83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 272: Lex Luger 1998

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad look back 25 years at Lex Luger in WCW during the height of the Monday Night Wars throughout 1998! Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com. Henson-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. BlueChew- BlueChew.com, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE 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 FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.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. If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency health can be requested even when you're not home. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately. Hey guys, need to call a quick time out here.

I wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling my listeners over at OU didn't know for a while now about all the cool things happening over at ads-free shows.com. On a bonus episode of Arne, the Enforcer watches back Beach Blast 92 with the Ultimate Heel and Baby Face in Rick Rood and Ricky Steenboat. Draw me a baby face, something that everybody could get behind, kids, women, old folks, young folks, men, you know, all guys wanted to be him. Women, I'm sure, wanted to be with him. He was the all-around package. On volume 55 of the Ask Conrad series, Conrad talks about some of his dream podcast partners, including a couple of degenerates. You know, from inside the business and

taking over and NXT and all that, I don't think you could get a better podcast partner than Triple H there just because he's done so much. However, if you're talking about wanting to learn more about the psychology of wrestling and what makes a match and how to develop talent and all that did you beat sean michael's that's just a small taste of what we got waiting for you with four levels to choose from see for yourself why ads free shows is the best value in wrestling today sign up now at adsfreeshows.com Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks. And, of course, we couldn't do it.

Without the Hall of Famer, your friend and mine, Eric Bischoff, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am doing great. Had a nice weekend in Deadwood, South Dakota. Have you ever seen a series, Deadwood? I loved it, you cocksucker. Yes. Every other word was cock sucker.

And I had been through, you know, when you go to Sturgis, you, Deadwood's only 20 miles away or whatever it is. And I've been through it, but it was always during Bike Week. And it was, you know, town of a thousand people that had 12,000 motorcycles in town visiting. So it was never, never really got a chance just to walk around and feel the vibe and get into a little bit of the history. But we did that. We had three days in Deadwood and just had a fantastic time. Really nice people in Deadwood, wrestling fans. the wazoo so that was it was just great and we had a blast well i'm glad to hear it and i hope everyone

is having a fantastic memorial day we want to thank everybody for their service a lot of people get to take today off and kick back and enjoy and we need to remember why we have the opportunity to do that so thank a veteran uh and let's go out of our way to let them know how much we appreciate them and hopefully you appreciated a fun wrestling weekend uh and full transparency eric and i are recording before the Saudi show and before double or nothing. So we won't be able to talk about that today, but we will next week. I'm sure of it. But a lot of people are buzzing about what's next. And I can't wait to break it down and talk about it long form next week. But today we're going to be revisiting one of the more iconic characters and performers of my fandom and certainly

through all of WCW, Lex Lugar, and we're going to zero in on his 1998 and it's 1999. Now, we've discussed what he had done up until this point in the archives over an 83 weeks on YouTube.com. So be sure to check that out. But I would say as we come to a close in 1997, Lex Lugar is pretty firmly the number two baby face behind only Sting. As a reminder, Hollywood Hogan has taken.

taking two pinfall losses for the world title once to Lugar on the 100th edition of Nitro August 4th, 1997. And of course, famously Sting at Starcade 97. Would you agree with that that Sting and Lugar were your top baby faces here at the end of 97? Yeah, you got to put Goldberg in there too, man. Well, he's just really getting going at 97. I mean, his debut is. Yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't main event level. So, but by that's centered, yeah, at that point in Bill's career, I think that's a, that's a very fair statement. um he's going to wind up putting buff over at starcade to end the year uh and obviously buff

is enjoying quite a run as a single star i mean he has been really a tag team specialist for most of his run here in wcw but now with this as bruce would call it a fresh paint of coat uh here at uh this new this new heel character luger is actually going to drop the fall to him and and And you've even been honest about hesitancy to even do business with Lex Lugar. But boy, he proved himself and he came in for what you felt like was a low ball offer and, and proved that he could be a team player and a real asset. A couple years into this experiment, because that happened, you know, in the fall of, of 95 and fast forward now, just over two years, you're feeling pretty good about your

decision to bring Lex back, no? I think it was one of the better decisions that I, I made during that period of time, actually, without doubt when it comes to talent, but even overall, that was such a great idea. And I was hoping that that would come up. And we don't want to revisit things that we've already covered in detail in the past. But I think if you, for me, when I look at that arc, for lack of a better term, that timeline between Lex coming in for the very first time under the circumstances that we've documented to death, but the transition as a professional and just as a person that Lex made, just some of the other issues aside

with addiction and things like that, but just in terms of the way Lex conducted business and the way he interacted with everybody backstage, the way. way he reacted, responded to creative, which sometimes put him in a great light, as you pointed out, beat Hulk Hogan, 100th anniversary, blah, blah, or 100th episode. But when you look at the transition that Lex Lugar made in that relatively short period time, he was so dependable. He was, and when I say utility player, that sounds almost a little derisive or derogatory, but you could put Lex at the very, you could put him up at the top, for them in the main event. and it's going to work well.

He can ride shotgun. Be a semi-main event, as you pointed out. Maybe that number two position understanding. No matter or just putting people over because he understood that in order to build viable competition on the roster and have matches that made sense. You can't do it with the same six guys over and over and over again. You've got to keep, you know, getting people over and elevating. And Lex never.

bad at an eye, if he did question a creative direction, decision that didn't involve Lex Lugar getting the spotlight, he may ask a question, but only in the context of being able to understand exactly what we're doing so that he could be 100%. You know, a lot of times you lay out, I've heard matches laid out, you know, sitting in the locker room, you know, from from the ground up, you know, laying out a match. And the best matches are the ones where both talents really understand the why of it. What's the goal of it? Beyond just having a great match, great matches are great.

We love to watch them. They're visually exciting. They get your attention. You get sucked into it. And that's such an important part of all of this, obviously. but when two people, two people in a ring that are going to do that dance for six minutes, eight minutes, 12 minutes, 60 minutes doesn't matter. And they both understand the why of it.

I don't know. The quality is just so much better in my experience. And Lex, like I said, the only time he asked questions was to get a complete picture and understand the why of it so that he could deliver. It was, he was a joy to work really was. let's give everybody the proper context here early on in 1998 lex is still at the center of the feud with the nw o but we've started to expand the roster because thunder is now going to be a reality so let's take a look at where the baby faces are we've got sting of course breadhart has just

come in he hasn't yet wrestled lex luger who along with sting are the two guys who have beaten hollywood hogan the giant Diamond Dallas Page is getting hotter and hotter by the day. Roddy Piper. And then we're going to enjoy the rise of Goldberg through 1998. But, man, just take a look at that crew again. Sting, Brett Hart, Lex Lugar, the giant, DDP, Roddy Piper, Goldberg. I know people would say the NWO got too crowded and there were too many stars and it was

lopsided. I would take a look at this and say, uh, no, it's not. Those are seven WrestleMania main events. event level performers. I mean, just an all star cast and crew, a hall of famers, you're loaded for Bayer at the baby face position. We were, which is a great, great spot to be in, especially if you're, you've got a hill champion. Yes. And you're running with that formula. Now you've got, and that was kind of the goal all along is to have that dominant heel as often as we could,

not consistently. I want to make sure I'm clear about that. It's not like I think, you know, you should have a heel as your champion forever. although maybe maybe I'm wrong it's wwe is proving that that's a formula that's working pretty well but you can't do that you can't have a great heel if you don't have a pretty deep roster of baby faces and we certainly did it by this point there is a trick to it though and I want to know if you have any best practices or you can offer any advice I mean one of the criticisms and I'm not trying to have a conversation about current stuff Lord knows we did plenty of that last week but there's been a lot of criticism about the

size of the AEW roster in that there's not enough time to focus and feature on all these folks i just listed just a who's who of baby faces and that's just one side of the equation is it hard to not only get everyone on tv but give everyone a chance to get over and stay over because it seems awfully crowded i mean you've got so many legendary talents here now we know that a ddp wasn't quite yet there but he's on the way goldberg's not quite yet there but he's on the way but man brett and sting and lex and roddy piper these are just icons at this point is that tough to juggle certainly is certainly is it's tough creatively because in order you know for someone to get over i don't i can't think of a better way to say it or i would but for someone to

really increase their overall value to the company and get over with the audience. Number one, it takes a lot of time, not only in terms of a timeline, but in terms of television time. You know, you can't just go out there and have great matches and give somebody wins and call that getting a talent over. It has to be story. It has to be character. They've got to get enough mic time and be good at it.

