83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 269: Slamboree 2000

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

On this EPIC episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and host Conrad Thompson discuss Slamboree 2000! The guys cover it all such as, Eric distain for Kimberly Page's cat, Ready To Rumble, working Vince Russo, the New Blood, and so much more. Eric also shares his thoughts on AEW's incredible ticket sale numbers and what he believes is next for the company. GAMETIME - Snag the tickets without the stress with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKS for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. 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. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com. EMPIRAA - Sign up now and receive free onboarding, your first 14 days for free, and 24/7 support. Get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code 'wrestlebiz' at checkout. Launch your business plan faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit www.empiraa.com/eric today and start your journey to success! 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 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

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Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm great. Conrad. It's Saturday morning and I was explaining to Mr. Silva as we were waiting to fire this thing up. It set my alarm for 4.30 this morning, woke up, immediately turned my alarm off, jumped out of bed. He said I was going to lay back down for a few minutes before I went down and started my coffee. And I woke up about an hour later, hour and a half later. Good for you. Good for you. I didn't get, I didn't get enough time to caffeinate and all the other things I normally do in the morning. So if I'm a little slow on a roll, getting out of the gate, I'll catch up.

And you know what I did though? I was telling Dave, I watched the King's Coronation, or at least a part of it. What do you think? Pretty cool. I like the one with Haku better. Yeah. Most wrestling fans would. Yeah.

Well, listen, we are excited to be here today. We got a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about, well, the modern wrestling news. we're going to talk about some special news and notes and information on our side of the fence and our topic today slamberry 2000 boy this is um wcw as as tony shivani described it in this era it was a coffin on roller skates and uh we're going to talk about that a little bit today but before we do we should address the elephant in the room you sly dog you imagine our surprise last Monday night as we're tuned into our favorite Monday night

wrestling show Monday night raw and he's back and better than ever Eric Bischoff strutting that ass on national TV once again Eric look at that again look at if you're if you're watching along with this live but by the way Eddie pray there Lucas Kenzer easy does it 21 it's his first time watching the live stream here on ad free shows those of you who are part of the ad free shows family and by the way if you've recently signed up as a part of a promotion or any other kind of thing that we've been doing here and promoting. I'm going to be calling people at random tomorrow afternoon.

So if you get this random weird call with a 307 area code, you go, I don't know anybody there. This is just some jagoff trying to sell me car insurance or car warranty or something. No, it's me. I'm calling you to surprise you. So don't be afraid of that 307 number. I'm not a bill collector. I'm not a car insurance salesman. I'm just calling you because you're a member of the ad free shows community and I love

doing it I call people up and I mess old you know what my favorite thing is is when I get a voicemail oh yeah I can leave the weirdest messages on voicemail I've seen you do it you have fun with it's fun yes well listen it is a lot of fun but uh it was fun seeing you on television again dude how did this come to be Eric Bischoff easy back on Monday night or all? Well, I got a call about a month ago asking me if I was available on the 28th and whatever it was the first for Friday and Monday. And I was already, I already had a commitment over that weekend. So I knew I couldn't be available Friday.

And I kind of wasn't sure if they were going to call me back. And I never heard from them again. They called and asked, are you available? Sure. I'm not available on Friday. but I could be available on Monday. And then nothing happened. You know, I never heard from him.

And I was in Norwalk, Connecticut, and I got a phone call saying, hey, can you be a TV on Monday? Oh, my gosh. It isn't a lot of rearranging and travel. And I almost said no, but I thought, well, it's such a great opportunity. And I do want to see some people. Whatever. So I ended up doing that.

But it came about relatively quickly. Well, we saw you on camera there with Rob Van Dam. Did y'all have any chance? chocolate cake together after the show? No, no, I got to the building late because my flight out of San Francisco. I was in San Francisco the night. Look at the tan on that guy. Yeah.

I mean, listen, you were ready for your close up, but that tan. That tan looks awesome. Eric, what is the trick? As somebody who's never used self-tanner and I've seen some guys on TV with orange hands and, you know, where you can tell like, well, they did not get an even coat there. But I don't even know the strategy. I don't know the process. you're an old school self-tanner from way back give everybody a little pro tip on the easy does it way of doing a self-tan job actually um when i and i did you know just touch up a tad um but when i use a self tanning product i get it from my daughter-in-law she has a tanning student's had a tanning salon down in um Tampa for about eight years now and she it is a spray tanning

salon. It's not the, you know, put you in a microwave kind of tanning salon. It's a, it's all spray tails. And she's really, she knows their product. So she sends me a can about once a year. And I use that. I don't know what the name brand of it is. I honestly couldn't even tell you. But the actual process, do you wear gloves? Do you wear goggles? How do you? That's great, man. It's just like, done. You know, fortunately for me, I'm not out there in my underwear wrestling. So all I need is to cover you know what the camera sees so it's just a spray can i just cover up i do this so i don't get it in my hair because otherwise my hair will turn orange while i'm on camera um but no i just spray it most of the time i have a pretty good natural tan though because i'm outside so much and i tan

very very easily um i can walk outside and take my dog for a walk 45 minutes come back and i've got a tan well but i don't really have to self tan too often usually it's just a touch up It snows for eight and a half months to help hide the age marks. But it snows for like eight and a half months where you live. No, it does not. But even when it does, we get about 300 days of sun here in COVID. Okay, okay. Well, there you go.

So even, even, you know, 40 degrees, you're outside. Don't walk around the sun. You're not as much as in the summer. It's not as intense, but yeah. You know, I had my horses, I was, but when I had my horses, I look like George Hamilton all the time because I was always outside and riding around on my horse for two or three hours a day. I, uh, I didn't really think about it, but you're exactly right.

Like if you're only going to have to show like your hands and your head, uh, because you're not out there in your, in your underwear's, then yeah, you can sort of give yourself like, like a, a self tanning farmer's tan. You got a self farmer's tan, right? Yeah, sort of. And every once in a while, like if I'm more, you know, you, when you go to when I, you know, in WWE, you know, it's like, oh, don't forget to bring a suit. so the only thing that anybody's going to see is my head and my neck or yeah my head and my

hands right my hands a little shot just in case somebody said and go uh-huh uh-huh see bad bad makeup you know how people are they just like to be critical well let's talk about what's going on in wrestling uh besides your tanning's uh routine we uh we're on the heels of backlash which was in porto rico this past saturday night you and i are actually recording just hours before backlash, but I think we both probably have an idea of where we think some of these stories are going. You know, you've had a chance to catch some of this. What do you think of the build for Bad Bunny and Damien Priest? I haven't been watching. Okay. Well, I haven't really, and a lot of that is just,

I, I know this sounds like an excuse, but I've been unusually busy for the last two weeks. Um, so I just haven't had time, really to sit down and watch wrestling or to catch up. Well, I'm excited to see what they're doing with, uh, with Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar. I'll be tuned in. I'm sure it's the talk of the internet as everyone is listening to this, but for the past week or so, all anyone has been talking about is AEW running Wembley. They put it on sale and of course, because Jeff Jared is there, they sold over 60,000 tickets. It's pretty crazy to think about. This is the high watermark now for AEW. Of course, it's not technically sold out. They've still got plenty of time. They haven't announced anything

outside of just a fancy-dancy poster. You sort of were loud and proud about, hey, save those surprises and, you know, you got plenty of time to build and sell some more tickets. We're over 60,000 now. Were you surprised that they got there with their initial onset? sale, and what do you think the ceiling is going to be for Wembley? I wasn't surprised at the success. I mean, that's a big number. And I didn't go into this going on. I think they'll maybe sell 50,000 or 80,000.

I knew they were going to do well. I said that right as soon as it was announced that I thought they were extremely well. And in fact, I came out when there was some speculation about bringing in. um goldberg goldberg and um mercedes i keep i keep getting her name the mona thing mercedes moni mercedes moni i keep i keep i keep wanting to call her melissa i know that's not right mercedes moni there was speculation about that and somebody asked me it was either you or alba unstrictly business and i said get don't do it just go in there with your brand with your roster and blow it out of the water

without having to depend on bringing in somebody who's not a regular part of the show to help bolster your sales because I knew that AEW, I believed the AEW would do really, really well and I thought it was important that, again, if I was Tony, I would want to do well without relying on outside help because that makes a bigger statement to the rest of the world downstream. There's nothing wrong with bringing in Bill Goldberg and Mercedes Monet except for it will kind of feel like, well, that's the reason you were able to be so successful. And now, because AEW hasn't announced anything, they're not bringing in, at least at this point, they're not bringing in any ringers. I would be more proud of where I was at if I was Tony Khan now than I would be had had I made those announcements and brought in. people like Goldberg and Monet because now it's AEW that's having the success and in the roster

team and I I'm happy for them man I think it's great where do I think it'll go I don't know if they're at 60 now they haven't announced anything which I don't think really matters to be fair or honest um 80 yeah I think 75 to 80 is where I would land that's my guess and I'm I've got some friends uh in the rasseling business who keep up with tickets. and those sort of things and we had some conversations this week and we both landed on hey 75 or 80 which my goodness I mean we just think about the largest crowds in wrestling history like as hot as you guys were in WCW we never we never got to that point and I can't help but wonder when I see how the appetite how strong the appetite is for AEW for this

Wembley show man if you guys could have ran something like that in 1998 what It could have been, right? Yeah, I mean, everything was different then. I think one of the, I mean, it's so weird, you know, the dynamics of the business today are so, not confusing. It's just, here, let me just lay it out. 60,000 tickets sold in un, you can, an unmitigated success.

There's no way you can spin it. Twist it, turn it any other way. It's a huge, huge accomplishment. Yes. Success. And the same week that they're announcing that phenomenal event turnout, they deliver 755,000 people on television. Yeah.

It's like the dynamics are so weird. You know, it used to be that your success in live events correlated very closely to the success you're having on television. But in the case of AEW, at least, not so. I don't, is AEW even distributed in the UK? I'm sure that it is. They are. I'm guessing it is on fight.

Yeah, they do have that. And I just want to point out when you were saying 755,000, that's the domestic number that's here in America. And of course, it's a global property. And this event is not even on sale here. I mean, I guess it is on sale here in America, but you know what I mean. I know, but there's still, which makes it even more interesting, actually, because I'm not so sure how much viewership at AEW really gets in the UK.

Right. I know that they're there through flight. Let's just be honest, but I love fight. We love fight and everything that they're doing for the small promoters and they're getting access to small, They're giving access to small promoters to, you know, distribute their independent shows on pay-per-view. And I think that's an amazing thing. And I think it's part of the reason that independent wrestling has been,

becoming as successful as it has, is because for a long time now, small independent promoters with limited budgets are able to produce their shows and get it up on fight. And that's a wonderful thing for the independent community. So I'm not knocking fight in any way, shape, or form. But there's a fact of life. not a national media platform in the UK.

So I don't know how many people are actually watching in the UK on flight, which makes the success that AEW is having even more fascinating to me. Because they're not really driving into big television audience. So it's, I don't know the whole thing's really interesting. The dynamics of it are interesting. In late last year, there was a story out that 210,000 people were watching AEW in the UK.

And it's crazy when you think about, that just if that's the real number hypothetically let's just call it 200 that damn near a third of those folks a fourth of those folks have tickets now it's uh it's gonna be interesting to see how this shakes out i think everybody is excited for a w for their opportunity to sell these tickets and you know it's interesting the tribalism that exists on social media eric i saw silliness where people were saying oh tony bought all the tickets himself just to save the embarrassment what? And then other people say, oh, ticket master's lying. What? This is a little crazy. I think the tribalism on social media that, hey, you know, somebody made the analogy. I love this.

You're allowed to like a Big Mac and a Whopper. It's not either or. You know, one, it's crazy to me. To be fair, to be fair, that's a lot of that tribalism is because of Tony Con and some of the talent in AEW. They're constantly taking shots at WWE. Tony Con calling out the reporter from ESPN. You know, what does he say? He doesn't rip the reporter for asking a stupid question or making a stupid comment. Instead, he blames it on Nick Con.

When you do that kind of childish chicken shit stuff, your audience is going to take sides with you. And you're going to have that, you know, that. tribalism that you're talking about. I attributed a lot of it to AEW. And they're bringing it upon themselves and they're dividing the audience because of the way they're trying to position themselves. Tony Khan is determined to try to convince the world that he is in a head-to-head battle business-wise with WWE. And he's not. But he wants to believe he is and he wants the audience to believe he is. So on a consistent basis, Tony is suggesting,

that there's this battle between him and WWE, and there's really not. But I think that's a big part of the reason that that happens. You don't, I don't know, it's part of it, not all of it, not all of it, but part of it. In fairness, we're not qualified to say that he's not in a battle with him. We don't know the inner workings of how they're negotiating against each other for talent and all that sort of thing. I understand what you're saying as far as just business metrics. There's probably no real comparison in most categories, but certainly from a, a

talent standpoint and an arena date standpoint. I mean, they are in competition, no? No, possibly on the arena dates. I don't know what their live event schedule looks like. I haven't seen it posted. But yes, possibly on arenas. But you're also competing against, you know, musical acts. Yes. Derny on ice. And there's a lot of things going on, you know, that makes competition for arenas and venues and things like that difficult. And let's be honest, there is not a weekly or monthly or how often is there free agents available that both companies want? Very few.

And it happens. And yes, that would be a situation where if there was a piece of talent that both WWE and AEW's case, they want to keep. In WWE's case, maybe they'd like to have on their roster, of course there's going to be a bidding war.

But beyond that, there's no competition. You can't compare AEW in any metric and say, yeah, closing in, it's not happening. And it doesn't matter, by the way. I'm not saying that, again, as a shot at AEW. It doesn't matter. AEW sold 60,000 freaking tickets in the UK.

And it takes me back, Conrad, one of the reasons why way back when I pulled the trigger and told Tony kind of shut up and wrestle, which is what started. of this whole thing, Tony and I, was because the more you compare yourself to WWE, the more people are going to point out that you're really not competition and point out some of the stupid things that Tony and people in AEW have said. And it's not necessary. It's absolutely not, it's not going to get them over anymore. If they're going to go head to head and actually compete like on Monday night or Friday night, great, do it. Be controversial. Give away whatever you can, you know, to create awareness for yourself. But if you're

not really going to get in the fight and trade punches, then just shut up and wrestle. And I think by shutting up and wrestling, then the audience is going to get you over. That's a, you know, who is I talking to about that? Somebody I can't remember. It was a talent. And the talent that I see that really get over, Cody Rhodes, perfect example, the audience wants Cody to win. Yes.

When you can get the audience putting you over, you're winning. but when you have to put yourself over, you're not. And I would just wish Tony would lay off any reference to WWE, even if there is a battle going on and you're competing with WWE, you know, for a particular talent because that's the only area that you're really going to compete with occasionally. But even if that's happening,

and even if they get down and dirty and in the mud, whatever, don't put it over. Don't sell it. Just deliver. Just deliver. a great product and the audience will put you over and that's where the value is do you think uh i mean clearly tony when he when he posted that was was posting from an emotional place as rule of thumb

you know i i tend to think any decision or reaction we have emotionally might not be the best one maybe maybe we need to uh take a step back but i could see how that would be challenging if this is you know, your life's work and your, your personal money on the line. And he's got a lot at stake. So it's very personal for Mr. Cohen. And I'm excited for him to take a victory lap as he should be this week. And my goodness, 60,000 tickets. I mean, he should be. But, and I agree with you. And I'm an emotional person. I react emotionally, right? Tony should have shredded the guy from ESPN. But the heat on him. He's the one that said the stupid stuff. Yeah. And, and, but it's Instead, he had to, you know, take it with Nick Kahn.

