TV the same thing we do all the time. You know, once seven o'clock, eight o'clock rolls around, we put on succession or something else we're streaming. And everything's fine.

And I'm going to clean this up a little bit because it's, you know, it's not the most pleasant thing to talk about. But I feel, oh, man, I got to get up to the bathroom. So I get up, go to the bathroom, and I'm passing buckets of blood. like lots of it but i felt fine nothing hurt i didn't have an upset stomach i didn't have any cramps i didn't have anything to indicate that anything was really wrong other than i was passing copious amounts of blood so you know because i'm smart this way i think it'll take care of itself it'll be i didn't even mention it to mrs b right because i was embarrassed

This is something I wanted to talk about, even though I'm doing it here in front of God knows how many people. So I think all it's going to take care of itself. And I go back to watching TV, didn't say a word. About 45 minutes later, boom, happens again. About a half hour after that, boom, it happens again. Now we're going into about 10, 1030 a night. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm just going to go to bed because I'm sure when I wake up, it's going to be fine. Not worried about it.

So I go to bed. About 12.30, I wake up, go to get up. And I'm like, I'm dizzy. I can't hardly stand up. And I'm like, oh, this is crazy. So we have a heart, a blood pressure monitor. And it's down in the kitchen because I usually use it in the mornings when I get up because I check my blood pressure every morning, just as I have it.

I don't know. Hobby, I guess. So I left my blood pressure monitor down in the kitchen, which is two flights of stairs. So I go to, now it's midnight. I'm quiet. I don't wake up Mrs. B if I hadn't already. So I go down. And I usually run a little hot.

My blood pressure is usually 1.35, 140 over 85, maybe 90 sometimes. So I drink a ton of coffee. So I'm not usually alarmed with it. I check my blood pressure. It's like 85 over 45. I'm thinking, fuck, that's not good. So I check it again, same thing. Now I'm thinking, all right, something's wrong.

So I go back upstairs. I sit on the edge of the bed and I say, Lori, I think I need to go to the hospital. Well, as soon as I say that, I blacked out. Boom, I go down. And as soon as I hit the floor, I kind of came to and bounced back up again. And now I'm making my way to the bathroom

because I'm feeling around five coming up, right? Oh, no. So now I'm bouncing off the walls. I'm staggering to the bathroom. I almost make it to the bathroom, but I didn't. And by the way, it's all blood. There's nothing nasty in there other than lots and lots and lots of blood. Now it looks like somebody gutted a goat in our bathroom, right?

There's just blood everywhere. Lori, at this point, she's just waking up. She knows nothing. I didn't tell her anything about what happened earlier in the evening. I didn't tell her about cillium. I didn't tell her anything. All she knows is she was sound asleep. I come up, wake her up, and now it's not good.

So she calls the ambulance. Now, being the vain son of a bitch that I am, I'm thinking, well, I can't let the ambulance come in here and see me like this. I'm covered in blood. This is ugly. It's nasty. It's going to be on the internet. I can't do this.

So what do I do? I jump up to take a shower. As I get up to jump into shower, now I'm blacking out. And every time I black out, I'm bouncing my head off something. And now my head's bleeding. I cut the bridge of my nose. She's. I can only stay up for about 30 or 45 seconds of time.

And I black out again and I bounce back up again and try to get. Anyway, it was really stupid. stupid. So finally, Lori talked some sense to me. She goes, just get in the tub. We have a big hot tub in the bathroom. She goes, just get in the tub, wait for the ambulance. I did. I don't remember much else after that. Get to the emergency room. I'm going to try to speed this up. And the moral of the story is just read the fucking directions. That's really the moment. So I'll circle back to that. So I go to the emergency room. They keep me there to about 4, 4.30 in the morning. they send me home, bleeding stop, not passing any more blood.

Still didn't know what was wrong, but I'm not bleeding anymore, so they send me home. But they didn't think I was bleeding anymore. So I go home, now it's, what is it, it's Wednesday. I'm flat on my back all day Wednesday. And I'm just want to get healthy, want to feel better. Lori's bringing me food. I'm kind of sucking it up. You know, it's kind of nice being on hand and fun like that.

Poor baby. Let me, can I get you anything? Do you want me to get you a soul? some, would you like some fresh ice water? And I get you some soup, all that kind of stuff. I love that. I was sucking it up. So that was Wednesday.

Now, Wednesday evening, I'm starting to feel pretty good. I just had a couple scrambled eggs and whatever, something light, easy to digest. Go to bed. Everything's fine. Wake up the next morning. Now we're into Thursday morning. Feeling pretty good. No problems.

Now I'm getting antsy. I got work to do. I love being busy. I love trying to make things happen. That's part of what makes me tick. So I'm starting to feel pretty good. Now, I'm supposedly I'm scheduled to do a strictly business episode with Alba, right, at like noon or something. So I had some other shit to do other people to call.

So I did all that stuff. And I sit down, I fire up my computer. I'm getting ready to do the show with Alba. And I said, I'm sorry, brother. I just can't do this. I just can't. I just hit a wall. And this in Elvis is, no, I find no problem.

Just feel better. As soon as I disconnected, I blacked out. Now I bounced my head off my desk. She passed out on the floor. Now, my office, my studio is not in my house. My house is 75, 80 feet up the driveway. We're in a little, it's a guest house, basically. So I'm out in my office.

Lori's in the big house, in the house, in the big house, she's in the big house, cooking grits. She's up in the main house. And I'm down here in my office, passed out. And when I passed out, I, you know, lost control everything. And, you know, it's a mess again. So I come to and I call her. I said, honey, I think I need to go to the hospital. She comes out, go to the hospital, put, get through and.

emergency. Now they put me in ICU. I was in an emergency for a couple hours. I couldn't figure out. I was just losing lots of blood. Jeez. They put me in ICU. And I was there for a few days, a couple days in ICU. And the bleeding and my intestines were so bad that they couldn't figure out where it was coming from. They tried to go up there with a scope and, you know, take a look around. But it was just, there was so much blood. They couldn't tell where the blood was coming. So now they're having a discussion with me about how much of my intestines they're going to surgically remove and give me a little bag whoa oh yeah I'm having that comment this right and I'm going oh no we're not doing any of the no but you know the doctor

was pretty serious he said look here's the deal either you know you do this or not It may not turn out well for you. You're losing a lot of blood. So anyway, talk me into that as best they could. So I'm still in Cody, Wyoming. The next day they're, it's okay, we're going to go in and we're going to, we're going to take a look around. But if we have to operate on you, we're going to have to do it.

You're not going to be awake to talk about it. So go ahead knowing that. So they put me under. They go to go in. Lori's waiting outside the lobby in about 10 minutes. later they come out or he's going wait a minute you're done already now it's just he's bleeding too badly we can't go in there and by the way we're out of blood oh i'd used up all the whatever blood type i was am a b positive i'd used up all of the blood they had at the hospital

or in the county where i live in so they put me on a helicopter and life flighted me up to Montana because they had better equipment and experienced surgeons up there and all that kind of stuff in this kind of surgery. So again, fly me up there. Helicopter ride was awesome. It's probably going to cost me 50 or 60 grand, but it was, you know, it was a 40 minutes fun ride, you know. I mean, I'm done, but it's a fun ride.

Yeah. Yeah. So I make it to, I make it to Billings where they have more blood in other surgeons. and I'm in the ICU for a day or two there and finally Sunday morning I wake up and I'm going I feel pretty good actually kind of hungry and all throughout Sunday I'm starting to feel better and Monday morning I wake up going man I'm now I'm I'm thinking I got to get out of here I'm ready to go home pretty much stop passing blood everything's kind of normal the doctor I said, nah, we're going to keep you one more day because if you drive home,

it's a two-hour drive from Billy's Dakota. If you drive home when something goes bad, that's it. There's no way we can help you. You're probably not going to make it. I thought, well, that's not. It's not what I want. So I stuck around. They did one more test when you drink this barium solution and goes all through you

it and they put you in this cat scan machine. It can really, the point is they can look at your insolium. sides in three-dimension, great detail. So I take this as a precaution. I came out of it. They said, we can't find anything wrong with you. Wow. Like, it was a miraculous healing.

They couldn't find, I had stopped bleeding. They couldn't find where the blood was coming from. It was a complete mystery. I'm thinking, it's not a mystery. I know exactly what happened. I took those three big, four big ass scoops. It was actually three heaping. I took those three big heaping tablespoons of cillium.

And what cillium does when it gets into your system is it expands and it takes all the moisture in your intestines or a lot of it mixed with whatever else you have in your system. And it expands. You get this like, well, a little ball of like gel that passes through your system and, you know, clean help cleans you out. well when i took those three heaped tablespoons it had i tore stuff up it just tore everything up that it came into contact with and not everything but a lot of it and what i learned is that your inside your intestines have they're so vascular the lining of your intestines are so vascular it's like did you ever bite your tongue and you know your tongue starts to bleed in like a four minutes later it's healed it's kind of the same thing

thing is the lining of your intestines are so vascular that it heals very very quickly so over the course of 24 hours whatever i tore up healed and now with all the tests they had they couldn't they couldn't tell me what was wrong with me but i knew and i told the doctor i said i'm pretty sure because it was the only thing that i did differently and when i laid it out to him he just shook his head read the directions young man read the directions so there's my story story but the doctor did tell me he said you almost died twice you almost died in cody and you almost died here but i made it you made it i and then when i got out i you know on tuesday morning whatever day it was no it was wednesday when i finally got out of the hospital Tuesday or was

like first thing i did is went to a sushi bar ready to go first thing i did go to the sushi bar ate my guts out i don't want to say ate my guts out because it takes out a different meaning now but I ate a lot. Don't you glad you asked that question. Now you know more than you really wanted them. Well, look, I only got brief, vague highlights. So I am glad to hear it. As Conrad would say,

I'm glad you healed from shitting your asshole out for three weeks. But you are here. And just remember, if you'd like Cillium Husk, use promo code 83 weeks and you get 50% off your first order. Yeah. And by the way, I'll send you a $10 bill if you read the freaking directions because just read the directions young man that's what the doctor told me it's just that's your I love you went this entire medical ordeal and at the end of it

just read the directions Eric yeah it's an over-the-counter you know supplement you know and it's a healthy one it's a good it's good for you know people should use it the way it's supposed to be used but not me man I got to like triple up because he uh I don't take three aspirins Well, you're back with us, and your reward is you get to sit with me for the next couple hours talking about spring stampede, 1998. Wow, can't wait. Fight Plus is the ultimate digital platform for live sports and entertainment, and they're now offering a free seven-day trial at tryfight.com. Fight Plus is packed with a premium live event schedule over a thousand hours of live action every year. year and a library of more than 4,000 hours on demand plus exclusive content you can't get

anywhere else fight is a great partner of ours they support us so let's support them give that free seven-day trial a shot and you'll be a member for life that's tryfight dot com t r y fitee dot com first of all two weeks you guys discussed the 25th anniversary of the 83 week streak being broken a ton of great feedback online that i saw eric how about you how did you feel about that you've gotten great reviews yeah i mean you know it's yes i got a lot of a lot of positive response and i and i get that you know we've got such a great audience um i occasionally get people that say things that are you know designed to kind of keep me in check which is fine by the way i don't mind that at all um but for the most part yeah it was all very positive well let's get

into spring stampede 1998 to catch everyone up where we're at wcW at the time we're coming out of uncensored 1998 where the main event was a cage match between two nw members hollywood hogan and randy savage which ended in a no contest sting defended his wcw title over scott hall ddip retained his u.s title over raven and chris benoit but the biggest stories were what was going on backstage it seems like in the WCW, your favorite words, Eric, from the Observer. It's been more of the same with the World Championship wrestling, filled with turmoil behind the scenes and setting records in front of the camera and at the box office.

The situation regarding six, Sean Waltman, if anything, got hotter over the past week with no explanation as to his firing other than Eric Bischoff was trying to send a message to Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Waltman, who had approximately 18 months left on a three-year contract, was given his termination notice in a FedEx letter from WCW Vice President Nick Lambros on 3-9, and immediately his agent Barry Bloom opened up negotiations with World Wrestling Federation. Eric, when you make this decision, you had to know the fallout would be heavy and fast from Kevin and Scott. Did you take that into your decision-making process?

Um, you know, I may have. I was probably aware of it consciously, uh, or for sure subconsciously, but I didn't, it wasn't a factor. I didn't, it didn't give me pause. I mean, I, look, I did. I, I've explained this. We've talked about this in great detail. And I don't want to rehash it again, um, too much. But Sean and I, I was under the impression that we had research. agreement, complete meeting of the minds, and understanding with regard to a new contract for Sean, as was the case often in WCW. And is the case in a lot of places. Once a lawyer gets a hold of something, it seems to take forever. And in this case, it did. It took two, three, four weeks, whatever it was, for Diana Myers, who was the attorney at handling this at the time, to take my notes and everything that I told her about the deal and convert it to a contract. Because I've been negotiating with Barry Bloom and Sean, and, you know, like I said, we had a meeting of the mind.

So I laid it all out for Diana Myers. Her job was then to come up with a contract. Once the contract is done, send it over to Sean, formalize it, get it signed, off we go. well in that interim period of time that two three four weeks whatever it was it could have been longer i don't know um somehow somebody decided that yeah i know we agreed on that but i don't really think that i think we're going to go back to the well we're going to start renegotiating and there is nothing that pisses me off more that's just it's the rule like it's it's it's it's it's It just gets me hot.

You know, you shake hands on a deal, you say you're going to do something, then you do it. Even if a couple weeks later, you go, God, I wish I would have thought about this little more. I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have done that. That's fine. Chalk that up to experience. We all go through it. You learn.

You'll the next time you do a deal. You'll think about it a little differently before you sign it. But to let that much time. And by the way, I had been paying, WCW, had been paying Sean and Waltman based on the meeting of the mind. that we had had. I didn't make him wait until he got his new contract because it wasn't his fault that Diana Myers had a lot on her plate. So to do the right thing,

I told Diana Myers and told accounting, just start paying them, the contract will follow. So I'm living up to my end of the deal, started paying them when I didn't really have to, based on the new amount. And then I hear from Diana Myers, because Barry Bloom didn't call me directly,

that Sean wants to renegotiate his deal. He hasn't really signed it yet. He's not going to sign up because there's certain things he wants to renegotiate. My head's just spun off my fucking shoulders. I just, whiz, and I said, fuck, I want to fire him. I don't do this. I don't play this game. I do not play this game.

