83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 277: Johnny B. Badd

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

On this exciting new episode of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff, Eric and Conrad discuss Eric's new found love for being bald, his excitement for Cody's 4th of July festivities, and all his thoughts on AEW Collisions current ratings situation. The guys then focus on the man of the hour, the great Marc Hero and his legendary character Johnny B. Badd! Eric talks about his time working with Mero and how his willingness to try a wild gimmick led to him becoming a household name. BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s BlueChew.com, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Missy Hyatt, The Walking Riot, and I say that you need to save with Conrad. Jim Ross told me, you need to go with Conrad. He'll save you money. And he did. You guys helped me out great. And when I refinanced it and paid off everything, I think my payment was only $8 more month. I probably saved at least over $30,000. They make everything so easy for you. Go to save with Conrad if you want to refire your mortgage. or anything with your mortgage, just so to say with Conrad. Hey, hey, it's Conrad. And you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? just excited. This is my favorite holiday of the year, Fourth of July, just around the corner. And Conrad, you know, we had so much fun at Top Guy weekend. And a lot of our Atfrey Show family members were there, the top guys and gals. Let's be careful here. But one of the highlights for me was listening to our own Afri Show's family member, Lindsay Lopez, open up our event with the National Anthem. And she did such a great job. I couldn't wait to have her do it. it on our show. So without further delay, let's celebrate the 4th of July with Lindsay Lopez.

last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous flight, or the raw pots we watched, were so gallantly, streaming. And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still Oh, say, does that star spangled bernet away? Or the land of the free, I'm a home. I'm not brave. Wasn't that awesome? Dude, how about that?

I loved that. I mean, it was total last minute. It wasn't even on the original format. Someone suggested to me, hey, should we sing the Star Spangled Banner or the National Anthem? And I was like, yeah, man, I mean, who would we get to do that? Well, Lindsay would do it.

Tadda, bam. And how cool was that, man? She crushed it. She crushed it. And she's such a cool, cool lady. I digger. She's getting married in April. Rumor has it that I may be an officiant at that wedding, which I'll be happy to do and proud to do.

But now, she's very cool. Well, we're excited that she was able to do it and excited you guys were with us. Of course, tomorrow is the 4th of July. I apologize. I'm looking and sounding a little different. This is our maiden voyage here on 83 weeks with a new studio for me. We're going to dial it in, get rid of some of these echoes. I'll sound a little better next week.

But this is our first attempt. So greatly appreciate you guys showing up for us. And I want to give a shout out to everybody from ad-freeshows.com for hanging out in the group chat. Of course, Lindsay is here with us. So I'm sure she's thrilled to know we're starting with her this morning. Lucas, who donated $10,000 to make Eric look like he does. now if you're not watching on youtube you're missing a bald eric bischoff this morning at 83 weeks on youtube.com zoel lopez is here mike is here paul is here little jimmy sorenson

couldn't do it without him greatly appreciate all of you guys showing up and showing out for us our topic today is going to be johnny be bad but before we get there i think we should talk about what's going on and wrestling these days of course we're on the heels of a big money in the bank show, a super hot crowd at the O2 Arena in London, a surprise John Cena return. Damien Priest wins the money in the bank. Seth Rollins retains Cody Rhodes very quickly dispenses of Dominic Mysterio. But the main event is what everyone's talking about. It was the Uso's taking on Solo Sacoa and of course Roman Raines. Roman Raines hadn't been penned in almost 1,300 days. Roman rains hadn't been penned since December of 2019.

Baron Corbyn hit the old end of days on a steel chair and in the ring when that happened, FTR, who aren't even there anymore and have it been for three years. Three and a half years later, Eric, Roman Raines has been pinned and it was Jay who hooked the leg and pinned the shoulders. What a story, man. I know we often say in wrestling wins and losses don't matter. It's the story. The story here was the win and the lack of losses.

His first pinfall goes to Jay. This is a great story, man. It's a phenomenal story, and it's not losing any steam. It's continuing to grow. It certainly isn't at the apex of interest like it was going into WrestleMania, which you would expect, right? You want to bring it to a fever pitch right before the big event. And oftentimes stories kind of just slowly fade away after they've been built and built and

then you have the big payoff at, again, this case, WrestleMania. But in this case, the bloodline story is continuing to grow, which only makes me appreciate it and respect it more to everybody that's got their fingerprints on that story deserves a round of applause from wrestling fans all over the world. Because showing how great a story can be in professional wrestling and how much positive impact. If you look at WWE across the boards, whether it's ticket sales, whether it's ratings, whether it's merchandise sales. in every metric, WWE is crushing it and a lot of it has to do with just great story.

It is a great story and they're telling some good stories on the AEW side of things too. We know now with collision in the rearview mirror this coming Saturday, we finally get Samoa Joe versus C and Punk. That was the undertone

of that six-man tag on the very first collision main event. And you recall, Eric, just saying how bananas the crowd went anytime those guys were in they're together. This is something they've taken their time. Of course, it's the Owen Hart Cup and it's the tournament. We saw Roderick Strong drop the fall to Samoa Joe. And then back at the paper view, we saw Kojima in a losing effort to CM Punk. So next up in the tournament bracket,

it's CM Punk versus Samoa Joe. This is a big test, I think, for AEW at that point. That would be the fourth collision. Obviously, the first one started out pretty strong, 800,000 viewers and change. The second rating was down a little bit. We'll find out what the third would is. I'm sure you and John Abel will talk about that this week on Strictly Business. But the fourth week, Samoa Joe, C. and Punk, that feels like a big time main event. I'm looking forward to that one, man. I think they could do something big with that show. Yeah, typically tournaments are a little tough because by virtue of the fact that it's a tournament, you very rarely have any real great story going into it. And that can also make it fun, by the way.

But in this case, I think they're doing a great job, Samoa Joe and Punk. They've got backstory. They've got history. Samoa Joe, I think, is probably more popular now than he has ever been. And sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think that's the case here with Joe. And I think Joe and punk together in this tournament format is potentially pretty magical. And I'm anxious to see how it does.

You know, you mentioned ratings. And Elba and I will cover that in more detail. But, you know, they opened it up. I think it was 865, 865,000 viewers or whatever. was 800 and change. And before the first episode, I predicted that they were going to drop between 25 and 30%. And they dropped 27%, which is not unusual. You should expect that.

The good news for collision is they opened up stronger than I think most people thought they would, including me. I thought 600,000 viewers would be a great number, a solid number. 800 is a great number. So the fact that they dropped from 800,000 down to whatever it was, five and change, 600,000, not surprising and actually not too bad, you know, of a drop. You look at WWE, Smackdown when I was executive director there for a cup of coffee, our premiere episode on Fox did 3.8 or 3.9 million viewers. Two weeks later, they were down to 3 million or 2.7 million. So the drop off that AEW experience wasn't as significant as it could have been.