It's just, I had no, I would have had no problem if he would have ripped that reporter to shreds. In fact, I would have gotten a big kick out of it. Well, and here's the thing, too, that I don't, you know, I think, I think it's semantics. I mean, I could be wrong, but they did a series of pre-sales, as I understand it, the Wednesday pre-sale was, uh, or the Tuesday pre-sale, I guess, was, was, was fight. And then there was another pre-sale on Wednesday and another pre-sale on Thursday. day. So they didn't release all of the tickets at once.

So maybe what the reporter heard, where I think he said it was set up for around 40,000, I think they may have only released 41,000 tickets on day one's pre-sale. And then they release a little more on the second day and a little more on the third day. And then they open them all up on the last day. Like that's normally a ticketing strategy. So perhaps, you know, we got caught up in the weeds of a word here. there because if the guy was saying hey i'm hearing it set up for 40,000 well it was for day one's pre-sale it's 41 i think and then day two a little more and then day three a little more and then

day four here we go but those are all the details the story the headline is holy shit AEW sold 60,000 tickets and that's what everybody should be talking about and when we talk about tickets we got to talk about our friends at game time i'm such a big believer in this eric last minute tickets at the lowest price guarantee. Don't get stressed out about missing your favorite event. You can get them last minute. I'm talking the same day of the event and it doesn't get any better than this. They even have, and this is my favorite part of this whole program, the game time guarantee. It means you'll always get the best price. If you find tickets in the same section in row for less, game time will credit you 110% of the difference. That is real peace of

mind. But you're going to get the best deal. They've got flash deals on tickets for everything from football to baseball to basketball to concerts, comedy theater, whatever. So you don't have to plan months in advance. Game time can hook you up. And they make it so easy. The tickets are sent directly to your phone. You don't even have to dig through your email. Just two taps and you're all set. The other cool thing I like about this, besides the guarantee, though, Eric, is they eliminate the guesswork. If you saw that map for Wembley, dude, there's just a huge seat map. There's so many sections, and it can be hard to imagine. Now, what will my seat look like? Like, well, I have a good view of the ring? Will I be able to see what's going on? How can I

face the action? Like, what's it going to look like? They give you seat views right here on the GameTime app. It doesn't get any easier than that. Snag the tickets without the stress with GameTime. Just download the GameTime app, create an account, and you, use the code weeks for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code weeks for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed.

Eric, we're big fans of game time. I know you've used it. I've used it. What do you think so far? I absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. It is so cool. It's like, I was, now I didn't have time this past weekend,

But I got to San Francisco, if I would have had more time, I would have gone to game time and go, wait a minute, I wonder what's going on in San Francisco. You can see, you can find out what's going on in that community and buy tickets right over your phone. It's a fascinating service, really. It's a great service. Check it out. Download that game time out. It's not just music. It's all kinds of it.

It's sports. It's music. I mean, whatever you're into, if they sell a ticket for it, you can find it at game time. in the ease of doing it who wants to do with ticket master you know i bought tickets to fleetwood mac a couple years ago right before the pandemic hit and then it got canceled do you know what it's like to try to get a hold of somebody a ticket master and find out what the status of the tickets are it's impossible forget about it it ain't happening yeah game time is the deal game time is the deal eliminate the guesswork take a look at your seats two taps and you got them and the peace

of mind of knowing not only did you get great seats you got a great deal And it just got a little better when you use our promo code weeks. Get $20 off your first purchase. Download that game time app. Use our code Weeks, W-E-E-E-K-S. So listen, man, we've had a lot of fun talking about yesteryear in WCW. We're going to jump knee-deep into the year 2000. And boy, our research crew was on it this week, man.

We've got 37 pages of notes. We should finish recording this episode by Thursday. So I'm pretty excited about that. But before we do, I want to at least mention that AEW made some more news this week. And I want your take on this. As I understand that it was a pretty controversial hire. I don't really understand why. But a lot of folks are talking about AEW hiring Will Washington,

a guy who has been an internet voice for maybe two decades or so in the internet wrestling community. And I've done a series of podcasts. And I guess he's friends with Tony Kahn. now he's he's on the roster he's on the squad did you see any of the backlash for this why are people upset that will is an a i have no idea i don't know will washington so i don't know anything about will washington i don't know what will washington's job is in a ew um so i can't imagine why anybody would be upset it just feels like it literally anything a e w announces or does

it creates a little bit of backlash in a certain community and i understand you said think maybe they've brought some of that on their own but like the idea that people were upset with will it's like how does anybody have anything bad to say about will like will's universally like how many people know even know who he is i mean i kind of feel like an idiot because i don't i've never heard his name before i mean well even that like that that's a great example like if you don't know if you don't know if you don't know like i did see a lot of people say well who is he well what the fuck does it matter when wwee hire somebody i understand they announced it on social media but still when w v he hires someone

do work in the quote-unquote office. I mean, there's no big discussion or debate. But again, maybe that's because they posted it on social. But I just find this, uh, this hate for literally anything AEW does a little weird. Like doesn't everybody like, like you should want more jobs in wrestling. If you like wrestling, AEW selling 60,000 tickets is good for wrestling. Not just AEW, but good for wrestling. And guys getting a job should be a high five.

We shouldn't root for people to lose jobs. like what are we doing eric i don't know that anybody's rooting for anybody to lose their job i i well i disagree people are actively wanting people are actively wanting a w to go out of business and i just don't like who wants that why does anybody want fewer wrestling jobs like what but is it really any different than every time the wwe makes a move they get they get grilled by the melters of the world and and the wrestling community in general internet wrestling community in general i mean there's a point in time when wwe can't do anything right they can't wait to jump on the the the latest Vince McMahon you know headline or

whatever it's it's the same for wwee as it is for AEW i wanted to know one last thing on modern stuff before we jump into our topic today, Slambury 2000. Drew McIntyre is being discussed a lot in the Observer these days. The reports are that he and WWE are far apart on money. And there's a big discussion about what his potential value could be to AEW. And this is probably a good week to talk about it, considering it just sold 60,000 tickets in Wembley. And the last time WWE sold that many tickets, which was just last year,

It was based on him challenging Roman for the title. And my goodness, they set a record over there themselves. I think there were over 70,000 people there. This is, uh, an interesting discussion. This might be one of the first times we've seen a move like this, I think, in a while. When does, uh, when does Drew's contract expire? The rumor in innuendo is that it's at the end of the year. I don't think he'd be able to participate in this particular show.

God, that's too bad. it wouldn't have be a blast to have him show up as a surprise don't even advertise him it would be big and it would turn wimbly inside out that would be awesome it would i totally agree personally selfishly i'm pulling from a boy harry smith the davy boy smith junior i mean my goodness that that arena is synonymous with his father as i understand that he's not under contract to wwe or a ew so he would be available for that but let's let's let's let's fast forward to January, would you be surprised to see Drew Bacentire? Given the climate, I mean, once upon a time, I don't think they would have intentionally let anybody go. Like,

from what I understand, when Daniel Bryan left, they made a really strong offer. It wasn't about money. He just wanted to go try something else. I get that. But I think the Drew thing, what we're reading, what's inferred in the observer is that they're far apart on money. And you and I have spent a little time talking about this, but with this new, merger with UFC for Endeavor, there's been a lot of talk that there's going to be $100 million in cost cut. And if you take a look at what's happened on the UFC side of things since they were acquired 10 years ago or whatever it was, a lot of their guys wind up walking. They think, hey, I'm worth more money and UFC says, okay, well, go find it. And that's it. Do you think we'll

see a hard line here and perhaps that Drew is maybe the first victim of this new paradigm shift within the company. I don't know. You know, that would take in order for me to have an opinion, I'd have to have a conversation with Drew to kind of get a sense of where his head is at. I can see it. I can see a guy like Drew. You know, Drew had a taste, right? He was the world heavyweight champion for a cup of coffee. In the pandemic era, which sucked. Which sucked. And he didn't get just yeah it's not the same right right so i could see a scenario where drew similarly to dania brian in a way you know daniel brian just wanted to apply his trade in other markets and explore um i think with drew i could see a scenario where he thinks you know what i'm i i still got

gas in my tank and i want to see if i can climb a little higher and if drew is getting the sense that he's getting lost in the shuffle creatively or that there's no real opportunity for him there, I could see him making the move. It's not always about the money. And going to AEW, the money's going to be there for Drew, if indeed that happens. He's not going to be hurting for cash, that's for sure. But I could see, especially on the heels of the success that AEW is having in the UK, I could see Drew going, you know what, if I get this opportunity in January with Tony, and I'm not going to get my ass kicked too. bad financially, I'm going to do it. I could see that. I don't know Drew very well. I have several

conversations with him over the years and ran to him in independence and things like that, but I could see it. He got a taste. I think he wants the whole meal. He got a sample. It's like going to a big restaurant and them coming out and say, I'll just try this appetizer. You can determine whether or not you want to order a full course meal just try this appetizer you get a taste of an appetizer and it's awesome you can't wait to have your main course but then you find out now you're not really going to get the main course we ran out of everything you know that i could see him wanting to to get the full course meal at AEW nice as dude you could ever meet pulling for him big fan of him personally and and professionally and can't wait to see what's next and what a great story he's

got, man. I mean, really think about, you know, the, uh, the way his career started. He was sort of the chosen one and then, uh, maybe given less than creative with the one man band or the three man band and man, he finds himself released, reinvents himself, becomes the impact champion, has a lot of success outside the tent, comes back, becomes the man, wins the world title. And now he's got a little bit of leverage and negotiating with WWE. it's just a great story man just love to see it me too let's he is a good dude he really is a good guy check us out on youtube 83 weeks on youtube dot com let's talk about it here we are spring stampede you can check out the archives uh for spring stampede uh in the uh in the youtube

pantheon it's one of my favorite if you're watching along on ad free shows or youtube one of my favorite posters right there made by david sylva we're uh, I said that to a lot of my exes. Oh, I love. How do you like me now? So we're seven days into this reset of WCW. As a reminder, you got everybody together and, uh, you did that nitro, then you did the thunder taping and then spring stampede.

So we're one week in when you sort of reset everything, stripped all the belts, said we're going to have a tournament revealed that Jeff Jarrett's the chosen. one. So we fast forward through that nitro, that thunder, and then that paper view, all available in the archives, but seven days into your journey of sort of walking hand in hand with Vince Rousseau. Were you optimistic? I mean, well, I know it didn't end well with you guys. And I don't guess it's on the best of terms now, but a week in, were you still optimistic? Yeah. Yeah. It was still the vibe was still really the crack was good as they say listen let's just let's add some context to this too you know it's important just for everybody to wrap their head around

this they do this hard reset where we strip all the champions and we make all new matches for a pay-per-view six days later and now one week later so just the night after the pay-per-view we've got another pay-per-view to start building for in just three weeks this is not a simple task like there's a lot of cost in producing these events just the actual production the travel the rigging the camera guys the trucks the satellite time and we got to turn a profit on the other side of this that's going to prove nearly impossible in 2000 massive losses but you guys are faced with this unenviable position hey sell us a pay-per-view in six days okay now that that one's done do it again in 20 days this is pressure when you're starting from

scratch no i didn't feel any pressure to be honest um look it was what it was it was a fricking mess when i came back uh in 2000 wcd was far worse off in every way than they were when i left and i kind of looked at it as a long-term rebuilding plan So there really was no pressure. There was pressure because we needed to be successful. We needed to reestablish the brand. We needed to change the way people perceived WCW because of what had been happening for the previous year,

year and a half, whatever, since about mid-1998, really, end of 98. So we had a lot of work to do in terms of rebranding. ourselves, not so much in renaming the company, but reconnecting with our audience, rebuilding the confidence and the trust of our audience in the product and our ability to deliver a product. That was pressure. But the financial side of it, I didn't even pay attention. I wasn't even concerned about it because there's no way that there was anything that we

could do given that short period of time to have any kind of significant effect on on the revenue. It was going to take it. It was a six to 12-month rebuild. It was going to take six months or a year to begin to regain the confidence and the market share of the audience at that point in time. So in many ways, there was no pressure because WCW was in such a hole that there was nowhere to go but up.

And it was all about rebuilding. Let's just remind everybody at the paper. review spring stampede that's where jeff charrett becomes crowned as the champ and he's going to come out here on nitro the next night in front of 3,100 paying fans with 1,100 comps for a house that's $99,000. This is a far cry from the WCWU left man. This company is uh totally different as far as just the appetite for tickets and live events and we've got a new champion. and his first act as champion is to come out on Nitro and cut a promo dumping on our old pal Jim Ross.

Now, of course, in real life, Jim Ross, I suppose is the fellow who offered Jeff Jarrett less money to stay and let his contract lapse while he was technically still the Intercontinental Champion. That created a little bit of leverage for Jeff and people in wrestling knew that. but the audience that was watching WCW may not have what do you think of this decision to have him come out and pull peel the curtain back and do some quote unquote shoot comments I'm sure this is a Vince Russo idea I understand it from a controversy

creates cash standpoint but in this era these days of course a lot of folks would know because well everyone is who watches the show I shouldn't say everyone a lot of people who watch the show are actively participating online that was even less the case 23 years ago right well in hindsight maybe not the best call no it wasn't for the very reason that i point out as i did at the beginning of the show why i think it's a bad idea for tony con to keep poking at w we to get himself over we did the same thing here and maybe that's one of the reasons why when I point these things out, I'm pointing them out because I lived it and experienced it and know that it doesn't work. It's not that I just want to be critical or that I don't want

AEW to succeed or I don't like Tony Khan. The exact opposite is true. I think Tony's probably a great guy. I wish I had a good relationship with him, but I don't. It is what it is. But I've done some of this, I've made some of those mistakes. I've been a part of seeing mistakes like that made. in this case, Jeff Jarrett, you know, rip it on Jim Ross. For what? Right. At a point in time when WCW is in the sewer, that is not the time to take a swing at the 800-pound gorilla.

Get out of the sewer, get on solid ground, get yourself in shape, and then take a swing. But when you're at, when you're that far down, it makes no sense at all to have, and by the way, I let it happen because at that point in time, my job was to oversee creative and I had the ability to either approve or disapprove of anything that went on television. I had the final say. Well, Brad Siegel actually had that final say. But in terms of day-to-day, I had the final call. And I let it happen.

And I made that mistake. I allowed that mistake to happen. It wasn't my idea, but I allowed it to happen. So I share equally in the mistake. Right. I um it was stupid it didn't do it didn't do Jeff Jared any good at all because Jim Ross is a very well liked guy by the audience especially at that time it absolutely no good and it was the kind of cheap heat even if you know Jeff's a heel and he's taking a shot at

the baby face Jim Ross again because of where we were positioned it was just a bad idea there's another skid here that's going to happen where you and Kimberly are going to come out as a reminder at the pay-per-view you double-crossed your best friend so in storyline jeerat is Vince Russo's best friend and DDP is your best friend and so those are sort of your chosen guys and you you maniacal bastard you you get DDP's wife to turn on him And so now you're aligning yourself with Kimberly here. Is this fun for you? I don't know the nature of yours and Kimberly's relationship.

I know that you and DDP were big buds. Were you friendly with Kimberly or were you guys oil and water? What was that like? We had a really strange relationship. It was, I don't think she liked me. Just right off the bat, like when I first met her. I always felt like there was just kind of a standoffishness. And some of that might have just been her personality,

you know, sometimes when people are shy or they're just quiet people. They're not outward. Sometimes that can come off as being distant or cold or whatever. But like I would go over to visit and it was kind of like, oh, he's here again. You know what I mean? It wasn't as openly.