I play a lot of other games, some that I should, some that I wish I was better at, but I'm not playing this game. Did you bounce that off anybody or did you just go forward? Nope. Nope. it was no different it, nope, it was no different than me walking through a bar and having somebody

sucker punch me. It was the same reaction. Yeah. And so I made the decision. That's the real story from my perspective. Now, Sean may have a zone by the way and Sean and I are tight. I love Sean Walman. I think Sean is

one of the more underrated performers and reasons why things turned around so abruptly for WWE. I think Sean Waltman in DX is what gave DX the credibility and legitimacy it had creatively. So there's no issue at all between Sean and I. But at that time, I was really freaking hot. And I hear this all the time, you know, comments like, well, according to Dave Meltzer, you know, Eric Bischoff was sending a message.

I don't send a fucking message. If I've got something to say to you, I'm going to say it to you. It'll be very clear, whether it's something good or something not good. There's no messages. There's no nuance. There's no artfully positioning shit with me. It's black or it's white. It's yes or it's no.

And if there's a maybe in there some way or if there's a little bit of gray area, then we're going to talk that through. But in a very clear way, there's no, Eric Bishop is sending a message. A fucking tapeworm. He is just such, Dave Munser is a tapeworm.

That is the best way to describe Dave Munser. He is a tapeworm to the wrestling business. He's a parasite. He just, anyway, but no, there was no message.

There was no message. It was just me reacting to what I thought was a completely unprofessional way to do business and not only unprofessional but when you give somebody your word and you go back on it, that's a no-fly zone. And I think the fact that Barry was involved made me even hotter because I worked Barry Bloom into WCW. Barry Bloom came. I think Barry Bloom's first experience with WCW is when he was representing Jesse Ventura. And I had a good experience with Barry through that. I mean, I wasn't negotiating Jesse Ventura. I mean, I wasn't negotiating

Jesse Ventura's contract, so I didn't have any direct involvement with Barry on that aspect of it. But I got to know him and meet him and liked him, him and his partner, Michael Braverman. And as I started coming up in WCW and getting more responsibility and bringing in more people, it occurred to me that talent should have representation. Because, and some of the talent did. Some, you know, some talent already had attorneys and good ones that had. That had experience in wrestling but a lot of the younger talent didn't and they would go to talent that did have an attorney now you've got an amateur attorney giving some of this younger talent the amateur attorney being the talent right that did have representation they're acting as de facto representation

and that was a mess and i knew that so i thought you know what i get along with barry i trust barry and michael braverman i'm i'm going to open the door and I'm going to suggest to talent that when they're negotiating a contract, that they have representation. And if they don't have representation, I'll introduce you to Barry Blown. Because I trusted Barry to be professional. And while I knew Barry was primarily looking out for his client, there's a certain amount of professionalism that I think goes along with that. And I trusted Barry. And I told Barry early on, I said, Barry, I'm going to bring you in here. I'm going to create a lot of business for you. I didn't say it exactly that way, but that was a message.

I just want you to be honest. And don't, don't play, don't, we're not, we're not doing doubles here. You're not going to be working for WWF and working for me and using what you're learning here against me to, or to use to renegotiate or, or negotiate. better deals with WWE. Don't play both sides of the fence. It's basically what I told him. And he agreed. And then he did. And it just pissed me off. So between Sean, you know, not doing what I thought we had agreed to do and Barry being in the middle of it, it was just like, nope, can't, can't let this go. Got to make a big move. But there was no, there was no message. You've differed with it already. So let's see what you

say about the next part. As the week went on, there was no contact between the front office at WCW and Waltman, although Walton had been told by Nash that Bischoff had agreed to, quote, make everything right. This brought up another situation far larger than the situation with Waltman and a reality to the fantasy. Many people over the short-term future of the business in this country among all the turmoil. Waltman's firing with no apparent reason given other then he had the wrong friends who ironically were the right friends when it came time for him to get the job at the wrong time combined with the fact Mishoff had fired him last year for about one hour

after being mad about him pulling Rick Flair's tights down during a match made him not only open negotiations with WWF but ready to go as a free agent. So my first question here, since that story's already different, did you ever tell Kevin you would quote, make everything right? No.

Well, Sean did I? No, I don't think I did. In the frame of mind, I was in, there was no making it right. I already made the decision. Now, if there was a suggestion that, hey, can we talk about this? Do you mind if Barry gives you a call or Sean gives you call? Sure, I'll communicate. But as far as the decision, again, this is the tapeworm's own version of what goes on behind the scenes,

because he's never behind the seats. fucking knows anything. Dave Meltzer is the biggest fraud in the industry because he's constantly reporting on the turmoil and all the things that are going on backstage, but he's never backstage. And nobody that's really knowledgeable of things that are going on very rarely talk to him.

So it was just Dave making shit up, basically. Many wrestlers, including some who would have been on the opposite side of the fence as him politically, recognized the problem with firing a wrestler with a wife and two children who is rehabbing a broken neck, suffered in the ring, working for the company for no apparent reason

other than his friends were in a political struggle with the boss. Is that not just, is that classic, not classic Dave, the tapeworm Meltzer? That's a perfect Meltzer. It's just,

oh, he's such a piece of shit. And again, if he did this, but he also says, this was being done apparently to send the message to, National Hall, the latter of whom is in the midst of giving depositions in the WWF versus WCW lawsuit. I got to ask, were you in a political struggle with Kevin and Scott at the time?

And Sean was the fallout. No, I wasn't. No, I, you know, I knew Sean and Scott wouldn't be happy. Clearly, I knew they wouldn't be happy. But again, going back to what I said earlier, it didn't factor into any of my decisions. It was just something that I had to deal with. If Kevin and Scott hadn't helped bring Sean in, would he have been let go sooner? No. I didn't bring Sean in because Scott and Kevin wanted him in.

I brought Sean in because Sean was a talented performer. I knew Sean Waltman long before I brought him into WCW. and certainly knew of him before them. So, no, it was the right fit at the right time. It was actually an amazing fit at the right time. I underestimated how valuable Sean Waltman would be to the equation. Severely underestimated, to be honest about it. But it didn't, because Scott and Kevin brought him in,

didn't give him any more leverage or less leverage. Well, you made some headlines last week when you talked about Sean was as important to Raw getting the advantage over Nitro and the ratings to end the streak. We even talked about it over there at, oh, you didn't know. I asked Road Dog from his perspective how important it was that Sean came over. He said it was very important. There was, of course, as you know, a lot of things go into all this. but yes,

Sean coming over was a big move. I just want to, you know, I have nothing but respect for Rod Dog. Nothing but respect. More so now than ever. For a lot of good,

for a lot of the right reasons. But I don't think Road Dog could possibly have the same, he couldn't have the same perspective. I did, obviously. But sure. I think when I think back, and first of all, look at 1998 and look at where we were at in 1998, we were still, what month are we in here, April of 98?

Yes. All right. We're still rocking the house. We're printing money. The business was better than it had ever been from a financial perspective, from a day-to-day business perspective, we were on top of the world, right? Now, there were things going on behind the scenes backstage, as there often are in any wrestling organization, probably in any major company, that were less than ideal. But from a business perspective, we were rocketing.

NWO was as hot as they had ever been. 97 was an amazing year for NW. Early 98, amazing year for NWO. And people like, you know, the tapeworm can throw in here with this, you know, Sting didn't win it, Starcated, it was the, it was the finger poca doom, it was the Starcate, you know, people that don't know anything at all about the business or what they're talking about, point to these things that happened during certain periods of time and look at them as causation they weren't they were symptoms but they

weren't causes but as powerful as the NWO was and it was in April of 98 for a member a prominent member of the NWO which Sean Waltman was to abruptly and this case get fired but to abruptly jump ship and bring that same attitude it was like the NWO was leaving WCW. Not exactly, but Sean was such a big part of the NWO. I mean, it was the three musketeers between Scott and Sean and Kevin. Obviously, Hulk was in there, but those, they were the three amigos, man. And had I been thinking about it a little, not I was really, you know,

I'm not as much anymore as I used to be, but I'm fairly emotional when someone pisses me off or does something that I think is inappropriate, I had a tendency to react to it, hot. And had I thought about it a little bit more than I did, I would have never, I wouldn't have let Sean go because I would have realized that the first thing he's going to do is go over there and it's going to come right back at me. And it's exactly what happened. And I didn't anticipate it would be in the DX and baiting and Norfolk and all that other stuff. But I firmly believe, and I don't think Road Dog could see it this way, because at that time, Road Dog was talent.

He may have a different perspective now, but at that time, he's talent. And he had a lot going on as talent. He wasn't looking at business the same way I was looking at business. Correct. It's probably why our perspectives were different. But I firmly believe that had Sean Waltman not made that, had I not fired Sean Walton and sent him over to WWE on a freaking silver platter, I don't think DX would have had the impact that it had.

I think the fact that Sean was in DX, I think it gave DX so much more credibility. Otherwise, it would have been a cute little stunt, and it would have worked for a week or two. But with Waltman in such a prominent position of DX, I think it branded DX, much more so than even Sean Michaels and certainly much more than Triple H

it was Sean Waltman set the tone and communicated the message to the audience better than anybody in DX could have at that time. Well, to touch on your point, you mentioned you guys, business booming. WCW broke nearly every company and many cable records

going to pose on 316 with much hyped spring break out, episode of Nitro from Club LaVila at Panama City. I was in the cannonball contest there one year. The show drew a 5.58 rating, 483 in the first hour, 5-6 in the second and 6-3 in the third, and a 8.48 share, shattering the previous record of 5.1 set in February on the 16th. Rounded to a 5-6, it ties the modern-day rating record for any WCW broadcasts set on March 27, 1988 for the very first clash of champions, which did a 5-6 rating, headlined by the famous Rick Flair versus Sting, 45-minute draw, which catapulted Sting to start them. You touched on it.

You even mentioned Sting. we discussed in great details ratings and share and all that you and conrad discussed that but this is some rare air if we're comparing this to rick flare and sting right yeah well it's rare and it's also you know you've got to kind of go back in time if you look at the five six rating in 1988 and you compare it to a five six rating in 1998 you're looking at a difference of probably four five million people wow Because the universe for TBS was so much smaller than, you know, so 5.8, just not to get into the metrics of Nielsen because it can be confusing. But let's talk about percentages. If 10% of the people are watching your show back in 1988, but that total audience is, say, 80 million households.

That 10% of 80 million at that time is probably closer to 60 million, 50, 50, 55 million, probably. So that 10% of whatever the universe was was significantly different than 10% of what the universe was by 1998, because the cable audience had grown so dramatically. So ratings-wise, yes, very similar, tied, I guess, whatever. But in terms of the audience that it delivered, no comparison. You can't compare a 1988 number to a 1998 number of that level

of that level. Parasome. Oh, I lost you. Audio. There we go. Got you back. The entire final hour of Notro became the foremost watch wrestling matches

in the history of cable. Booker T versus Chavo Guerrero Jr. with 4.587 million homes. DDP versus Ron Reese and Chris Jericho versus Huventude Guerrero both at 4.555. This is coming off the momentum from a week where since the specific hours of Nitro and Thunder are broken down to separate shows for Nielsen rating tricks

at the three hours of Nitro and the second hour of Thunder were the four highest rated cable television shows of any kind for the week. Wow. Who makes that call, Eric, to split the shows up in specific hours? Is that a Turner call? It's pretty ingenious.

No, that was my call. And it was, you know, it's like you've heard that saying, you know, some of the best inventions are born on in necessity, and that's kind of what that was. You've got a three-hour show. You've got to break it up.

You've got to make it, you've got to figure out a way to hold that audience. and breaking up that format was the only way I could see to do it. I didn't want to do three hours, trust me, did not want to do three hours at all. But, you know, I didn't get to vote. Nobody called me and said, hey, how do you vote on this? Because we're considering this.

We'd like to know what your opinion is. I didn't get that call. The call I got from Brad Siegel was, hey, starting next week, we're going to three hours. Okay. Here we go. Wow. you mentioned a lot of inventions are born out of necessity this is one of them mr eric brushoff

it's time for everybody listening and watching to reclaim your weekend sunday lawn care can take one thing off your to-do list instead of spending time working on your yard with sunday you can spend time enjoying it this is a big big thing off people's play and that's taking care of the lawn care, Eric. It is time-consuming, but it's a labor of love. It is. I mean, I have no grass. Like my yard, we've got 20 acres of rocks and cactus.

If I tried to plant a lawn here, the rabbits would be happy for about a week, and it would just all burn out and blow it. I mean, you know, where I live is considered high desert. So there's just no landscaping or lawns where I live. But I got to go ahead. No, I was going to say, but when I get to visit somebody that actually has a lawn, like I was down in Arizona, Ms. B and I were in Cave Creek, Arizona where we used to live and hanging out at a friend of ours house.

She's got a big Airbnb right in Cape Creek, and she has grass. And it's like the first thing I want to do is go out and put my feet in the grass, because your feet in the grass feels really good when you haven't done it in years. Yeah. It is an amazing feeling. Like, I got a time massage while I was there. Putting my feet in the grass was almost as satisfying as the time massage. I got this little 114 pound tie lady that tore me up.

Tor me up. I'm still feeling it today. But, man, sitting in grass and smelling it. especially in the morning when there's dew in the grass and it's starting to warm up a little bit, heat starts to rise, that smell from your lawn comes up. It waifs over your coffee as you're reaching for your coffee to put it up to your lips and have that first sip of coffee in the morning while your nostrils are full of this fresh grass scent. It's an amazing thing.

I wish I had a lawn. I really do. But if I did, Sunday would be, It'd be a must do. I was going to say, you saw the product of them working on that grass all year. See, I can hop on the ride lawnmower, get me a cold drink in a can, put it in my cup holder, put my headphones. I can do that every day.

It's the rest of it. It's the weed eating, the landscaping, the ditches, getting around the edges, getting inside the fences. Taking care of a yard is a full-time job, and Sunday is here. So this spring, go to get sunday.com slash 83 weeks and enter your address to get a customized plan created just for your lawn. No trips to the store are hauling heavy bags since they ship straight to your home. You need, you just need a hose to apply Sunday. You can fertilize your whole lawn in less time than it takes to watch an episode of 83 weeks on YouTube. And they only use ingredients you can feel good about.

No harsh chemicals, no long waiting periods, no trying to keep your kids and pets off the lawn. Simply apply, let it dry, and you're back to enjoying your yard. Sunday is easy and affordable. Some long care services cost more than $1,500 a year, but Sunday's full season plans start at just $109. I can tell you this. I just checked in on some landscaping to my acre and a half, and it blew my mind. Definitely going to check into Sunday. is offered in listeners 20% off full season plans started just $109 and you can get 20% off

when you visit get sunday.com slash 83 weeks and check out that's 20% off your custom plan at get sunday.com slash 83 weeks. I got this for my brother. I got this for my brother mark who lives in Minnesota like he his lawn is. meticulous. He is one of those people that, you know, he gets up at the crack of dawn, you know, and trims and edges and mows and furtile. I mean, he lives for his lawn. So while I may not have a lawn, Mark Bischoff, in a town of Minnesota, has one and has Sunday to keep it in great shape. He loves it. Peer pressure as an adult is when your neighbor is your brother who gets up every week, takes care of his lawn, and now me over here, I'm like, oh, no, he's out again.