But I think the next two, three, four shows is where you're going to see a pattern. That's the important part. What's that pattern look like? And where does it level off? If they can level off at 500,000 viewers, it may not be a home run, but it's a solid double, maybe a triple. Well, I'm excited to see what happens. Of course, the new Fight Forever video game is out. they just set a record gate at forbidden doors they've got a lot of momentum and of course wimbly is right around the corner i bring that up because man i couldn't help but smile when i saw that john sina was an unannounced surprise over the weekend at money in the bank and he came out and did a super baby face promo talking about how you know these are the best fans in the world and it's been over 20 years since they had a premium live event and you know they need to show the folks and the decision makers in the back who they are

They're not here to take over the show. They're here to be the show. And this place should get a WrestleMania. And boy, they just went bananas. And I said to myself, self, are they teasing a WrestleMania simply because they want to say, hey, wait a minute. The cons don't own Wembley Stadium. Maybe we come back and we run Wembley and we show that we can outdraw them there.

And certainly the appetite was there. I mean, the crowd went bananas. And I'm certain that they would crush with a WrestleMania over there. They're anywhere in the world. Do you think there's an actual possibility that, say, in the next five years, we get a WrestleMania in London? Well, if I was going to bet, I would bet we're going to see one very soon. Yeah.

Within five years. Have they announced the location for next year already? Yeah, Philadelphia. Philadelphia, so it would be at least two years. But yeah, I could see it. absolutely see it I can too and I'm excited about it I mean I've been fortunate enough to do some podcasts over there and inevitably one of the first questions that always comes up is summer slam 92 I mean that is such a historic show not just for wrestling fans but certainly

specifically for fans in the UK man to have them get not a summer slam not a money in the bank but a WrestleMania would be bananas it further cements the idea that WWE is a global brand and seeing the success that AEW has as a quote unquote challenger brand on track to sell 70,000 and change you got to think WWE thinks hey if the challenger brand can do 70,000

what can we do? And I think we know the answer. They'll have an ass every 18 inches and it'll be huge. And I kind of like the idea if I'm honest Eric of a Saturday afternoon pay-per-view. And I know WrestleMania is kind of a two-day thing now. I get that.

But I enjoyed that this paper view this past weekend because of the time change was Saturday afternoon here in America. That worked just fine for me. Yeah. You know, we've been so accustomed for decades now of pay-per-views being Sunday nights, right? At 8 o'clock Eastern. And it's always been a challenge to schedule that differently. It's risky, right?

But I think more and more, we're seeing that, you know, being on Sunday nights at 8 o'clock is no longer mandatory. It'll be interesting to see what kind of success, Monday in the bank. had being on it at that time. And, you know, we're talking about WrestleMania, and I guess if John Cena mentioned, you know, that the UK deserves or should get a WrestleMania, that's one thing. I don't know why they wouldn't go over there with a different pay-per-view. Because I think any one of the 10-Pole pay-per-views that WWE does, for example,

the Rumble, could easily play in the UK. And it could be done sooner. I think announcing WrestleMania two years from now is yeah it's cool but announcing Royal Rumble doing it a little closer

to the T's some of the people that are around well listen I'm excited I think it's going to be a fun a couple of years as this at WW AEW thing continues now

across the pond but before we get there we should mention a little piece of news that snuck under the radar this week Eric Starcast is back Labor Day weekend in Chicago. I know Eric Bischoff's going to make plans to be there.

You should too. Tickets are going to go on sale this Friday, and you can go ahead and book your hotel reservations right now at Starcast.com. That's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T.com. We're back at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg, Illinois, the host of the original StarCast and All-In back in 2018, five years ago.

We came back in 2019, and we brought C-M-Punk with us. It was C-N-Punk's first thing, in the wrestling space in forever, and it all happened right there at the Hyatt Regency in Seanberg, Illinois. So we're going to be back, man, Starcast again. I can't believe it's real. Starcast 6. That's happening Labor Day weekend. Make plans to join us if you haven't already. Starcast.com, S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T dot com. We've got to do one more question before we jump into Johnny Be Bad. Little Jimmy Sorensen has asked the question that we all want to know the answer to. What has the last week been like for you since the beginning of the Sean Connery-era haircut style?

It's, you know, the fun thing is, like, Lori and I have a couple very, very close friends. They're like family to us, Bob and Tammy, Niederkorn. They're from a little town called Holman, Wisconsin. And they drove here and got in last night. And, you know, I didn't tell Bob or Tammy that, you know, I'd shaved my head. And I don't think they follow social media. And so the interesting part is seeing people's reaction. And some people are afraid to ask because they know I was in a hospital.

Oh, wow. Wow. You're thinking, oh, my gosh, maybe this is here. Oh, no. So that's been fun. But honestly, you know what? Get up in the morning. The sun's shining.

Birds are chirping. It's quiet. I'm out here in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming. You can smell the sage brush, you know, wafting up into the atmosphere. It's just an awesome thing. But what's also awesome is now I can feel the gentle breeze caressing the top of my head as the wind blows across the mountain plains. And it's just awesome.

So I may keep it this way. Mrs. B's digging it. She's like kind of having it. Okay. And as long as my wife digs it, I don't really give a shit what anybody else thinks anyway. And I look, you know, now when I walk by the mirror, the first here, look at this. I have my glad. Now I lost my regular glasses, my prescription glasses.

lost them when I was in hospital. I was wearing them on my shirt and I was bent over and dropped and didn't realize it or whatever. So I bought a pair of cheaters. And the other day I had my cheaters out and I walked through the mud room there, you know, where we keep all of our shoes and shirts and our jackets and stuff like that. And there's a big mirror then. I walked by the mirror and I said, damn, Kevin Sullivan just snuck into my house because I think I look like Kevin Sullivan right now. If I could do a good Kevin Sullivan accent or imitation, I would. But I said, what the hell is Kevin do it in my mudroom? Damn. So I don't know. I may keep it. I kind of dig it. Well, I think it looks cool, man. And I heard Dave Silva do an interview earlier this week with

Briscoe and Bradshaw. And he made sure to mention that he has big heat with you or you have big heat with him. Even bald. Still a damn good looking man. Damn you. Hey, speaking of Briscoe and Bradshaw, I feel like I should give a little cheap plug. I can't believe this is a real sentence here, Eric. But somehow, some way, they've got together and they've decided to vote me into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. I can't believe that's a thing, but it happens later this month in Iowa and tickets are on sale now. NWHOF.org. It's going to be Thursday, July 20th through Saturday, July 22nd. It's a who's who's going in. And candidly, I don't deserve to be on this list. But J.J. Dillon and Jerry Briscoe and Joe Malinko and West Briscoe.

and Colt Cabana and Marty Janetti and John Nord and Sin Bodie and Tommy Rich and Baron Von Rashke and Ross Hart and Les Thatcher and Thunderbolt Patterson and Bill DeMott and Ken Patera. Demolition Axon Smash and Bob Rup and Haku and JBL

they're all going into the Hall of Fame somehow some way I'm on that same list. I don't belong but I'm thrilled to be there hope you guys will join us. They have a full weekend planned. They've got podcast panels. They've got meet and greets they've got wrestling events like actual wrestling matches and then of course the

hall of fame induction ceremony it's going to be a blast a lot of my friends and family are going the entire weekend is only 130 bucks and you get three days worth of events that includes two meals and matches and the hall of fame and and and tickets are on sale now nw h oaf dot org waterloo iowa so eric i'm flying into cedar rapids jumping in a car about an hour later i'll be there in waterloo and I've never met Dan Gable. I'm excited about that. And I've heard a lot about this place, and they've got a lot of great historic memorabilia and wrestling stuff.