Now, she was friendly with my wife. They got along fine. but it all started with Kimberly's cat like she had this cat like when i first met them we first Lori and I first move into the neighborhood page and Kimberly already you know right down the street from us so nationally you know we're going to go over one saturday evening and have drinks or whatever and have dinner and she had this cat that was just mean just a mean cat like it's one of those cats you wish would have gotten run over oh oh my it was that mean it was nasty Didn't like anybody foul.

And the cat hated me. Well, and I think I made a comment one day about, I don't know what I said. I don't want to make something up just for the fun of it, but I said something that was fairly derogatory towards the cat. Like, I wonder how far I could throw that cat kind of thing or something. And when I got on her cat, that was it like if there was any hope for us to have a friend a really a genuine friendship out the window because i i i didn't her cat hated me and i hated her cat it was an equal distribution of hate so that kind of ruined it so we tolerate that what

it boiled down to conrad is literally we tolerated each other that's that's as good as a it's as good as it ever got ladies and gentlemen thanks for tuning in the 83 weeks uh we'll be back next week uh where's why what did i do there's no way we can be you in a blood feud with kimberly's cat well if you would have met that cat you'd understand it was a mean cat it was a big bastard too a cat must have weighed 30 pounds it wasn't like a little cat you know snug you know oh isn't it cute oh i love this little kitty oh i like because i like cats generally this fucker was mean so you have you had heat with a cat i had so much heat with a cat and Kimberly just and i understand that by the way because like if somebody came over to my

house to visit and we're sitting on your dog yeah and decided you know say some horrible things about my dog they're they'd leave without a couple teeth i mean you know fuck with my cat my dog my friends my family but you come to my house and and get on my dog and get on my dog and and say bad things about my dog you you won't be in my house law promise so i get it i don't blame her but that's just what happened well it never got better from there and never we just tolerated each other that was it i used to say to page the page why is she you know what's a problem dude no he said bro bro should have left her cat alone she loves her cat i get it Hey, listen, let's talk about something that happens here.

As you guys are in ring, DDP is going to start making his way to the ring. And as he's on his way to the ring, he's coming through the back hallway. I can't believe this is real, but he walks right past Sean Stasiak and Kurt Henning, who are standing there going over their match. How does this happen, Eric? These guys are going to square off on TV, but before we see the match, ddp just walks right past them and the camera shoots them talking to each other what in the world how do you guys not have that that hallway clear somebody was asleep at the wheel production

wise no oh at the very least yeah asleep at the wheel do bad organization but poor community no communication no rehearsal no walkthroughs show up and shoot your shit don't talk about it beforehand. It was bad. WCW was in a bad way at that point in time. Nobody knew who was, I mean, in fairness, nobody knew who the boss was. Right. In reality, I was not the boss. I had nothing to do with, I couldn't tell production. I couldn't hire fire. I mean, I was there as a consultant. Right. That was it. And strictly for creative. And Brad Siegel wanted it that way. And I understood why. He wanted it that way. So I was kind of like hands off on a lot of it, most of it, except for the creative, and the people that were

in charge of it were just not sure. Eric Bischoff's back. Who do I answer to? It was never communicated to talent, excuse me, to production and a lot of the employees. I just showed up. Nobody can meet. Brad Siegel should have communicated to the company and been very explicit about what my role was. And not, not for my benefit. I didn't care. Right. But for for everybody else's benefit. If you can imagine walking into, you know, a situation where you're producing live television and there's a lot of pressure on you. The company's down. Everybody knows it. Um, and you don't know who your boss is. You don't know who's in charge. It's tough, tough situation. We should, uh, we should mention that Sean Stacey at Kurt Haining

match during the course of the match, Kurt's going to go over and throw water all over Mark Madden. And it's reported that Madden had no idea this was coming. Is this just Kurt pulling a rib? Is this Russo not wanting to communicate what was coming? Or what do you remember of this? Was Mark upset? I don't recall if he was upset or not. I would imagine he was. Yeah. Unless, you know, if he was part of it and it was communicated and everybody talked about and he was given a reason as to why, or even just saying, hey, this is what we want to do, just want to give you heads up, any problem with this, Mark probably would have embraced it. But Mark is, you know, Mark Madden is a, he can be an intense person. He can be the easiest guy in the world

to work with. But he has buttons and if you push it, he'll go off as we've seen him. And I think that was just a, it was just disrespect. And I think, Mark reacted to the disrespect of it, I would imagine. I don't know why it was a, you know, look, in fairness, it'll be really easy to bury Rousseau because there's lots of opportunities to do that. But I don't know that it was Vince, I don't know that Vince Rousseau even knew it was going to happen. It could have easily just been Kurt in the moment.

Maybe Kurt didn't like Madden or maybe Kurt thought it would get him heat. I don't, I don't know. Well, something that we thought would work here, or at least somebody did, Kidman and Hogan. It's going to continue here on the Nitro after the pay-per-view. Security is out of here. They quit in one of these early segments with you and Russo. So now they have police officers here. And Meltzer would describe Hulk Hogan when he comes up as being Stone Cold Hulk Hogan.

And he would write this. They were ready to pull their guns. But Hogan gave him a dirty look and they all backed off and let him in. I'm just glad I don't live in Rockford. Great line from Dave. So Stone Cold Hulk Hogan's, going to come on in here and start cutting a promo and then he's going to start running after Kidman and Russo would be critical of that and saying, yeah, maybe he shouldn't show

Hogan running. But what do you think of this whole Hogan Kidman storyline? It's always fascinated the internet. A lot of people would say, oh, Hulk was proven that he would do business and, and he would lose to anybody and he would put people over and that was all nonsense. And other people would say, yeah, he may have lost a Kidman, but he didn't get him over. and it wasn't really trying to put him over and didn't really help Kidman and blah, blah, blah, sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

What did you think of the Kidman Hogan story? Didn't like it. Thought it was a bad idea. Largely because there was no real story behind it that mattered. But it was, and it wasn't done because it was a great creative idea. Okay. that decision and Hulk approved that I mean this Hulk didn't have to do it but I think Hulk was so tired of hearing not so much of the dirties he didn't read the dirtries but the

narrative this is the general narrative that existed he was aware of that he wouldn't do business and he wouldn't put people over it just I think it was like death by a thousand cuts and he finally said fucking I'll work with Kidman that's what the company wants, that's what I'll do. And he didn't do it like, I'll do it, but I'm not going to get him over. He didn't have to do it. He could have said, no, I'm not going to do it at all. But he wanted to be a team player.

This was Hulk trying to be a team player to overcome a narrative that not only existed in the peripheral dirt sheet news media, but also was an issue backstage. Because a lot of what Vince Russo did when he first came in, was Barry Hulk Hogan and a lot of the older guys. And that was Rousseau's thing. These guys are too old. They're too old. They're too old.

Well, you know, that had ramifications. And you saw Vince Rousseau, again, when he first came in, bringing in a lot of guys that nobody ever heard of before and smaller guys and greener guys and guys with less talent to try to prove, you know, Vince's, Russo's deal was, you know, I'm going to bring these young guys in and I'm going to you know, prove that these young guys can, you know, compete with WWE, and he was dead wrong, but that was his deal. And it was also a way for Rousseau to endear himself with a significant part of the roster

because there were a lot of those young guys that weren't main event ready yet. And some of them weren't even TV ready yet. But when you got a guy like Vince Rousseau, who for a minute was, you know, head of creative talking about all the opportunity he's going to give to all this. underutilized talent, even though they were underutilized because they should have been, many of them, what are they going to do? They're going to support the new boss because that's where their opportunity lies. And that over a period of weeks and months, that created kind of us versus them mentality

in the roster with a lot of the older guys, the Lex Lugar, the Hong Kongans, the Randy savages, the Sting. A lot of people didn't know where they stood now that they're considered the old guys. That's why we created to take advantage of that or try to mitigate it and turn a negative into a positive. It's exactly why we created the new blood, whatever we call the older guys at the time, legends, whatever we call. What did we call them? It was a new blood versus what? The millionaires.

Millionaires, yeah. It was all about that. And it was all about creating that separation. And it was partly largely my idea to create the new blood versus millionaires. storyline and scenario to turn that negative that existed not only in the narrative but also in the raw on the roster in a locker turn that into a positive and try to make it work for us well we should uh we should talk about the relationship we like what what was the relationship here say a week in to you and and and russo working together what was

Rousseau and Hogan's relationship like here. We know it comes to a head in July, but here we are in May. What's it like a couple of months before July? Tentative, meaning, again, Hulk wanted to be a team player. He wanted WCW. He wanted to see it turn around. He was glad to see that I was back creatively, at least overseeing creative. So it was, Hulk was very agreeable.

and in a state of mind where he wanted, he didn't like Rousseau. He didn't have any confidence in Rousseau. He didn't think Rousseau should have even been there in the first place. But he was. And I was working with him and Holt was in the frame of mind of, hey, I'm on this team. I'm going to do what I can to make the team work. So it was kind of like the relationship between Kimberly and me.

You know, they tolerated each other is what it really came down to. Well, something that we're all tolerating is, people coming down from the ceiling and in hindsight they probably shouldn't have been sting is in the middle of a feud with vampiro and on the heels of Owen Hart passing away in 1999 from a stunt in the ceiling the NBA banned all their mascots from coming down from the ceiling immediately but we're going to continue to let sting do it and we're even going to have him come down in the same state that Owen Hart passed away in and he's going to come down pretty fast he's going to

be clearly dropped too fast now thankfully nothing bad happened but my goodness in hindsight after the Owen accident should we have just sworn off of this for good this doesn't feel like a good idea no when someone gets killed at a NASCAR event to the cancel NASCAR how many people have been killed on a NASCAR track and do they do they do they put governors and restrictors on the car to slum down to 75 miles an hour now look that's a terrible example though Eric no it's not a terrible example we're not we're not Owen didn't die in a wrestling match like NASCAR is what they do if they did a and wrestling and sting coming down and repelling of the time is what he did okay I just I

look I understand the emotional aspect of it I really do. And I have empathy. I can feel it. I get it. And I'm not even blaming for people for feeling the way they felt or criticizing them for it. I just think if you take your emotional head out of it and look at it for what it was, it is part of the show. It is part of what WCW had been doing for a long time and reacting to an accident that happened somewhere else that we had nothing to do with, I think would have been an overreaction. I get it. I understand why people feel differently, and I don't criticize them for.

I completely understand. But from my perspective, it's no different than what we occasionally see in other sports. let's um you don't like that answer to you well i mean here's the thing i just think you got brett hard on the roster this is the same state where it happened i do think time and place and context matters like red heart's on this show this is the same state where his brother died doing this stunt and we're like sting get your shit up there let's go i don't know i get it i get it i understand why you feel that way. I just didn't. Still don't. Does you ever have a conversation with Brett about that stunt? Probably. Yeah. Probably. Because I am, I mean, I was pretty sensitive to what Brett was going through and I was concerned about it.

So can I honestly, you know, tell you that I remember sitting down with Brett and having the conversation? I'm not going to do that. Because I can't put myself in, I can't see myself in that conversation. I don't recall the words that were used, but I am sure that I had one. I'm not cold as ice. I mean, I do have a heart. Well, a little bit. DDP is going to be out there wrestling. Mike Awesome.

And it's going to go to a double DQ. What's interesting, though, is moments before it ends in a double DQ, Mark Madden says, this is a new WC. we're going to have winners and losers and the refs aren't going to be calling silly DQs and then immediately double disqualification oh god left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing huh yes god I hate this ugh ugh yeah backstage we see uh tank Abbott come out he's going to go after Bruce MacArthur who in real life is one of Rick Flair's best friends going back like 30 years.

I guess they're going to involve an NHL tough guy, old Bob Probert, and they're hoping to make SportsCenter. I don't know that it actually happened. Eventually Hogan's going to find Kidman and beat him with one hand tied behind his back. And he's going to chase Bischoff, who's about to drive off in the Hummer,

and it won't start. So you leave the keys behind and run away. My goodness. This show SnakeBee. is it not yeah what do you think you know i'm not i don't want to make excuses but perhaps some of the confusion in in the lack of communication and the snake bite is a result of the proximity you know producing as much as we were produced without a lot of time to to planet rebooking rebuilding planning for other pay-per-views all of this is going on in such

a condensed period of time that i'm going to suggest that perhaps some of this less than stellar moments were the result of lack of communication which was part of the rebuilding process you know figuring out how everybody was going to work together and a lot of shit fell through the cracks how does it feel to be in the hummer in it not start you don't think about it in the moment it's like okay now what do i do you know you're you're live yeah just got to think on your feet so i ran well we know that eventually you guys are going to run into the ring and uh you and hogan are going to wind up there and it just so happens that jeff jarratt is is in the main event against a mystery opponent that's revealed to be

Scott Steiner. I think the idea from Rousseau was thinking by promoting it as a mystery opponent. Maybe it could pop a rating. It only gets a 2.1. So that kind of makes Rousseau look bad. But Meltzer says, well, if they announced Steiner, it might not have made a difference. Either way, though, Brett Hart's going to show up. And he's here with you and Hogan. And he's going to rear back with a chair and the show goes off the air before we can see who he hit with the chair. I know you're big on cliffhangers. Was Russo big on cliffhangers as well? Was this your idea to swing the chair, but let's not reveal who was hit? Or is that a Russo? That sounds like I've had my fingerprints all over it. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. That's that's, you know,

the cliffhanger finished with something that worked for me all the time. Yeah. In Nitro for a long time, not all the time, but for a long time. That's one of the reasons that we had as much success as we did is that we became very episodic in nature. A firm believer in that. And I would bet lots of money that that was my decision. When the rating comes out the next day, Raw does a 6.75 and a 10.3 share. Let's put that in perspective, boys and girls. More than 10% of all the televisions in America were watching WWE.

Wow. It's incredible. Nitro had its lowest live rating since the earliest day. of the program it did a 2.47 which is a 2.86 for the first hour that's unopposed and a 2.09 second hour and a 3.7 share and Meltzer would point out that the lowest Kevin Sullivan book show was a 2.5.1 so this is not good news and it's the night after a pay-per-view which historically the go home is good but the night after is where you find out what happened and doesn't seem like a lot of people cared.

How disheartening is this to know that we got a 24-7 and they got a 6-7-5? It wasn't. Look, the state of the business and the competition between WCW and WWE was well established by the time I came back. We're getting our asses kicked. I didn't go into it promising or believing or hoping or fantasizing that we were going to be able to turn this around in any short order, it was going to take months, not days or an episode or two, it was going to take months, like I said earlier, six months to

a year to reestablish ourselves with the audience. So I, quite honestly, I didn't even think about it. I was focused on where we're going, not where we are, because where we were at that point time is in a toilet well ready to rumble's kind of in the toilet too uh it drops off 53% after week one that was the opening week now week two we're down 53% it's going to come in at number 10 for the weekend at the box office i know you weren't there for some of this uh but now that the movie's out i'm sure there's a little pressure to promote it or was there any pressure on the wcd side of things to ensure it's successful. Of course there was pressure.

I mean, when do you say pressure? I mean, it wasn't pressure. It was a, it was a mandate. Here's what you're going to do. This is a Time Warner Company. This is a Warner Brothers feature film. It features WCW talent. We want you to promote it.

That's not pressure. That's just a mandate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't, it wasn't a negative thing. It wasn't painful. It was, hey,

These are WCW stars in a feature film and with a major release. You can knock the film. You can criticize it all you want. But the fact that WCW had some of their talent, a lot of their talent in this movie that was released nationwide was a big deal. And promoting it was not a burden, by the way. It's easy for people to look at it now. Oh, that movie sucked.