So you've got a television time issue and you've got a timeline issue. And yes, it is definitely. challenging, particularly when you got Hogan. The Hogan wasn't doing house shows. Hogan had limited pay-per-view dates. So Hogan fell into, and intentionally, that was from the very first day that he started in WCW, the idea was to keep Halk Hogan an attraction four times a year, five, maybe six times a year in pay-per-view, wasn't doing house shows.

He wasn't a part of the regular roster. He was an attraction, much like Undertaker was towards the end of his career. career, Roddy Piper, kind of in that same category. There wasn't so much the limits on dates, but Roddy, you know, Roddy had issues. Roddy wasn't going to go out and hit the road and drive around and fly around and, you know, bump in the ring. He had, he had a challenge. So we had to work around Roddy's condition at that time and keep him special. Some of them, you know, Hogan as an attraction made absolute sense. Piper as an attraction. made absolute sense.

Everybody knew who they were. Everybody understood their characters, even if Roddy were to, you know, shift gears in the middle of a week. People knew enough about Roddy that they could immediately identify with Roddy as a baby face or as a heel. So they didn't require a tremendous amount of story

to take advantage of their character because the audience was already with them. They knew them so well. But, you know, so you got to kind of take sting out of that mix. You got to take Hogan out of that mix. mix, excuse me, you have to take pipe out of that mix and Hogan out of that mix as far as being regular performers and recognize that their attractions. I argue that, although we didn't do this, we should have done this. I think the giant should have been an attraction.

The less you see of Hogan, this is going to sound like a shot and it's not. It's actually a compliment. But the less you see of a Hulk Hogan, and the, on a regular basis, unless you see a Roddy Piper, less you see a giant for different reasons, the more valuable that they become. And again, because they just didn't need to get over, they were already over. Giant, because he was the giant, because of his size and his unique attributes, everything that he brought with him through the curtain, that was a less is more type of a character. And I think that's proven to be true with Giant. He needs he's a specialty

attraction. It's like Andre the Giant was a specialty attraction. So even though we had a really crowd roster of baby faces, it was mitigated by the fact that some of them were just part time and one of them probably should have been. We should talk about one of the necessary evils of having this many top over baby faces, and Bruce says it all the time on his podcast, you can't be on top all the time. You got to move up and down the card. That's certainly the case for Lugar here. Just a few months ago, go ahead.

And I'm sorry. And that's the point I wanted to make. The difference is Lex, what stood out to me about Lex is that he, his gear, when he shifted into a gear and he knew he was going to wrestle and he had a match, whatever, it didn't matter if you were downshifting him and ask him to put somebody over or if you put them in fifth here and putting them pedal to the medal with him, he was equally as enthusiastic about either situations. And that's a very valuable asset in and of itself. When you've got somebody that you know is going to draw, you know is going to get attention,

you know you can plug them into a store, you know you're going to get what you want out of them. But you can also just, you know, as again, utility player is not the right way to say it, But being a great and versatile mentally and physically and technically being as versatile as Lex was, I think made him one of the more valuable talents on the roster in that respect. Let's remind everybody that he's just a few months removed from beating Hulk Hogan in the main event for the world title and then main eventing a pay-per-view just five days later. And now he's working with Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton. Nothing wrong with that.

Great competitors. But it's not Hulk Hogan. It's not the world title. It's not the main event. To your point, Lugar could do it all. And he was ready for the occasion. And if you want to be ready, man, can I recommend Blue Chew? You see, Blue Chew isn't just for guys who have a problem.

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and we want to thank Bluechew for sponsoring the podcast and Eric's Weiner I understood when he said at the beginning of this show that he spent the weekend in Deadwood. Well, there was no Deadwood when Eric was there. They renamed it Rock Hard Jones.

And then check it out right now. Bluchew.com. Use the promo code 83 weeks. No more Deadwood around here, cock suckers. How did I do, Eric? That, that, that, the best podcast read I have ever heard. I don't Joe Rogan whoever that my friend was classic that was great

hey serious business bluechie really works Eric and I have both used it highly recommend it I understand that some guys think that this is associated with erectile dysfunction yes it can help you with that but it's not just for that it's it's gonna enhance right it's a PED for your gimmick you will be happier your partner will be happier get the old hot tag for your wainer try some blue shoe use the promo code 83 weeks uh the first pay-per-view of 1998 eric sold out what a big show this is lex and savage are in the main event and that is even going on after flare and brett which i have to admit as a fan at the time i thought was the real main event and yes i was a flare fan

but I didn't have the association I do now but the story for Flair and Brett just felt more substantial you know the story that these guys were both world champs on the other channel and it was Brett who beat Flair to become world champion the first time and Flair saying why don't you say

that thing you always say the best there is the best there was the best there ever will be great promos and a great match but it doesn't go unlast Lex and Savage do what's the thinking there? I mean, I love Lex and Savage.

I'm just wondering why you guys chose that as the main event. Is it because Hogan was loosely involved because of Savage? No, no, no, no. I think there was a period of time and struggling because I want to put this in context. I never, take that back. I was committed to try to change the perception that a main event is the most important thing. My goal was to have two co-main events. Ideally, I would have what could have been a main event opening up a pay-per-view in terms of the reaction to it.

And we didn't do it every single time. But if you go back and you look at the pay-per-view and the pattern of the booking, and Kevin Selvin was instrumental in all of this, I certainly had a lot of influence. But the idea was start hot, bang them in the middle, and finish up as strong as you can. And to me, the idea of a co-main event was the way to go at that time, particularly when you've got a roster like we had. it the audience i don't think we did it consistently enough we didn't get it over we didn't communicate that branding philosophy if you will

to the extent that we could have and should have so in terms of the reason why it was savage and flare or savage and luger instead of or brett i maybe we flipped the coin i don't know i don't think that there was a lot of i don't know should we do this or should we do Oh, how, you know, it wasn't that. It was okay. We're going to have a co-main event. I can't tell you the reason why we didn't flip them because you could have flipped the coin. Right.

And I agree with you, though. I think the where we miss the boat, frankly, with Flair and Brett, is that there was a much richer story to be told there. Yes. In retrospect, I would have put more time into that story. than perhaps we did with Savage and Lugar. Now, clearly the NWO thing was a big part of that because that was still the money. Right. It was still the money.

And therefore, I guess probably the reason why it ended up where it ended up because the NWO and that story was what was printing money for us at that time. But, man, there would have been a much better story to tell between Brett and, and flare. I want to talk to you about the NWO, but first I want to mention that it's reported that Randy was upset having to follow Flair and Hart because they ran long and now he's going to wind up having to cut several minutes out of his match.