I got to take care of mine. You got chickens, right? They take care of their little section, yeah. You just need some goats. I do. I do need goats. Goats take care of weeds. Oh.

I mean, they keep your shit looking good. Goats are great. They just, you know, they're a handful, but goats are fun. You know, between goats and chickens, you would big booty Judy would never have to leave the house. And our dogs. We're done. We're shut it down. And by the way, it's entertainment because goats are fun as hell too.

And the chickens can be a hoot. I for sure need finding goats. Those are awesome too. I've never had one, but I've seen the videos of them. It's kind of like animal abuse in a way, but it's not. Yeah. No, because you're making them. So you're not doing anything.

No, it's just part of their, their instincts, I guess. You know, they pretend they're dead when you, when they, they're scared so if you go like boo to a fainty goat it's just pops over like it's the legs up it's awesome it's fun that's my next purchase i'm gonna get sunday take care of the rest of the yard goats to take care of half of it you know what cassio mrs b and i had goats here in one did you yeah we named we got our first one his name was gilligan and then we we wanted baby goats so we got marianne and we ended it up with the ginger all right we had a whole we had a gilligan's island version of goats

and we had them for a long time you know we let them run loose all over the you know because we have enough property here and they don't go far enough for them to eat they don't need to travel right like they're gonna go down the road and eat somebody else's weeds it needs to a goat they don't care so they stay close to your house but at night i'd have to put them away because you know we got coyotes and other stuff out here and i want them to get eaten So we'd have, we'd have to herd these goats. Mrs. B and I on 20 acres and goats, but it's just like hurting a deer. You can't.

Yeah. I do what they won't. They're not going to do it. And here's the fun. They go to bed on themselves. This is the fun part. So when you come to our home and hopefully you will at some point, we've got our home, the back of our home looks out over Yellowstone National Park, looks out over a big,

lake basically and then right up into the valley of yellowstone national park so the whole back of our house is like floor to ceiling windows so we can get that view and then we've got a deck out there well the goats would come up on the deck when we'd be in the house having you know coffee in the morning right the goats would come up to get up on a picnic table so they could look in the window and then they would just bang their heads on the glass boom because they wanted in they wanted in on the action they wanted to hang out So I had to get rid of the goats because I was afraid the goats were going to break into the house. Goats breaking into your own house is, that's pretty fun.

It was pretty good. Goats. We had mules, horses. Oh, dog. We had everything. We didn't have chickens, though. I'm going to take you up on coming to hang. I really, I hope you do.

You and Big Booty Judy would have a blast out here. I know. Everywhere I go, Big Booty Judy's got to come. I get that. But she's in. We're in. We're in. hope you do no i only say that you not that you're not fun by yourself but i love to see a couple come

out here and experience you know the west and the mountains and yellowstone all the cool stuff well here's the cool stuff uh back when i was watching wcw nitro on 316 and panama city beach florida who this was the jam before a sellout 2,000 fans making it 16 sellout in a row besides setting ratings records was very close to a perfect presentation of today's illusion or version of pro wrestling that is pro wrestling is the hip thing on college campuses and people come to spring break to see wrestling as a main attraction and this this rang true to me we went to vacation as a family to panama city being from northern alabama and i told myself as this was happening our goal is to have some

point go down to club of villa which i've been to many times and get to see wrestling because that seemed like the coolest thing ever but you guys were doing a great job we talked about it last time i filled in here on 83 weeks about the whole no limit soldiers coming in you guys are getting the right age involved you're growing in popularity um and you guys this was about the time the product is talking to all of us high schoolers and college kids so much You know what, you know what was really, what I think was really responsible for the success we had with that college demo? Was those fake nitro parties that we did? Well, you know, we did.

I knew I, you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, I sent my video in. Okay. I sent my video in to you. I can't believe we didn't choose it. God, that would have been fun, wouldn't it? How ironic. Wouldn't it have been fun if you would have sent your thing?

And we would have come out to your house and then all these years later, we're sitting here talking about it. Incredible. Incredible. But those nitro parties all started out as a gimmick because I wanted something that was responsible and I wanted to build it up. So we would go out. We would shoot these fake nitro parties and make it look like it was all real and organic.

And then after about a month, or two, people started sending in actual tapes of actual nitro parties. Incredible. And I'll never forget the one, there's one in particular that really, I'll never forget. It was a bunch of research scientists from Brown University. These guys are like already graduated from college. They're on their way to their doctorates. And physics or some shit, you know.

some and they're wearing their white lab coats you know but dressed up like their favorite wrestlers and I and I thought it was a I thought it was a rib I didn't think it was real so we reached out to them and indeed it was real and they had the same nitro party every Monday night they'd get together and have a nitro party and that's when I knew we were that's when I knew we were getting strong and then before you knew it in a matter of months we had we had nitro party tapes coming in from all over the country. But it was because we started out doing the fake ones. Everybody thought that they were real and went, hey, we could do this too.

Let's get on TV. And it turned into a thing. It was pretty awesome. Well, you duped us. It was the greatest night of our life. I thought we were going to win. We had a guy on a sting mask outside the kitchen window and one of our dads had hooked a drill up to the blinds, you know, the folding blinds.

Sure. Well, he hooked it up so it could go fast. So it was sting. And then he hit the drill in the blinds clothes. And we had on Sharpie wrote WCW Nitro. And then it cut to me spear tackling, my friend, as we were celebrating, we're all in the living room and I spear tackling him. He never lets me forget that every time I see him.

But we thought, well, man, when you shut it down, fish off spicking our tape and we're about to have a party and Nitro girls all over our house, maybe. Yeah, because didn't we do that? We sent the Nitro girls to some of the. parties? Yes. That was what you said. Oh, that's great. Girls coming to your house, baby. Yeah, we, we got involved in some minorly human trafficking, but yeah, it's awesome. Minorly human trafficking. I can't wait for that shirt to come out at Boxing.

All right. This is an interesting promo during this show. Raven brings up the snake regarding Jake Roberts. Was there ever any talk about bringing him in or was Raven just being Raven here? Oh, I think there might have been. You know, Jake Roberts was always a name that would come up a couple times a year. I don't know where Jake was at personally, you know, in his personal life at that point in time, but that was always kind of a question as, oh, yeah, I know, Jake's great. It'll be great to have Jake. But which Jake are we talking about bringing in? Yeah, because he was going through some shit. but he's one of the most talented i think probably he's got better instincts for the wrestling art form than almost anybody i know you were really really good was there ever was there ever

any instructions from you guys to if you were thinking about bringing a guy in to maybe float his name in a promo and see how the crowd react no okay no good idea but no never did that um also on that show Scott Steiner beat Ray Trailer with a camel clutch in 825. A pretty good match. Both worked very hard. The highlight being trailer clothes on Steiner into the pool. That called the spot themselves, they called it, and the people backstage apparently were freaking out because the pool deal was supposed to be safe for all in Nash. Steiner came out of the pool all wet and got in the ring and wrestled leaving water spots everywhere. Does Scott get a punishment or a talking to or anything for this?

I think you got a $500 wet spot fine. You can't leave wet spots. Just not cool. Because eventually somebody else is going to have to lay in it. Yeah, they are. We've never wanted to be taxed with the $500. I never thought we'd be talking about wet spots on a wrestling show, but here we are.

Holland involved. Holland Nash did an interview challenging giant. Giant came out, but Nash escaped doing the cannonball into the pool. Giant, then threw Hall in the pool. They all had to be having the times of their lives, Eric. I don't think anybody was having a bad day that day. Look at Scott Hall and then hair.

It's an incredible photo. Yeah, this hair is perfect. That's incredible. Finally, Sting made his entrance coming out of a helicopter for the main event. unfortunately then they had the match same horrible wrestling luger looks like a great statue except a Greek statue has more wrestling mood no but let's let's be clear to our audience here because you're becoming quite a star here on the ad free shows network and hosting a lot of stuff this is not your opinion no this is what the tape this is what the tapeworm

that's why i'm giggling is he is going hard right here He says Sting is great as a Greek myth, but nothing as a reality. And with the exception of Mongo and Ahmed Johnson, you don't find anyone who is worse in the ring now than Hogan. And what a finish after Savage and Hogan argued throughout Ed Leslie interfered for the DQ in 648. NWO, Sands Hall and Nash came out, but Sting and Lugar beat all of them up. the entrance is just one of those things that WCW is doing at the time that was working then the bell rang right Eric well according to the tapeworm but unfortunately we don't have footage of me selling that helicopter you had a still shot there look at you but as that helicopter's

coming down I'm just I'm selling all over the place I was trying not to get blown into the pool it was such a fun scene go back to the people Peacock. Grab your peacock and go watch it. It's fun. You'll get a kick out of it. From the Observer, almost exactly one year after checking himself into rehab, Scott Hall 38 again, checked himself in this week. He is expected to be out of action until around the 427 nitro taping in Norfolk, Virginia, unlike last year, where Hall was still pushed on television as if you were still around and promoted as being in a pay-per-view main event match that the company knew full well in advance he wasn't going to be able to participate in this year his name wasn't

mentioned once on television on the 323 nitro how does this come to be eric do you go to scott does kevin go to you or does scott come to you saying i need to go in i'm not sure i remember the details on that one it wasn't scott more than likely it was berry bloom okay that would be, if I had to make a bet, that would where I'd place that bet. Eric, now it's time to talk about our proud sponsor, Henson shaving, my man. The reviews are in. I will tell you this, being a friend of Conrad Thompson, I haven't heard him talk about one of y'all's products more than Hinson shaving.

He is a gigantic fan of Henson shaving and won't shut up about it. And rightfully so, because... As we know, Conrad Thompson is a man who knows quality when you sees it, ergo the Maybach in the driveway. But he's also about saving money. Right? He's got like this dual personality thing going on, right? Like he loves the finer things in life, but he doesn't want to spend extra for it.

So he works really hard to get value for his. dollar i think that is the core of what makes conred thompson tick he wants the good life but he wants it at the right price and henson is like the ideal product for a guy like conrad thompson because you're getting the ultimate and high-tech super quality product these people are like rocket ship designers who went yeah hey somebody needs to do a better job with these blades because They're freaking ridiculous. They cost too much, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they went into the razor blade in shaving business.

And now you get this super high-tech, super high-quality product for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the price of what you would normally pay. It's the best of both worlds. It's Conrad Thompson's version of Nirvana, life, not the band. As we record this 83 weeks, we're in front of a live studio audience, Eric. And the first thing in the chat this morning, Bobby KF5 GTX said, the Henson shaving razor is amazing. Thank you, Eric Bischoff, in 83 weeks.

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at a low price that's what it's all about hanshaving dot com slash 83 weeks all right here we go let's keep rolling eric um the observer had this to say to best illustrate the growth in popularity of pro wrestling over the past year one year ago this week when nitro and raw went head to head with the academy awards nitro drew a three rating raw drew a 2.5 rating this year nitro drew a 4-649 in the first tower 465 second 435 in the third and a 6.60 share while raw did a 358 rating that was 35 in the first 3.65 in the second and a 5.0 share. Numbers that on the service will be considered good,

but considering the competition being what is generally one of the two or three highest rated television shows of the year, they are nothing short of phenomenal. The combined head-to-head rating of an 8.08 because the WCW first hour has to be factored out of that equation, represented amazing,

47% increase on total wrestling viewing over the same week with the same caliber competition as last year. Nitro replay did a 1.1 rating with a 4.8 share. These are incredible numbers, Eric, for wrestling. Does Ted Turner call you up at this point? And Tom, does he talk about how the viewership of wrestling has increased in the way that they are? What's going on at this time?

Ted would usually call on Tuesdays when the ratings came out. Not every single week, obviously. When he was in town, which was frequently, Ted would call me on Tuesday, usually between 4.30 and 5, 515, because that's when the numbers were published. And he was always in a good mood. I always loved getting those calls. I mean, who wouldn't, right? It's Ted Turner.

Oh, heck. Oh, heck. Hey, I just want to tell you, God, you're all doing a great job over there. Keep up good work. That was it. Then I talked to him the following week, and it'll be more of the same. same. By the way, it's need to be said. This isn't just you're going up against each other, but major TV events and you're still growing the audience. Also at this time, you're invited to go on

TSN's off the record show with Michael Landsberg coming off a Vince McMahon interview. Before we get into what you said, did you go on the show because Vince was just on the show? Or was that a happy coincident. No, I wanted to go to Toronto. The show is being taped in Toronto. I heard there were a lot of great restaurants in Toronto. So I, so I, no, I don't, I, look, I enjoyed talking about WWE success and our growth and our goals. And I love, you know, look, we were successful for a lot of reasons, but in no small part due to the fact that there was a real war going on, not, not a, not a cosplay Tony con AEW war where you pretend you're actually in a fight with somebody when you're really just standing on the sidelines, you know, this was a real war. This was every single

week head to head and me pushing Vince McMahon and Vince McMahon pushing me and the audience benefiting from all of that pushing and shoving grew is what grew the audience. And, part there were a lot of other reasons for it but it was the fact was the coke and Pepsi it was the Ford and Chevy Bell it was people like that people like a good war they unfortunately in some cases just do and this war was real so any opportunity that I had to get especially outside of traditional wrestling coverage even though TSM you know wasn't the large it wasn't ESPN by any stretch but it wasn't Canada and Canada was an important market for us.

So I was anxious to do the show. From the observer, in a lot of ways, the interviews showed in the two men's respective personalities, what the general feeling within the industry is on each. McMahon came off at times as a confident promoter, charming, vindictive, a little out of touch, and at times like a politician tangled up in a web of lies. Bischoff was clearly in touch and far more open and honest about himself,

his product and the business itself. But while being so came off as less charming and a little more defensive on his position, although that was more because the host was grilling him more consistently and not praising him at all while the same host alternated between grilling and heavily praising McMahon.

He was kissing his ass. I thought there was going to be oil scratch, I thought he was going to fillate him right there on TSN. I think of what the hell kind of show are you doing here, Landsberg? Watching that interview and I'm thinking, oh, my God, keep your tongue in your mouth, dude. It's all I'm going to tell you.