Actually, I hear more people put it. the movie over than saying it sucked it's become kind of it was so bad it's good kind of thing right kind of a classic but um no it wasn't a no pressure no burden happy to do it let's talk about the interest in a quote unquote shoot fighting club maybe the observer would say add mark curr to the list of shoot fighters on their way to wcw Kerr was contacted by Bischoff and told they're going to have a group called fight club composed of Mark Coleman, Don Fry, Mark Kerr, Rick Steiner, and Tank Abbott. Kerr was told he'd be brought in after the concept is developed as a new monster rather

than at first. I don't remember this ever actually coming to fruition. Do you remember the idea? This is another one of those things where we were probably sitting around a room, just riffing ideas, throwing shit up against the wall. What if? Yeah. Hey, how about this? And somebody probably threw it out there. And then someone else who was in the room ran and told Dave. And then Dave created a story. Oh, I see. That's all that was. I mean, that's all that was. Well. If I've ever talked to Mark, if Mark Kerr showed up at my doorstep, I wouldn't recognize him. I don't know who he is. You got to know who he. I know his name. But did I have a conversation and promise I'm going to bring him in as a monster? That is

I have to be careful because I know this is going to be a long show And so much of this research comes from stuff that was published And Meltzer was publishing his dirt sheet At the time one of the larger ones And I know that's where this research comes from But I'm trying really hard not to shit all over The tapeworm Dave Meltzer Because otherwise it's going to be like three hours of it

And I know it's too much for some people but this is just this is just day being dave it wasn't real let's talk about um the rating the week raw is going to get a second highest rating in history at that point seven point one five well 10 point nine share nitro's back up to three point zero five hour one is a three point six eight that's unopposed everybody changes the channel and you wind up with a two point four for the second hour, but still, more than 10.2 million fans were watching wrestling at the same time. Where the hell did all those fans go, Eric?

They're still out there. I don't know where they went, but they're still out there. Just a minute. Look, the same thing happened. If you go back in time and you look at not so much in head to head competition. But if you go back in time and you look at, you know, where WCW was, say in 1991, 92, 93, early 93, it, it was in a toilet.

Nobody was watching. Far fewer people were watching WCW in the early 90s than they were watching compared to Nitro, even when Nitro was at its lowest point. Like when Nitro was just a turd floating in a toilet. it was still delivering better numbers that WCW did in the 90s, right? But in the early 90s, the conversations were out, wrestling's dead. It's never coming back. WCW is never going to be able to be competitive.

The audience just doesn't care anymore. They've moved on to other things. Fast forward a couple years, a couple good decisions, some decent strategy. Boom, wrestling's more popular than it's ever been. so it can the same just because the audience leaves doesn't mean you can't get them back when I hear people say things today but oh you know though those wrestling fans are never coming back it's a new audience you know you got to go after the younger newer audience I disagree yes you have to go after the younger newer audience I'm arguing with that but to

suggest that once the audience leaves you can't get them back I think is wrong you can't get them back you just have to produce good television to do it and in w w we's proving that now look where wwe was back in 96 yeah 97 and look where they are now you can get them back you can rebuild that audience but it takes time and effort and consistency consistency was definitely a problem here with wcw the show opens here with vampiro getting destroyed by sting uh and then he's even going to uh hit sting in the back with a lead pipe but stings in the next segment just fine and kidman who was smashed half to death by a hummer last week is fine this week i mean he's got his ribs taped up but still he got hit by a hummer he's a tough kid i love you for that um

the show here in rochester has 7700 fans only 2,600 paid It's a gate that's less than $65,000. That means your comps are more than double your paid attendance. This is the same company that not that long ago, Eric, was running a damn dome every single Monday and selling the fuckers out. This, I mean, I understand you said it wasn't disheartening, but it has to feel,

I don't know, like you pulled this company from 900, seat television tapings to sold out dome shows and now it feels like we're on our way back down again. I mean, well, we are. That just, uh, how do you, why didn't bother me? How do you not take it personally? I, it wasn't, I knew, I knew, I knew exactly. I knew why it happened. I knew how it happened. I knew how we ended up where we ended up. But I also do that I've done it before. I had taken this company that was in the toilet that everybody thought was dead. And that was on life support that only existed because Ted Turner wanted it to, which was true.

And I turned it into a media juggernaut. So I had a fair amount of confidence in my ability to do it again, given the time. So it wasn't disheartening to me. It was just life. It was just okay. Let's move on. What are we going to do next week? What are we going to do next month?

What are we going to do three months from now? I wasn't living in that moment and taking anything personally. I was confident because I had done it once before, as early as 1995, 94 starting in 94, I had turned WCW around and turned it into a media juggernaut that defeated WWE and had to head competition. So I wasn't intimidated or depressed or in any other way demoralized. I just, okay, it's rebuilding, just like it was when I took over WCW. we're just rebuilding. That's all.

Jeff Jarrett, Eric Bischoff and Kimberly are going to come out and they show the three-decker cage from the Ready to Rumble movie. Bischoff's going to call out DDP and Kimberly is going to give him divorce papers. Meltter would write. I immediately thought of all the possibilities of how they could make this angle huge, but no, Paige didn't even sell it like he was concerned. That guy is just so cool, he blew off a good angle. luckily the announcer saw how page botched it so they stopped selling the divorce like it was anything important either page went after bischoff but jared hit page with a guitar this brings out

arquette to jump on bischoff and jared's going to pull him off before jarrick can pound on him and canyon saves arquette bischoff challenges arquette to a match and the steps are if Arquette wins, Page would get a cage match for the title on this show. So talk to me about the divorce. Do you think that was a missed opportunity and it was just glossed over and I mean, the way Dave writes it or was that? Dave's a dip shit. Dave is, Dave can't, Dave can't structure a sentence more or less build a creative show or

a creative angle or produce anything creative. He cannot write a sentence correctly. he's almost inarticulate when it comes to the way he writes and communicates. So for someone who can't structure a paragraph correctly to suggest that he has, oh, the vision for a great angle, I find laughable, number one. And, you know, I'd have to go back and watch it and think about it in the context. Is there a better way to do it? But I don't know.

I think that's just Dave trying to put himself over, which he does frequently. Let's talk a little bit about Arquette and how we got here. Are you involved, how involved are you in the writing of the Arquette story? And did you know right up front, we're going to find a way to put the belt on him? Or is that something that just organically evolved? No, I think it evolved. It wasn't like the, wasn't the plan going in. Okay.

It was something that evolved. How involved was I, I approved or didn't approve of whatever materials the writing team put together. So, I mean, the process was essentially, because I wasn't in the office. I wasn't in Atlanta. I was in Phoenix. So the process was Rousseau and whatever team he had at the point, at that point in time, they would work on TV, they would send it to me, I'd give them my notes, I'd red line, I'd add, I'd delete, whatever, and then we'd get together and go over it one more time

at TV. So I was overseeing it. And my, look, my attitude at that time was, again, the relationship between Russo and I was still very, very new. My goal was to make it work. I had never been in a situation like that before. You know, when I was running WCW, I was running WCW. I didn't have to call and communicate and compromise. I pretty much was able to make whatever calls I wanted to make from about 1994 till about 1998. I didn't really answer to anybody.

Now I'm in a situation where I'm still overseeing the creative process, whatever that meant, I mean overseeing it, but I had no real control over anything else. so and I was working with a guy that I didn't have a lot of respect for initially was a little bit toxic in terms of inside of Turner he was not a there weren't a lot of people that were supporting Vince Russo within Turner at that time other than some of that underutilized talent that was hoping to get their shot so I was

trying and I wanted to make it work you know Brad Siegel was stuck with Russo he just put him under contract a couple months earlier so he wasn't going to And Brad didn't want to release him after just hiring him, especially after having released me and then having to bring me back. It didn't look good internally for Brad. So Brad didn't want to let Rousseau go, which is why he brought me in as a consultant and to oversee Rousseau. But that was a weird relationship and I had to navigate it.

And because I wanted it to work, I didn't bigfoot it. I'm capable of getting my way when I want my way, whether I do it the correct way or not. And I didn't want to big foot it, you know, I didn't want to force my ideas. I didn't want to force my perspective. I wanted to try to compromise my way in. And I want to say compromise isn't the right way to say it. I wanted to slowly kind of build a creative strategy that included Russo and get him on board so that we both kind of saw the same general picture, not the exact same thing. I didn't want him to be a yes man.

But I wanted us to be a working viable team. And because of that, again, I'm not making excuses. But there were some things that I went, eh. But I also recognized that a lot of the heat that I had was because I didn't compromise too often. And I was a little overbearing. So I'm trying to make up for that a little bit. I'm trying to navigate that relationship. So when the idea of Rousseau, or excuse me, of Arquette actually winning the title

was presented to me, while it may have been something I would have gone, I don't know about that, again, I'm trying to serve Warner Brothers promoting their movie, I wanted to be a good corporate team player. I'm trying to navigate this bizarre relationship and even more bizarre role that I have. is a guy that oversees creative but has no control over anything, which is kind of fucked up. So a lot of things fell through the cracks that I did. I won't even say fell through the cracks.

A lot of things happened that probably went against my instincts. But in order to achieve the larger goal, I played along with it. Again, I was looking at my role as something that was going to evolve over six months or 12 months over the rebuild process. I wasn't going to come in and just start ex-naying and deleting and eliminating and, you know, shitting all over the stuff that Rousseau wanted to do. I know that sounds like a cop out, but you have to be able to put yourself in my shoes

to understand how complicated that situation was at the time. Let's hit a few talent here. This era is going to see chronic develop. So we got Brian Adams and Brian Clark getting together and becoming a tag team. What do you think of these two guys? being paired together. I liked it. I liked them both. I didn't. My gut told me it wasn't really going to work and maybe it was because there just wasn't enough contrast in her characters or they didn't compliment. They were both individually very strong characters or strong, not very strong,

strong characters with potential. But you put them together and it felt like one. For me, a tight team needs to have, it needs to have chemistry and chemistry. is sometimes brought about by diversity, you know, personalities, characters, wrestling technique, presentation, interview styles, look, whatever. And these two guys were just kind of like twins. Let's talk a little bit about, uh, Chris Candido and Tammy Sitch. They're in the company here as well. I think they both would have had relationships with Rousseau.

Certainly Tammy did. And just a handful of years prior to this, man. I guess, 1996. She was the most downloaded woman on the internet. Man, Candido could have been such a big star. I can't believe he's gone so early. This was probably not the best time for them personally. What was your experience like with these two?

Not good. Not good at all. I didn't, I didn't really want them there. I didn't see the value despite Sables. status at the time but the drug issue was such a everybody knew it i mean this was they were a train wreck and the idea of bringing a couple train wrecks that you know are train wrecks into the company was just stupid um wasn't a fan of either one of them you know and i mean it got so bad and i don't usually talk about people who are no longer here but um let me put it this way

those two would come out of a bathroom and people would have to come in and make sure there were no needles left on the floor. I mean, that's how bad it was. So I had no time for either one of them. And I feel bad about the drug addiction. I mean, fortunately, I've not been, nor has anybody in my family been addicted, but I know that addiction is a serious, serious, serious issue. And I feel bad for the people.

that are in it in the midst of it but they had no place in any wrestling company at that point in time well we uh man i don't know that we can say enough about Chris and Tammy and I hope that Tammy is able to pull the nose up and and have a happy ending somehow some way it seems pretty bleak right now and of course we know Chris is going way too soon just another wrestling tragedy that you hate to see or hear about uh let's talk about some silly creative for a moment lighten the mood if we shall we see chronic take on flare and lex luger and lasts a minute and 21 seconds when brian adams is going to pin rick flair flair's out here wrestling in street clothes which is just crazy uh what's your relationship

like with rick flair at this point and and i mean listen we all know the story going back to 1998, but we're a couple years removed from that. You've been hokey pokey. You're back with the company now. What are you and Rick like here in 2000? I just think it was, I mean, there was no heat, at least not noticeable, visible. I should say, maybe behind the scenes there were when Rick left the building there was. I don't know. But, you know, inside of the building, Rick was professional. I think we were polite to each other and cordial. I don't think we were hanging out after the show like we used to, but it was easy. There was no strain or complications in a relationship.

Hulk Hogan is going to be in a handicap match here in a losing effort to Mike Awesome and Billy Kidman. Ultimately, Kidman is going to splash Hogan through a table and pin him after a leg drop. Meltzer would say Hogan gets smarter by the week. Of course, I guess showing that he's able to do the job and I don't know even if it does take two guys over him he'll go through a table clearly Meltzer has an ax to grind with Hogan was Hogan was a duch bag he's just a douchebag he just is it's going to be hard for me to listen to a lot of Dave Meltzer quotes but without reacting but he's he's yeah whatever you know the deal brother you know i do know let's talk about david arquette you're going to

wrestle david arquette here and uh somehow some way you lose can't believe it two minutes and eight seconds and it's written here our cat at least looks like he enjoys wrestling and's having fun out there but boy did he make wcd look minor league when he used the worm as his big move particularly since it got the biggest pop of anything on the show of course the worm is a big move used on the other channel by scotty too haughty in hindsight was that a bad call or are we just caught up in the minutia like now we're just trying to be smart we're just trying to be really really smart right our dirt sheet and be critical for the sake of being critical it's just bullshit you hit only uh like the whole idea first of all you know are kept pinning me i'm i wasn't a wrestler it's not like he pinned sting right right right he pinned the guy that was clearly out of shape and was a cocky arrogant brick right i i don't see why it should have been that controversial not putting the title on him as a result i get that we'll get there a guy like david arquette beating eric bischoff at the time no big deal

two minutes shouldn't shouldn't have been a controversial thing well i mean it is a big deal by God, you beat Rick Flair at Starcade. You beat Terry Funk for the hardcore title. Then you let a worm take you down. Anybody can have a bad day. Who was it? There was a basketball player, and I can't remember his name because I'm not a big basketball fan, but I played with Milwaukee and lost when Milwaukee was favorite. And he came out and said in sports, there are no, there are no, what do you say? There are no. He said, there's good days and bad days. He said, oh, there's no losing there's no losing seasons, there's no losing effort. Sometimes in sports you have good days.

Sometimes you have bad days. Eric Bischoff in the ring had a bad day. And David Arquette had a good day. It has nothing to do whether or not I beat Rick Flair or beat Terry Funk. I just happened to have a bad day. Maybe it's because I was so preoccupied with everything that was going on backstage and trying to navigate my new relationship with the company and the guy I was supposed to be a partner with.

My head just wasn't in the match. I didn't have my usual fight game on. And I had a bad day. That's all. DDP is going to pin Jeff Jarrett to win the title in a cage match here in four minutes and 59 seconds. Uh, there's going to be a diamond cutter,

but Mike Awesome's going to tear down the cage door, which Meltzer would say is pretty stupid considering there's a cage match on pay per view in just two weeks. The idea being you shouldn't be able to tear the cage door off. Awesome's going to stop the count. Canyon comes in to make. the save even though the ref counts two he stops and hits the mat once more and all the sudden they announced that page was the winner and the new champ but there's no crowd pop because instead of

putting the focus on ddp getting over a title change the focus is on awesome and canyon brawling trying to get their second match on the show and killing the title change pop still ddp becomes the man again but it feels like we're doing too much crash tv we've got too many moving parts it's hard to focus would you agree with that assessment Absolutely would agree with that. That's the whole crash TV philosophy that Rousseau brought to the table and believed in so passionately is what part of the issue here, part of the problem here,

because there was so much going on that none of it was done well creatively from a production perspective, as you pointed out early. When you're cramming 15 pounds of shit in a five pound bag week after week after week creatively and otherwise you're going to have those kinds of mistakes but that was get out classic Vince Russo TV finally sting versus vampiro in a first blood match and a few minutes in the red stuff comes from the ceiling and sting is bathing in it sting comes from the ceiling again fans hated the segment live eventually the new blood guys are going to beat up sting and hook him back up to his hook

he's lifted only a few feet off the ground and he's hanging there like an unconscious pinata after the tv goes off the air sting gets back on the ground makes a miraculous recovery and beats up all the new blood members and melzer would say the reports were that sting made the save but the fans left the building unhappy feeling the segment was a major rip off and rousseau has come out in recent years and said maybe this was a miscalculation That the new blood were supposed to be the baby faces and the Millionaires Club were supposed to be the heels. But the fans, they were cheering the Millionaires. They didn't agree.