I can't wait to see it. But here's a little breaking news for us, a little spoiler. Bruce Pritchard is going to induct me. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. A very rare little outside the tent, WWE appearance for Bruce Pritchard. He was able to get it worked out. I'm glad he's going to be there.

Hope you guys will join us. Tickets are on sale now. Now, everyone's welcome. It's available to the public, NWHOF.org. How cool is that, man, Bruce making the trip to the middle of nowhere, Iowa, to hang out? Well, obviously, that's very cool. And a lot of love and respect for Bruce for doing it, because that was probably not an easy thing for him to pull off.

But here's, I don't think I do want to say, Conrad, you say, you know, I don't really deserve it. And a lot of us beg to differ. while you have never really been in the wrestling ring and you weren't a performer necessarily, I think any Hall of Fame should be about a contribution. What has any of the people that are in the Hall of Fame are being inducted into the Hall of Fame, beyond being popular, what have they actually contributed to the industry and to the business? And I think by that standard, there are very few people recently that have contributed as much as you have individually, not as a company, but individually to the wrestling business.

And as an example, I hear at last weekend in Hussville, I probably had no fewer than a dozen conversations with people who have said, I wasn't a wrestling fan. I kind of got tired of wrestling and I just lost interest in it. And ad-free shows, your podcast, heat network, all the people that are involved, um it's the reason why a lot of people have come back to being interested in wrestling again so i beg to diff us uh i think you more than deserve to be at it and i'm i'm proud of you

for that recognition because you deserve it well i appreciate saying that man it's just uh it's an awfully humbling thing to think about i mean these guys out there sacrifice their bodies for so many years and now i'm somehow getting the same opportunity but uh it's like when Mr. Briscoe called and said, well, it was unanimous, Connie. And I said, okay, well, I appreciate that, but like, I don't know what to say. And he says, you say yes, damn it. I said, yes, damn it. Okay, so here we go.

I'm excited to be there, and I hope you guys will come join us. Waterloo, Iowa, July 20th through the 22nd. The actual induction ceremony is on the 22nd. I'll be doing meet and greets and being around and doing the podcast panels and anything and everything. I'm going to soak it up. W-H-O-F-O-R-G, be here before you know it. And now let's talk about our topic, Eric. It took a little while for us to get here, but I'm excited to, man, give our flowers to, I think,

one of the most criminally underrated performers of the more modern era, Mr. Mark Merrow. And we're talking about him today because he's about to celebrate a birthday on July 9th. He was born back in 1960, so this will be a 63rd birthday. And he starts training to be a pro wrestler in 1990. So he's been a boxer for several years, and, of course, was the Golden Gloves champ there in New York, but starting kind of late. Again, born in 60, starts in 90, so he's either 29 or 30 when he first starts down this path. When do you first remember hearing about Mark Merrow? Boy, I think Mark must have arrived in WCW either just before or just after I did, because it seems like he was.

already there when I showed up. But I know Dusty Rose was very, very high on Mark Merrill, Johnny Be Bad, loved the character. But really, from the get-go, I think when I arrived at WCW, shortly thereafter, Mark showed up and was on the radar in a pretty big way, actually. It's crazy to think, too. I mean, just to put this in perspective, he's traveling to Tampa to train with Joe Malenko. And I think maybe once upon a time he pursued a bodybuilding career. but then he starts going to hang out with the Malinkos to train to become a professional wrestler. That's in 1990. And by May of 91, he's already on WCW worldwide.

I mean, this guy was, I mean, you talk about fast track. My goodness. That's incredible. That is an incredible, incredible, incredible trajectory. And he was there in May of 91. I showed up in the late summer of 91, midsummer of 91. So he was there just before I arrived. It just fascinates me when someone, because, you know, we often hear people talk about,

oh, DDP got started late. Mark Mero started when he was 30. And just a couple of weeks before, I guess a couple of months before he turns 31, he's on TV, like less than a year later, not just like regional TV, not like in his local market. He's on WCW syndicated television. I mean, the dude was just a natural. And I don't think people really talk about that

enough. And I think some of that is probably the character, which we should talk about. He was an enhancement guy. And then just for a brief period of time, before Dusty Rhodes, christens him, Johnny Be Bad, which is obviously a nod to the song, Johnny Be Good by

Chuck Berry. But we style him to look like a flamboyant little Richard type character. and he crushed it. And I almost think, and you and I've talked about this before, and we've made some more modern analogies to great talent. But even in that era, being as talented as, say, a Tracy Smothers or a Bobby Eaton or an Arne Anderson meant that the company could count on you

to make an okay match, a good match, and a good match, a great match. You're good enough that we can drop you off anywhere, and it will ensure success. That is an excellent quality to have. However, sometimes it means that you get pigeonholed. And sometimes it means there is like a glass ceiling of sorts. And I almost felt like Mark Mero was so good at the Johnny B. Bad character that there may have been a ceiling.

Like, I never saw the Johnny B. Bad character being a world title contender. Maybe a TV title, maybe a tag guy. maybe a U.S. guy, but I didn't think that persona was ever going to be the world champion. Could you have seen it? Am I off base there? No, I know you're not. Entertaining as hell, yes, the Johnny Be Bad character. I'm not talking about Mark Merrill, the performer.

The character in the way it was presented. Entertaining as hell definitely has a place on any show, particularly at that time, but not the type of character you would expect to compete. for the world title because then you have to go from being entertaining, generally speaking, and a good performer and all the things that go with it. But people have to take you very seriously.

You have to be a serious threat or they have to have serious empathy for you. And that's a lot harder to do with a character that was designed to be generally entertaining and lighthearted. The only way that could have worked is if something would have happened storyline-wise, that would have forced Johnny Be Bad

to break character and allow us to see a different side of Johnny Be Bad that was more aggressive, more determined, more, I want to say a badass because he was a badass in real life and otherwise. But something would have happened to jolt him out of that Johnny Be Bad character into something much more intense and much more serious. And I think because the character of Johnny Be Bad as a general entertainment property, if you will, need to speak about a character

like a property, but it's what it is. It's intellectual property. But I think that that Juddaby Bad character had so much equity in that general entertainment category. And Dusty Rhodes loved that.

Dusty Rhodes was all about the entertainment. You like good wrestling. Don't get me wrong. But Dusty, at least during the period of time that I worked with him, leaned heavily into the entertainment aspect of it. And I think that Dusty viewed Jaddy Bad is so valuable as that character

that he just didn't contemplate or think about shifting into another gear, breaking that character and allowing us to see that other dimension. I just don't think that was in Dusty's radar because Mark Merrill did such a great job with the Johnny Be Bad character. You know, and it's funny because you and I've talked about another guy like a disco inferno. Like, no matter what you think of the real life, Glenn Gilberti, the dude pulled that character off tremendously. Nailed it.