This is what we were talking about just a few moments ago. When you've got this many folks at the top of the card who are this over, if you will, there's no way to not have, I mean, you can't keep all the people happy all the time. That's impossible, right? Yeah, but I, if Randy did react and maybe he did, maybe didn't, I'll take it at face value because it sounds like something Randy would get hot about. And by the way, so would everybody else. If you're in a main event, if you've been building that story for weeks, maybe months, in this case, it's an NWO story, arguably it's been two years now, almost a year and a half. You're, you're going to be upset. If you've got an age,

especially a guy like Randy, right? Because Randy was meticulous about laying out his match. His story was laid out either on paper or in his head in finite detail. And to have to edit that story and rewrite that script or that match, whether it's in your head or on paper, while you're standing in guerrilla waiting to go out and realizing that now you're five minutes short or six minutes short, anybody gets upset about that. Anybody would, whether you're in the main event, whether you're following Flair and Brett,

or whether you're following two brand new talents. It doesn't matter. You're basically rewriting your movie while you're getting ready to take it to the theater and show it. And that's frustrating for anybody. Add to that that, you know, Randy was wound pretty tight. And the day of the event, the closer you got to the matches, the more tightly he became wound. So when something like that happened, yeah, Randy, I imagine he would have been very upset. But it's not because it was Flare Hogan.

It could have been, or Flare and Brett, it could have been anybody. Yeah. Randy would have gotten hot. He's probably upset because it's the main event of the pay-per-view and the match only gets seven minutes and seven seconds. And the show is going to end with Lugar, racking Nash and sting having Hogan and the Scorpion. Of course, Lex gets the win here, though. and, of course, lots of, lots of storyline, lots of NWO Gaga. I wanted to talk to you about the NWO, though, because, you know, I recently did an

ask Conrad for ad-freeshows.com. As you and I are recording this, I did it last night, and somehow we had a power outage on my blog, I did it from the office, and we had a power outage on the block. Like, not only do we lose power at our building, but all the red lights around us, I mean, it was crazy. Anyway, before that happened, maybe something. sting was there. I didn't stick around. I got out of there fast. Um, I wanted to ask about the NWO because, you know, it feels like when, when Vince enjoyed his greatest success with the

WWF, uh, it was largely built on the back of Hulk Hogan. And when they tried other stuff, they tried it with Savage, uh, on top, didn't work as well. We tried it with, uh, warrior on top, didn't work as well we tried it with bread on top it didn't work as well we teased the lex luger thing it didn't feel like it was catching any momentum and then we went back after even the yokezuna experiment we went back to hogan because i feel like oftentimes in business if you're not sure what to do you go with the proven tried and true method well this always works we got to do that and and i heard michael hayes uh well i had a conversation with him once about the territory days and he said you know when you get it white hot that's when you leave

and I thought well that doesn't make logical business sense why would you do that like you you try to squeeze all of that out you can and then come up with another idea and he says no if you leave on top you can always come back and I understood that approach from a territory wrestling standpoint and I almost wondered did WCW fall into the same trap that maybe Vince did of the things that made Nitro so successful were the innovations and the new ideas. But once you have a hit, and let's be clear, the biggest hit ever at that point in wrestling, a game-changing hit. It's kind of be hard to pull the plug on that or deviate.

It feels like, well, we just need to double down on this. This always works. But does that reliance on that impede you trying to go out and innovate and innovate and create new stuff what's your have you thought about that before that maybe we should have had a definitive stop to the NWO while it's still hot let it go away for a bit and then it could come back in a couple of years and still be hot again that's hard to do when the money printer's going off though so you're sort of there's not a tried and true surefire answer it's just opinion you tried it one way would it have worked another way do you think in hindsight absolutely

And you're right. It was because at the end of it all, what was my job? My job as an employee, Turner Broadcasting, was to deliver the bottom line. Right. That was my job and get ratings for the network. And once I found that formula, I became a victim, in a sense, of my own success. WCW became a victim of our own success for the very reason that you just pointed out

and it is a tough spot because subconsciously and there's pressure from the outside as well you know it's not like you know Kevin Sullivan didn't have people coming to him and you know talking about way we got to get some of the younger talent over some of these fresher talents over I certainly had that

and you know it it's not like oh shucks I should have thought thought of that, you know. It's not that. It's that, you know, you got your eye on the big ball, so to speak, and you also know that you should be doing some other things along the way that you recognize you're not, but it's okay because you're delivering, in some cases, over delivering in any other category. And I did. I became a victim of it. I did. And in hindsight, and I like what Michael said. And that's why I think Michael Hayes, is probably, you know, he doesn't get, nobody talks much about Michael Hayes.

He's not in the news. He doesn't do social media for the most part. But in terms of a mind, not so much that Michael is going to come up with the greatest creative story, although he's capable of it and certainly has. But that's not his greatest value. Michael Hayes' greatest value is kind of a macro view of strategy, creative strategy. not a creative idea. This guy should wrestle, this guy, and this should be the finish.

That's an idea or a story. But in terms of the best way to manage creative, Michael shines at that, man. A brief period of time that I was in WWE in 2019, and we'd have these production meetings, which I won't even go into it in too much detail. But because of the nature of the way things were done back then, and Vince being Vince and willing to tear up a script on a moment's notice and start from scratch the day of, you know, anytime a discussion came up and you'd have producers, you know, production people, you'd have match producers, you'd have announced, you'd have

60 people in these production meetings or whatever, 40, 50, 60 people seem like an arena full sometimes. And then when there became a question about, you know, what we're going to do that night in the story or finish. Michael Hayes would always sit in the back of the room. He never wanted to sit up front. Always like as far back as you could possibly get. Now, it's not like you couldn't see him because he dressed like he was in a remake of the of shaft.

If you remember that movie, you probably don't. Oh, I remember. Yeah. Shut your mouth. He's a bad mother. Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. Yeah.

Michael Hayes would always dress like that. So you, you know he was. there, but he's always in the back of the room. But the person that Vince reacted to most of the time when there was an issue that had to be figured out creatively in terms of a match or finish or whatever, an angle, seven times out of tennis, Michael Hayes. He just, and it's because he'd sit back and he'd listen. And he had this reservoir of experience. and understanding of psychology and storytelling so that he just sat back, kept his mouth shut, didn't, it never raised, well, he'd only raise his hand if he had an answer to a question,

but he would sit back and picture it in his head and he'd come up with a solution. And I think Michael Hayes' comment to you about the old territory is going to leave when you're white hot applies and certainly would have, it could have applied to WCW98 in the NWS story. And I did write it too long. we know that you know rode that horse until it died and it was unfortunate because it could have been much bigger and much better let that be a lesson to you uh sometimes it's okay to uh leave him want them leave them wanting more that's exactly right uh so lex lugar is um now sort of in the background a bit he's going to be spending a lot of time working with scott

Hall, but Scott's really focused on the Larry Zabisco story. Sting and Hogan are still continuing their whole Who's the Real Champs story. And randomly, Savage is still attacking Lugar to continue what's going on the night before. Eventually, Lugar would come out and challenge Savage, who jumps in from behind, and then Sting comes out and he attacks Savage, gives him the Scorpion Death Drop, and now the NWO come out and a net drops from the ceiling on lugar so it's sting and savage and the nw o destroying and then injuring sting but yeah a net from the ceiling this is a little silly uh yeah when you said that when the words when the words hit my ears and kind of worked them way into my brain i went

it's like batman from the 60s kind of i am we could have come up with something better than that well it's all to set up a nut because we do that there's nets all serene Super brawl is a rematch, Lex and Randy Savage. They got seven minutes and seven seconds in January and February in a no-d-Q match. They get seven minutes and 26 seconds. Luger's going to show up with his ribs all taped up because he was injured from being attacked on Thursday. And to sell the deal even more, Luger goes for a press slam pretty early, but his ribs give

out and he drops Savage and starts selling. And the fans here at the Cow Palace are firmly behind Rand's, Sandy Savage and they're chanting Lugar sucks. And Meltzer would say perhaps the biggest pop of the entire show came when Lugar racked Savage and Elizabeth did a run-in to rake Lugar's eyes. That brings down what Meltzer would call the NWOB team, Bagwell, Vincent, Norton, and Brian Adams. They all do a run-in, but Lugar and Savage teamed together to fight them off.