Yeah. So we didn't have the same feeling about the older guys as Russo did. Did they creatively? No. And it backfired. By the way, Isaac Risson just joined us over at ad free shows. com. Isaac Risson out of the kind of, by the way, Grammy Award winning Isaac Riston,

uh, nominated several times. but recently won a Grammy. I was kind enough to put together some intro music for us over on Strictly Business that I do every week with John Alba. So, Isaac, thank you, sir, and thanks for joining us. And we want to give a shout out to Henson. Boy, we love our Henson razors. We can't stop bragging about this.

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Henson shaving.com slash 83 weeks. Use our promo. 83 weeks. So listen, let's jump into it. It's time to talk about thunder. We know what happens here. Hey, Belzer would write. Yeah, the most prestigious title in our sport changed hands twice more this past week with DDP beating Jeff Jarrett in Rochester on the 24th and then it being put on the winner of the fall in a tag match on Thunder the next day in Syracuse where David Arquette penned Eric Bischoff. The idea since this just happened as we went to press and time will tell if this is correct is that WCW believes the publicity about Arquette winning the title will hit mainstream and lead to a ratings boost on May 1st since the WVF looks to be changing

its world title to Rock and Austin. They did a double pin with Jarrett pinning Page at the same time Arquette was pinning Bischoff, but they announced Arquette as the winner and new champion and had him parade around with the belt. Kimberly was the referee and kept slow counting whenever Paige had Jarrett pinned and counting fast the other way. Somehow she was out of there and Mickey Jay ran in and counted the double pin and signaled that Arquette had won.

now listen i know that this is one of the most controversial decisions in wrestling eric and i know that i think wrestling fans were unfair to david arquette for far too long i think he started to change that narrative maybe five six seven years ago just want to remind everybody that all the money david arquette ever made in wrestling he donated to the widows of fallen wrestlers. This is a good dude who really legitimately loves wrestling, doesn't need wrestling, doesn't have to do wrestling. He's just a big fan like me and you. And DDP pointed out years ago, hey, you fan, who's critical of this decision, if you were David Arquette and given the opportunity to get in there and play grab ass with some of the guys you loved watching on TV and win the

world title, you would have done the same thing David did. And then he donated all the cash. So I give David a pass. This is good for him. he was a good sport he did right by wrestling as much as he could however the decision has always been criticized and it's come out in recent years in conversation with tony shivani that it was actually a conversation with vince rousseau and when rousseau apparently said something like so what are you thinking what i'm thinking tony said are you thinking we need to put the belt on our kit so i guess in a weird way this is all chivani's fault so if we want to wag our finger at bischoff we want to wag our finger at russo it's that

dirty rotten damn tony shivani to blame here is it not evil just evil why would he do that because he's evil i agree he is not you know you see you see this persona that tony has of just being a nice guy and gets along with everybody and he's evil deep down inside he's evil serious business how do you remember getting to this decision what was the initial discussion like was there a big debate talk me through it well again as much as i'm trying to avoid doing it, Dave's coverage of this started out with something to the effect of WCW's doing this because they think it's going to get a ratings boost. That's wrong. Did I'll just, I can only give you my point of view. Um, my perspective was that it would get press. Press would

be good in the mainstream, not the wrestling press, but I didn't give two shits about the wrestling press. But I did believe that there was a possibility that we would get some coverage. And WCW desperately needed some of the mainstream coverage that we previously enjoyed. We needed to try to get some of that back and let the world know that we indeed weren't dead. So my willingness to go along with this and not throw a flag on it was because, number one, we're doing something for our corporate partner, Warner Brothers Films. Right. We could possibly get some decent press out of it from mainstream press,

so I didn't push back on it. In terms of, you know, how did it all go down? There was no big powwow, you know, it was a decision that obviously started with Rousseau, and now I'm learning Tony Shavani, kidding aside, Russo brought it to me and laid it out, and I went along with it. that was really the process. It wasn't any more complicated than that or political than that. It wasn't like we all sat down in a room and decided if it was a good idea or not a good idea.

The idea popped into Russo's head. Russo came to me and I broke it down and went, okay, let's give it a shot, see what happens. Again, it's so hard for people to understand that's never, that weren't in my shoes. But when you know you've got a. rebuild you're you're making judgments and decisions that benefit your business in ways that aren't directly related to what's going on in the ring and this was one of them this was

not a great creative rasseling decision for the five star guys like dave melzer that jerk off over japanese five star matches this wasn't his decision made for them. This was a decision that was made more for, as I said, our corporate partner in the mainstream media, which is, again, something that I had done before. This was not really that unusual or outside of a pattern that I hadn't done before according mainstream media. It was very effective. This was our attempt to try to experience that again or benefit from it again. good or bad that was the reason for it do you ever anybody i mean just talk to me about the the trepidation that people had if any jeff charrett that's the thing there wasn't any

okay so much has been made out of this that wasn't real that didn't exist there wasn't it wasn't that controversial when it went down okay you got to you got to realize wcw was so far down morale wise ratings one revenue-wise, organizationally. I mean, in any category that you could measure success or failure, WCW was in the bouncing off the failure floor. So any attempt to do anything that might work was generally fairly embraced.

Now, there may have, and I'm sure there were people that went, oh, that doesn't make any sense. I would never do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. But under the circumstances that we were in, there was not a lot of pushback or people complaining about stuff. Everybody was just hoping that something was going to click. And this was one of those. The dipships like Dave Meltzer of the world that made such a big deal out of it were saying things and writing things were implying things that just weren't that didn't exist.

There was no real big controversy backstage. Were there individuals backstage who didn't agree? Absolutely. The same way there were individuals backstage at WrestleMania that didn't agree with what WWE did with Cody Rhodes. There's always going to be controversy or people that have different opinions about what you're doing creatively. The only people that don't have opinions about what's going on creatively

are people that are not watching the show are involved in a process. Otherwise, everybody's going to have opinions and many of them are going to be different. Some of them are going to be polarized. opposites. But this wasn't as controversial as it's been made out to be at the time. Well, let's talk about, I'm sure we're going to talk about our CAD a little more because we're not done with that story. But we get Tank Abbott coming out here and he's going to be going after a local boxing coach from Syracuse. And what do you know? Here's Mark Mero to make to save. There's no mention of the fact that he was Johnny B bad, but Mark Merrow now on

WCW, what did you think of bringing Mark back here? I always liked Mark. You know, I was disappointed. I remember the, the day that Mark told me that he was going to leave and go to WWE. And I, I was disappointed at the time. You know, Mark and I, it's not like we're super tight friends, but, you know, I'd go over to Mark's house and watch boxing events on pay-per-view and along with other people, you know, would be a group of us. But I always got along with Mark. I always like Mark. Um, enjoyed being around him.

In the arena and outside of the arena. So, and I was disappointed to see him go. So I was happy to see him come back. Brett Hart's going to have an interview here that airs on the program. Meltzer would say it was taped on April 21st in Calgary with Scott Hudson. And the gist of the interview is that Brett saying he hit Hogan with the chair because he's friends with Bischoff and Hogan's been dodging him for a match forever. And he claimed he's the guy who could have beaten Hogan when he was in his prime.

And he said he sees the finish of his career as holding Hogan and the sharpshooter and Hogan tapping out. And it was actually suggested for Hart to do a retirement tour, which is a brilliant idea since everyone will believe any wrestler when they say they're going to retire. So of course, that's the report from Dave Meltzer. But I love this sit down interview with Scott Hudson because it, I don't know, it just it feels different on the show which I'm for there's not that sameness to it it feels more like a legitimate sport you know because we used to see these type of conversations on ESPN all the

time with athletes but Brett Hart and Hulk Hogan man long overdue fans have been wanting to see this since 1993 here we are in 2000 we don't really ever get it though what was the we know everything's going to get thrown way off course soon enough with Hulk Hogan and Vince Rousseau and Jeff Jared in July. But did you think that was going to be a big Starcade or Halloween Havocke type level attraction, Brett Hart and Holcogne? We knew that it could be. Yeah. But there were issues between Hulk and Brett. And those issues and the chem, I want to say issues. There was a chemistry problem between Hulk and Brett and probably a little bit of trust. Yeah, there were some,

there were trust issues between the two of them. Not so significant that I didn't think. they could be overcome because I think both of them wanted it to happen but those kinds of things take time you know and the the lack of chemistry between Hogan and Brett dated way back to WWE and they existed here and our hope was that at some point in time we were going to have that match I know Brett wanted it and and I and I know that Hogan believed it could be a big success so therefore he wanted it um but there were trust issues there this we hadn't overcome him at that point this thunder where arquette wins the title does a 2.72 rating this is a higher number than thunder has had over the average of the last

six months but it is down from just a couple of weeks prior but still they don't view this as a success because the rating for that segment is actually down to a two point two five it turns out now he's making a statement there and he's ascertaining our state of mind who didn't and again this is the lies this is the spin this is the garbage that melzer continues to put out that we have to continue to respond to i don't like talking about dame melzer i don't like responding to this kind of stuff but it's there he wrote it it was part of the narrative at the time. But again, he's making shit up.

And I think by now people should be able to figure that out when they hear these kinds of things. Here's Dave Meltzer telling him we didn't, we didn't consider it a success because that segment, I got news for you. I've never, ever even had a thought about the overall success of a show based on one segment, ever. It's an alien thought to me. Well, hang tight though.

I mean, I appreciate what you're saying. But at the same time, it is your main event segment it is your world title segment it is the closing segment and it's down 25% from watching paisley and tammy wrestle now i just want to remind everybody you do have big stars in that match i mean diamond dallas page is in that match and jeff jerrett is in that match and a tv star david arquette is in that match and it's for the world title but it's 25% lower the rating is than when tammy and paisley are wrestling now i want to just sidebar here for a moment because I feel like

sometimes in wrestling we don't talk about this but when T&A was doing so well in the ratings a lot of times the segments that did the best were the ladies the knockouts and a lot of times they were scantily clad and a lot of people would say

well their ratings bonanzas let's do more of the women but I don't know that those ever converted into pay-per-view buys so I could see how you're trying to serve two masters and that's what I to have a conversation with you about Eric because on the one hand there's a lot of story there's a lot of star power and there's stakes the world title we're checking all your boxes for the main event but it's down compared to seeing scantflay-clad ladies Russell how do you

serve two masters of we want the best ratings we can get but we also know that they're maybe not going to sell us tickets they're certainly not going to sell us merch and they're damn sure not going to sell us pay-per-view you need a both how do you what's the balancing act there Well, there was none because Turner was not going to go the scantily clad women route to the same extent that WWE did. That's just not where the company wanted to go. And I know Rousseau did a lot of it, you know, major guns. And I mean, there was a lot of just tacky, cheap, sleazy shit that Rousseau liked to do because that's who he was at that time. And that's what he believed would work at that time.

But Turner, that's one of the reasons they brought me back was to get away from that stuff. So it, look, the success of the show wasn't, were we disappointed? Did we want to do better? Of course we did. But it wasn't because of one segment. That was my point. And as far as competing against half-naked women, and at that point in time, look, WWE was as salacious as you could possibly be without getting thrown off television.

And when you're competing for an 18 to 49-year-old predominantly male audience, that's a tough, that's a tough battle to fight when you're not willing to get into the game and fight along with that formula. But it wasn't a disappointment because of one segment. Again, I'm struggling to find the words because I don't want to repeat myself. I know that I am, and I do sometimes. But if I were in, at that point in time, if I were of, if I was at the, I would have been at the frame of mind, in the frame of mind, where each episode is a battle.

Each, every Monday night, I'm in a fist fight or every Thursday night, I'm in a fist fight. It would have been a really horrible situation for me. I would have had a hard time dealing with it. but I didn't feel the same way that people like Meltzer thought I should be feeling and presented to his audience, or his readers, the way I was feeling. I don't think I was disappointed at all. I was thinking about six months from now and a year from now. Half the stuff we were doing I didn't believe in,

but we were already so far down on the road with it, and we hadn't really developed a strategy at this point in time. And we hadn't really developed a cohesive creative strategy of how we were going to move forward. What is the show actually going to look like six months for now or a year from now? We weren't there yet. We weren't there yet. We were still trying to figure out how we were all going to work together. People were still trying to determine who their boss was.

We're still trying to figure out how to communicate effectively because of the above. Nobody knew who their boss was. Nobody knew what their roles really were. So there was so much fucking chaos and confusion that we had to kind of repair and build upon that my reaction to a segment or even an episode was not what people would think. It just wasn't. I knew I was in just like, again, you have to be able to put yourself in my shoes. I took over WCW at a time when nobody thought it could ever, ever be successful.