But they already had a relationship with TSN, so they were, that was built in kissing their ass. Yeah. Yep. A common theme, a common theme among wrestlers who have worked for both is that Bischoff comes off as someone who doesn't care about them and will say things that hurts their egos. whereas McMahon will do the opposite,

even though the belief is that it may be a more charming facade. Fish off at this point in time appears to be less liked by his employees because he's more blunt with him and with most everyone. McMahon is still the one who is least trusted, although not as disliked. Is that the MO for you both? Dave Meltzer is such a psychological, emotional, and literary wreck. This guy, I feel bad for you because you have to read this stuff out loud and try to make sense of it.

The man cannot write. He breaks constantly about some guy that used to write for the New York Times who's been dead for a while. Probably doesn't know that, you know, Dave Meltzer is now publishing stories that aren't even real from people that aren't even real. I'm sure that whatever that guy's name is, he's probably doing backflips in his grave, you know, because he actually. considered Dave to be a journalist, whatever it was, 20 years ago. But this, he, I, I, I don't know how this guy ever publishes anything. He can't string a sentence together that makes any real sense. Are you, but it, but is that your style of leading?

Are you more blunt, less up front, let's get it over with, let's address what we're dealing with, uh, some, a lot of bosses are different. I've always been pretty straightforward. I've never sugarcoated. I've never played the game. I've never taken any pride in my ability to hide my intentions in the course of a conversation. None of that. Nuance is not a word that I would ever use to describe my approach to communicating with anybody.

Now, to some people who are used to that, that's blunt. That's not caring. It doesn't care if he hurt your feelings. That's not true at all. I think lying to someone or misleading someone ultimately hurts their feelings and does more damage than perhaps saying something that comes off as a little harsh when really the only thing harsh about it is it's honest and direct and the person who said it looked you in the eyes when they did and for most people or some people that's very uncomfortable but I've I've always appreciated

when people were direct and honest with me because I never looked for the nuance. I never look for the hidden meaning in anything i never look for the secret message as as the tapeworm does so often um it just it is what it is and work it out if you can't work it out shake hands part company go about your day about your business but yeah to some people that comes off is harsh yeah i think anybody who's at any boss which is probably everybody here um you know you've had different kind of bosses and and that's the tip towing of boss how everybody is different and how they like to be it's like if you have a sports team everybody likes to be coach different some people like you to berate them and tell them to do better and some

people want you to you know build them up i'm of that kid i would rather have the cold shower and let's go let's address what needs to be because technically you're on their team you're trying to improve them and say hey let's let's get better there's a problem in the room let's address it and move on and get better from it. But that's just human nature. Some people don't like that, whatever the case. No, I think some people are, look, I don't want to overly generalize. I'll just talk about myself.

Again, I've always appreciated when people were really directing up front with me, whether they were a boss or a personal relationship. Right. I'd just much rather deal with the facts than the nuance and the hidden meaning behind the nuance and all that other horse shit. So, yeah, I would, I've always preferred, if somebody, if I was working for somebody and my work wasn't up to par, I would always appreciate much more. Somebody come up to me and saying, Eric, here's why your work isn't acceptable.

Here's what you're going to have to do to make it acceptable. Let's meet again next week and see how that works out. Yeah. Cool. Now I know what my job is. Yeah. But there's nothing worse to me than having somebody come up and tell you how much they enjoy. you i'm going to say love having you on the team and man you work is outstanding i wish more people

had you did you did and then find out down the road that no they don't feel that way at all because then you can never trust the person you're working for and not being able to trust them i think is is a much more uncomfortable feeling again for me than whether or not they hurt my feelings from the observer there are wresters on both sides that have the grass as greener mentality with those in WWF envious of the money and the WCW top stars make an easier road schedule and those in WCW

envious of the fact that WWF wrestlers seem to have an upward mobility and that with the exception of very few guys who are either giants in size or political connections that's the only way to get a push in WCW is to come from WWF and not

be homegrown Eric. That's just the way the business was at this point where guys always looking for more and better spots, right? I mean, that's just how it is. Gee, that's a shocker, right, Cassie? I mean, I'm sure, you know, you spent a good part of your adult life as a stand-up comic and a writer. And I'm sure, I'm absolutely certain in the world of comedy that that phenomenon does not exist. Everybody's really comfortable with whatever gig they have.

and nobody's wishing they had somebody else's spot. No, not at all. There's no politics and comedy, is there? No, I'm happy where I'm at. Yes. I don't care what the other guy's doing, right? No. All right, as we continue, if there was a fault that both shared in their interviews,

it was the inability to admit even the most obvious mistake. McMahon refused to admit. and in hindsight putting Melanie Pilman on the air live one day after Brian died was a mistake and tried to defend it. Bischoff refused to admit that in hindsight, the firing of Steve

Austin was a mistake and tried to defend it. Because it's not. It wasn't even Steve Austin said it wasn't a mistake. On Steve Austin's own show, you fucking tapeworm, miscreant waste of humanity.

It's not enough that you can't can't fucking write you can't even be honest about being honest guess what steve austin on his show on his podcast said to me and i'm going to paraphrase eric looking back if i were you i would have fired me too it's just it you know it just is i'm sorry i don't want to spend this this much time talking about the tapeworm but Unfortunately, in this particular, because every episode's a little different. Every episode of the show is a little bit different. Some rely more heavily on the tapeworm than others do.

Yes. And this one's relying very heavily on the tapeworm. So I can't help but answer questions and put things in context. And if that sounds like I'm spending too much time beating up on the tapeworm, I apologize, but I keep bringing up the tapeworm. I'm going to do it anyway. Let's go back to the tapeworm. Bischoff's main points were to dispute the reputation McMahon has in some circles,

and certainly Lansberg believes that he proclaimed him as being more in touch with his market than any sports promoter of his generation as being a promotional genius. Bischoff claimed that much of McMahon's success came due to the talent he had working for him, and the packaging of the talent in most of the cases came either from characters. They came into the WWF with Hulk Cogan and Randy Savage, who came into the WWF with their characters. In the case of Hogan, was already one of the biggest international superstars of the business

from the AWA and New Japan, or characters conceived by the wrestlers himself and not McMahon, in fact, aka Razor Ramon in particular, was noted. Why do you think the thought process is that Vince McMahon created stars and leaves out the success of the people that he signed. That's very WWE, right? That's classic branding 101.

That's Vince McMahon branding 101. We did it. We did it. Nothing else existed. It wouldn't have existed had it not been for us. We did it. And it was all me. Actually, Vince, I will say this about Vince.

To this day, the three or four years that I worked there as talent, I never knew who the author was. of any idea like in in in w c w this was this is actually putting putting vince over and w w e in the way they managed their business because it was never about whose idea it was in w w w e it was just the idea now people suspected you know this was vince's baby or what and sometimes you can tell you know when you see an idea on paper you can kind of tell where it came

from just the way it was laid out certain people have certain patterns in the way they do things. Right. But for the most part, man, you never asked, whose idea was this? I never asked that question.

Never heard that conversation. Never heard a reference about it. It was the company's idea. But everybody knew that Vince McMahon was the company. And that every idea, at least while I worked there, especially as an executive for four months, literally every word.

of every promo was reviewed in advance by Vince McMahon. And you just knew that as talent. So ultimately what that did, and I think the impact of that strategy, and it was a good one, was that people questioned the ideas less because the ideas didn't have personalities like people do. You just judge the idea based on the idea.

And that was effective. However, I've said this before, I'll say it again. I don't think Vince McMahon is nearly as creative as he had the credibility, as he had the reputation of being at that time. Now, over the last couple years, there's been a lot of questions and conversation

about, you know, Vince McMahon's creative. But I think Vince McMahon's brilliance, and I do think he's brilliant, by the way, is not so much in his creative as in his overall vision instinct for branding and promotion that I don't think I've ever met anybody that comes close to Vince McMahon in that regard. Creatively speaking, not so much. Doesn't mean he didn't have some great ideas. He had some fucking shit bombs too, but as we all have,

But I think Vince ended up with the reputation for being a creative genius. That was the term you'd hear a lot, you know, from town. He was a creative genius. He was more of a business and strategic genius than he was a creative one, in my opinion. Do you think being a heel hurt you in that you could have been out in the media promoting the company compared to others when Vince, who still hadn't came all the way out as a hill owner was able to do these types of PR thing? I wouldn't have been as good at it. Because that's just not my thing. You know, to be that front person, you know, that's an art, that's a talent.

And it's also a compromise because you're going to be asked questions that you're going to have to elegantly answer if you're going to be that face of the company, trying to put the best foot forward, a spokesperson, right? Whereas if your personality, that is a little controversial or in that point probably a lot controversial. And by the way, I was playing off of that, too. The fact that we were going head to head, let's not forget, I gave away his finishes. Let's, I mean, there's a lot of things I did that I did because I knew controversy creates cash. I knew it would create conversation, all of which would lead to cash. So the confrontational kind of, I don't want to say

rebel but you know what i mean that approach worked for me so i would carry that forward oftentimes in my interviews without worrying about trying to clean up my act because i was the head of the company uh according to the observer when asked whether it was his ego that was putting him on camera so much eric said that with all the hard work running the company and he gets to have fun every monday night is that how you looked at it would you have changed anything looking back Oh, I'm changing a lot of things looking back. But with regard to me being on television, no, because remember, I started out on camera. It's not like I showed up as an accountant and then found a way to work myself in front of a camera and then became obsessed with being on television.

I had been on television since 1988. I hosted a show on ESPN Monday through Friday. I'd been on TV a lot. So the idea of being on television was not anything. new to me. It was what I got paid to do. Now, transitioning to being a part of the NWO, that was different, but it also made a tremendous amount of sense from a storyline perspective. You know, you look back at, you know, the NWO when I first started, how did they get away with all that stuff? How did they possibly get away with doing all the crazy stuff that the NWO did before

I was revealed as the guy that was pulling the strings. Didn't make any sense. Once I was revealed as the guy that was making all this happen or allowing it to happen, all of it fell into place. And from a storyline perspective, that made sense. So my judgment to get involved was, it's believable, it's plausible, from a storyline perspective. And following up on some of the comments that I made,

yeah, it was fun for me. going on and performing was still is a great deal of fun for me just like i know it is for you anybody that loves to be out there and perform you know you find yourself it's almost like an out of body experience in a way because it's really you that's out there but it's this other kind of life form that's also out there with you having fun and the audience is reacting to that's a hell of an emotional experience and it's a fun thing to do so of course i enjoyed it but it wasn't my ego. Again, that's the tapeworm. In response to Hogan's reputation for not doing jobs, has anyone been paying attention

in the last year, says the observer and his rep within the industry, Bischoff stated that Hogan cares more about the wrestling business than most people in it, and he's, quote, one of the least selfish people that I know. Is that accurate? Do you think Hulk wasn't selfish back then. I've said that probably a thousand times since that interview, and I still believe it to this day. Look, Hulk Hogan protected his character

at a time when promoters especially because, remember, Hulk came up through the territory system. He didn't pop up out of the, out from underneath the ring in WWF. He had worked in different

territories around the country, worked for Verngania, was getting a real education, early education, but getting an education about the wrestling business and learned early on, probably in no small part because of his experience with Bergenia, that if you're not protecting your own business and your own brand, no one else is going to do it for you. And it's not like Hulk was the only one that knew that or realized that. That was the way business was back then. Now, obviously, Hulk Hogan, you know, ascends to the very top of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of,

the wrestling industry at that point in time. He's on a cover of Sports Illustrated. He's on Johnny Carson. He's everywhere. He protected that business. Why wouldn't he? He would not have ever made it to that point had he not protected his character in his business.

So in the sense of being aware of and protecting your brand, one who has never been in the wrestling business could argue or interpret that is being selfish. or really fucking smart. Take your pick. Now, if you're someone like the tapeworm who's never really been in the business but likes to write about it, you could spin that as being selfish.

But if you really understand the industry, and let's talk about the risk, what are the risks of a guy like Hulk Hogan going out, Hulk Hogan going out and doing a job for the sake of doing a job, or to try to help somebody get over more, which is theoretically why you would do it anyway, or why you'd be asked to do it. If there's business behind it,

if it makes sense from a business perspective and from a creative one, Hulk would jump in with both feet. Here's where people always ran into a problem with Hulk Hogan. I watched it happen. In fact, it happened to me initially, you know, going in when I first started dealing with Hulk, is Hulk would always be very gracious. listen he was a great listener and he'd let you get all your shit out wouldn't interrupt you wouldn't you know gesticulate you know his body language to give you any indication that he was

uncomfortable or comfortable or whatever he'd just sit and he would listen and look you in the eye as he was listening to you occasionally you'd get a stroke of manchu which either could be good or bad depending on the context of the conversation but occasionally you'd get a little bit of a foo man shoe stroke somewhere in the middle of your pitch and at the end of it it would war off not every time first thing he would do is ask you a question very good where does it go what are we doing next week what does this lead to and if you didn't have a good answer for that. If you hadn't thought through that, if you didn't have as much of a detailed answer in terms of why are we doing this and where is it going, if you didn't have

as much ammo in your pocket when he asked you that question as you did when you first sat down, you're done. Because that, that, and I learned that the hard way. And I, and I, I've, I've learned to try to emulate that. sometimes because i've often found myself getting excited about somebody's idea and jumping in with both feet only to figure out that they don't have a freaking clue what they're doing next it's just a good idea in the moment of a good idea this rousseau was great at that miss rousseau and then this and then he just paint this great picture and he'd be so passionate about it and you could just feel it he'd do a great great and i'm talking about

about this is coming from a great salesman i'm a great salesman Vince russo is better than me right he was awesome at pitching you an idea but when you would ask that question that's awesome where does it go yeah but bro it's i can't think of everything bro we'll we'll figure it out you know you know the problem would fall out of the idea yeah so i'm i've often and i've got myself caught in that situation so now I try to listen and ask the next obvious question, which is, this is great. Where does it take us to? And Hulk Hogan would always do that.

If you're going to pitch him, especially if he's, you know, going to be in a match with somebody and you're asking him to lose, the obvious question is why and where does it go? And if that's what the tapeworm considers selfish, then yeah. Hulk Hogan was very selfish. I think he was brilliant. I think he was smart and he protected his brand, which is why he became Hulk Hogan. Do you think that Stone Cold Steve Austin didn't do the same thing?

Oh, I don't know, in Atlanta, Georgia one day when he didn't like the finish it, you just took a shit and went home? You think the rock just shows up and takes whatever anybody writes down for him. She's sure, I'm going to do that because I'm a generous guy. Yeah. Do you think Brock Lesner shows up?

at TV. Do you think Brock Lezard would show up and if somebody handed him a format and said, oh, you're going to lose to whoever, Brock is just go, okay, cool. I'll do that because I'm a generous guy. No. No chance. No.