And the bell rings, which makes no sense because it's a no-d-Q match. And then Hogan shows up and Lugar once again racked Savage. Hogan tells the NWO not to interfere and that he wanted to see Savage get beat. Savage submits. And now the bell rings a second time. Well, there with never an explanation as to why it rang the first time. So let's separate. I mean, that's, again, that's a tapeworm being a tapeworm.

But when there's interference, when there's people running, when, when chaos breaks out, how many hundreds, maybe thousands of times? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. ding ding ding ding ding ding ding it's not to signify a finish right as the tapeworm work to imply here or to you know to fill the space on his dirt sheet happens all the time folks it's not always a finish that causes the belt to right could be chaos it is chaos but luger gets the win and he's going to be programmed with a now heel scott steiner and they're going to face off at uncensored They don't get a ton of time under four minutes, and Meltzer would say it makes no sense. Steiner had just turned heel and threatened to get hot and the ability to step up and rank, and instead they cut his legs off in his first major singles match. Of course, this is because Lex Lugar gets the win.

Of course, Rick Steiner's involved, so there's lots of story here. But again, it's more about Rick and Scott and less about Lex. Is that maybe the curse of being a good soldier? like if you're a guy who could be counted on to be the top guy or the middle of the card guy and we need you to win or lose or whatever, we can sort of put you anywhere and it'll still work. So you don't have to be the priority. You can instead help us get these other guys over it because it feels like Lugar has kind of been a backdrop for a lot of this. And I'm sure he was a great guy to work with. But is that a curse to be so ameniable at times?

Is it a curse to be a team player? No? Is it a curse to be making the amount of money that Lex was making because I was so happy with the ability to use him in the role that we were using him? Absolutely not. Was it a curse to help get a lot of talent over? Some of whom were pretty good friends of yours? Yeah. The answer to that is no.

It can look that way. And I'm sure at times, because we're all human, you know, I would imagine. I never talked to Lex about it, but I would imagine they were probably times, especially when he was as hot as he was. Because as you pointed out, you know, Lex was like almost the guy for the biggest part of his career. Right. I mean, he, and, you know, he was, he was always in that upper echelon, but he was not very often the guy. And after what happened in WWE in particular, and I think even in WCW before that, I think Lex's determination was to be as much, the best. team player there was on the roster. And I don't think he felt it was a curse, but I'm sure there

were times when we went, man, what do they do? I'm actually hot. I'm actually capable of doing this and carrying this. Sure, that happened, but it never manifested in terms of the way he conducted business or communicated. Let's, uh, let's talk about what's next for spring stampede. It's going to be Lex teaming up with his old pal Rick Steiner to take on Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell. Lex and Rick are going to get the win after Scott is chased to the back and Lugar racks buff. And this is where it starts to feel like things drop off a little bit for Lex in 98. He moves down the card.

He's going to be the second match on the show at Slambury. He's going to take on Brian Adams, who's just jumped to the company earlier this same year, beats him in about five minutes with the torture rack. And then finally, he gets a shot in the arm in 1998 when he joins the NWO Wolfpack. He's going to save Kevin Nash from the giant Vincent. and Brian Adams of the original NWO. Talk to me about, you know, Lex Lugar has always been from day one,

a guy waving the WCW flag and banner. But now he's going to dawn the red and blank. Why did it make sense for Lex to be a member of the Wolfpack to you? I think it was time to change his character. You know, it was time to add a layer to his character. It was time to give us more options because he's got a new character, a new perspective.

Sometimes you just got to make that change. And I think with Lex, it was time to make that change. The pop is gigantic. And the announcers are asking, what will Sting think? And of course, fans who've been watching the program know that Sting and Lex Lugar have been best of friends and former tag team champions throughout their entire time in WCW. And later that night, Sting teams up with Lex Lugar in a tag match against the giant

and NWO Sting. And the baby faces get the win here. when sting pins NWO staying clean and the wolf pack celebrates and the hand sting a shirt but the show goes off the air without a decision that is a trademark of nitro back of the day a cliffhanger is that important for Eric bischoff or is it a priority for Kevin Sullivan or both both we I mean cliffhangers are you name me an episodic series I mean, I watched, uh, episode nine, season four of succession last night. Have you seen it?

I've seen. I'm completely caught up as you and I are recording this. The season finale, uh, is this weekend. As folks are listening to this, it was last night. Not just season finale, but series finale. I love it. I think this season of succession might be the best single season of any TV show I've ever seen.

I think it's the best television I've ever seen. scene, period, bar none. Wow. That funeral scene, the funeral service scene. Yes. Was amazing. From a lighting perspective, that script was amazing. Yes.

From a performance, if there's not at least two or three Emmys coming out of that episode. Yeah, they're going to rack up. Then they should just forget about Emmys. Even the writing, the performance, the directing, you know, and not that's, to get too far into that scene because not everybody cares, but there was a shot there when Roman, you know, Roman collapsed. He couldn't go up and do what he was going to do and give the eulogy. So his brother came up and did it following their uncle going up and absolutely

just burying, so to speak, their father who was sitting in a casket. And you thought it was all over with and you kind of went with the uncle and his, his dialogue. he kind of understood it. And I remember watching that last night with Lori. It's like, oh, man, there's an Emmy right there. That performance was unbelievable. And then, boom, here comes another one. And it was even better.

The writing, the performance, the direction, the camera shots that they chose during that were phenomenal. And even the photography, now the funeral procession once they left the church and he went into the cemetery was shot like news. it was ENG style electronic news gathering you know sling jerry and even the film that they used was used to create the feeling that you're watching a newscast in not a very expensive television series everything about that show was some of the best television i've ever seen but it's always a cliffhanger yes that's what drives episodic television and i i doubled down triple down any time that I could on that. And it was largely why WCW and Nitro became as, there were other reasons, but largely because of the way we treated the end of the show. It was more about forcing people to tune in next week

than it was sending them home happy. That's what pay-per-views are for, generally. But TV was designed to get them to the pay-per-view. And the cliffhanger formula works so great. it was a staple and it did work on thunder just a few days after nitro luger's going to cut a promo saying he joined the wolf pack because quote it felt right to him and he didn't turn his back on wcw and he still respects them and you know listen kevin nash and conan who are the other guys here in the wolf pack

they're cool this speech of i didn't turn my back and i still respect them comes off less cool. I mean, no arguing that Lex has maybe the coolest look in wrestling, but just the content of the character, the promo, it feels a little square compared to the presentation of Kevin Nash and Conan.

Did you think maybe adding him to this group could then just by default make Lex, the perception of Lex a little cooler? you know i don't think i thought of it like cooler yeah but i certainly adding that that edge yes there you go particularly conan yes um had and and lex excuse me and kevin to a degree but conan was like it was like the epicenter of cool shit right a lot of guys spun off of conan and i certainly thought it would give lex more of an edge and without question the way you

characterized that promo was at the very to be as kind as I could be was really soft that it needed an edge to it now that well I'm just coming over here because I like these guys and I still love you guys too but I'm going to go hang out over here because they have better food I don't know yeah there should have been a motivation and there has to be a why it's kind of like we've talked about a lot why is like the the most important question that you should create in people's minds why did Lugar do this? And if you can't, if you don't have a good why of it, then the how of it doesn't really matter so much. You have to start with a good why in order for the how and the when to kind of all fit together and make a good story.