And he crushed it. And so, and I think Johnny B. Bad does the same thing to the point where allegedly when he goes to Vince and we'll talk about that later, they really wanted more of that persona. And I don't, again, I think that's a disservice to Mark Merrill because we never really found out what he could do with a different character. And I almost think it's a blessing and a curse in that, man, he made a great living and he had a lot of fun and he had a great roster spot and got a lot of TV time and blah, blah, blah. but man, if it was a different character, what could have been. I just want to recap. This is a guy who starts when he's 30 years old. This is a guy who's been a professional bodybuilder.

This is a guy who's won the Golden Gloves. This is a guy who can also sell because he married Rina. So I'm saying this guy is a legit badass who looks like a million bucks and he can go sell and the ladies dig him. And oh, by the way, these days he's a motivational speaker. So I don't want to hear he wasn't a promo. He couldn't talk. And he could immediately throw himself in.

to being a character. And let's just call it what that is. That means he's a great actor. This guy has checked all the boxes to be a tippy-top guy in pro wrestling. Maybe the gimmick was a blessing and a curse. And Mark had this to say about the creation of the Johnny Be Bad character. Johnny Be Bad was Dusty Road's creation. As you know, I was just Mark Mero back then, trying to make it in the business.

And when he saw me and he said, I got this gimmick, did anybody ever tell you you look like Little Richard? Now, I thought he meant a wrestler named Richard, which I'd never heard of. So he said, you never heard a little Richard? And he starts singing like Little Richard. Oh, the singer, little Richard? I said, I've never heard of that before. And the next thing I realized was he had this Johnny Be Bad character in mind.

And I got to tell you, it's probably the most fun I ever had in the business. So I think a lot of people would think that, like, wait, little Richard, the singer? And I don't know that I necessarily think he looks like Little Richard, but boy, they managed to check all the boxes. And listen, this is a different time in wrestling. You know, Eric always says context is king. This is 1991. WCW is in a bad way. We're at the end of the Jim Hurt era.

Rick Flair is folding up tent and he's going up north and taking the big gold belt with him. Vince is very much looking for a hit that was a failed warrior experiment in 1990. we tried to pull the nose up in 1991 and really leaned into the Iraqi stuff. That did not work. We move our WrestleMania from a stadium show to a much smaller arena show. The message I'm trying to convey here is the business is on the down swing. The heyday of WrestleMania in 85 and 87 and even 90, boy, that feels like years ago, even though it was just last year.

Momentum is a real thing in business and certainly in the wrestling business. So Dusty is thinking, okay, we got to have something new. we got to have something exciting we got to think outside of the box we can't just have a jim crockett promotions type character let's come up with something different johnny be bad did it whether it was you know exactly your cup of tea or not this is a time where we're trying things like they're trying arachna man and other silly ideas just to see hey what can get some momentum here going because it feels like the business is in a down swing that's a tough spot to be for creative and the performers right Aaron? It is. But another thing, you know, I want to talk a little bit about Mark and that character.

As you pointed out already, I won't repeat it. A phenomenal athlete, Golden Gloves Boxer, legit badass. Okay. But he was willing to leave all of that at the door, leave it in the trunk of his car, come into WCW and play this flamboyant to feminine character. That takes balls. Yes. Not a lot of people are willing to shed their skin in who they really are and put on this costume and go out and perform it and do it well, as Mark Merrill did, especially when that character is 100% the opposite of the real person. Very few people could pull that off. And I always admire people that are willing to go out and do things that they're actually quite uncomfortable doing. That takes guts.

And I think Mark deserves a tremendous amount of credit as an actor, as a performer, as a talent, whatever you want to call it. Because to be able to leave your real personality behind and step in and play something that was so completely opposite of who you really were and the way you grew up, that takes so much confidence. And very few people have it. You know, there's a lot of people that are really comfortable playing an extension of their real selves. that's a talent and you can go a long way with that if you have enough of a character to build upon but to do something exactly the opposite of who you really are you're not turning up the volume you're putting on an entirely different costume and that's that's a lot harder to pull off and he did a great job which is probably one of the reasons that it was a blessing

in the curse because he did it so well I just want to mention too you know, when you're talking about having the guts and the balls to step out of your character and roll the dice like this and take a risk, we are just six months removed, less than that, from Starcade 1990. And that was the famous, or maybe infamous, black scorpion sting storyline. And the original idea, Eric, you may have heard, was it was supposed to be Al Perez under the hood and revealed as being the black scorpion. Al didn't want to do it.

Al said, I'm not doing the black scorpion gimmick. That'll kill my career. So instead, they had Rick Flair do it. It didn't kill Rick Flair's career, as you may have heard. And it worked out just fine. Meanwhile, what did Al Perez do after that? That was the end of him on a national scale. I'm not throwing stones.

I'm just saying, Johnny Be Bad now is faced with this similar opportunity six months later. Well, this isn't really my character in real life, but I'm going to make it work. and he does, and it's hugely successful. So that was December of 1990. This is May of 91. And I know what you're thinking. Well, Conrad a minute ago, you said that he debuted on Worldwide, May 1st, 1991. Correct.

18 days later, after he has been on TV as an enhancement talent on May 1st, 18 days later at Super Brawl, that's when we're introduced to Johnny Be Bad. So think about that. Mark Merrill, the enhancement talent on TV, May 1st. 18 days later, he's no longer Mark Mero. Now he's Johnny B. Bad. And he's debuting on a pay-per-view, Super Brawl. What a big opportunity.

He's managed by Teddy Long, and it's an outlandish character. And he even says a line here, I'm so pretty. I should have been born a girl. Just fantastic the way he leans into this. And he winds up facing the yellow dog, which is Brian Pilman, in his debut match at the 1991 Great American Bash. The entrance is great. I mean, he's got all the gimmicks that you could ever imagine that this character would need.

The match goes about six minutes. It's not the best match in the world, and people were critical of it in The Observer. But again, appreciate what we're talking about. He started wrestling last year. Now he's very quickly caught the eye of Dusty Roads, been given this new character, getting this new push, wrestling on pay-per-view. And he's been doing it for less than a year. it's remarkable that that is in that that that's so unbelievable that I have more respect now because I didn't think about that you know I didn't play that timeline out in my head but man

oh man I has anybody ever had that fast of a trajectory I mean from like how do you lace up boots like which should I wear the high boot you know how do you go from not knowing anything to be in a pay-per-view in a year. I'd like to, if there's somebody out there that's made that fast of a transition, I'd like to know who it is. Kurt Angle, but you want to talk about rarefied air. And again, Kurt Angle's a guy who came in and was immediately in WWE developmental. I'm not disparaging the Melancho's.

I'm just saying, Kurt was plugged into the system right away from day one. Here's how we want you to be a television wrestler for the WWF. He's training, meanwhile, with Malinko. And I'm sure they did a fantastic job. But Malenko isn't necessarily a part of the Turner organization where he says, okay, here's what we're going to have you do. This is sort of pre-power plant stuff. It's just fascinating to me, the trajectory.