Nobody in Turner Broadcasting ever thought WCW could turn a profit. No wrestling fan in their right mind would have thought that WCW would ever be able to compete with and successfully dominate WWE on television. It was a bizarre thought at the time going back to 92 and 93, but we were able to do it. And I had all the confidence in the world that we were going to be able to do it again, but we weren't going to do it overnight. It was a long-term rebuilding process. I know that's redundant, but again, I only say that to point out how stupid some of the stuff

that were hearing that was written in that time, because it wasn't the way we were thinking. It wasn't the attitude in the locker room, for the most part. It just wasn't. Dave's relationship to our reality didn't exist. The things that he's reporting that we were feeling or saying or thinking didn't exist. they existed in Dave's mind but not in ours it wasn't the reality of the situation the April or I'm sorry May 1st audience for Monday night pro wrestling is the most in more than three months raw draws its second highest rating in history meanwhile

Nitro gets a slowest rating the cage match of Rock and Shane McMahon does an incredible 10,576,000 viewers. That leaves raw a 7.4 rating and an 11.1 share. Nitro is down to a 2.46. It feels as if it's hard to pull the nose up here. Well, it is and it isn't. But again, I think it's kind of a macro perspective in a way. the success that WWE was having was the result of the strategy and the creative marketing

that took place a year before or two years before. When Vince McMahon came out in November of 1997 and said, we're going to change the way we present this product to the audience. I'm paraphrasing. That was the beginning. By 98, they'd really turned it up. In 99, the heat was on. with the over the top, the sexuality, the provocative shit, you know,

walking Tristratus around in her underwear and a dog leash, you know, giving birth to hands, you know, Mabel's showing up with her tits hanging out with pain on it. All of those things that, that W.W.E. had been doing for the year and a year and a half prior to this particular evening is how and why they ended up getting the phenomenal ratings as they did. They took that 18 to 49 year old audience of WCW previously dominated. They found a way to take that market share away from us and plant it firmly in the WWWE category by the nature of their content. It wasn't because, oh, on this match, we're in this segment. This segment was so much better in WWE that this segment was in Nitro. And that's how the audience feels. Now, the

audience was already committed to WWE, already preferred WWE, was becoming more satisfied with WWE because of the nature of the explicit, salacious content, as well as a lot of the great talent that was on the show. I don't want to take away from that. There was a lot of great talent in WWE at the time, but you have to acknowledge that the provocative nature to salacious nature of the show is one of the primary reasons that they were able to snatch the 18 to 49 year old audience. It's no secret, folks, sex has always sold, whether you're on a street corner in the Bronx or whether you're producing television or television commercials. Sex always sells. WWE at that time was very sexually heavy in the nature of their show. They hadn't,

but it took them six, it took them a year to get there, a year and a half to get there. It didn't happened overnight because of a match. It happened because of the strategy that WWE employed or embraced, I should say, a year and a half previous. And that's my whole point in a lot of my responses to this, some of the stuff. And why my reaction to what was really going on, or my real reaction to what was going on, is so much different than the way it's being presented in the tapeworms narrative. I was looking at it. I was looking. at this rebuild as a long-term rebuild. Nobody expected, nobody, from Ted Turner on down, Brad Siegel,

nobody expected that by me showing up and taking over creative and having this change, all of a sudden things are going to turn around on a dime. Take WCW, how many years to catch up to WWE? And we knew we had our work cut out for us. So again, that's why I don't want to overreact to some of the commentary from Dave, but sometimes it's just frustrating for me to hear it. because it's so opposite of what was really going on in my mind or going on even within management of WCW or in some cases the locker room. Meltzer would guess that he thinks most of the hardcores

or most of the casual fans have been run off on Thunder because when Raw starts only 201,000 homes switch from Nitro to Raw. The rest are Die Hard WCW fans who hang in there. and 45% of the nitro viewers then switch over to raw when nitro comes to an end but in fact more people more new viewers show up to watch that final segment of monday night raw than the entire audience that was actively watching nitro so it's a tale of two companies wwe is just hotter than hell and wcw maybe not so much sort of quietly here we see the end of an era because it's reported in the observer quote, WCW Saturday Night will officially no longer have separate tapings done. That in and of itself will increase the average attendance at WCW House show since very little promotional money was spent on the Saturday shows. And with no major stars being advertised, the crowds have been very poor, often a thousand or less paid.

The show will now be a review of the Nitro and Thunder shows hosted by Terry Taylor and Larry Zubisco. I get that it's a cost-cutting measure, but it's crazy to think that wrestling in this time slot and just WCW Saturday night had been the flagship show for so long and then of course Night Trail made it second place and Thunder made it third place and now it's dead was it bittersweet to you or at this point didn't matter you didn't care about Saturday night I mean neither sound like I didn't care it was just WCW Saturday I don't care about history I don't care about it wasn't that it wasn't that it was was a function of budget right and it was a function of reality 6.05 Eastern on a Saturday night

isn't a good time slot for anything especially on a network that was it didn't have um I'm struggling to find the term we're on a 605 Eastern 305 Pacific time fucking chance does anything especially a wrestling show have a being successful in that time slot it It doesn't. It was just a function of budget. It served its purpose. It had its time. You know, WCW was never able to turn a profit from day one at that 605.

When WCW Saturday Night was the lead show for WCW, they were losing money hand over fist. They never made a nickel. The show was never successful. We couldn't draw houses up. You said, oh, people down to 1,000 people paid. I got news for you. When I was producing WCW Saturday, when I first took over WCW, or when I was there as an announcer, you know what the ticket sales were then?

Nothing, because you let the Winoes in for free because they were the only ones that would come to center stage and sit through an entire taping. But the time had come because of nitro and because of thunder. And you have a limited amount of resources, both financially and human, to be able to produce these shows and to do them in a way that you're not embarrassed by them. them and WCW Saturday night by that point in time it had become a financial burden and it was just no one was watching it had no future let's talk about Arquette he's got the title of course you're going to do with Nitro from Birmingham you get Courtney Cox and Kurt Russell to make some cameos here which is a pretty cool deal I mean let's not pretend that Courtney Cox wasn't a huge star of course that's David Arquette's wife at the time and of course Kurt Russell my God

bona fide and david and by the way david was in a movie with them called a thousand miles to graceland which was the connection another but by the way one of my favorite movies if you haven't seen a thousand miles to graceland you should look for it it's a fun movie kurt russell's awesome and yeah Courtney's not bad uh hey since you said you'd never you wouldn't know what mark cur looked like let me recommend the smashing machine have you seen that before the documentary about mark cur never have go out of your way to see it I think you'll dig it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Uh, so listen, DDP Canyon and our cat come out, uh, to what is described as no real pop with the belt. As soon as our cat starts talking, people start booing.

He wants to give up the title. You're going to say, uh, you're in a three cage match at Slambury. Uh, and then eventually we see Sean Stasiak shooting free throws throughout the entire show. The idea is he's going to make $5,200 in a row. Um, and of course, he falls one short of the all time record because Kurt attacks him so a little silliness maybe a tongue and cheek about mr. perfect but we're doing what we can we get the wall out here in a tables match with horace hogan two minutes and 19 seconds Hulk's going to come out awesome's going to come out kidman's going to come out we're continuing the the storyline here Hugh Morris is going to win a three way over gerrit and Steiner in two and a half minutes um they're going to wind up debuting the

misfits in action and uh yeah i want to know what you think of this idea of the misfits the m i a group i absolutely hated it yeah i thought you were going to say that i just hated it it just reeked of wrong i don't know how else to say it it wreaked of wrong speaking of wreaking of wrong you have sting and vampiro fighting in a graveyard and as you might imagine vampiro breaks a tombstone over stings head and sting falls into a grave officially because sting may have died the match is a no contest sting's hand crawls out from the grave and the announcers are screaming that sting was alive quote these poor announcers have to sell this crap

listen is this any different than what we i was i thought the comment from melzer was going to be how we ripped off wwee undertaker but well you did i mean that's that we're just well we did i mean clearly there's no there's no fine line there anywhere um but yeah i mean listen this is years before people got in tune with cinematic what what did you think of this graveyard type i never liked things that happened outside of the arena, even though I created some of them, you know, the Dustin Rhodes blacktop bully thing comes to mind. And again, one of the reasons I could become so opinionated about things I think are good and bad or right or wrong is because I've done enough wrong ones to know the difference. I've had the experience. And my experience had

been doing things outside of the arena, always fall short because the audience can't engage. It just, it just doesn't work for me. The best part of wrestling for me, especially live wrestling, is watching the crowd react and making the crowd, and benefiting at home from feeling the energy of a crowd reacting. I don't care how good something cinematic is. You don't get it. You don't get that reaction. You don't get that connection to the people in the arena.

You can't live vicariously through them. And what you're subconsciously doing, whether you most likely don't realize it, is you're now comparing what you're watching to what you watch in a movie theater or what you watch in a scripted series. And it's never going to be as good. So doing, especially for WCW at that time, doing things outside of the ring,

the only thing that the only thing that I would say contradicts what I just said is the NWO car chase where they rolled the Steiner's over in a car yes that was believable in a real yes which is why we had to take it off the air because it was too believable and too real but the rest of it it takes away any ability for the audience to suspend their disbelief what they're seeing is really bad movie. It's a C movie. It's not even a B movie. It's C movie level, production, maybe D level movie production and execution with no live audience to react to it and it completely takes the audience out of the equation. That's, and I didn't feel any differently about this scene. Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to feel differently

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So listen, let's talk about what's next here. We've got Tank Abbott beating DDP in a minute and 55 seconds. And it's because Jeff Jarrett hit him with a bottle. Now, I just want to remind everybody, this is feeling to me like a game of clue. Last week, we saw Vampiro hit Sting with a pipe. And then on Thunder, we saw Colonel Muster in the library with a candle. and now we've got Jarrett hitting DDP with a bottle and they put him on a stretcher and loan him in an ambulance.

This is the same show where we got dudes getting who to hit over the head with tombstones. What are we doing, man? The gimmicks are out of control. Out of control. Absolutely out of control. And I think this has just a lot to do with the difference between the way Vince Russo saw TV at the time and you can you can just categorize it as crash TV you know the great thing about crash TV is you it's a perfect excuse not to have any consistency right just now we're

just doing what we're doing in the moment there's no there was no and and Russo didn't really appreciate good wrestling wrestling was not what he didn't believe that the and he said this publicly I've heard it I've read it audience doesn't want to see wrestling you know the wrestling good wrestling is a part of it the execution of a great story has to involve decent wrestling and decent wrestling has to involve some consistency there's a lot of latitude you know if you break down and analyze what's really logical and professional wrestling i got news for you nothing that's happening in wwe or a ewe in any consistent basis relates to logic or real life no just doesn't. But you've got to make an attempt to at least try to find some consistency.

And especially when you're using gimmicks like this and the over-reliance on them, it gets to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore. What are you going to do next week? Pull out a gun and shoot somebody? I mean, it's just, that was Vince Rousseau's version or vision of what the wrestling audience wanted to see. In reality, it's what Vince Rousseau wanted to see. Vince Rousseau was writing for an audience of one, which is not uncommon with people who aren't really good creatively, is they satisfy themselves. They write for their instincts.

Unfortunately, sometimes your instincts don't have anything to do with what the majority of your audience thinks. And that's what we were kind of working through and living through at this point. let's talk a little bit about this sting graveyard thing with vimpiro i think so much gets made of Halloween havoc 95 i mean people talk about that all the time where there was like a tug-of-war on the top of the arena with the monster trucks and unfortunately Hulk Hogan killed the giant but later in the same program he came back to life to take turns butt-fucking Hulk Hogan with a mummy that was named after a snowman anyway On this same show, where Vampiro hits Sting over the head with a tombstone and throws him in the grave, so seemingly he's dead,

Vampiro is going to come out and do an interview, and there's a crow on a perch below the big screen. And now Sting, who's apparently totally healthy, comes down from the ceiling really fast and destroys Vampiro with a bat. The same show, Eric, we're not waiting a week or a month or a quarter. nope we beat each other up we killed each other in the graveyard and now we're going to do it in front of fans and this is just a couple of segments after we had kevin nash and real cops and destroying a car like man we we have no restrictor plate here this is just nonstop crash tv no it was it was i can't defend it can't explain it all i can do is be embarrassed by the fact that I was associated with it.

Well, it gets better. This same show, Eric. It was horrible. Oh, thank you. I'm so glad to hear that. We just saw, we just saw DDP being stretchered out in an ambulance, right? David Arquette is going to peak tank Abbott because DDP came back and gave him a diamond cutter. The same guy who just left stretched it out in an ambulance because he got hit in the head with a bottle.

Now he's back. Ah. And yeah, I mean, he's driving the ambulance too, which is a stone cold thing. I mean, this at this point feels like WWE light. And Meltzer would even compare it to like a roadrunner cartoon where people are left for dead and then are fine just a few minutes later. That you hit the nail on the head when you said there's no even hint of believability. you can't even suspend your disbelief because it does feel a little bit like a road runner cartoon right

it does it's again i'm at a loss for words which is unusual um it's just horrible it is just horrible television it's horrible creative like really bad creative like somebody that never watched wrestling before got hired to sit down on write wrestling it's that's the way this all feels and looking back at it. It was just a creative fucking mess. And you hit it on the head when you said there's no restrictor plate. Vince Rousseau had Vince McMahon as a restrictor plate. Yes.

At this point in time again, I'm, you know, again, not an excuse. I can take responsibility for this, what we just saw, what we just covered, because I could have conceivably taking a different approach to things. but I'd been here basically a month and a half at this point. It was it was just a tough. It was a bad situation for everybody. But it's a really bad situation right now for me, having you lived through this? To be honest,

it's painful. Let's, let's talk a little bit about, um, awesome and Hogan. They're going to go seven minutes and 13 seconds. And unbelievably, the red liquid's going to fall.

from the ceiling again and drench hogan as the show goes off the air what talk to me about this why did you like this the the red liquid falling from the ceiling I mean this as a kid who grew up on you can't do that on television on Nickelodeon where guys were getting slimed uh that was fun for me as a kid as an adult I struggled like I know they did some of this with like the brood you know the vampire characters on the other channel but what What are we doing here? Why are we doing it? What's the goal?

What's the purpose? Are you raising your hand or throwing the flag or calling party? I mean, it was about the new blood thing, right? How did I feel about it? Initially, I like the idea because it is something that the audience is going to react to. If you do it sparingly.

Right. You do it consistently, not so much. Then it becomes kind of an inside joke and a rib on whoever's getting it dumped on them. It starts to make them look pretty silly. if you see it over and over and over again and you don't keep putting yourself in situations where you're the victim of it initially the idea didn't bother me at all it it didn't play well on a repeated basis if it would have been done on a pay-per-view is you know a one-off yeah but

we've seen it enough well we we know the next taping is going to be thunder it's in memphis at the roundhouse before the show goes to tape you come out and tell the crowd no matter what you do you better not chant f unb so of course they start trying to chant that which is a little bit of an awkward chant the show opens with the faces like hogan horace ddp canyon etc all waiting in the parking lot for russo and bischoff when you guys get there man you got a whole bunch of dudes in your car and now there's a big brawl in the parking lot eventually canyon is going to pin jeff charret with the flatliner but what's interesting about this is DDP comes out and hits Kimberly with the guitar.

And in this era, boy, that was a big pop every time. Do you remember that being a big discussion? Was DDP comfortable giving a guitar shot to his wife? Because this is not something they've done before on camera. I don't think Paige and I even really talked about it. If he was uncomfortable, he would have come to me and expressed it. He didn't. Therefore, I have to assume he was comfortable with it.

I have to assume even more so that Kimberly was comfortable with it. And had Kimberly not been comfortable with it, I guarantee you it would not have happened. Page wouldn't have done it. So I have to assume by default since Paige never came to me with an issue that it was probably okay with it. And Kimberly was a player. You know, she was game to try physicality. She was game to try to do things in the ring.

She wanted to be a good performer. Her desire and intention was there. so and she was physical you know she worked out hard she was in a gym a lot she was not a dainty little you know she's a beautiful woman but she was tough she was physically tough so i don't think she was intimidated by it and i'm sure because it was paid delivering it to her that she was confident it was going to be okay ddp beats vampiro here sting's going to run out in a druid costume they're going to fight all over the place and then that dreaded red liquid comes out covering vampiro then, and this is sort of an interesting footnote, Hulk Hogan has his first ever match with

Scott Steiner. They end up in the crowd where Morris jumps on Steiner and he and Hogan are going to double team him and Steiner just leaves. But it does feel like that was a missed opportunity. It felt like you could have done more Hogan versus Scott Steiner. That could have been a paper view maybe with the right story, right? It could have been, especially when Scott Snyder was, you know, really just beginning to get hot. yeah um definitely could have been definitely could have been and i again you know there was a lot of matches that could have been and might have been really good that just didn't happen for various reasons um but looking back in hindsight i think we could have probably did a lot more with

with hogan and steiner i think siner at that point in time you know sainer said some has been pretty outspoken when it comes to hulk hogan but i think at that particular time had we been able to work out something creatively that made sense for both. Steiner would have worked his ass off for Hulk. He would have done the right thing and made that match. He probably would have made Hulk look better than a lot of other people that Hawkers worked with other than Rick Flair. Next up on the show, Randy Savage's limo pulls up.