On Nitro, it's going to be Lex Lugar teaming up with Kevin Nash, they're going to Hogan and the giant. It's the first big battle of the two NWOs. And it's going to be Lugar and Nash getting a win by D. Q when Hogan hits Nash with the world title. and Lugar's going to wear black jeans in the ring, which is maybe the first time we've seen Lex do something like this. I mean, he was known for a certain look of the black or blue trunks before that and the boots and that's it. And now we got a little bit of an edge here. So he's trying some new stuff. Stig is going to body slam the giant. He's going to try to rip off his black and white NWO shirt. And the place goes nuts as the NWO Wolfpack is celebrating

the moment here with sting before they go off the air. I mean, anytime Sting came down from the ceiling like this, it was a home run and the fans just went bananas for it. So for him to do that, take the trench coat off, reveal the NWO black and white shirt and you think, oh man, he's with those guys and then turns and body slams the giant. This is great. This is a great nitro moment and maybe an overlooked moment, the idea that Sting did the NWOTs and nope, he's with the Wolfpack. What do you remember about the execution here? I mean, this is an electric moment.

Yeah, that was, again, a lot of Kevin Sullivan in there and a lot of collaboration. You know, I didn't lay out finishes. That wasn't my deal. Couldn't probably still to this day. It's not my forte. But it was Kevin Sullivan's. The reason we brought Kevin Sullivan in originally is because he knew how to get heat. And Kevin kind of evolved with the strategy, the cliffhanger strategy on television payoff on pay-per-view.

This smacks of Kevin Sullivan and a lot of probably a couple others in there as well, collaborating. But I just hear it laid out. Fucking awesome. It is awesome. But it is a little confusing. I mean just to remind everybody Sting just body slam the giant he teased that he was joining the NWO

with the giant the black and white and body slams him but they're the tag team champions so Sting is a member of the wolf pack Giant is the member of NWO Hollywood and they're the tag team champions that's an that's an interesting story

and I just got to vertigo. J.J. Dillon, uh, has, uh, has decided to make this a thing. And he says that the giant has no right to defend the, the tag titles on his own. So there's going to be a singles match at great American bash to determine the new tag team champions. Singles match. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like it. it was a mess with man did you see him miss that one you know here's the thing if i've learned nothing else from jeff jerr i've learned the phrase and he used it last week when me and you were hootting and hollering in each other creative is subjective but i'll tell you what's not subjective

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Could I feel that in my lower back? Again, a couple nights sleep on a sleep me. get that circulation going good as new sleep dot me forward slash 83 weeks be sure to use that promo code 83 weeks uh so lex luger has become like the unofficial recruiter i guess if you will for the wolf pack he he got sting to join and now he's offered it to ddp we know ddp never actually takes the call and joins uh but lex only does a run in at great american bash and he's not on nitro. But he is given a mic on thunder after Great American Bash and the man goes off. Here's the write-up from the observer. Conan and Lex Lugar came out. Lugar then cut a promo that was laced with real-life animosity towards Hollywood Hogan. He said there are wrestlers who aren't

on the show that week who think they carry a cell phone and a pager, but there it makes them a big deal. That doesn't cut it. If you love something, you let them know about it. He told Hogan he's a star because the fans decided you were a star. He said a guy who doesn't try to be a big star, but the fans know was a star as Goldberg. While you were off filming your last movie, guys got together and that doesn't sit well with you. You'll try to divide us, swerving us behind closed doors with Eric Bischoff to shut down the red and black. Well, there's a new power source in town, and the fans have decided we're it. You can have parties and basketball players and limos and you can then try to embarrass us but it won't work you once said that all the little dogs

wrestle while you're off doing movies well now we've grown up and we're not just the big dogs we're wolves and tony shivani on commentary says that a lot of what lex is saying here rings true a great interview from lex and i like that it blurs the lines of hey was he supposed to say that hey is that inside baseball like if we can suspend our disparate leave and say, okay, I know that that was whatever. But now this, this was real. That's the stuff that really works. And people still talk about all these years later.

And this is a great promo from Lex that really stands the test of time. May have been Lex Lugar's best promo ever. Maybe. And but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but. But, but, but, but, but. Cause right off the bat, it started out with. Bullshit. There, there was no personal animosity.

It's a promo. Real life personal animosity. That was the tapeworm being the tapeworm. Lex had a lot of respect. And I think affection for Hulk, they were pretty good friends. So there was no personal animosity, but there was a great promo that, as you pointed out so, so well, blurred the lines. Was that really? Obviously, one of the biggest, I don't very rarely use the word, but marks in the periphery of the industry is Dave Meltzer.

because he bought into it. He bought into it. And it was because it rang true to so many fans, right? It's what the fans were feeling. And Lex was articulating that and made a great story. It made a great promo. It was excellent. Excellent.

Let's talk about what's next. On Thunder, it's announced that Kevin Nash wasn't there. And considering he's now a tag team champion with Sting and Sting has the title defense tonight, Lex Lugar will now be his partner. The decision to make Sting Nash tag champions has always been a little confusing. I mean, you're right here in the middle of this Wolfpack push. Nash is really the main member of the group. Lex isn't doing much.

Why not just make Sting and Lugar the tag champions as we've done before? If Nash isn't. Ben there done that. Yeah. I wanted something different. Ben there done that. I mean, you can only go to that well so many times. expect to get a positive reaction it's not moving anything forward it's going back they um they teamed

together for a few weeks thing and lugar wrestling guys and picking up wins against guys like the giant brian adams and um the anvil and the british bulldog and it's reported in the observer that there's talk of having them defend the titles against scott hall and disciple thankfully we don't get that um it's kind of wild though that that's really the only appearance you know it's it's it's conan versus disco inferno and that's the only appearance for the wolf pack

on that paper view and we talked about it at the top of the show you have so much talent it's probably hard to just find a spot for everybody on the show I mean I've busted your balls on the program before but hey why wasn't bread on this and when you really make a list of how heavy the talent roster is just with the top of the baby faces and oh by the way we got

a hundred cruiser weights and all these tag teams and really great performers like booker t and chris finois it's easy to get lost in the shuffle here and it can't be everybody can't be on every card that's just the reality with a roster this size no yeah absolutely and also you can't have essentially the same story or derivatives of right yeah on every single pay-per-view in every single match on every single paper. You have to give the audience a break, too. I mean, going back to leave them wanting more, you know, this wasn't that. I mean, it wasn't like, okay, let's leave all this stuff up because we want the audience to

want it. But you have to give it a break and you have to make room for something. You've got to let a story breathe too. Right. Can't just pound it down their throat every single week, which we had been doing for a year and a half. Goldberg is obviously going to become the world champion, uh, and he's just going to start running through people with Goldberg is a baby face.