And I don't think you really ever gets credit for that. I mean, you talk about a guy who's throwing right into the fire immediately. Hey, he's got a good look. Let's put this gimmick on him. Can he wrestle? I don't know. We'll find out. Let's put him on pay-per-view with Brian Pilman.

What? And he does it. Now, is it a Matt Classic? no but again take a look at anybody's first year one year into wrestling rick flair one year under his belt hulk hogan one year under his belt dusty roads steve austin whoever it is yeah it's gonna be okay it's not going to be as good as they will become and he was thrown in right away and made it work i just have so much respect for this dude eric it's unbelievable his story and i don't think people talk about it enough no and they and they should and we are right here and i hope our every show's

family spreads the word and helps promote this particular episode because I do think people should be talking about Johnny, not only because of what he did and how quickly he did it, but he's also a success story, in my opinion, because he's done so well after wrestling. It's one of the things that now having been out of the business for as long as I have and taking kind of a macro view of things, the people that I find myself respecting more and more and more are the the ones that did get that taste of fame and did make it on television, because that brings with it a whole lot of stuff, great stuff, some bad stuff, and some dangerous stuff. I mean, it's a tough life, whether you're a rock and roll star, professional athlete.

When you're on the road, when you're performing, and you get that adulation and people reacting to you, it can become very, in a way, addictive psychologically, emotionally, in its own way. And too often, I think we've seen people who have had success for a period of time, two years, three years, five years, ten years, whatever. But once that's taken away from them, either because of an injury or any other reason, once they're no longer able to get that rush that they were able to get during that period of time, they stopped progressing. It's kind of like that was the best time of their life and they look at it that way. And Johnny's a guy that, much like DDP and others, had that experience and built upon it and used it

for the next chapter of their life. And I really respect people that are able to do that, particularly in the case. And I mentioned DDP and Mark Merrill together, Johnny Be Bad, because, number one, they're very close friends and they always have been since Mark showed up in WCW. But they both have decided, you know what, let's, I'm going to take all this energy. and the success that I had that I no longer have, and I'm going to use it to create new success. And oh, by the way, I'm going to do it in a way that helps other people.

Yes. You just, you know, rocketed right up to number one of my hit parade. That's an awesome thing. And I have nothing but respect for Johnny or Mark and DDP for that very same reason. One other thing I wanted to mention because you brought up Kurt Engel, you know, what are the one thing, what's one thing that Kurt Angle and Johnny Be Bad, had a comment. They were both great athletes. Yes. You don't become a great boxer if you don't understand footwork and balance and hand-eye coordination and all those things. It takes talent to

become a great Golden Globes boxer, just like it took talent for Kurt Angle to become an Olympic gold medalist. That athleticism, that gift of athleticism, because in many cases you're just born with some of those gifts and you build upon it, obviously. But it's the one thing they both had in common, which is, I think, a great reason or a good reason or example of why WWE in particular looks for former athletes. Brock Lesnar, another example, you know, a great athlete, amateur wrestler, collegiate wrestler. Athletes do have an ability, some of them, not all of them, but they do have an advantage in learning professional wrestling because they've worked on fundamentals in their respective

of sports so much that the process and learning footwork and learning balance and getting a sense of timing all those things that for the average person doesn't come all that easily and it's reps you know after a while yeah you get it but for a guy like johnny or obviously curt angle you know they already had that skill set their brains already worked that way so their learning curve was much less than the average person i want to mention too we lean into some of that amateur status and experience with the character. Some of us might not remember, but his finish is the kiss that don't miss. It's the big right hand.

And of course, we mentioned at the top of the show, my man was a former Golden Gloves boxer in New York. So he's pretty well versed in hand-to-hand combat. So here comes the big right hand. As they're laying there unconscious, he puts the little kiss sticker on them. I love that. The kiss that don't miss. Has dusty all over it, does it not?

Oh, absolutely. Especially the little kiss sticker. the end. Yes. That's Dusty Rose right there. That's awesome. We should mention too that a lot of the reason that this works, or to me at least, is it borrows a little bit from what we would see other characters. Like on the other channel when the million dollar man finishes a guy, well, he stuffs $100 down their mouth. And when Brutus the freaking barber beefcake finishes and put somebody to sleep, well, he cuts their hair. So the little kiss sticker, man, it just works for me. He even goes on a bit of an undefeated streak. Talk about pushed to the movement.

right away. He's going to be in the U.S. title tournament. It goes to a draw with him and Brian Pilman, so no one advances there. But he is undefeated through May, June, July, August, and they're even starting to, in this era, list the top ten contenders. And Johnny Buebad's name appears on the list quite a bit. He finally suffers a pinfall loss. It happens at the clash of the champions. And if you're going to lose your first match in WCW, who better to do it with than Sting? so Sting is going to be the guy who hands him his first loss and on the house shows he's paired up with another guy who I think a lot of people know had some success in wrestling he's wrestling under the name stunning Steve Austin here which is interesting because think about that stunning Steve is a bad guy and Johnny Be Bad is at this era a heel so we've got two heels against each other but man if you're trying to get somebody to come along a little bit who better than another great rising star who maybe had a bit of a head head start and stone cold steve austin yeah what's interesting you know john to be bad as a heel but i remember you know going back to the early days of the john to be bad character jaddy b bad would come out

with one of those guns that shoots t-shirts into the crowd all that kind of stuff all that flamboyant stuff people didn't react to him as a heel they love that character yes it was entertaining it made them smile and he's shooting t-shirts into the crowd before he wrestles all that stuff it doesn't make you a heel, you know, and that's interesting, very interesting, this particular matchup. There's lots of interviews in this era that you can find with yourself as the stick man holding the mic from Mark Merrow and Teddy Long. Do you remember cutting any of these promos? Was he a natural? Did he have some coaching? Was he one take Jake? What do you remember about early Mark Merrow interviews? He was pretty consistent when it comes to,

one or two takes. There wasn't, and I don't, well, I'm just, here I am, being honest, which comes off as being critical, whatever. He's pretty one-dimensional in his promos, and I think, yes, he certainly adequate, maybe a little more than adequate, you know, pretty good, I think would probably be how I'd, on a scale of one to ten, I'd give them was six, five plus, five and a half, maybe of six. But that's just reps in timing for what he was, what Johnny was given, what he was

asked to do, the promos that he was doing at the time were a perfect fit for Mark Merrill at that point in time. Had Mark in WCW had another year or two and worked with some, because Johnny could take, Mark could take direction really, really well. That's another thing I remember about. Mark is he had a very open mind. He wasn't hung up on, but my character wouldn't do that,

that kind of silly shit. He was very open-minded. I do think his promos were his weak spot at this point in time. But that is to be expected. It would be odd and unique if it wasn't the case. His promos were pretty good. It's not that it took him a long time to get a promo in. Once he laid it out with him and he probably won't.

walk through it one or two times. He could usually nail it in the first time or two. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were great promos. That just that just means he was able to deliver what was asked of him. And he wasn't given a lot of range. There wasn't a lot of depth to his promos. It was just be that Johnny Be Bad character. Tell us who you're going to, who you're going to wrestle.