And that's notable because Savage isn't even under contract. He comes in as a one-time appearance. And the story is he does this because you reached out to him. What do you remember of getting Savage to come back? and have a little fun here it was pretty easy randy and i had a really good relationship there was a lot of trust between us um for me it was hey randy let's let's date a little bit let's see if we can rekindle this relationship and randy was cool with it it was a very easy conversation again because there was a fair amount of trust is this the last time you worked with him

last time i think i actually worked with him we had talked about things afterwards there were a couple times we came close to working on a few other things together but this was the last time i'd ever really work with so um hogan's gonna try suplex kidman through a table but for the first time kidman got offense on hogan and reverse the move and hogan goes through the table bischoff counts three and then savage chases you and kidman through the crowd that's it for randy savage here um of course this whole this whole show is snake bit we've talked about this before where when leaving the ring by accident uh asia steps on the set and falls through so everyone could see that it was gimmicked

and our kept is going to run out he wasn't given any direction as to what to avoid so he falls through a gimmicked part of the stage two it's live tv but my goodness this is uh the left hand not knowing what the right is doing all over the place in wcd in this era but now there's real repercussions I mean, guys falling unexpectedly through gimmicked, like maybe there is something under under there to take care of them. But not only is it embarrassing creatively, but to the individuals, my goodness, this is less than ideal. It is indeed.

It is, again, this is going to get so redundant. I'm trying my hardest to think of different ways of saying the same thing over and over again, but this is like, this is really like a brand new company that has never worked in the business or with each other in the past. I mean, we're making every mistake you could possibly make here creatively from a production point of view, no rehearsals, no walkthroughs, no familiarity, bringing a guy in that's not a wrestling guy, putting him in the middle of main events, winning world titles, falling through stages. All of this is like a company that is a brand new company that's never been in the

business before. It really is. So when I say I came into this when I returned at this point time as a holy cow, we have to rebuild. Some of the things that were so wrong with WCW were revealing themselves to me on a weekly basis. It was like I knew it was bad, but you don't know how bad until you really get in in the trench with them. And these are perfect examples. And we're lucky. David could have, could have broke his back, could have broke his neck, could have become permanently injured. I mean, this is horrifying. I don't know another way to say it. I feel like I'm beating myself with a hammer here, but it is what it is. Well, it's time to start reconciling where WCW is. You got to start releasing some talent or at least not

renewing talent. Maestro, Barbarian, and Bobby Eaton are in this round of cuts. And it's an interesting footnote about our old pal Bobby Eaton. Dave Meltzer would write this. Eaton, who's now 41 and in his prime was one of the greatest workers in the business, didn't get a check in the mail one week and called about it and was told at that point he was no longer with the company. He called J.J. Dylan about it and Dylan told him his contract had expired and he wasn't being renewed. Eaton was probably the only person left who'd been with the company uninterrupted from the Turner buyout of Crockett and 88 and his tenure with Crockett dated back to midnight express days in 85.

So think about that. The guy had been with the company from 85 to 2000, checks the mail one week, doesn't have a check, calls about it, and I said, oh yeah, you don't work here anymore. After 15 years. This is, uh, listen,

I understand nobody's owed anything, blah, blah, blah. I understand it's a business and it's show business. I get all that. But man, just a phone call would have been nice here for old Bobby, wouldn't it? Sure would have been.

Yeah. Don't know why it wasn't done. J.J. Dylan was, that was, that one's on JJ. Unless perhaps, you know, legal didn't, you know, it's conceivable. I'm going to, I'm going to cut J.J. some slack here. But it's conceivable that J.J. didn't even know. So you think J.J. was running talent relations officially? I think that's what he was hired for. That's what I hired him for.

I don't know what the company had him doing at this point in time. Again, I wasn't in the office. I wasn't overseeing anything. I wasn't managing anybody. Nobody was reporting to me, not trying to disavow. I'm just trying to make it clear that I wasn't in charge of WCW when this went down. So I don't know what happened, but I can guess pretty accurately, I think, what could have happened. And what could have easily happened is those cuts were made by legal accounting, finance, and legal work together.

Right. In order to figure out who to cut, when to cut. And once that decision was made, if it wasn't. communicated to talent relations, how would they know? Right. How would JJ know if no one told him? That could have easily happened. And I'm not trying to cut slack for JJ just because he's JJ, but I'm being honest

about what conceivably happened there because that's how dysfunctional WCW was at the time. And keep in mind, this isn't a point in time where nobody in Turner Legal or Turner Finance gave a shit about WCW. most of them couldn't wait to pull the plug on it. They'd been waiting for eight years to pull the plug on WCW, and this was their opportunity. So to think that legal or finance would have had the courtesy

to pick up the phone and let J.J. know because they were concerned about J.J.'s relationship or whoever was in charge of talent relations at that time, to assume that that would have happened would have been a bad assumption. Actually, I'm almost certain that J.J. didn't know. or whoever was running talent relations at the time. Here's a little quote from the observer. Dusty Rhodes will be returning to the organization as the host of WCW classics, which will be tapes of old Crockett and WCW matches dating back to the mid-80s

that will appear on the new Turner South Network, which debuts in the summer. Rhodes will be doing wraparounds for the matches and his segment in the pilot is said to be horrible. Rhodes delivered no insight and little content in general about some matches. So Dave didn't see it. just reporting what somebody said okay enough of this i don't want to hear it i was excited to see dusty back though and i find it interesting that you know as as eatans sun setting out here comes dusty back and it looks like vampiro maybe on his way out too he had a contract dispute on april 26th and he's so frustrated he actually contacts the wbf but it's written here that the next day everything

was smoothed over and he's expected to sign a new contract and that just speaks to the overall attitude at the time melzer would say as far as the morale goes the younger wrestlers are enthused and feel the company is going in the right direction. Of course they are. And they're happy with Rousseau and even Bischoff for the most part, but there is a lot more skepticism in the older wrestlers. And the funny part is, the ones who complain the most are the ones who in their TV roles are being protected the most.

On Tuesday in Memphis, Bischoff won over a lot of the younger wrestlers at a team meeting in front of everyone, including Hogan and Savage, saying that everyone in the room has no problem doing jobs because everyone in the room at some point is going to be asked to do a job for someone else and basically asked if anyone had a problem with that speak up nobody did and bischoff said he was happy nobody had a problem do you remember this meeting just getting it out in the air hey man everybody's going to lose eventually so raise your hand if you have a problem with that no but it sounds like something i would have done yeah because it would have put you it would have put somebody on the spot well here we go man it's time for the pay-per-view we're about seven hours into the

program and uh this paper view actually is a critical success It gets a 79.1% thumbs up in the Observer from the readers of the Observer. But unfortunately, it wasn't super successful. You got 7,165 fans paying $4,862 for a total of $139,202. So it's a substantial money loser. And Mouts would say the show was on track. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Money loser?

All right. Who said it's a money loser? Dave Meltzer. He's fucking wrong. It's not a money loser. Okay. I can't just let that shit slide and not call it out. Yeah.

It is not a money loser. There's nothing more profitable than a pay-per-view. I guarantee you as bad as this situation was in WCW, as down as the audience was, I guarantee you this pay-per-view was financially successful. Just because of the boss. It doesn't mean it was good. Right, right, right.

But it was successful. So you're saying, hey, man, there's, I mean, and clearly, you know, that's the story. You're trying to sell pay-per-views. There's more to it than the gate. But from a live event, uh, yeah, maybe we would have wished there was more money at the gate. Sure. You normally drew more than that at nitrous in your heyday. I mean, a multiple of that.

In the heyday, you know, but what, this is 2000, six years previously. In six years, is a fair amount of time. Yes. Five years previous, six years previous, we would have been. jumping up and down to crack a hundred thousand dollar that's right that's right so you have to keep it in context uh let's get to the matches here chris candido is going to retain his cruiser way title pinning the artist in seven minutes and 59 seconds it gets two stars uh but what everybody is most excited about i suppose by the way the artist is that nothing happened in no good

son of a bitch prince i k on a new gimmick uh he's really which i thought this was a good gimmick for him by the Yeah, listen, the artist formerly known as Prince was a thing back then. So I like the artist formerly known as Prince Ikea. That's fun. Candido is going to use the pile driver and a headbut. And unfortunately, someone in the back plays his music too early. So we kind of know he's going to win. So that comes off a little anticlimatic.

Paisley is going to shove down Tammy and then gives Candido a low blow. And then she pulls Tammy's dress off. so hey man they're out there having fun they're trying to tell stories the wrestling is pretty decent the production snafu takes us all out of it we get a little bit of that cat fight element that people liked in ECW and we're on pay-per-view so we can do it but it's not ECW so we're not going to be doing it in thongs we're doing it in a different attire what do you think of cat fights as a part of the program though hated it yeah I thought you'd like not like that hated it. I just, I don't want to see insulting, but man, it was just a turn off to me.

Well, I know what turns you on and that's Ralphus with his pants falling down looking like he's going to have a heart attack. He's out here in a hard, in a hardcore match teaming up with Norman Smiley, taking on Terry Funk. Now, I know that that sounds crazy, but I just want to remind everybody, Ralphus is over. It's silly. It's goofy, but it's fun. And it's been fun since Chris Jericho created the idea and we kept bastardizing it here. Norman Smiley was one of my uncle's favorite wrestlers. He loved the big wiggle. He thought it was hysterical. It is a great let me up deal. And we're putting them both together in a hardcore match with the idea being that Norman Smiley doesn't want to do anything remotely hardcore, just great

stuff. And they're in there with a member of wrestling royalty, Mr. Terry Funk. Boy, Terry probably deserved a little better. And he wins by God. He's going to have the hard. hardcore title, and I'm sure nobody on this call will ever beat him for that hardcore title. My goodness, this is just fun. It may have been silly, but it was fun. There's no laws against fun. You can have fun matches. You can have comedic matches.

You can have nonsensical matches mixed in every once in a while to just raise the, uh, the levity of the situation or the pay-per-view. You can give the audience a break. You know, not everything could be intense and dangerous. sometimes you just need to laugh. And it's a good kind of pause button or relief button for the audience so that you can bring him something that is intense. I thought this one was a fun one.

I agree with your uncle, by the way. I think Norman Smiley was a hoot. Ralfus was over. Chris Jericho got him over. Yes. And I love this one. This one was fun. Go out of your way to watch it.

Just because we all love Terry Funk. We all love Norman Smiley. And Ralfus is just such a character, man. This is, it's fun. I'm not going to say it's a barn burner. Come on now. You know what to expect. Go in with the right expectation and you'll have fun.

They tried to have fun with Sean Stasiak and Kurt Henning. They went nearly eight minutes, only got one star. It's a clean finish though, which is pretty rare in WCW in this era. Meltzer is just brutal to Stasiak in the write-up saying he's totally mechanical and has the personality of a tree. But he looks like a million bucks. and he's you know second generation and i don't know it feels like there could have been i mean it feels like there was always something missing but i can't put my finger on what it was

you just you took the words right you just took the words right out of my mouth brother i agree with everything that you said he's got a great look you know stasiac name second generation not that that automatically means anything but sometimes it can yeah but not in this situation there was just and you said it as the words were formulated to roll off my tongue, there was something missing. And I could never put my finger on what it was. He's a nice guy too. Like I know that, you know, and he's smart.

He's a very intelligent guy. I think he's a chiropractor. Yes. I mean, he's a very smart guy and he had the look and the desire, but I don't know what it was. It was just. I think the internet is unfair. Like the wrestling fans at large sometimes are unfair.

Like I've seen a lot of criticism. says I'm a Stasiak and I mean I've never met him in real life but we've exchanged several messages he's just the nicest guy ever uh shout out to him he's found success after wrestling good for him and he's found it in real business and if you're looking for success in real business look no further than Impira you know we just talked about how Stasiak maybe was missing one thing and we couldn't quite figure it out well maybe your business is well you need to plan for the future and nobody can help you do that better than Empira tell them about it Eric. Empira is a tool. It's a tool that enables you as a business owner or manager to manage all the

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It can become your assistant at that point. But if you've got two or three or four or five or 50 or 30 or 40 or 100 employees, they not only have to manage their aspects of the business and track it on a daily basis, but you have to be able to communicate as a team. And a pair gives you the tool, a great tool, an easy tool, a tool that only because I'm looking around for my cup of coffee, I don't even have one, less than two cups of coffee a month to have this phenomenal tool that can be customized to your business

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IRA.com slash Eric and use that promo code wrestle biz. Get yourself 20% off 14 days for free and 24-7 support. Oh, and free onboarding. That's impira.com slash Eric. All right, let's jump into it. Match number four. Scott Steiner, the big bad booty daddy taking on Captain Hugh G. Erection. I'm sure you love that name. They're battling for the U.S. title. They go nine minutes and 24 seconds, and Meltzer would say the former Hugh Morris came out and said that Hugh Morris was a brain fart from Eric Bischoff, but his real name was Hugh G. Rection, and he's going to be called Captain Rection. From the creative mind of a 14 year old kid, it's horrible.

So listen, Eric, mercifully, this match is only nine minutes and 24 seconds. Scott Steiner is going to retain his U.S. title. Old Hugh G. Rection, couldn't get it done. Two and a quarter stars. Of course, there's going to be some shenanigans. We got MIA getting involved, R&B security getting involved. Booker T is going to come out and clean house. And then that sets up our next match.

Mike Awesome and Chris Canyon. They put on the best match to the show. And it goes 12 minutes and 11 seconds. It goes to a no contest. And Meltzer would say the lack of a finish hurt, but it was three and a quarter because, man, they were working hard. But eventually we got Kevin Nash coming down to interfere and then Billy Kidman and Vampiro and Shane Douglas and Chris Candido and Sting and it's just a big brawl.

And this feels like, you know, the end of a nitrail, but it's just match five on a paper view. Match six is Lex Lugar and Buff Bagwell. They go nine minutes and 30 seconds. And Meltzer would say this was the first time ever where Lugar, who turns 42 next month, actually looked old in the ring. I don't mean old as in his match was bad because his matches have been bad forever. But facially and even his body looked like an aging bodybuilder as opposed to a bodybuilder. Um, what do you make of that?

Did, did you notice a difference in Lex Lugar? Like I could see it at home like Lex in 97 and Lex in 2000 looked like different dudes. Would you agree with that? Yeah. And I think, I think the drugs and the alcohol, I mean, I, I'm not really. like him to mention it because Lex has been so open and honest about it. But I think the lifestyle was beginning to catch up to him in a big way because he was living a very, very hard lifestyle that might have killed most people.

But yep, you could see it. It shows up and it certainly did at this point. Backstage Liz is going to hit Vince Russo with a bat and run down to ring side. And as she runs out, she hits buff, but buff gets the bat and hits slug her twice in the ribs. and delivers a neck breaker eventually after the match. Chuck Palumbo, who just got back from New Japan, comes out wearing the same style boots and trunks as Lugar.

They're going to call him the new total package. He's going to join Bagwell as they double down on Lugar and throw him up in the rack there. Next up, we got something that fans thought would never happen. Man, after years of all the mic work that happened in ECW, all the wolf tickets, well, they came home to roost.

It's Shane Douglas versus Rick Flair. They go eight minutes and 46 seconds. Flair's still wrestling in street clothes. That's what I'd say this was a good. Why was that? Do you know? I don't know if he just didn't like the way he looked. He wasn't happy with the look cosmatically.