I guess there's never going to be a program with him and Lex. Do you think in a different time, a different place that could have worked? With all due respect, because I, I have an enormous amount of respect. And I really, really, uh, like Lex Lugar a lot. and bill but that would have been if they would have put the time into it if we would have put the time into it let it build not overexpose them on the way there because again bill this is not a knock it's a reality bill had a very limited skill set at this point there was only so much you could ask him or expect him to be able to do in terms of a match um but

even given those limitations, and let's face it, Lex, technically, that wasn't Lex Lugar's strength, technical wrestling, he wasn't a Brett Hart, he wasn't a Rick Flair, he could work great with those guys, but he wasn't that ring general that could compensate for somebody else's lack of experience the way Rick Flair famously can, to this, probably to this day, do. Same with Randy, Brett, obviously. That would have been a tougher one. but it could have happened it absolutely could have happened but it would have taken a lot of care and thought by the way speaking of bill goldberg does you see that shot on tm z of his head

busted open the other day i mean i don't know if he's uh head button lockers trying to get ready it's the first thing i thought of us this cat just can't keep banging his i'll keep from hey banging his head on shit hey he sees a wall bam he sees a tree bam sees a limo bam saw it in tm zee before I even read a guy, I still don't know, that's not news. I don't know why that's on TV. That's not news. There's a let's sidebar here for a minute. We haven't done anything like this on today's program, but there's a lot of speculation that he wants to do a four city, a self-promoted four-city retirement tour. And there's talk that maybe one of those is going to be in Jerusalem and maybe one's in another continent and another. Maybe I've heard some

stuff i shouldn't share on air but the point is i'm curious what you thought of that not just a one off not just a so-and-so's last match i mean who'd ever do something like that but a four city retirement tour what do you think of that for goldberg well i don't know the details of it so it's hard to really have an opinion here's a couple scenarios one scenario is he's working with established, credible, well-funded tour promoter that can execute on that, if that's the case and Bill's got a roster of people that he likes being around that like working with Bill and are anxious to do that tour, I think it could be fantastic, especially going to some place like, you know, I'd like, if I could afford it, I'd fly to Jerusalem to see that

match. You know what I mean? That's cool. I like that. Again, if he's got the right promoter if it's really well funded and they've managed their expectations and he's got the right roster to follow him around the globe have at it if you if it's if he's doing it I imagine he's doing it for the fun he may want to take his son you know on that tour his wife and son and be a part of that one last time I think it could be really good I think he can also be a fucking nightmare I wish I wouldn't go near it with a 10 foot pole but that's just me you know bill again it all depends on the critical issue is there does he have the right promoting partner i wish him nothing but success him and the promoters and i would encourage them take a listen

to our hulkomania australia tour episode that we did not too long ago maybe there's some lessons in there yeah and again this can be solved with the right promoter and that's why i said well funded as well inexperienced with the right connections but manage your expectations going into that because you don't have, there's so many variables. There's a lot of variables you don't have any control over when you're promoting here in the United States with the company that you've been working with for a long time. There's always variables.

There's a million things that could go wrong. Injuries, creative issues. But once you step away from that and now you're putting everything in the hands of people that you've never worked with before, just be really, really thorough. want to be really careful because there's so many variables you have no control over that can go bad in a hurry well we were trying to control some variables here in wcw at road wild we're going to have a battle royale with members of the nw o and gulberg you know

hey he can beat all these guys one at a time what if there's just a bunch of them well he's one of the last three he being lex luger until he's thrown over uh by the giant after taking a spear and the nitro after road wild luger is going who was attacked on nitro the week before is going to claim that he saw scott hall and brett hard attack him before he was knocked unconscious and now he's challenging brett to a title match for brett's u.s title and this is almost one year to the day when lex beat hogan for the world title now he's wrestling or challenging Brett for the U.S. title. That's some rarefied air, man.

Like, we could say, oh, at times it looks like creative didn't have anything for Lex. But along the way, he joins the Wolfpack. He has a tag title run. He recruits Sting into the NWO. And he goes from working Hogan for the world title to Brett to the U.S. title. Pay no mind to the statue or the stature, rather, of the titles.

Hogan and Brett. that's pretty big time stuff man don't you think yeah and again that's the value of having somebody that that was as versatile of a character as lex was lex gets the win over brann i didn't have i didn't have lex cornering me you know as we were walking out of the building at night hey what about me where's mine what about me how none of that lex was just he was there and he could deliver story with Lex and Hogan was Lex beat Hogan on a Monday on Nitro and then dropped the title, the world title, back to Hogan at the pay-per-view on Saturday. Rodwell was on a Saturday.

So he had just a handful of days there as World Champ. That sucked. That was bad. That was bad. I'm angry at myself for a lot of that to happen. Let's be honest. Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming. But with four imprint, it's easy.

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runs with the U.S. title behind or sharing that honor with Rick Flair. And much like last year with Hogan and the world title, he drops the U.S. title back to Brett on Thunder. So we do it again. Second verse, same as the first. And then on Nitro, Sting and Lugar team up in the main event to take on Hollywood Hogan and Brett Hart. Let me say that sentence again. The stalwarts, the franchise, baby faces of WCW, historically, Sting and Lex Lugar, teaming up in the main event of Monday Nitro to take on Hollywood Hogan and Brett Hart, arguably the two biggest WBF stars in several years.

This is a dream match, it feels like, and it's not on pay-per-view. It's on free TV. And why is it on free TV? Well, because the Monday Night Wars are blessing us with big shit every single week. And boy, does it hit. It does a 6.0 rating. It's the highest nitro rating ever at that point.

And let's put into context how big this is. This is head to head with the night after SummerSlam. SummerSlam that year with a white hot stone cold Steve Austin featured him defending his title against a baby face undertaker. and this is the fallout show the night after a pay-per-view is always tough to compete against and you do it it's unbelievable the result is uh the the nitro show is unopposed because that raw show is preempted and you were a victim to these preemptions earlier in the year when when they were doing their silly DX invasion and things like that on you guys they had the upper hand because they had the night to themselves because of the NBA

playoffs well now it's your turn because tennis and those damn dogs they were loki NWO members I mean that's what it was the result is the overrun on this show is crazy it does a 9.27 share it's watched in four 4.48 million homes. It's just a crazy number. And think about the talent in there. Sting and Lex Lugar, Hulk Hogan, and Brett Hart. I know you and I spend a lot of time talking about like Halloween Havocke 96 and 97, specifically,

how much fun you were having. But you're reaching new heights in 98, but it does feel as if the pressure's on. Do you think you did your best work when you had the pressure on and it was going back and forth like this? With the benefit of hindsight, where would you? you rank 98 amongst the other years? Depends how you look at it. You know,

uh, from a strictly business, shameless plug, John Albinai, strictly business drops on Thursdays. Check it out wherever you get your favorite podcast. If you subscribe to 83 weeks, you'll be notified exactly when we drop strictly business.

It's free by the way. In terms of, in terms of strictly business, 98 was, was a better year. ratings wise 98 at least the first half of it was was a much much better year you talked about that over and that's over probably about 9 million people it's crazy watch that show that's a lot and i don't care how tvs change and where people watch it do you can't compare anything today to

that era of a lot of us just because the wrestling business was so hot was it just because of wcw or w w it's just the combination the war coke versus pepsi that's what leveled up the business So from a business perspective, I would have to say 98. 96 was more important. 97 was more fun, but 98 was more profitable. The match itself, Sting and Lugar against Hogan and Brett goes 11 minutes and 18 seconds. You see Brett and Hogan chatting before the match and they don't look confident. The announcers are speculating that they're just playing head games.

At about two and a half minutes, Sting tags in to face Brett, but Brett immediately, tags in Hogan. And Hogan doesn't look pleased that Brett is refusing, essentially, to fight Sting. At about 10 minutes, Luger's going to hot tag Sting against Hogan. The cycle's going to interfere and get Hogan the belt. Hogan starts whipping Sting with the belt, and Brett steps in and yanks the belt away. Brett then storms out of the ring and walks to the back, and Hogan is yelling, what's up with that? And Brett is saying, you gave me your word. Sort of insinuating that Hogan promised to give Sting a fair fight. This is cool.