Tell us what you're going to do. Put a button on it and move on. And I think that's one of the reasons that Teddy Long was there to help. well eventually we know they build a split between johnny b bad and teddy long and i think this character's probably better suited for a baby face a because there were a lot of people cheering and b well there were some small-minded negative bad influence fans who were chanting not so nice words at mr mark merrow things you wouldn't say these days uh and it clash the the split finally takes place he's going to lose to brian pilman in his challenge for the w

WCW light heavyweight title. Bad had Pilman pinned after the knockout punch, but Teddy Long wasn't letting go of the referee in time, and it wound up costing him the match. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about Teddy Long as a manager. What did you think of Teddy Long as a manager for WCW? I'm biased because Teddy and I are pretty good friends. So I enjoyed working with Teddy.

I did a lot of work with Teddy. Teddy and I co-hosted together the WCW main event show at Air and Sunday night, 6.05 Eastern on TBS. We did that for quite a while. We did a lot of other things together. And I just developed a great relationship with Teddy. And we're still good friend. We still stay in touch and text each other on holidays and that type of thing. So because I, Teddy was one of my first friends really in WCW because when I got there, I was an outsider. I didn't have any relationships with anybody in WCW other than Larry's Obisco. So I was, you know, the odd man. I was a new kid in school, so to speak. And Teddy and I,

And DDP, obviously, goes without saying. But Teddy and I hit it off right away. So I'm sure I was biased. And even now, when you ask me about Teddy Long as a performer, I think he was great. But I will also say about Teddy Long. I sat down with Teddy, well, the last time I did at WWE, I think it was the draft, right?

Whatever that was a couple months ago. And Teddy and I sat down and we're riffing about what was going on in the ring and what was going on in WW at the time. Teddy Long has got a great mind. you know, everybody's always got a great mind for the business and, you know, whatever. Some people do that people think have great minds and some people really don't, but whatever. Teddy does. Teddy's really, really smart.

He's grounded in fundamentals. He understand, what I say fundamentals. I mean, the fundamentals of a match, even though he wasn't necessarily an in-ring performer as a wrestler, he really understands. He understands psychology as well as anybody that I've talked to in. a long time and he's very well grounded you know he's he could be an asset to this day to an AEW or even in WW or maybe an NXT because he gets it you know he he was a he was an un um you wouldn't have expected a teddy long to come up and be a strong television personality

but he is and he was and he had to learn the hard way he learned on the job and learning on the job provides a tremendous wealth of experience that has value, and I'd love to see somebody tap into Teddy Long's value because he has it. It's really there. If you need somebody, you know, not necessarily as a, you know, head creative person or anything like that, but somebody who can sit down and analyze and break down a character or help build a character or lay out a match, Teddy's phone should be ringing. And I'm not saying that because he's a friend. I'm saying that because he's really, really good. Well said, I'm glad we're passing out some flowers today.

Let's talk about what's next for Johnny Be Bad. We really cement that he is a baby face on the December 22nd, 1991 edition of the main event. It's going to be a tag match where he's going to be teaming with the Diamond Stud and lose to Z-Man and P& News. But after the match, Stud and DDP attack Johnny Be Bad. So now we know for sure he's a good guy. And as part of his baby face presentation, he's going to start using the Bad Blaster. You sort of talked about this earlier. This is a confetti gun that he uses during his entrance, a great baby face move.

The kids are going to love it. And for most of 1992, it feels like he's sort of floating around in the mid card with no real direction or program. But again, let's just remind everybody, he just got started wrestling. So he's like two years into his career. He's getting his reps in. And they're starting to push this boxer gimmick more and more. Of course, this is very much still the era of, of Jim Ross, and he's trying to give the background and the amateur status of some of these

guys, and that really adds a lot to Johnny B. Bad's pedigree, at least to me as a fan. Clash to the Champions 21, it's him and Scotty Flamingo. We know he's going to go on to become Raven, and it's a boxing match. Now, listen, this is the era where we're trying new things. Boxing and wrestling is not necessarily a new concept. I mean, even some of the early WrestleMania's with Piper and Mr. T. featured boxing. do you think this could work now or was this just time and place for the 80s and 90s? I don't think it can work now. It's too awkward.

You know, first of another, you know, show respect to Johnny Be Bad. It's difficult, I would think it would be difficult. And I've experienced it a little bit myself. Johnny having spent as much time as he did boxing, training, learning, learning. hoping eventually to be able to get so good that you can knock people out. As opposed to in a wrestling match, you're trying to make things look real, but not make contact, or at least not enough to hurt anybody. That actually makes it a little bit more difficult.

In other words, if you've trained forever to train your muscles, muscle memory, everything else, to actually make contact and do damage, and now all of a sudden you're being asked to pull those punches, that's harder than people think. and because you're overcoming muscle memory that you've been developing probably in Johnny's case since the time he was eight or ten years old, right? And therefore, it's very awkward looking. It's no matter how good you are. And it's hard, I think, for your opponent, your partner in the ring to work with that.

It's just, it's awkward. I'm not saying it correctly. I'm not able to articulate it, but it's just so awkward that it does. doesn't visually, it doesn't look great. It looks less than. Yes. Which is why it usually doesn't work very well. It never works.

The only time it works, the only time it's worse is if, if it's a shoot, now you're putting a guy in there, you know, with Johnny, obviously he could pull it off, but you put people in the ring who are badasses, tough guys we've seen in WWE. You put some gloves, you put some 12-ounce gloves on them and put them in the ring with somebody that knows what they're doing. and it's ugly. It's ass ugly. So I don't think it works at all.

Ass ugly. New word we'll start using here on the program. Listen, it's a little silly. They're going to load up, I say they. We've got a Don King impersonator here with Vinny Vegas, who we knew was Kevin Nash and DDP, and they're going to load up Flamingo's glove with water, and that's enough to knock out Johnny be bad.

Yes, the real boxer got knocked out. Okay. Next up, we're going to program him with Max Payne. Eric, what's your favorite Max Payne match? Oh, well, I think just him getting to the ring. Listen, I mean, it was a time and place gimmick, and this is a time and place storyline. Max Payne is going to steal the bad blaster. Can't do that.