And those are just a couple of names. You could probably pick out any name that's been at the top of their career. And some, you know, some were more generous than others. Some were more. Some didn't want to add some, some talent didn't like confrontation. So, yeah, they were a lot easier to get along with in the moment. But just about anybody you can think of that's ever been at the top of the game has been selfish for good reason. They had to protect themselves.

Let's think about what happens from here when we're talking about clothing, Eric Bischoff. And that's why I want to bring up bird dogs. Bird dogs, shorts and pants with a comfortable built-in liner. Built-in underwear is the future of comfort, and the future is now with bird dogs. Cacky shorts, gym shorts, bathing suits, joggers, sweatpants with bird dogs. It's all about fit, comfort, and versatility. You're going to look better and feel great wearing bird dogs. They have the stretchy fabric.

It's going to be more comfortable than your other shorts and pants, and bird dogs will give you that freedom. to wear one pair of shorts or pants that are good for the golf course, a meeting, a date, or just hanging out with friends. And that's called versatility, Eric Bischoff. I absolutely love my bird dogs. Come on. I got a pair of lines and unlined sweatpants and two pairs of shorts.

And they are so comfortable. I am never, I'm getting on a plane Tuesday. and I'm flying to Connecticut. Don't get, no, I'm doing a personal appearance. I'm doing a personal appearance at a club in, in Connecticut. But they are so, I'll never stop. I'll never step foot on another plane.

And anything else than my bird dogs, ever. Incredible. Eric Bischoff, Burke Kreisher, Dave Portnoy, the very funny. Tim Dillon, pardon my take host, college football nerds, all of them. Rocking the bird dogs, it is the future of pants. You know, we thought for a long time pants were just going to be pants. And now bird dog has came along and said, we're going to give you those comfortable pants

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They're flying around inside your bird dogs. There's no better way to get through your day than a pair of bird dogs after you've been freshly manscape. It's awesome. And we're going to, well, you know we're going to throw in some deals and wheels here. Birddogs.com is the website. And if you enter promo code 83 weeks, the number 83 weeks, of course, you're going to get a free Yeti-style tumbler with every order

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some Brett Hart it said in the observer he said that he knows what to do with Brett Hart but isn't sure of the timing of when to do it but he said that the time comes and Hogan versus Hart will make a tremendous amount of money and then he has no plans to play

up the U.S. versus Canada angle when Hogan's age was brought up as if he's too old to be on top, Bischoff stated that Hogan still draws more money than anyone else in the business. Eric, was this Brett's fault to the end of the day, or was it the inability

to get the timing right? It was a combination of a lot of things. Not the least of which is I didn't have a great plan. I'm going to put myself at the head of the list in terms of things that went wrong and not kind of blame anybody else because that was my job. That was my responsibility.

But there were other things going on that I think affected it and made, made it worse, frankly. And I'm not going to blame anybody, you know, no. So, no, it was just bad timing. Lack of a good plan, lack of a great plan, and just a lot of other things that were taking place in Brett's life that just made, made it worse. It is what it is.

When the host said that all his top stars were over 40 and questioned the company's future due to that, Bischoff brought up names like Ray Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Diamond Dallas Page, who was actually 42, as young stars. When the host tried to dismiss them as they're all, quote, lightweight. Bischoff said that Paige is no lightweight and that Benoit and Jericho can wrestle with the big guys and said that today's audience wants more of an athletic contest and not just. just big guys slugging each other. Were you thinking at this time you needed to start looking towards the future yet, Eric?

We already were, man. I mean, you mentioned the names, Mysterio, Mysterio, you know, Jericho, Melenko, Guerrero, Benoit. You know, these are names that, what was that host's name again? I can't remember. That is. I mean, he's really, he's relatively. Landsberg. Michael Landsberg.

He's famous again. He's a Canadian hero of sorts. But, yeah, there's more people in California than there is in Canada. So being a Canadian hero isn't as big of a leap as we're used to here in the States. Michael Landsberg should have known better. But Michael Landsberg was there basically to kiss the WWF's ass. That's what his job was. He was being the pro.

WWF, anti-WCWCW voice, which is fine. I get it. That's his show. He needed to do that or felt as though he did. But that's what that was. Should have known better. But, you know, look, the cruising weights were dominating shit, right? I was making a big deal out of the cruiser weights, which was, in effect, a much more athletic, higher, faster pace, completely different presentation than the 300 pounds, six foot, five inch, you know, monsters that we would typically see in wrestling.

So it wasn't that I saw the future coming. I was executing on the future. And now we're seeing it. Now we've got guys like the tapeworm and we're putting over guys that are 140 pounds, 150 pounds, because it's the Japanese style. And by the way, Ray Mysterio and Chris Jericho

both still as top guys as we talk now. That's an amazing part. It just shows you what guys like Michael Landsberg or the tapeworm Meltzer. it's kind of revealing of who they are and more importantly what they are and how much you should really consider their opinions back from the observer there was nothing new at press time regarding the contractual situation with six although many in the company were talking as if they expected he would be brought back there apparently was an agreement reached between Hulk Hogan

and Kevin Nash to try and use the real heat probably including the firing of six and try and work a wrestling angle out of it, which would enable Nash to headline against Hogan, which pacifies him somewhat. That is so, again, that's the tapeworm just making shit up, right? By the way,

um, Bobby, Keelow, Foxhrat 5, Golf Tango X-ray. I'm reading here. Donovius, Hey, Denovies, how are you, man? It's been too long. Genovius Mac and Bobby,

going back and forth and it sounds like Bobby had a great at a great weekend and had Friday off his daughter scored a first place and two second place ratings plus top dance of the day this weekend at her dance competition life is good Bobby hoorah I love that good for you my friend good for you and congratulations to your daughter I love reading stuff like that that's what's it's all about we love recording in front of a live studio it's for moments like that That's why I should be part of the AFS family. Eric, it's also reported that you were going to Japan for the Inoki Retirement Show and help men fences with New Japan.

There is a belief going on that as long as Bischoff takes Sonnyono out of the picture, that New Japan will be willing to continue the relationship. How tenuous was that relationship? Was it always up and it? It wasn't at all. And again, I don't know where this stuff. This guy, I don't know if the tapeworm does that. or not or

but it's like where does this stuff how does he even make this shit up no the office particular masasaito and sunny is still close friends with masasaiido's widow sunny was well-liled we almost say love but he was well-liked and well respected in new japan

and there was no mending offenses taking place in 1998 i was i was invited by the way they invited my wife and my children to come with me and paid for it. It's so genuine. Class all the way. There was no mending offenses. There was sushi and sake and hugs and high fives.

There's some awesome shit. With all the issues with Noggin and Hogan and Nash, Piper and John are going to be teaming up to take on the two at Spring Stampede and a baseball bat on a ball match. Oh, my God. This is Rousseau, right? I don't know who that was. That's got to be him.

Were you expecting any issues with Hogan and Ash considering all that was going on? No, because a lot more was made of what... Look, there were times when it got tense. You got two highly, highly, highly paid, one in particular. Professionals that had strong opinions

and good reasons for those strong opinions, and there were times when they didn't see eye to eye, but not nearly to the extent that the tapeworm would have people believe and in others like the tape one. You know, there's so much was made out of it that it was a much bigger deal in the fake world than it was in the real world. but no to you answer your question i was never nervous about it i knew they'd work it out i can't wait

to hear your take on this from the observer sting retained the wcw title beating diamond dallas page in 10 minutes and 59 seconds with the scorpion death drop after blocking the diamond cutter hogan came up with the finished best match of the show and probably sting's best singles match in the year two things first off melts are reporting that hogan came up with the finish How would Hogan know that? Excuse me, how would the tapeworm know that? Oh, no. That's my favorite line.

Hogan came up with a finish for somebody else's match. Yeah. I mean, that's. How would then Meltzer know it? He didn't. He didn't. Melzer would write whatever somebody else would tell him. You know, anytime Meltzer comes, you know, he posts some shit on social media.

And most of the time I ignore him. But whenever Dave talks about his crew, credibility or the fact that he's a journalist and his integrity. I post the same story I've been posted for six or eight months where he got caught with his pants down, publishing a story that was so fake, the guy who wrote it wasn't even real. And Dave published it word for it. He's a fraud, people. He's a con artist who's stealing your money.

And that's not bad enough. He's making you think you're walking around with information and knowledge that makes you more knowledgeable or have more information and maybe some of your friends that are also wrestling fans when in fact you look like a fucking idiot because you are thinking or repeating what this tapeworm is presenting to you as fact when in fact it's nothing but whatever weird shit takes place in his head whatever need dave melzer has to feel significant or light or impressive. Whatever that weird need is that someone like Dave Mouser has,

he tries to get it by saying things, writing things, publishing things that are completely bullshit. But yet some people pay him for it. Goddust, go for it. Go for it. Keep sending him your money. also from this paragraph dp's the second hottest baby facing the company right here why is he having to wrestle and lose to sting because it was interesting i don't know i mean

it's like there's only so much you could do to protect people why is it that it is again it's a fascinating thing about people who think they understand the wrestling business and really try hard to pretend that they do because then they'll get guys like the tape room will get into conversations about protecting certain talent in this case you've got the number two baby face in the company why should that person have to wrestle the number one baby face that's like you know in the NFL you have two teams that are both really good teams and somebody says now let's not have them play i know it's on the schedule but let's not do that because we don't want to do that now you bring it together, you find out who wins, you tell a great story, you have a great match,

and you move on and you do it again next week. It's just so childish sometimes to listen to the ramifications of people who are nothing more than adolescence when it comes to understanding the wrestling business, but write about it and talk about it in such a way that they really have a grasp on it. By the way, even his own words, if you ask the question why, here's the line. Best match of the show and probably Sting's best single match in year. Yeah, and by the way, did that hurt Diamond Dallas page? Did his career stall in any way?

Or did his career actually continue on its trajectory? The answer to that is obvious, but not if you follow the tape one. uh giant beat hogan and nash via dq in 622 when ed leslie interfered giant's weight is now up to a legit 493 pounds you think he'd want to lose weight says the observer not be trying to put on five pounds a week and you haven't seen small until you've seen brian hildebrand in the ring next to giant nash and hogan in the ring hogan gets worse by the week says the observer it's amazing to see about where it proved 200% when Nash tagged in. Nash's height

this week is varying between 6-11 and 7 foot, I guess depending on what he's been eating, or is it what the announcers have been drinking? Leslie's been for this, Leslie went for the Stone Cold Stoner on Giant who wouldn't go down, basically exposing the move. Giant

wound up choke-slamming Bischoff in here. Where do we start? But how is that choke-slam, Eric? I think it was the easiest bump I've ever taken. Really? You have no, I mean, not say you, I guess you, but no one could possibly understand the sensation.

You know, at that time I was probably 200 pounds, like 90 maybe. I was over 200, which is pretty small, considering I was in there with guys that big. But when Paul White picked me up, I felt like a loaf of bread in his hands. Like, he could have easily just spun me around, shot me up in the air, caught me with one hand, threw me behind his back, threw me over his shoulder, spun me around again, and then choke slamming. He had that much control over me because he was so freaking strong that when he put me down, it looked great on TV. I didn't feel the thing.

His slam was so controlled that I swear as he picks me, because I was up there. I mean, he's a tall guy, right? Yeah. He's got me up. And I'm coming down and I'm thinking just simple physics. You know, I remember in the math equation,

32 feet per second per second, I'm thinking, this is going to hurt, right? By the time he set me down, I swear to God, he pulled me just before I hit. Because I didn't feel the thing. It was the weirdest sensation. It's the only thing I can think of because I was expecting it. I was tucking my head.

I'm going to hurt so bad. Tuck it chin, tuck it chin, tuck it you in, tuck it chin, tuck it you. I went all the way up there. I could read the number of watts and the light bulbs up in the ceiling. That's how high it was. Oh, it's a 300 water up there. What are they? That's only 250.

But I'm up there so high and I'm expecting when I come down, it's going to, I'm going to feel it. I didn't feel the thing. And I think it's because he had that much control over me. Incredible. Incredible. Let's tell them what else is incredible, Eric Bischoff. And that is the Sleep Me, Sleep Systems. Me and you both use these things. If you're someone who needs extra recovery from the last workout like my wife, or just sleep hots in general, like myself, you don't need to suffer, wake up tired or wake up sore with Sleep Me's award-winning sleep systems. It's a mattress topper that goes on to your current mattress. you don't need to buy a new mattress it uses water's thermal powers to cool your bed to as low as 55 degrees that means no matter how hot you get you can sleep at your ideal temperature eric it's an amazing it's incredible really i want to call it a piece of equipment but it's it really is amazing and it helps mrs b a lot

because she likes to sleep really cool. Me, not so much, but she likes it like really cool. And I've talked about this before. When we built our house here in Wyoming back in the late 90s, and we built it, you know, I didn't put in air conditioning. Because here in Wyoming, most of the time, even during the summer, it's up to 80, 90 degrees during the day. It's hot.

Yeah. But it'll drop down into the 40s and the 50s at night. So you just open up your windows. leave them open all night get up in the morning close your windows your house generally stays cool all day but there are those days during the summer when it gets up to a hundred ninety five 98 even occasional will tip the scales at a hundred and it doesn't cool off to 40 or 50 at night so about i don't know a dozen times every summer i get that look for mrs b you didn't want an air conditioner did you and it makes it worse we have a we have a two-story house

so when you go upstairs where the bedrooms are you know in the middle of july when it's been 97 degrees out of day and it doesn't cool down to you know 40 or 50 at night you got to really like to sweat in order to get a good night's sleep miss be did not like to sweat or sleep so chilly sleep or sleep me as we refer to it now is absolutely Absolutely the solution because she'll fall asleep. She's got the quilt over her. You can barely see her little head. She's all tucked in there,

nice of comfortable. She's got that, she's got her sleep meet turned down to about 45 degrees. She's sleeping like a rock. Me and my life are opposite. She loves, she loves it warm and hot. And it doesn't even matter.