I like this. I wish we would have seen a more proper payoff for Brett and Hogan. But once again, it does feel like Lex is just kind of there. But if you're going to be kind of there, be there for the highest rated main event in Nitro history. The focus of the promotion quickly shifts here to the ultimate warrior, though.

Warrior's going to come back. It's going to be Warrior Hogan. And everybody sort of takes a back seat to that storyline, including Lex. He's still teaming with Sting. But all of a sudden on Thunder, Brett teams up with Lex to take on Bulldog and Jim Nighthart. And I know we're not talking about Brett, but that feels like that's just really random.

I mean, he's wrestling two guys that he's usually been very closely associated with, former tag team partners, if you will, family members and the British Bulldog and Jim nightheart if we had a to do over is there anybody you think you could do a better job with more than brett heart in wcw or do i have that way off base no i think that's fair yeah i think it's fair criticism it's a fair observation you know hindsight is i said is definitely 2020 and i wish i would have had a little bit of it and you know what that shouldn't have been hindsight. It was just, you know, last week when you and I were going back and forth about again, not to go off on a tangent, but AEW and a new third show. And I'm pretty vocal.

I hope for them works out. My experience has been that it won't. I haven't seen anything that suggests otherwise out of that organization. But one of the reasons I feel as strongly as I did is but because of thunder, because of the issues, some of which I created for myself, I know what it's like not to have creative resources. Because even though we added thunder and it was a lot of time and thought energy put into that, we didn't add to the team. We didn't add, we didn't have a well-oiled creative machine that allowed us to say, okay, now we've got another two hours, which is almost like a paper view every week.

in terms of what goes into figuring out how to pull it off and actually executing it, just from a physical perspective, probably putting it up to live shows and all that. It's a lot. And I think Brett Hart was in some respects. This is not an excuse because it was my responsibility. And I'm taking 100% of it. But Brett was a victim of timing as well in that we didn't have the creative resources

to put into a guy like Brett the way we should have. didn't prioritize Brett the way we could have not that Brett was the most important thing by the way I didn't bring him in because I thought he was the second coming of forever it it he needed to be an important part and in a kind of like the hood ornament if you will or thunder but man if we would have given that a lot more thought it could have been so much better to a degree you know I understand Brett's frustration looking back at that period of career because he did fall victim to a large degree. Just us having too much on our plate. At fall brawl, we're going to have team WCW take on team NW Hollywood,

take on team NWO Wolfpack in the war games. Maybe it's not the war games of the years past, but there's a lot of star power here. I mean, just the team of WCW is warrior Piper and DDP. But the next night on Nitro, Lex is taken on Scott Hall. But this is the night where we have Scott Hall reveal himself to be drunk on camera he tries to flick his toothpick at Lugar and misses you come out and try to get haul to the back Nash and Conan are coming out everyone's trying to talk to Scott and talk Scott has taken a swig from a cup and then throws up on you not our best creative unless essentially just treads water for a few weeks he's not even on

Halloween havoc and it's reported in the torch that Lugar and Elizabeth have developed a close friendship outside of the ring. This is worth mentioning, of course, because Savage is still here, and he, of course, is the now ex-husband of Elizabeth, but Lex doesn't have an ex-wife. He has an actual wife. And when it makes the newsletter, I remember thinking, I don't think things like that usually appear in the newsletter. When did you first realize, hey, man, they have a relationship, and this might be a mess for

me. And people wonder why I feel the way I feel about Meltzer. Well, that was the torch, but yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, Keller, dirt sheets in general at this point. Keller was very much like Elser at this point. He's said, Keller has really changed his strategy quite a bit. And I, I, I check him out.

I read him. He's got credibility with me because he's no longer implying the Dave Meltzer formula, but it's one of the reason. been so angry and vocal over the years about, and it's been that way with me for decades. I was, look, it wasn't, it wasn't a secret. I will tell you that both Lex and Liz, it didn't rub it in anybody's faces. It was obvious to those of us who knew both of them. My wife was very close to Elizabeth. They were pretty good friends. So was Jenny Engel. He was my assistant, and she was more than my assistant. She was a part of her.

our family. Um, so yeah, we knew it was obvious, but it wasn't, it wasn't in your face. And people's personal lives and once they step away from the venue, it just still matter to me. It's never been my, I don't judge, you know, judge not. At least you be judged. I think that's how the saying goes. Um, hell of a saying, by the way. And I remind myself every single day to this day. And I certainly did back then. It's just what people do in their personal lives is not for me to judge. And I felt that way about Lex and Liz. I was concerned a little bit because there were other things going on just beyond their friendship outside of the ring. But yeah, we knew well before it was published in a dirt sheet.

At World War III, Lex is in a battle royal and stand of the final seven along with Nash, Conan, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Scott Hall and the Giant. He even makes it down to the final three with Hall and Nash before he goes to dump Paul and Nash sends them both over with a knee from behind and now he's won a shot at Goldberg at Starcast Starcade, easy for me to say. It's been a while.

You wish. Yeah, I wish. The NWO Hollywood faction is attempting to recruit Lex to their side. But he blows it off. And in Starcade, Lex isn't on the show wrestling and it's reported in the Observer that the plans were for Lex to take on Scott Steiner and Lex

nixed it. Is that real? What happened there? No. No. I don't know what happened there, but that Lex didn't ever nix anything. Right. That was stupid. That was a dumb thing for Meltzer to write. She's not, I guess, out of character. But no, I don't know what the issue was. I don't know what the change was. That would probably be a Kevin Sullivan issue. He would have had to deal with it. Could have been an injury, could have been a better idea, whatever. But I guarantee it wasn't Lex throwing a flag and saying no. Absolutely guarantee it.

Well, I'm going to give you a chance to Nick something. I'm going to give you a chance to throw a flag. Last week was trying to make a clever transition to Henson shaving. And we had a pretty heated discussion. And we had an argument. argument. We had a debate. We had totally different perspectives. We disagreed. But something we both agree with is Henson's shaving will give you the best shave of your life. It's the best razor I've ever had. I think you got to meet Henson's shaving. And let me just say

that wasn't the original plan. You see, Henson is a family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer. These cats made stuff for the International Space Station and the Mars rover. And now they're using their aerospace grade C and C machines to cut metal razor. that are just 0.0013 inches, which is less than the thickness of a human hair. And that means a secure and stable blade that gives you a vibration-free shave. And it gets better. The razor has built-in channels to evacuate hair and cream, which makes clogging virtually impossible. Seriously, hinson shaving wants the best razor, not the best razor business.

That means no plastic, no subscriptions, no proprietary blades, no planned obsolescence. It works with a standard dual-edged blade, just like your handsome-ass grandfile. used to use, just like every wrestler is familiar with. So it has that old school feel you're going to love, but it has the benefits of new school tech. You see, Pop Pop never had a razor that was thinner than the thickness of the human hair. And this is a razor that will last you a lifetime. So once you own the razor, you only got to buy the blades. Now, if you go buy blades for your plastic gimmick in your drawer right now, they keep it behind the lock and key at the drugstore. That's how expensive they are. And we're all sort of accustomed to,

and familiar with, if something is better, it costs more money. Well, Henson shaving is one of those rare opportunities where not only is it better, it's also cheaper. How much cheaper? $3 to $5 a year. That's what you'll spend to replace the blades. Not $3 to $5 a week or a month or a quarter, but a doggone year. It's time to say no to subscriptions and say yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime.