You can't steal the man's confetti gun. We're going to have to fight over that. So Payne is actually going to shoot Johnny Be Bad in the face. with it that injures him and forces him to forfeit the match at Clash of the Champions it's even going to have Johnny B. Bad make it comeback donning a mask. Maybe this creative is a little less than. Eventually he gets a win over Payne before losing to him in a no DQ match on Saturday night. It all builds to mask versus guitar at the clash of the champions. Johnny B. Bad is going to get the win and take Payne's guitar. This is

some silly old school shit i know you like steaks but i need my bad blaster oh i'm taking your guitar this is for children no yes yeah yeah i don't get this one at all fortunately i wasn't involved in this process so i i don't have to feel guilty about it or or or eat shit because of it uh but it was bad let's you know not every idea is a great idea not every idea is even a good idea this one was a really bad idea there's no other way to say it well there was a great idea and that is to involve his wife rena in wrestling we know she's going to eventually come into the wb and become a television character we know is sable did you meet rina back in the wcw days yeah yeah quite a quite a few times and um she was so quiet she was just she was there and she

you know, obviously very beautiful and it caught your eye, you know, from across the arena and all that. But she was very much, I don't want to say an introvert, but she seemed like she was an introvert. She would be there, but very, very, she would just blend in backstage and kept to herself. But, yeah, and I, you know, got to know her in that respect. And later on, I'd go over to Johnny's house, you know, every once in a while, there'd be a big boxing, you know, match with Tyson fight or something. and, you know, but a bunch of us would go over to Johnny's house and watch it. And, of course, you know, interacted with Reno there. But she was a very, very quiet, very polite, very nice, but very, very quiet person.

Let's talk about how Johnny is going to continue to evolve in the ring. He's going to have a series of matches with Stephen Regal, who's the TV champion at the time, including a title match at the next clash in November. These are very good matches, especially when you understand. Dude's only been wrestling two or three years at this point. listen three years at this point he has another big high profile match against steve austin and they get plenty of time here at slambury in philadelphia of course philadelphia is and probably always will be a heel town johnny bads the baby face he's coming out with a ring jacket that says

i love philly they're still booing him they want the bad guys to win and man 16 minutes and 12 seconds it's the opening match on the card a lot of pressure to start with a hot match melzer gave it to two and a quarter stars and he would even say they mainly worked on the map for the first 13 minutes intersped with good high spots but everything looked good the finishing sequence was very good at the time but the finish looks similar to every other manager finish on the card which got old of course we're talking about referee distractions that's creative creative is subjective the deal is though we're like three years into his wrestling career he's opening paper views in 16 minute matches against the future stone cold steve austin i think this whole race

wrestling things working out just fine for Mr. Merrill. Yeah, I think it's working out just fine. He was making decent money, too. Dusty was not shy about making sure he got taken care of. So in the big scheme of things, he, you know, he wasn't making Rick Flair money or anything like that or Stang or Lex Lugur money. But for his, for being in the business for 18 months, he was, he was doing very, very well. Let's talk about WCW and 94 before Hulk Hogan comes on to the scene.

You got Johnny B. Bad, Steve Austin, Brian Pillman, Dustin Roads. These are guys that are sort of floating around the mid card in WCW. We're eventually going to see them help push the WWF in 96 and 97 in the right direction towards the attitude era. Looking back, Eric, with the benefit of hindsight, do you think maybe if we would have hung on to some of that underutilized talent? Maybe they could have developed and blossomed to the top of the card in WCW or was it too crowded at that point? Could you just run that list real quick by me again? We got Johnny B Bad. We got Steve Austin.

We got Brian Pilman. We got Dustin Rhodes. A lot of these characters. I mean, for that matter, we throw Mick Foley in there, too. These are guys who are going to be on the other channel moving up the card pretty quickly. I mean, for that matter, hell, let's go all the way and say Tara Rising. Like, he's just sort of bouncing around the mid cards and opening matches. He's going to enjoy a lot of success as Hunter Hurst-Helmsley.

They're all here in WCW, though, but it feels like they have to, as J.R. used to say, go away and learn a new hole to really enjoy that next level success. Did WCW at that time where are we simply trying to, let's go with what we know, let's lean on what works, let's invest in the stars that have been to the top of the mountain and hopefully bring some of that attention to us? You've brought up a lot of value from a licensing standpoint when the sellers could reach in their briefcase and pull out something that had Hulk Hogan on it. Now, for instance, it's no longer just the WWF, which was certainly the brand, much like Band-Aid or Coca-Cola or what have you, or Kleenex.

It's really a tissue or a bandage, but we sort of interchange the product and an actual title of a product, like not what it is, but what we call it. That's what the WWF had as a foothold. So getting guys like Hulk Hogan, that all of a sudden makes you a player to guys on Madison Avenue and the buyers and the sellers. they need something like that in their box. I get that. But damn, look at that talent. Bad, Austin, Pilman, Rhodes, Foley, they're going to go achieve a lot more success over there.

Would there have ever been an environment in WCW where they could have bubbled to the top? Or was that just not where we were at the time? It was too crowded. Just talk to me about that. Well, I mean, I can't answer that in a general sense because each one of the individuals you mentioned was unique in their,

issue with WCW or my issue with them take Johnny be bad you know I remember the conversation that Johnny and I had we were in the Atlanta airport and Johnny approached me to let me know that he wanted to make the move I didn't want Johnny to leave I wanted to keep Johnny but I think Johnny was pretty well convinced that in order for him to go to the next level he had to move He believed that his exact words to me is, you know, I think Vince McMahon can get me over. And I don't think I can get over here. And he wasn't wrong about that because we were crowded at the top. We were taking a different approach.

It was absolutely necessary to change the perception of WCW by bringing in talent that Madison Avenue understood. The people at direct TV knew who they were. You know, it was mandatory or WCW would not have grown the way it grew during the that period of time. And I think Johnny, whether consciously or subconsciously knew that he just wasn't going to get the push that he felt he needed to reach that next level. And he believed, and he should have believed, by the way, that Vince McMahon, if anybody was going to get him over and take him to the next level, it would be Vince McMahon who had established the fact that he could really create stars. WCW had not yet been able to do that, had they? No. So it would be

If I was Johnny or Mark Beryl, I would have felt the same way. But when Mark approached me with it, I didn't want him to leave. I wanted him to stay, but I couldn't argue with him either. I couldn't say, don't worry about it, Johnny, we're going to, I've got all these big plans for you. We're going to get you. I couldn't say that honestly. And I was sorry to see him go because I did like Mark as a friend and believed in him as a talent. But there was no way that he was going to get pushed to the top.

I couldn't recreate the Johnny Be Bad character and make it something else. And I didn't believe I could at that time, at that time. So I was disappointed when Mark left. Steve Austin, we've covered to death. I did Steve Austin's podcast way back. Actually, we spent two days doing it. We had so much fun the first day we did a second one. And, you know, in that podcast, Steve Austin admits if Steve would have been me, he would have fired himself.

He would have let himself go because there were other issues. involved. You know, McFoly, and I'm not making excuses. I'm just putting this in context. Mick Foley was determined to do a lot of the extreme things, the dangerous things, that really got Mick Foley over as a character. It's what made, it's why McFolley is who he is today is because people have so much respect, you know, whether it's, you know, coming off the top of the cage or, you know, jumping off a balconies and doing all this extreme stuff that Turner Broadcasting, quite frankly, was not going to allow him to do. Not Eric Bischoff, Turner Broadcasting.

It was a liability issue. Not only were we concerned about Mick's well-being, Mick would do things occasionally that put the audience in a precarious spot. It just wasn't a good fit. That wasn't going to change. And if Mick Foley wanted to pursue that style, that extreme nature of Mick Foley's repertoire back in that, in that period of time, he wasn't going to be able to do it in WCW.