If it's 97 degrees here in Alabama, she's got the sheet with a light, blanket and the comforter me i'm like sweating profusely and i'm cranking that sleep me down and that's the beauty as you just mentioned eric everybody's different especially if you're if you have a couple and you're sleeping together it's usually you like at different temperatures and that's the beauty dual temper control 55 all the way up to 115 degrees that is the beauty and you can program it to your body. So, hey, if you like to sleep cold, it'll start warming up and naturally, slowly wake

you up without an alarm system as well. Currently, Sleep Me offers two water-based sleep systems, the Doc Pro, and the Cube. Both sleep systems provide mattress toppers that cool, like we said, as low as 55 degrees. Fahrenheit, the Doc Pro, is their newest, most powerful system for a perfect sleep climate, no matter your body's heat load or room temperature. So if you need better athletic recovery, or if you're suffering from hot, uncomfortable sleep, you've got to check out Sleep Me at sleep.me slash 83 weeks. That's sleep.

me slash 83 weeks, 83, W-E-E-K-S. Plus, as a listener to this podcast, you can save up to 20% on a sleep system if you use the promo code, 83 weeks. This is really an absolute game changer. It's been that for me and my wife. As you just heard, Eric, say it's him from, and Mrs. B, it's a game changer as well. You got to go to sleep.combe, slash 83 weeks and save up to 20% using promo code, 83 weeks. All right, Eric, let's get back into the car.

Davy Boy Smith beat Kurt Henning via DQ in 538, Rick Rood, handcuffed Smith to the ropes, and then they destroyed him until Hart showed up and cleaned housed on not only Henning and Rood, but also Brian Adams, Vincent, Conan, and Norton, he then did an interview where he said something about someone saying Brett screwed. Brett. Finally, Doug Dillinger came out with a key, unlocked the handcuffs with that key. Hey, how did Dillinger have a key to Root's handcuffs? Says the observer, I smell a conspiracy. How come not one announcer notice is? stillinger must secretly be a double agent according to the observer this is so good rude takes a bump in which was crazy as no one thought he was allowed to but this brett screwed

brett gimmick why was it so hard to book brett eric again i'm only being careful here because i How do I say this? I ran into Brett a couple of years ago in the UK. And we're sitting at a table. A bunch of us were there. And, you know, Brett had said a lot of stuff at this point. I had said a lot of things as well. I'm sitting there looking at Brett, you know, it's awkward silence.

I'm thinking, this is stupid. We're both sitting here having beers. Everybody's having fun. When the time is right, I'm going to pull Brett aside and just have a conversation with him and say, look, I'm just not going to, I'm not going to bury you anymore. You do whatever you want, Brett, but I'm just not doing it anymore. It's not how I feel about you. It's not cool.

The past is the past. So that's it. And I've tried to do that ever since. That was a couple of years ago. And there's been times I've caught myself saying things that I wished I wouldn't have said. Even in this show early on, I was careful about how I made certain comments. for that reason, which is respect. There was a lot of things that I wish I could have done it differently with Brett.

There were a lot of situations that I wish wouldn't have existed when Brett came in, none of which I have any control over now. The only thing I have control over now is how I look back at that period of time. And more importantly to me, because the past is the past. I can't do anything to change it. It is what it is. And it's not going to affect my life one way or the other going forward. but my future in a way I think about it does and is and when it comes to bread I try to remain

as respectful and positive as I can so if I neglect to go into detail it's not because I have anything to hide or I'm embarrassed it's just it going forward he's just not someone that I want to spend a lot of time saying anything other than positive things about if I can and if I can't, I'll try not to say anything. Which is what I just did, by the way. I have another co-host, uh, road dog who, uh, is in the same boat as you. So I'll just move on. Real quickly, uh, Observer reported Nails was expected to join the NW and get a big push.

Uh, of course, uh, nails choked Vince McMahon. Was there any talk of him getting a bit push or joining NW? Not joining the NW. But I think we did bring them in. I mean, I did. I mean, I worked with Kevin Kelly in the AWA. So it sounded like I had never heard of Kevin Kelly before. Right.

Actually, I'm going to tell you a quick story. This is a funny story. Oh, yes. So I'm working. This is 1987. I'm working for Vern. I may be there for two weeks. Everything is new to me.

The wrestling. I mean, I can't believe. I'm working for. for Verde Ghania, right? I was like mind-blown. And when I was hired, I didn't have an office, right? So a guy by the name of Mike Shields, who was really responsible for hiring me.

I mean, Verde obviously agreed to it, but it was really Mike Shields was the guy. It was the catalyst between behind getting me in there. And Mike said, I said, Mike, I don't really have an audience or excuse me in office. And at that time, they were taping a lot of interviews and doing a lot of production in a side of the building. where I was typically not allowed to be during TV interview days, right, taping days

because Vern was very much about cave. So Mike says, go buy some, because I, you know, I could build shit, you know. You said, go buy some lumber, some sheetrock, build yourself a little office. Cool. I'll do that. So I came in at night, one night, maybe two nights it took me.

but I built this little like 10 foot by 10 foot office out of two by fours and sheet rock and taped them and sprayed them did all that construction stuff painted it looks really great and I had this big beautiful white-tailed deer head from a deer that I actually got in Montana with Lori's uncle right after we first started dating it was a beautiful like trophy white-tailed deer mount so I've got that in my office. and I get a little picture of my son, Garrett, right underneath it. It's up on my wall. And on TV taping days, when a talent came in,

I was supposed to stay in my office and not come out because Vern didn't want me out there amongst talent because he was super K-Fame in that regard. So I'm hunkered down in my office. Now, I can hear everything because all I've got, it's like sheet rock and two-by-fourths. That's my office. But I can hear every single thing that was going on out there.

I just went about my business and tried to keep my nose clean and head down. All of a sudden, I hear this argument taking place, and it sounds like it's right outside of my office, and it's escalating, and it's escalating, and it's escalating. And I'm sitting there going, holy shit, there's going to be a fight up there. All of a sudden, Sheik Adnan LKC's head came through my office wall. fortunately when in between the two by four studs otherwise it would have caved his head in I'm sitting in my office chair I'm new on the job maybe two weeks probably closer to 10 days

and I hear all this hooting and hollering and then sheik's head comes through my wall and I'm looking at sheik ed and out of LKC and he's looking up at me I'm sitting at my desk his head is sticking out of the wall underneath my deer head. So it looked like I had two trophies there. It was incredible. It was nails who had gotten into it. Somebody ribbed nails. Can't imagine who that would have been, Kurt Henning.

Somebody pulled the rib on nails and then put the heat on Sheik. And nails came in and was hot. And I had to get a new wall. I had to get a new wall. Imagine being on the job 10 days and having that happen to you. It's like, what? What the hell did I get myself into? Welcome to the show, my friend.

According to the observer on Thunder on 326, they continued the Hogan Nash angle with Nash asking why six no longer had a job and why Scott Hall wasn't allowed on television. Huggwin replied that six couldn't hang with the big dogs and then asked Nash since he had, since he was Hall's best friend, he wanted to know where Hall was and Nash weekly answered that he wasn't there. This interview was replayed all weekend, almost as a lead-in to Waltman's interview on Raw, four days later. Eric, were these two ever unprofessional during this segment on Thunder? No.

They might have been unintertaining for a couple moments here or there because, look, the chemistry wasn't there. And we're talking about something that just, it was awkward. we probably should have just left it alone, but I guess, you know, picking the scab off wounds was kind of the order of the day. But, no, unprofessional, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Fishall spoke to the wrestlers recently

in an apparent attempt to have a reason for Waltman being fired since the entire situation internally has been considered by most as a black eye for the company, saying, excuse me, saying that any wrestler out of action for more than six months, due to an injury might be let go. This contradicts, at least in several wrestlers' opinion, what Bischoff said shortly after the death of Brian Pilman,

where he claimed that no wrestler would ever be fired for taking time off for a legitimate injury or to go into rehab to take care of addictions. Waltman had explored suing WCW since he still had about 18 months left on his contract when he was terminated. No, he didn't because he didn't sign it. A lot depends on Georgia law, he says, because the fact was able to get a new job for more money, means that he wasn't actually financially damaged by the unfair termination, which could limit

a result in no damages being assessed in the court, even if WCW is found. Oh, now the tapeworm is an attorney. Yeah, he's got all the legal. He can do it all. That aside, we've addressed what actually happened on his contract. Did you ever say that after Pilman's day? Did you, did you tell them that no one will be fired for taking time off for a legitimate injury or to go into rehab to take care of addictions? I don't remember saying that specifically, but I'm 100% sure I did at some point.

Because look, there's a difference between, despite the fact that the tapeworm doesn't want to put it in context. I didn't let Waltman go because of his injury. I let Waltman go because he tried to renegotiate a contract he had already negotiated and agreed to. That's holding someone up, a version of it. That's why I let him go. I didn't let him go because of an injury, even though the tapeworm wants to conflate the two because he didn't know what he was talking about them, which, you know, still the case today. but he's again the tapeworms painting a picture and telling a story that he knows nothing about

and because he doesn't know anything about he makes stuff up to fill in the blanks these were there were two separate issues did i had had did i ever say to someone if you get hurt in the ring we're not going to fire you yes i'm sure i did i remember exactly who i said it to and where i was standing when i said it no i don't but did i say that yeah i would i would bet my life that i did Did I say the same thing about if you have to go to rehab, you don't have to worry about your job? Yes, I am certain I said that. It doesn't mean that for the rest of your life, you could just go get fucked up, shoot heroin, and get a check every two weeks. But in Waltman's case, that wasn't even the issue.

The issue is he agreed to a deal. He was getting paid on that deal. He was cashing the checks of the deal that he agreed to. And then through his quote-unquote manager decided he wanted to. negotiate two separate issues tapeworm two separate issues not you're on march 30th is in chicago drawing another sellout paying 305,000 and they did 1288 per head in merchandise for the show and melzer would point out there's still no goldberg merchandise at this point Eric how long was the process to get thing merchandised in wcw was that something you think the

company could have done much better in Oh, they could have certainly, you know, licensing and merchandising was really the weakest link in WCW. From the time Nitro started until about this time in 1998, licensing and merchandising was the weakest link in our business model. And that was for a couple of reasons. Number one is we never needed it before. We couldn't give T-shirts away before. You know, if you were lucky to do, you were lucky to do $3 ahead in merch at a pay-per-view. Wow.

Back in the early 90s and pre-N-WO in particular, merch was just almost a non-existent line item. And as a result of that, we didn't really have any high power talent. We didn't have an infrastructure. We didn't have a process. We didn't have a plan. We didn't have anything. We just crank out some t-shirts if we were going to a town because we thought maybe somebody will buy some.

That's how unsophisticated our licensing and our merchandising divisions were after the launch of Nitro and before NWO. Now, starting at about 97, because of the success that we're having and the growth we're experiencing, now licensing and merchandising is scrambling to catch up. and that's kind of where we were with Bill. They were scrambling to catch up. And by catching up, I mean having an actual manufacturer place that could deliver merchandise correctly on time when it was ordered.

I know it seems like a common sense thing, but when you're starting from scratch, it's not as easy as it sounds. You know, I'm sure you've done business with people where you've had a conversation with them. You agreed to everything, everybody approves,

everything involved. And then you get whatever it is, you ordered back and it's not correct and you got to go back and correct it and all the things that go along with that that's where licensing and merchandising was at this time uh randy savage apparently suffered a torn interior cruciate ligament acl at the 331 tapings in madison wisconsin doing a dark match with the sting they had just started their match when this happened uh eric how big of a blow is this to rand at the time, considering he's working on top with Hulk and then Sting.

Randy no sold it. I mean, obviously, it was an injury. But Randy was so positive about being able to come out of it. And it just being a temporary speed bump that he pretty much no sold it. I mean, a lot of guys that get injured, not a lot. Some guys would get injured and they'd milk it. Oh, they would milk it. For every nickel and for every minute they could squeeze out of it.

They'd milk it. Randy was exactly the opposite of that. Randy was one of those guys who would work hurt and hide it. Even though he didn't need to, his contract was his contract, especially if he got hurt in the ring. But just as a man, as a professional, he just he hit it to the best of his ability and no sold it made sure that we didn't think too much of it all right eric let's jump to the pay-per-view my friend spring stampede

april 19th 1998 pay-per-view viz 200,000 last month uncensored 98 buys 325,000 last year spring Stampede, 97, 146,000 buys. So you're up from a year before, but way down from uncensored, almost 125,000 buys. Eric, do you think WrestleMania being close to spring stampede hurt you guys? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the longest, really until 97 really was the first time, we looked at those spring paper views us just you know we did them and we made yeah you make a million and a half two million dollars on a sunday afternoon doesn't suck right yeah but we pretty much knew we're

going to get crushed by russomania um so the fact that it did as well as it did was actually pretty surprising let's get into the specifics from the observer the w c w spring stampede pay review on 419 the denver coliseum looked to be one of those shows that on paper was going to be a waste of time, says the observer. After all, WCW had been presenting bad television for several weeks. All a few of the undercard matches look to have decent potential.

Can we stop right there? Can we set right there? I'm sorry. So in one breath, we're talking about record ratings. Yes. Record ratings. Like the most watch wrestling shows,

the biggest revenue. Outperform. And by the way, the show sucked. up 60,000 buys, but you guys have been doing a tape work, ladies and gentlemen, he'll be here all week, but he can ask of himself every night during happy hour. All right, let's get into the, let's get into the card. First match in the night, Bill Goldberg penned Perry saturn in eight minutes and ten seconds.

This match had the most heat of any match on the card, even though there were situations where if it had been anyone but Goldberg in there getting lost, the crowd would have died. At about 5.30 in the match fell apart momentarily, but Goldberg then hit his tackle and went for the jackhammer. Saturn broke it using a low blow while Kidman distracted the ref. They tried, but would have been an awesome spot with Goldberg press slamming Saturn while standing on the middle of rope, but he couldn't get Saturn up and just dropped him.

Goldberg tackled Kidman, but was attacked by Saturn who got him in the rings of Saturn. Goldberg broke the rings, but powering to his feet and hearing the jack cameron. although the sequence reads a lot better than it looked no it doesn't no it doesn't especially not with me reading it it's still got the super pop one and a half stars probably too long for a Goldberg match but still he's making quite the impact and saturn wasn't there to hurt him was he no he wasn't there to hurt him and by the way you know got a super pop and if you I bet you if you went back and watch that match the crowd was

way more into it. It probably wasn't nearly as bad as the way that Dave laid it out on paper. If you were just a casual fan, or even if you were a really, I want to say hardcore fan because that can be misleading, but if you're a really active fan, you enjoyed this match. I will tell you, unlike your host, I am a gigantic Goldberg guy. He was my guy. Love him. And I remember watching this. thought nothing of it.

It was Goldberg winning again, and I was super happy. So I think that's what the majority of us thought. Here we go. Match two, Ultimo Dragon in Shaovo Guerrero Jr. And 11 minutes of 49. Seconds dragon was incredible.