He thought he could get away with it with this millionaires thing. It just feels every time like throw that shot back up there, Silva. We've got Shane Douglas, dressed like Shane Douglas, ready to wrestle a match. Then we got Rick Flair who looks like he's pulling up at Bahamah Bree. for some black bean soup and a couple of titos like what are we doing like that's the way he dresses in real life when he's just walking around what are we what are we doing like out of context this just makes no sense yeah i i i don't know i i don't know that's a that's a question i'd like to ask rick at some point is like why maybe you should but what why why did you wrestle in street first

fellow, it gets expensive, right? I mean, Rick Flair doesn't wear inexpensive clothing. Everything about Rick Flair costs money. Yes. So to go out there and, you know, you're going to tear your stuff up and I don't know. It's weird. Well, Meltzer would say this. Um, okay, Flair shouldn't wrestle with his shirt off, but he looks ridiculous on the dress pants and shirt. Trunks in a tank top or T-shirt would be far more effective. Flair only wrestling on special occasions would mean even better. Um, they traded a bunch of hard chops. The fans are into it. Meltzer would say it's probably the best Shane Douglas has looked in years.

Uh, and then of course, we have to do some shenanigans because, well, that's what we would do. Um, a guy comes out in a sting mask and hits flare with a bat. Douglas cradles him. The announcers are screaming. It's Russo. So it's clearly not. It turns out it's David Flair and the fans are shocked that the son has turned on the father.

Let that one linger for a minute. David and Rousseau are pounding on Rick until Nash comes out and he throws one knee and David is dead. Daphne's going to hit Nash with a low blow and Russo destroys Nash with the bat. And of course, later we see Nash backstage and he's just fine. Three stars. Listen, I was excited to finally see Shane Douglas and Rick Flair. Cut of done without all the Scooby-Doo bullshit. Let's say you.

This could have been. been a classic match. Yeah, for real. This could have been one of the best matches of the year. Right. Could have been. The Gaga at the end is fucking Russo ridiculous. Just, you're better off not having finishes and having finishes like that.

And it's just, ugh. This is like, this is creating a version of PTSD for me. It's just, I'm going to spend the rest of the day getting over this one. Well, we'll let you start drinking in just a minute. First, we should talk about. Thank you. I appreciate that because I'm going to need to. My God, I've just subjected myself to three hours of this.

It's just painful. I hope you're all enjoying it. Sting over Vampiro, six minutes and 49 seconds. Sting did not come down from the ceiling. This would have been Owen Hart's birthday at the Kemper Arena. So they don't do that. stings working very hard even does a plancha over the post he gets hit with a lead pipe again because we're still playing clue sting gets the pipe delivers a stinger splash with it two reverse

d t's and that's all she wrote two and a half stars and next up eric bischoff is the referee when hulk hogan pins billy kidman in 13 minutes and 31 seconds both guys are working hard according to Meltzer two and a half stars horace hogan is involved here kidman's going to use a low blow put hogan on the table hogan's going to move and kidman splashes through the table horace hogan runs out grabs the unconscious eric bischoff's hand and counts to three with it so yeah i mean you probably never thought you would see hogan going through a table but it's a pretty regular part of the presentation here. What did you think of what do you remember of this?

I mean, you're right in the middle of all this. You know, nothing really stands out in terms of it. You know, it was fun to work with Hulk, especially in kind of an adversarial relationship, but nothing beyond that really stands out. It wasn't a special match in any way, shape, or form. It was just, again, trying to repair, I guess some of the relationships backstage trying to help Hogan prove that he really didn't

have an issue working with anybody. His only desire is that it made sense and it was good for business. And he kind of threw those criteria out the window at this point. He was willing to do whatever he was asked to do to try to prove that he's a team player and be a team player, not just prove it, but to be a team player. And none of it made a lot of sense. but like I said it was what it was and we did it for the reasons we did it which was what I just said kind of reestablish relationships Jeff Jarrett wins the most

prestigious title in the history of our great sport the WCW heavyweight title the big gold belt when he beat the champ David Arquette in DDP in 15 minutes and 30 seconds it's the triple decker ready to rumble cage match and of course the story here is there's tons of weapons and the guys are crawling all over the place and Mike Awesome's going to show up and eventually David Arquette is going to turn heel. Damn it. And then the big bump, the big scary bump. Awesome's going to throw Canyon off the top of the cage onto the ramp. It's seriously heavily gimmicked so they can make sure that he's okay. A lot of cardboard underneath the ramp to soften the blow it was marked but from this height man this could have been really really bad it's very

very dangerous and this is indeed the same arena where owen had his accident so i could see how this was controversial and unfortunately nobody's even talking about jeff chair winning they're talking about this bump the observer would say the reaction of this was interesting most fans watching on tv loved it or at least pop for the bump every email we received of people their live mentioned it negatively because it was camper arena and the same fans who saw Owen Hart die from falling from the ceiling and felt this was too similar with them selling it like he was maimed far too much and it was just uh maybe exploitative of a tragedy actually at the time I thought they were copying Mick Foley and because of the big bump at the ready to rumble

movie finish to distract from the fact that they were doing the same main event finish on two straight shows they figured they had to do a big bump the Owen Hart thing had been discussed and that made it a little sad three and a quarter stars in hindsight was it a bad decision to do this bump in front of these fans who were there for no okay no just because wrestling observer fans reacted the way they did doesn't mean that the other 99 and nine nine nine nine percent of the audience felt that way take reacting to what the wrestling observer fans think whether it's their thumbs up thumbs down poll or any of the feedback that dave read rates in his dirt sheet means absolutely nothing not only that i and i'm not saying it's to be

snarky or a smart ass or because i'm on some kind of a dame melzer rant but i have said consistently for decades now that if melzer's putting you over you're doing something wrong if he's putting you if he's if he's shitting on it you're probably on the right track so i absolutely did not give shit or have second thoughts based on anything the readers of the observer had to say let's um let's do some fan questions uh we got a few more things that we because i do care what they have to say right i get that the paying customer francis reyes wants to know is there ever any talk about jimmy king appearing on the paper view also do you know what happened with the ready to rumble cage. I do not know what happened to the ready to rumble cage. I'm surprised

that Conrad Thompson doesn't own it. It's not sitting somewhere in a warehouse. You didn't ask. Um, Jimmy King, no. No. No, there was no. Not to my knowledge. There might have been internally at WCW, um, but never, never made it to me. Wayne wants to know at this time in 2000 are there any talks about WCW being sold that one's a tough one to answer uh not at this moment not at this moment it wasn't until after this pay-per-view and it would have been shortly there after a couple of months when i went to brad seagull after having been there for a few months and said this this place is worse off than it's ever been it's not going to get any better nobody in turner broadcasting wants it to be successful

So why don't we just sell it? Why don't you sell it before it's not worth anything? Sell it while that still has some value. And at first, Brad's Eagle laughed at me. We don't sell anything here. You know that, Eric. We only buy things. And about two weeks later, I got a phone call.

Do you still think maybe you could find somebody? So, no, at this point in time, it wasn't being discussed, but it was very, very close to that period of time where it was. Gil Boldberg wants to know. Russo said in many interviews that David Arquette being on the front page of the USA today is champion outweighs the tarnishment of the legacy of the WCW championship. Where does Eric stand on this? I disagree with that.

I mean, I don't disagree with the fact that having Arquette getting the mainstream publicity that we needed desperately. That was very valuable. but if I had to balance the good and the bad, I would say the bad probably outweighed the good. One last one here. Brendan wants to know at this point in 2000, what was Eric's perception of Jeff Jarrett? And did Eric view him as a credible world champion slash main inventor?

At this point in 2000, I did not have the best working relationship with Jeff Jarrett. Why not? So as a result, and it's not that we didn't get along. It's just, there was never a real connection between Jeff and I. We got along with each other professionally. There was no heat. There was nothing like that. But we just, the chemistry just wasn't there for any number of reasons.

You know, when Jeff first got to WCW, I didn't really work with Jeff that closely. I wasn't there agent. I didn't lay out their matches. There was no direct one-on-one, very little one-on-one conversations between Jeff and I when he was there as a talent. And then subsequently, when I came back, you know, in 2000, even less so. You know, Jeff's relationship, Jeff had a strong relationship with Vince Russo. So a lot of the communication, necessary communication, an interaction took place between Russo and Jeff, not between Jeff and Eric. so there was not a lot of just wasn't a it wasn't a lot of relationships that are good or bad

it was just kind of neutral let's uh let's talk about something that happened that day of the show allegedly i guess it was the day before allegedly the day before ddp and jeff jerrett are walking through this cage which i get silver throw that cage up there again it's a monstrosity and it's dangerous and you probably want to have an idea of what you're dealing with so they do a walk through the day before and page takes a bad bump and he's hurting to the point where you guys fly in his doctor just so he's able to work this match and as the legend goes the injury he suffers the day before the show is the genesis of dd p y and how it all began have you heard that before i did not which is interesting well there you go the more you know

I mean, that's interesting. And I guess I should have known that, but I didn't hear that. And that cage, by the way, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why looking at that cage kind of, you know, creates a little PTSD because so much of the controversy and just garbage that surrounds it. But it is pretty impressive. I mean, God admit, it is a monstrosity, but the potential. It's a cool visual for sure, yeah. It's a very cool visual. And the creative that had somebody that really understood.

stood creative and laying out matches. Could have been really good. Could have been really good. And it's something that, you know, if you did it once a year, whatever, maybe twice a year or once every two years, three years, it's pretty cool. I want to remind you ever. Fuck. Dangerous, really dangerous.

Lots of stuff has happened between Spring Stampede and Slambury. And we've covered it here today. A hundred thousand people bought that Spring Stampede paper view. Just six days after you got stripped all the titles and reset everything, 100,000 people bought Spring Stampede. And that was Jeff Jarrett's first time becoming world champ. He's been the champ for 30 days. And now, instead of us knowing who's in the main event,

because Spring Stampede was positioned as a tournament, but now we know and we can market who's in the main event. It's the DDP and Jeff Jarrett, as you see there on the poster. And of course, with our new world champion, the celebrity, David Arquette. instead of 100,000 buys like we got for Springs to impede, Slambury gets 52,000 buys. So we fall 48%. We've lost half the audience,

half the audience of our paying customers. The year before, Slambury, 1999, we had DDP on top, just like he was here. But this time he's defending the WCW title against Kevin Nashsting and Goldberg.

I'm sorry. He's defending the title against Kevin Nash. Sting and Goldberg were one-on-one. And Roddy was taking on Rick Flair. Either way, that show got 170,000 buys. So in a year, we went from 170 for Nash and Goldberg or Nash and DDP, I'll get it, to 52,000 for Jeff Chirrett and DDP. It's got to be discouraging. I mean, I know you've said a few times you had to have realistic expectations. You had to build it up again. But the metrics show. that even after the reboot, there was interest in, hey, what is this going to look like?

100,000 people paid. They voted with their wallet. Yeah, I want to see what this new relaunch is all about. Once they saw what it was all about, half of them left. It's a tough time for WCW, no? It was, but I'll go back to what I said earlier. A lot of the challenges that we were feeling at this point in the results of this pay-per-view were the result of the 12 previous months of Horm,

horrible creative decision-making and strategy on WC and Turner Broadcasting's part. There were a lot of variables that led up to where we were, but the main reason is we hadn't regained the trust of our audience. It's that simple. Add to the fact that you had a WrestleMania right in there. What was that? Three pay-per-views within a 45-day window. It's a lot, man.

That, you know, you've got to factor that into the equation. It just is what it is. Um, but the real reason, the primary reason, I should say, they're all real reasons, but the biggest one is just 12, 18 months of bad creative, on top of the fact that you've got 12 or 18 months of a very, very, very aggressive WWE. Yes. Willing to go to extremes that nobody, including Vince McMahon, would have ever dreamt they would have gone to back when they were producing teen and preteen kiddie wrestling as late as

1997, and now we're doing the extreme graphic, provocative sexuality that it was such a big part of the WWE's format at that point in time. So we're battling a lot of things. Our own inabilities, I should say WCW's own inabilities and failures for the previous year and a half, three pay-per-views within a 45-day window, the fact that our competition was presenting the type of product that they were presenting. Yeah, we had a lot of work to do to get that 18 to 49 year old audience back and the pay-per-view buy rate of this particular pay-per-view was a was a reminder if nothing else. Well, next week, we're going to remind you about the time you challenged Vince McMahon to show up for a fight live on pay per view. It happened 25 years ago. Slamberie,

1998 is our topic. We'll also talk about Randy Savage and Brett Hart working against each other, Goldberg, working against Perry Saturn. Sequelope. We'll the cruiserweight battle royal to face chris jericho or does he and so much more it's a fun show can't wait to talk about that one i remember it fondly by the way you get all these shows early and ad free over at ad free shows.com with bonus podcasts every single week so much content you can't shake a stick at it seriously it's more than a dozen podcasts you get them early you get them ad free you can be on here pay a part of our live studio audience as we're recording the shows but maybe my favorite though is the bonus content

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Well, because it really works. Go right now to advertise witheric.com. That's advertise witheric.com. love to have your interactions on the show on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It's at 83 weeks. Appreciate if you could go hit the subscribe button and turn on the notifications bill on our YouTube as well. That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com.

We've got some big plans coming your way for YouTube. And don't forget all the swag you could ever imagine is over at box of gimmicks.com. We've got the LWO inspired 83 week shirt. Hey, but by the way, I don't mean to bust you in on this, but how cool is it at WWW. he's running Latino world order. Dude, I didn't think he were watching. I didn't notice it until I was backstage Monday night. And I saw Raymisterio comes up and gives me a big hug.

I mean, it's. Dude, it's with Bad Bunny. Bad Bunny is the number one recording artist in the world. And he's representing the LWO. That shirt, the LWO shirt is a top 10 merch seller in WWE now in 2020. Still relevant, still having an impact. Look at the wrestling business. That's awesome. Look at you, glorious And still, and still not getting any royalties either. Well, there is that. We got to work on that. Hey, by the way, I want to give a shout out. The third man on our show here, it's Dave Silva's birthday, Mr. Bischoff. It's the big 48. It's also Eddie Preyther's birthday. There you go. Go ahead, Eric. Hit it.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, David Silva. Happy birthday to you. What is your middle name, Eric? Aaron. And your mom did that after Elvis. I heard it right there and you're singing. I mean, you got Elvis off. Hey, oh, baby.

Eric is leaving the building. Hey, man. We had a good time today. I love beating up on Eric. He needs therapy and a couple of shots. He's going to do it in honor of Dave Silva's birthday. We'll be back next week talking about Eric Bischoff picking a fight with Vince McMahon. Not a pretend fight on Monday night. Not a pretend fight over talent

contracts. A real deal. I'm going to kick your ass. I'm going to knock you out. We're talking about it next week here on the program. Today was fun, man. Thanks for the time. I'm looking forward to next week. Today was fun for you. Yes. It was fun for me. But I appreciate it. Thank you for your time and doing this with me. And thanks to everybody that's listening. It's always a great experience. Even on tough shows like this, I still love it. Thank you. We'll see you guys next week right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bischoff.

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and you'll be a member for life. That's tryfight.com. T-R-Y-F-I-T-E dot com. Hey guys, Eric Bischoff here, and just want to call a quick timeout. I want to tell your listeners about what I've been telling everybody over at 83 weeks quite a while now about all the cool things that are happening over at preshows.com an all new edition of the insiders is here as conrad welcomes david zotti the man

behind so many iconic video packages as wf fans grew up on including one to let vince in tears you got 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 the full cabin. He says, good job. I want to see it. 15 minutes later in the stairwell bins is still sitting down in a different spot now, crying, saying thank you. Thank you. Jim Johnston created the soundtrack for generations of WWE fans with some of the most iconic themes in history.

Jim sits down with Conrad to take us behind some of those classic themes, including the Ultimate Warrior. And then I recorded that, and then just over that, you're just doing... You know, it's so simple, but that's what felt like him. That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you with four levels to choose from. See for yourself why ad-free shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now at ad-freeshows.com.