Visit Hensonshaving.com slash 83 weeks to pick the razor for you and use the code 83 weeks. You'll get two years worth of blades for free with your razor. Just be sure to add them to your cart. That's 100 free blades when you head to H-E-N-S-O-N-S-H-A-V-N-G.com slash 83 weeks and use the promo code 83 weeks. So, Eric, before I give you a chance to throw the flag, can we at least agree that Henson shaving is the best razor we've both ever used? It's not only the best as the coolest. Like, we talked about this last week. I leave mine out. I normally put myself up in a medicine cabinet because Mrs. B. is she's not OCD, but she's knocking on the door. Like, if I leave something out of place, she'll go behind me and she'll move.

She knows. I'm going to leave this here because I like, it's like comfort food for my face. You know what I mean? I'm shaving with that, what looks like the old school, old-fashioned razor, but with amazing technology that gives me a clothes shave. and like you say over and over again and rightfully so it's amazingly afforded check it out i think you'll be glad you did hey you know what though we do have to address the elephant in the room everybody was talking chirping last week about our our silly talk and my silly transition and we up the stakes and you've said on this program a lot that you like the stakes i'm going to give you a chance to

nixon i'm going to give you a chance to throw the flag because as you and i have been recording this morning, uh, the news has come out that AEW is going to debut their collision show in Chicago and see and punk is expected to appear. And the bet as you recall was he'll be at the double or nothing pay-per-view, which as we're recording right now has not happened. I know it happened last line as you're listening to this, but Eric and I haven't seen it yet. And obviously we haven't seen any announcement about seeing punk, but the reports are he's expected to be there which was my side of the bet and listen you're known along with charles robinson for having the best most iconic head of hair in professional wrestling and you have been she i think it's

happened in wcw and the wwee and t and a i mean and listen if you're not going to throw the flag i guess it could happen at top guy weekend but i'm going to give you an out here's your chance throw the flag we'll nix it it's your show I was just trying to do an ad read and we got out of hand you want to back out give me one second

Conrad I'll be right back we'll pick it up from there listen to that he's got to go strategize he's got to consult and I'll tell you this when it comes to consulting about opening your new business you're going to need a business plan and I recommend Empira

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Eric's ideas last week weren't that thought out. Hey, pay no mind to that. Get ahead of the game. Save 20% on your subscription. Use the promo code wrestle biz at checkout. Launch your business faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit impira.com slash Eric today and start your journey to success. Empira is spelled EMPI-R-A-A-A-com forward slash Eric. That's E-M-P-I-R-A-A-com forward slash Eric. And be sure to use that promo code, wrestlebiz. You'll get 14 days for free. You'll get free onboarding. You'll get 24-7 support. And you'll save 20% when you use that promo code wrestle biz. Okay, no more stalling, Eric. Let's get down to the business. I contacted my attorney because I think this is this is important enough that I wanted some good legal

advice so my question is before I decide to throw a flag or not throw a flag okay uh is um was this of see and punk's own volition did seampunk wake up one morning ago you know what tony i've been i've been kind of a dick and i've been a little selfish and you know um so yeah I'm all in man I'm coming I'm gonna be there I'm a team player or was this some kind of legal action that forced his hand, because without knowing a little bit more of the details, I'm inclined just to hold off another week until I learn a little more. But if indeed, if indeed, we decide, I decide, we decide to actually go through this. Of course, doing it at Top Guy Weekend would be the place to do it. And by the way, speaking of Top Guy weekend, breaking news.

Uh-oh. Breaking news. Okay. Just confirmed by Evan Polisher of ad-free shows as we're recording. Okay. The one. Wait, wait, don't make an announcement of a talent. No? No, it's a surprise.

It's a surprise. Yeah, Sarsa, daddy. I love surprises. Sarsa. You got a spoiler. I don't even know who it is. I haven't touched my phone. I do.

Make plans to join us. By the way, I know you're thinking, well, I can't. I missed it. I have to be a top guy for a certain. out of time go sign up for an annual today you'll have the best wrestling weekend of your life and maybe you can get some of those luscious locks of eb's hair because uh brothers going home bald i wonder what mrs b's going to think about that she'll be hot she'll be hot does she know about this is you know because i'm wearing that hat you know i pop my blue chew i put on my hat and

come you know take care of business it's not the same i like when you use to wear the hat backwards. And I feel like sometimes when it's like, it's like that movie, uh, over the top with Sylvester Stallone. When the bill's in the front, hey, it's just Eric trying to not get, uh, not burn his nose or his lips or his cheeks in the sun. But when he spins it around, I'm sure Mrs. B's like, I got to go hide and lock the door. Eric's gotten into the woods here. Yeah, because he's taking your business. He takes your business, if you will. Speaking of Bidness, I want to talk about a little more Bidness. This is fun business. I cannot wait. I am going.

courtesy of an invitation from our man, Jeff Jarrett. I'm going to be a part of the festivities, May 31st, Springfield, Illinois. Springfield Lucky or Shoes. Baseball team. I'm going to be there. And if anybody happy to catch the video, John Alba decided to put it up on Strictly Business, unbeknownst to me, of me throwing out the first pitch in San Jose.

I whiffed, and it wasn't good, but I've been working on it. Oh, you have. If the opportunity should arise where I get an opportunity throughout the first pitch, May 31st, Springfield Lucky Horses, I'm sure there'll be a graphic up here shortly. I think, I think I'm going to go down as one of the best first pitches in the history, minor league baseball. Go out of your way to check it out. It's shoesbaseball.com.

Be a member of the shoe, shoe, shoe, shoes world order. And come see Eric on Wednesday, May 31st. That's right, 48 hours from today, Springfield, Illinois, buckle up. Eric Bischoff is coming your way. Tickets are on sale now. Shoesbaseball.com. Let's be honest. Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming.

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We're going to wrap it up. We know what Lex did now for 1998. We're going to start on Lex's 99 some other time. We'll pick it up with the finger poke of doom because I feel like we're going to get sideways and a hurry on that one. I also want to mention that we've got some bonus episodes that are up live right now at ad free shows.com. um and as i understand it we're both going to be doing a little travel this summer too

you're going to be doing a little uk tour with our friends over at inside the ropes right after top guy weekend i'm going to be cruising down to australia to hang out with my pal scott demour and speaking of australia a few weeks back we took a look at the holcomania australia tour we alluded to that a little earlier when we talked about this rumored goldberg self-promoted four-city retirement tour well Well, you and I talked about the show. You and Cassio watched it over at ad-freeshows.com. You watched some rare match footage, some rare promos, some rare press conferences,

even a rare bikini contest. I say rare because the footage was never released. So you're watching fan cam type footage and some of the stuff that was a very limited release. It's available now at ad-freeshows.com. Get Eric's commentary. It's one thing to hear about it. It's another thing to see it. And wait till you see the results from average.

on our program here. Go check it out at Advertise witherick.com. If your business targets men that are 25 to 54 years old, there's no better place to advertise than right here. You hear some of the same sponsors year after year after year. You want to know why that is? Because it really works. Find out how affordable it is at advertise witheric.com.

Eric's book is out right now available on Amazon. It's grateful. I've read it twice now. I read it my last time I was at the beach. And I just love it. He's open. He's honest. You don't read a lot of wrestling books like this. Can't recommend it enough.

Love to have your interactions on social. Eric is very active. He is at E. Bischoff. Our show handle is at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And the easiest, cheapest. Best way to support our show is to check us out on YouTube. It's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com.

And we've got a ton of new merch, a ton of new swag over at box of gimmicks.com. And we might be getting some new swag, but I don't get. we'll need any 83 weeks combs or hair brushes because you won't have a need for those pretty soon we'll see it ain't over till it's over I love it I love that you're doubling down I love that about you I hope you guys had a fun Memorial Day and we'll see you next week right here talking all things 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff It's Conrad Thompson with savewithconrad.com. You've heard me bragging on the podcast for years about helping people save money on their current

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