Guerrero stayed right with him. The Stips were here, were that if Guerrero won, and he didn't have to listen to everything Eddie says, but if he lost, Eddie would ride him twice as hard. When Shao was on the defensive, Eddie put a towel over his head

as if he was embarrassed to be seen all kinds of fast spots and reversals and the execution and timing was fallless. Chavo went for his tornado DDT finisher. I know he never wins, but if he was going to, that would be his finisher, says the observer, but

Dragon blocked the completion and turned it into a dragon sleeper for the tap-out finish. After the match, Chavo told Eddie that he refused to cheat to win. Four stars here from the observer. Such a great match and one you should really go out of your way to see if you haven't seen it a long time or have never seen it you think chavo gets the credit he deserves er no no and chavo is one of

the coolest cats on a planet i see him a couple times a year nothing but respect nothing but respect for chavo he first of all he came you know as a guerrero you've got not just a shadow you've got a series of, you've got a room full of shadows. It's you've got to, you've got to navigate. But Chavez did such a fantastic job. It was way more talented than he gets credit for.

Part of that is just timing. It really was, I think in Chavo's case. But Chavo wasn't afraid to try things. And I don't know if you remember this. Yes, you remember when Chavo had his little stick pony? He'd come around in a rain, pretend he was riding us remember that so good that was chavo's idea oh like he wasn't that wasn't like a message or a rib or anything chavo told me the story about how he and he was over at eddie's house

for a birthday party for one of the kids or something and just messing around and as often i ideas often do percolate up in situations like that it was like they started laughing about it and talking about it. And next thing, you know, there's a stick horse in the locker room because Chavo's bringing it to the ring and that he was going to make him right or whatever the story was. I don't remember. But that's an example of how willing Chavo was to do things that a lot of other talent would have felt, oh, no, my character can't do that.

Or, you know, people won't take me seriously if I do. And it's not that that's not. not always valid, but I think there's a lot of people, Kurt Engel's another one. There are people who are willing to do things as a wrestling character that are so outside their real life personalities that it takes a certain amount of confidence and bravery. I mean, because you're really going out there and make it a fool of yourself, but you're so confident in your ability to do it and make it entertaining that you're not afraid of it. You're only afraid of it if you're asked to go out there and do something that deep

down on the sides, you know you can't pull off because you're not feeling it. You can't relate to it. You don't understand it. Whatever. Or maybe your ego is just too fucking big. I don't know. But when you have somebody like Kurt Angel, I think is a greater example because here's a guy, you know, kind of won a gold medal, that little thing. Yeah. One of the baddest guys ever to set foot in the ring, there's that little thing. But then he'd go out there and wear a cowboy hat that was three sizes too small and make an ass of himself. Why?

Because he wasn't worried about all that other stuff. He had so much confidence in his ability and who Kurt Angle was and what he had achieved. But going out there and doing this fun little wrestling thing isn't going to change who he was. And he knew that. Kurt knew that. Which is why he was willing and able to go out there and do the things he did. Chavo was much the same way. I can't believe Kurt Angle would wear a tiny hat for a cheap hop, okay?

It's just not above me. Cheapop. Yeah, really? Who does that? It's ridiculous. Third match on the card, Booker T retained the WCW TV title pending Chris Minow, 14 minutes and 11 seconds. Very stiff, hard-fought match towards the finish.

Spinwaa hit a diving headbutt more than halfway across the ring and followed with three rolling German suplexes for a near fall. T. came back with a sidewalk slam hard and a flying forearm. T. worked for an axe kick, but Mouinot put referee Mickey Jay in the way and got nailed. Benoit put the cross face, but there was no ref. T tapped the mat twice, but it was an ambiguous tap, as you couldn't tell if he was actually hitting the mat, or he struggled to the ropes.

Finally, T. Reached ropes. Benoit broke it. Benoit tried to get Jay back together, and this gave T recovery time. He went for the Harlem sidekick, which was more on target for Jay, but Jay ducked it and hit Benoit, who was then pinned. Three and a half stars, Eric, never bad to put these two guys in the rain together. No, and I think we, didn't we do a best of seven with them? He did, you did.

Yeah. Remember, it's like, let's do best of three. Oh, that was so good. I got a better idea. Let's do a best of five. I was going, man. What's the best of 11? Let's get a calculator.

Who can figure that out? What's the best of 11? It's a good match, you know? Incredible. Next up, Kurt Henningpin, David Boy, Smith in four minutes and 48 seconds. In an unannounced stipulation, Rick Rood was handcuffed to Jim Knighthart. After the two previous matches, not only was this time for a bathroom break, but time to leave your brain in another room, says the observer.

now they're trying to explain the unexplainable you see the reason rude has handcuffs every week and after the angle's over Doug dillinger always has the key and is because all handcuffs have the same master key okay granted dillinger should always carry a handcuff master key because god knows what things these guys are going to do on the road with handcuffs and what sort of emergency is that the truth i can tell you about a hotel room i walked in one night in germany at about one o'clock in the morning i get a phone call i'm not going to name names here i'm not going to name names but what is it wrong with it's like one o'clock in the morning and i would have i've already been in bed for an hour and a half for two hours and i guess oh bro you got to come down the room

you got to come down the room oh can oh come on down all right i'm coming i walked it in a room it was like Caligula. Like the movie. Did you call Doug Dillinger? No, because I knew who had the keys to the hamcoats. He was sitting back in a corner, twirling his little mustache. This match is insane. Rude and Henning, Smith and Nighthart,

Vince's nightstick got broke out. Bobby Heenan was hilarious to all making jokes about just leaving Nighthart there all day, hooked to the post. Klondike, former wrestler Klondike Bill, who works on the ring crew now. He just set them both up tomorrow and the next city, said Heenan, which is great. The observer calls it a dud.

No stars. Who booked this shit there? Oh, no stars. Can you imagine all those guys Oh, they were so embarrassed They had to call their friends and family And apologize for not getting any stars From a tapeworm

Not getting any stars Uh next up Chris Jericho retained the WCW Cruze and Weight title beating Prince Ikea in nine minutes and 55 seconds IKEA is working the match With a sprain right knee fans saw this as the popcorn match

and didn't care at all. But Jericho did such a good job that they were really into the match by just a few minutes in. All kinds of reversals by Ikea into hot near falls before Ikea hit his Northern Light suplex finisher,

but Jericho made the ropes. Jericho on his third attempt at a line tamer, got in the middle for a submission, three and a quarter stars. Did anyone tell you you were wasting Jericho here like my co-host

I'm filling in for anybody else. Wasting him, positioning him like that, getting him over, getting him experience, getting him FaceTime. Yeah. With the audience,

which- In minutes on the pay-per-view. People miss, people don't appreciate how long it takes for talent to get over. And by the way, getting over doesn't always mean

getting a big push. Getting over, in part is longevity and building a long-term relationship with your audience, a familiarity, and the audience watches you grow when you're fortunate enough to have that happen. Think about it this way. How many, and people that have been listening to the show for a long time will know where I'm going with this, but name me one wrestler, one who's been in the business for less than eight years that is,

ever main evented more than two paper views in any given year mjf well he's probably been in total indies over eight years yeah i was going to say probably not but maybe good call very few yeah there are they are out there but there are very few most notably would be the rock and booker tea or Skidnapp, the Rock and Bill Goldberg. Tolberg, yeah. Those two, now, that's not taking anything away, obviously from the Rock in terms of his talent. I mean, that speaks for itself.

But nobody knew that back early on, right? Yeah. You didn't know, but Rock got into the business and broke into the business at a high level at a point in time when the business was at its peak. I mean, it was just on fire. WWE was on fire. Now, they stumbled out of the gate with Rock.

I can't remember what his goofy character was, but it was goofy. He didn't become the Rock right away. That was an evolution. It was an initial character. But because Rock was so talented, so charismatic, and also,

in no small part due to the timing and significance of the timing and when he came in and who he had to work with and how aggressive and huge the appetite was for professional wrestling across Pulp Culture at that time allowed for that character, Rock's character, to ascend to the level it did in a way more compacted time than it would normally take. Same was true with Goldberg. because of the way we brought Bill in because of the timing and who Bill had to work with and against and learn from and get the rub from and all of that, just like the rock. Bill was able to collapse his timeline, just like the rock was able to collapse his.

And those are the only two guys I can think of at that level that had been in the business for less than 10 years before they got that first break. It's amazing when you think about it. And the reason I bring this up with your question about Jericho is getting a guy over isn't just a matter of getting him or her wins on their win-loss column because that doesn't mean a fucking thing in professional wrestling. All right. The stories behind the wins and losses do, but this isn't baseball. It just isn't. It's not data-driven.

it's emotionally driven and other than those two guys i can't think of anybody that has been able to collapse their cycles like those two have and giving a guy like jericho time back then was part of getting him established and i'm not making excuses for not pushing him harder sooner in fact i wouldn't given the opportunity to do it all over again i probably wouldn't push him harder sooner but you also got to keep in mind that giving a guy or a girl two three four five years out there in front of the audience slowly almost imperceptibly sometimes gaining credibility and and acceptance because the wrestling audience how many times have you heard people who are wrestling fans just overreact when you bring in a celebrity like it's the end of the

fucking wrestling industry because you brought in somebody who isn't a wrestler. Fuck you. It's stupid. It's stupid. But wrestling fans are so protective that you've really got to work here. You've got to be committed. You've got to earn their respect. And I'm not suggesting that sometimes people aren't brought in who make you go, what?

But that's largely because they're not a good story behind it either or a good reason why behind it, right? It's just plugging in a celebrity for the sake of plugging in a celebrity. Insert any name here. What's a perfect example that? Remember when Raw was doing the guest celebrity hosts every week? It was like one of the worst ideas in television at that time. It's stupid, right? And the audience reacted accordingly.

But don't underestimate the inherent very, value and benefit that young talent gets from going out there and getting the reps over a long period of time. It's not only getting better physically at what they do, it's developing that long-term relationship and gaining acceptance from the audience because you put in your time, you put in your dues, and you paid you paid your dues. Once you get to that point, it's a lot easier to really get over and take that next big leap into the stratosphere. Anyway, sorry for the long-winded. So what we're here for, brother.

We want the explanations. That's what we're here for. Next up, four guys who have paid their dues by this point. Rick Steiner and Lex Lugar beat Scott Steiner and Marcus Bagwell. Five minutes and 58 seconds. Bagwell came out with the most pathetic looking rap job of a cast saying that he couldn't wrestle. J.J. Dilley came out with a doctor who examined Bagwell and said he was fit to wrestle. Most of the match saw Rick beating on until he got hot tagged out.

After Luger spent, Luger spent a few seconds in, he tagged a fresh Rick, who closed on Bagwell, then chased Scott to the back. Scott's arms are freakish. I know they've always been, but for some reason, they're looking more freakish than ever, and he tore his bicep right off his arm a few years back. As someone mentioned to me, says the observer, someone needs to get Scott to read Jeep Swenson's autobiography.

bagwell was on the top rope ready to do his buff blogbuster but rick ran back and shoved him off luger then racked him for the wind one and a quarter stars uh eric lex is just shredding water just month after a month's after his big one hundredth nitro episode was it hard to push him higher on the card no it it wasn't i think with lex one of his greatest benefits was also one of his biggest hurdles is that you could move Lex Lugar up and down that card

almost at will and you'd get a favorable response I mean he was if you decided up we're going to put we're going to have him beat Hogan the audience would get with it but if you needed Lex Lueger to move down a match or two

in order to help get somebody else over, Lex was able to, and not because Lex was the greatest technical worker. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to compare a Rick Flair who could wrestle a broomstick and get the broomstick over kind of thing. I'm not suggesting that,

but I'm suggesting that Lugar was able to maintain his credibility in almost any situation. and play up to that situation. So his versatility actually probably resulted him in him moving up and down the card more often, more frequently than some other talent. All right, let's continue to talk about our proud sponsors,

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get a roadmap for success with impera sign up now receive free onboarding your first 14 days are free and like mr. Bischoff said 24 7 support get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code wrestle biz at checkout. Launch your business, plan faster, and with less effort than ever before. Visit www.empirra, E-M-P-I-A-A-A dot com slash Eric today and start your journey to success. All right, Eric, as we jump back in it, we're the seventh match on the card. Penel of Parker in 6.59. These guys had no chance late in the show doing an unadvertised match while fans were

rating for the main events. At one point, Parker tried a power bomb, but psychosis turned it into a hurricane for a near fall. Geez, what was Parker thinking doing a power bomb and thank God for psychosis reversing it? Says the observer, on his salary, he can't afford the fine. and with his immigration status committing a felony would be grounds for deportation and I'd hate to think how he'd get over in prison wearing that outfit.

They might try to unmask him and then he'd have to return to Mexico and create some story about how the dirty Americans double crossed him and stole his mask. Anyway, while Parker was having it come from. Did he really write that or are you just living here? I'm quoting. I'm quoting. That is, wow.

He wraps it up by saying, Parker was having acid flashbacks to childhood, seeing the movie version of Midnight Express while he thought about doing that power bomb. Psychosis was still thinking about wrestling and nailed him with a guillotine lead drop for the pen. Two and a half starts. If that's the right of that dude, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you know what people say, oh, he's just projecting.

Now, the tapeworm was projecting that somebody might have been having an acid flash but I got fucking news for you. If you go back and listen to what you just read and you quoted it and you did a great job, by the way, you did not miss a beat, you did not mispronounce a word. You probably even added a comma or a period at the end of a sentence where it didn't really exist

just to be nice to the tapeworm. But listening to that, if there was any acid flashback induction going on, it was not going on in the ring. Incredible. and incredible right-up of any match I've ever read. And I've read some weird ones. One of his best work.

Yeah, that was pretty good. Next up, let's get to some meat here. Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash meet Roddy Piper and the giant 13 minutes and 23 seconds of a baseball bat on a pole match. A lot better than it looked on paper, says the observer at this point, Giant shoved Piper up the pole and he got the bat before he could get all the way down. Giant was thrown off the ropes. Hogan got the bat and then threw it to the floor.

If you're asking why he did it, it's because he needed to a spot for Ed Leslie to shine. As Hogan and Nash, you worked together cohesively, the entire match were beating on Piper. Leslie showed up with a new bat and gave it to Hogan, who caoed Giant with it. In the end, after the match, Hogan told Nash to power bomb Giant,

and as he bent over to do it, Hogan hit Nash with the bat. Giant got up and cracked the bat over his knee, and Nash headed out as well. One and a half star. Should we just keep moving on? Yes, please. Please. Raven won the U.S. title from Diamond Dallas Page in 11 minutes and 52 seconds.

A wild brawl all over the place. Tons of interference. Sick boy came out with a kitchen sink and now Paige with it. But Paige kicked out of the pen. Page used a drop toehold with. Raven crashing on the sink. We had hammer coming out off the top rope, accidentally close-lining Raven. Page hit hammer with the sink and got another near fall on Raven.

Raven came back with a low blow. There's a stop sign involved. And then, of course, a diamond cutter on Kidman who tried to interfere at this point. Oak Hogan's nephew, Mike Balea, Horace Boulder, came out dressed as the stage hand and clock page with a stop sign. and Raven DDT page onto the sink for the pin four stars by the way from the I'm telling you there had to be some peyote or some masculine this this was not this was not a straight person who wrote this coverage ain't no way in hell there's stop signs

interference all that we got four stars we're ready to all. Another great imagery. By the way, these two had great chemistry in the ring, though. Who's that? Raven and DDP. Oh, no. And, you know, they did. They did.

And they were really good friends. And a lot of mutual respect. And look, Raven was an amazingly talented guy. He was in, he, his mind worked in a very unique way. And I mean that respect. but his take on what the audience wanted to see was very narrow. And that's one of the reasons why we didn't necessarily gel creatively. But when you talk about talent, ability, his work rate, people think of Scottie

Levy as, you know, the Raven character. But if you go back and watch some of his early matches, He was incredibly talented guy that could have gone in another direction in terms of his ring presentation, but he bought into that Raven character so much that his work necessitated that his work style and presentation changed with it. Go back and watch him of his early work. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. I will say also, for those members of ad-free shows, maybe if you're new, maybe if you're

jumping in, or maybe if you've consumed a lot of it and you're looking for something to watch. It was an absolute honor to be a fly on the wall when we did the show, Eric, of you and Raven, making amends crossing that bridge and talking each other out. Man, it was, it was just fun to see you guys talk about it and how you, you know, some things you thought you viewed differently. You might have viewed the same. And it just, I thought it was an awesome episode of you two mending fences and getting back on the same page as human beings. Yeah, it wasn't. It's also another reason why I'm grateful to Conrad, really, for, you know, inspiring me to do the show and making it happen. Um, it's because you get those

moments. You know, I've had several of them. You know, there's been a number of people that I've talked to, you know, since I worked with him that I've reconnected with because of the show. And I'm really, really glad for that. Let's wrap it up. Let's go to the final match for we get to fan questions. Randy Savage captured the WCW title. from Sting in 10 minutes and 8 seconds. They brawled to the back early where Sting threw Savage into another wooden fence and dropped his throat on the wood.

Sting hit Savage with the dreaded bail of hay that the poor announcers had to sell us something vicious. Savage then got to the top rope for the finisher, but Hogan and Leslie showed up and Hogan shoved Savage off the rope. Savage tried to spin to avoid destroying his knee on the fall and it may not have worked.

At this point, Elizabeth was carried off, which may be the ado for her wrestling career as she was married in December, and with Savage being out due to knee injury, figured that it would be it for her. And apparently she, who is now 37, wanted to start living a real life, you know, life apart from the boob jobs and starvation diets, which are what too many women in this profession are strongly encouraged to live their lives going through to keep their figures at an age. when doing so, such becoming's going against nature. That is me quoting the observer, by the way. Savage was limping badly by this point, and Sting used the scorpion death dropper on him. As the show was ending, Hogan and Leslie,

who had left their thinking that they had given Sting the win, came out, were furious about Savage winning the title. They ended up jumping Savage and Nash after the show went off the air with Hogan, trying to take the title belt. until the rest of the NWO did a run-in. And Scott Norton took the belt from Hogan,

saying it was in the NWA, NW family, two and a half stars. All right. Belzer was completely wrong about Elizabeth, the tapeworm. But man, having Savage go over here, he dropped the title the next night. What's your thoughts on this looking back? One of the things that had I, if I had the ability to do over again, I would do differently, is dropping titles.

And I know why I did it, but it doesn't change the fact that in the long term, it has a negative impact on your business. And I did that not only here, but I did it more than once. And mistake, no other way to characterize it. Would you say at the end of it, thumbs up, thumbs down on this show? God, it's been so long since I've seen it. I would venture to say it would be, without going back and watching it again, I would venture to say it was a thumbs up.

Crowd reaction, business, and story going forward, if that's the criteria that I would rate a pay-per-view by, then I would say it was a thumbs up. All right, Eric, let's get to some. Fanned questions. Bobby KF5, GTX wants to know. Eric was Scott Steiner's character change due primarily to him joining the NWO in 1998? 100%. 100% of it was that.

I had to change. Absolutely had the change. The Rosencoaster kicking out, too, says, to the best of your recollection, did Rick Flair have a prominent role on his show before he skipped out on that Thunder episode? I can't remember the storyline at that point. I really would have to be able to go back and look at some formats to begin to guess that.

Zol Lopez wants to know, where does the spring stampede set rank for you in terms of presentation, higher than the original nitro set? No, I never liked the spring stampede set. Really? No. Just a set? genetically, it just didn't look good to you? Nope.

Didn't have enough personality. And it didn't represent anything. I think the first spring stampede we did. We did somewhere in Mississippi or something, you know, it's like, well, if you're going to do a stampede, you've got to do a stampede in Texas or Colorado or Wyoming or Montana, somewhere where there's cattle. I mean, the kind of actually stampede, not the kind of just stand out of the field and shit all over the place.

I'm talking about the kind of, you get 40 of them in a row. somebody screams too loud they all take off and it crush everything in their path that's a stampede and nothing that we did with that set felt big enough or dangerous enough that's the best way to put it from our live chat over on our live studio audience thought this was a good question eric Andrew lynch wants to know eric if sean or barry had come to you directly about renegotiating do you think that situation might have ended differently could you have explained your principles and could they have backed off? Probably, possibly. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I got so pissed off. I never explored it. Yeah. And, you know, that's regrettable.

It's not something I'm proud of, but can't undo it either. So there you go. You're left, by default, all you can do is learn from it. But, yeah, I think. so I think cooler heads could have obviously prevailed it would have been well it would have been better for me I think the fact that it didn't work out was pretty good for WWE and good for Sean who by how many times has Sean been inducted in the WW or WWE Hall of Fame the most is he got like the record right now I think he's got the most he's in there for DX he's in there for NWO he's in there individually he's in there because because he's going to go in as six he's going to go in as everybody uh and by the way by the way i'll be

there cheering him on every single every job uh andy dunn wants to know why didn't brett hart have a match at wcd spring stampede 1998 because i didn't want to give him one okay i don't know i can guys that i was going to take that as a answer no no i never want to come off you know, condescending, seriously, I like to joke around with people. It's a good question, but I hope when I joke around answering these questions sometimes, or even if I'm serious about it, you realize that for someone like me who's

at this stage of my life, I'm 68 years old, I've done a lot of things, I've seen a lot of things, I've produced thousands and thousands of hours of television, half of it's live, it all kind of runs together. So for me to be able to pick out, you know, a situation, a storyline from 24, 25 years ago or whatever it's been, and be able to answer it coherently is next to impossible. So I'm left with two choices, either to tell you the truth, which is I can't remember, or lie, or make it sound like I have an answer, which is what most people do. I choose not to do either.

I choose to try to have fun with it, so don't mean to be offensive. If you were serious about your question, the answer to your question is really, I'd have to be able to go back and look at booking sheets from 1998 to come up with anything that made sense. The Dobvious Mac wants to know, why have Sting lose to macho after years of making Sting

this character that was WCW's savior? God, that's a good question. I hope there's a good answer, but I wouldn't know what it is coming off the top of my head without making shit up. This is 98. Yeah. Okay. We're coming off of. It's funny, too, because, you know, the finish of 97, everybody thought, that's the beginning of the end for WCW.

In the meantime, we've just talked about three or four back-to-back months of record revenues. Setting records and 90. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's kind of weird. um why did we do that you know i would like to think that there was a plan and there was a reason there was perhaps a story between sting and savage that was going to evolve out of that but all i can do is hope that that's the right answer speaking of a plan i should have asked this earlier but looking back on it now from what you remember what was the plan for walton had he not

been fired i don't think we really had a plan for walton specifically for walton i mean we we had a plan for the NWO, which was the plan was don't fuck up the plan and keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. But specifically for Sean, I sincerely doubt there was any plan because we looked at NWO more as a whole. Would there have been some cruiserweight matches? Would there have been some matches in there individually for Sean?

Absolutely. But could I tell you what they were planned to be at this point? No, I can't. And last question. Instagram, a wrestling historian. He tweets in to us. How long would you have had Randy Savage be

WCWCW champion if Hulk Hogan didn't want the title back so soon? Thanks in advance, Eric. I don't know, but not long because Randy was not a guy. Randy is a little bit like Scott Hall in the sense that neither one of them felt like they really

needed the title. Their value as performers wasn't whether or not they were champion. And I think both of them operated from that perspective, which is why both of them were very successful and didn't need some talents needed a belt or needed a championship in order to create a story. Other and particularly with really good characters,

the belt or the championship wasn't as much of a necessity. to frame a good story, if that makes sense. And I think that just comes from confidence. Randy was never someone, and not to suggest that, I can't think of too many people that came to me and said, I really feel like I need that world title. I don't know that I've ever had that conversation with someone. But you can certainly understand from longer conversations

where someone's coming from with regard to their role in a world title match and whether or not they think they should get it. It wasn't Randy, you know, it certainly wasn't Scott Hall, where I think most talent just naturally leaned in that direction. Those two didn't. Well, Eric, before we get out of here next week, Conrad, we'll be back. You're going to be discussing the Australia tour with Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair. the week-long tour featuring Umaga, Mr. Anderson, Gangrel, Valvenus,

for Kishi, The Nasty Boys, so much more, and how it all came together, where it started, and so much more. Before we get out here, we want to thank everybody who watch this live recording. That's what you can do. If you're a part of ad-free shows, thanks everybody for watching and being a part of it. And if you want to be a part of it, over on ad-freeshows.com, you get early ad-free access to more than a double. of your favorite wrestling podcast starting at just nine dollars and now you can enjoy the

first week with us completely free sound up for a free trial and get a taste of what ad free shows is all about start your free trial today at ad free shows.com Eric you hit on it the ad free shows family there's moments you've had on these shows that wouldn't have been possible without ad free shows yeah and friends that we've made both my wife and I you know Lori has we've, you know, I've mentioned, you know, Coach Rosie who picked us up at the airport in Phoenix and we got to go out to dinner on Monday night and had an amazing time and, you know, really a special evening. These are all relationships that, you know, have evolved out of this thing we call ad-free shows and they're valuable, meaningful relationships and there's plenty of them. And that's been the fun part of watching this come together. You know, you hear so much about when it comes to, you know, marketing and web, building your web and building social media, you hear the term community to use the lot, like the term synergy, to use the lot.

And nine times out of ten, when people use those terms, it really doesn't mean much. It's just a word. But at ad-free shows, it really is a community. There are groups of people now that I, because I see them. you know, pop up on my social media feeds all the time. When there's an AEW show going on somewhere, they all get together from different parts of the country and they meet and they go to the show together

and they hang out together and they go to conventions together. And they're coming to Top Guy weekend together, you know, in Hustville in a few months. It really is a community of people that become more than just acquaintances. They become very, very good friends. And I'm really grateful, as is my wife. I refer to her Mrs. B, but her name is Lori. We're both very grateful to be a part of this community.

It's fun. Speaking of grateful, your book is out right now. Grateful, I'm at Amazon Bischoffbook.com. One of the best things I see from following you, Eric, has been the overwhelming, positive and rave reviews of people that have read your book. Yeah, it's a very cool thing. It's gratifying. It really is.

I can't think of a better way to say it. Go to Bischoffbook.com and get your copy today. And also, before we get out here, we want to thank all of our proud sponsors of 83 weeks. We appreciate you for supporting the show. That's why we ask all of our listeners and viewers to support them. And if your business targets 25 to 54-year-old men, there's no better place to advertise them right here with us on 83 weeks.

You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for, years. Why is that? Because it works. And with our super targeted audience, there's very little ways. Go to advertise with Eric.com right now and find out more about how advertising with 83 weeks can help your business. Before you get out of here, like, subscribe, and leave a five-star rating on all platform. Our Twitter handles at E. Bischoff at Hey, hey, hey, it's Conrad, Instagram, at the real Eric Bischoff and at hey hey it's Conrad Facebook handles E. Bischoff and hey hey it's Conrad show handles at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram

and Facebook on YouTube of course like subscribe turn on your notifications at 83 weeks on YouTube.com and of course comment let us know feedback what you like what you didn't like any questions for future episodes all that can be in the comments on our YouTube section and the merch store is growing with brand new designs dropping every single day like the new LWO inspired for life tea the endeavor to preserve tea plus all the

classics and so much more over at 83 weeks merch.com Eric I am grateful that you let me pinch it here on your fifth anniversary for 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. I hope it's five years and more, my friend. It has been an absolute pleasure to watch this show grow and evolve in what it is to today. You and Conner had to have such a great conversation every single week. And I look forward to at least five years more of this, my friend. Cassia, thank you so much for pitch hitting. I know Conrad will be back next week, but I always enjoy the opportunity to sit down and do the show with you because you make me laugh. And like I said earlier, man, that's one of the greatest gifts you could give somebody.

Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody, for putting up for over five years now. We made it past the 84th week, and I'm so grateful. See, everybody. Hey, guys, it's the hardcore legend Mick Foley here, and I need to call Quick Timeout, a brief timeout, because I wanted to tell your listeners what I have been telling Foley is pod listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-free shows.

An all new edition of The Insiders is here, as Conrad welcomes David Zoddy, the man behind so many iconic video packages as WWF fans grew up on, including one, still left Vince in tears. You got him. And Conrad, I swear, I walked outside the studio, and Vince was sitting down on the concrete floor, crying hysterically. Just saying thank you. Thank you. Wow. Thank you. I went up to Hulk heaven. He says a good job. Can I want to see it. Fifteen minutes later in the stairwell, Vince is still sitting down in a difference by now. saying thank you. Thank you. Special guest host, Raven, sat in for Jake the Snake Roberts on the snake pit, looking back 25 years on his rivalry with DDP and an interesting new member of the flock. Jimmy Hart comes up to me one day and goes, hey, Hulk would like a favor. I go, what is it? He goes, he'd like you to put a horse in the flock.

I'm like, sure, I'm not going to say no. But it became a running gag like Jericho and Conan. We used to, three of us used to hang out together and call ourselves the triumvirate of useless information. And so they were like, you know, wait, did you put Horace Hogan in the flock because he's Hogan's nephew? I'm like, what? He's Hogan's nephew? I had no idea. That's just a small taste, a sampling, if you will, of what we have waiting for you.

With four levels to choose from four. See for yourself why AdFree Shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now. Right now at AdFree Shows. com. Yeah.