And we had that conversation. So when you ask, would there have been a way or would there have been an environment WCW where we could have held out of those people who did go on to become stars in WWF? No. You know, Johnny left, Mark Merrill left for reasons that I understood, was unhappy with. I let Steve Austin go for reasons that we all understand. And even Steve admits he should have been let go for. Mick Foley, that was just not going to fit.

You know, what Mick wanted to do and what WCW felt comfortable doing wasn't, you know, it wasn't going to work. So no, it just, it is, you know, Dustin Rhodes. You know, Dustin Rhodes left, I think, for other reasons. And I understood those two. I'm sad to see Dustin go. Well, Dustin got fired for blading after an agent told them to. Yeah, and I had to do that.

And I had every intention to bring him back. And I told them that. But he made the move, for whatever reasons, Dustin made that move. And he made the right move, by the way, because Dustin Rose would have had a hard time breaking through that Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, obviously, you know, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, when they came in, that changed everything. And I don't think Dustin at that point in time would have cut through that layer of talent. It would have been, it could have taken a while.

but not because Dustin didn't have the talent just because of the story. I just have always found a fascinating that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are in WCW don't feel like they're going to achieve the success they hope for. Go to Vince, become bigger stars, come back, make even more money in WCW. Meanwhile. And become bigger stars. Yes, no doubt. No doubt.

And then on the other side of the equation, you got guys like Triple H and Johnny Boubad and Stone Cold. and Brian Pillman and Cactus Jack and Dustin Rhodes. They're all in WCW and they go become much bigger stars in the WWF. I just think it's interesting that just timing is everything. Let that be a lesson to everyone listening to this. A lot of times people try things and it doesn't work. That doesn't necessarily mean that you failed.

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Try bluechew free when you use our promo code 83 weeks. Just pay $5 shipping at checkout. That's bluechew.com. use the promo code 83 weeks at checkout and you'll receive your first month free visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information and we want to thank bluechew for sponsoring today's podcast how about that eric the bad blaster did i do a good job with my transition in my spot there come on now the kiss that don't miss that's pretty awesome connor fortunately it wasn't one of those transitions that encouraged me to make a stupid bet but uh yeah

that was a great transition yeah i like that and i think uh you you you You wanted to do something, before we jump back into our Johnny Be Bad conversation, you wanted to have a little fun right quick, right? Yeah, July 26. I'm going to be in Rhode Island for Best Trivia ever. Now, I had an opportunity to do one of these events a couple. Well, it was about a month ago or so. I did it in Connecticut, believe it or not, and had an absolute blast that I'm going to

be in East Greenwich, Rhode Island coming up on July 26th at Linesider Brewing Company. And these events are absolutely a blast. I had so much fun. The audience had a great time. The establishment we were at had a great time. We had a hell of a turnout. Bruce Pritchard and his family came down. We hung out during the show and after the show.

So I encourage people, if you haven't partaken in a great trivia event, check this one out at Linesider Brewing, East Greenwich, Rhode Island. And you can get your tickets at Best Trivia Ever, Dot com. Tickets are only $10. We've got a meet and greet from five to seven and then trivia starts at 7.30 and you're going to have a blast. And by the way, just a little teaser here. You know, I'm not committing to anything, especially on your behalf, Conrad.

I wouldn't do that. But Cantuccio, the guy who put this company together. And by the way, they do this all over the United States. And we're looking at possibly in 2024 doing between six and 10 live events with yours truly. But they do hundreds of these around. the country and ken called me after seeing the success of top guy weekend and said hey i don't even care about the money i'd love to come in and put on a show for you guys as a part of ad free shows and he does a great job this isn't your average trivia contest they do it best trivia ever

does a great job check him out and hope to see you guys in east greenwich road island soon july 26 so johnny be bad is going to come back and win some gold finally fall brawl 1994 he's going to beat Lord Stephen Regal for the TV title. They go 11 minutes and 8 seconds. Meltzburg's pretty complimentary. Some good wrestling early with a lot of different, a lot different from the usual variety of spots. Bad even used an airplane spin early.

He did a topay, which the camera completely missed. Now, let's remember, folks, this is 1994, and our man's due in topos. You know, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about this, but Johnny B. Bad was doing stuff off the top rope and aerial stuff and the has the boxing background and he could do the gimmick the dude really could do it all i'm glad he got his first piece of gold here the wcw tv title happens at fall brawl 1994 and uh for some reason after winning this tv title you program him with wayne ferris your

old pal the honky talk man um what's the idea here in this creative just these are too big over the top gimmicks let's put them together and have some fun let's be really clear i didn't book that in 1994 it could have very well it could have either been dusty i guess i can't remember that when the transition was made creatively but it could have also been in fact if it was 1994 it was your father-in-law did book that uh halloween havoc they go to a 10 minute time limit draw for the tv title a few weeks later they're at um the clash of the second match on the card will be johnny be bad getting a win over honky talk by dq goes about six minutes honky's doing a lot of old school stalling and things like that eventually

there's a ref bump wouldn't you know it and uh johnny be bad gets hit with the guitar i mean listen not necessarily great matches but still they're having fun they're two over the top characters um and now let's talk about what's next and i know this is something that you love the third match between these guys, because remember they had one at Halloween Havoc, now one at the clash. They're supposed to be wrestling at Starcate. Here's what Dave wrote. Ferris was contracted to receive $1,000 per appearance no matter the segment or the match. This did not sit well with Ferris as most of the wrestlers on the roster were signed on a permanent basis. The partnership was already off to a bad start. Unfortunately, after the contractual spat, WCW booked Ferris

to lose the Johnny Be Bad at Halloween Havoc, 94. But Ferris refused and in Instead of taking the issue up with upper management, he turned to Hogan for help. Due to the influence of Hogan, honky fought bad to a draw, but the situation just got worse from there. WCW was determined to get back at Ferris for his refusal to lose, and therefore, the following month, Ferris was once again booked to lose to Johnny Be Bad, as Ferris felt like he was an unknown commodity, losing in his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, and that was a slap in the face. Accounts differ as to what actually happened, but according to Ferris himself, he went to speak with Bischoff in his office

and demanded that he be given another contract as well as be booked to win the title against bad much like before Bischoff said no and Ferris left the company according to Eric the altercation of sorts never took place in his office but at the loading dock of the arena Bischoff stated that a number of other personnel

were present and Ferris was looking to hold the company hostage in order to renegotiate a new contract Bischoff then fired Ferris and to this day he maintains that this particular firing was his favorite. I know you don't always say that Dave Meltzer nailed it, but he nailed it, didn't he? Yeah, he did.

And that's a fact. I mean, I, look, whether or not he came to my office or whether or not, or we had this discussion at a loading dock is kind of irrelevant in a way. But the fact that Wayne Honky Tonk Man felt the need to create a story that started out as a falsehood, the minute I heard, oh, you know, I can't. to Eric's office, bullshit. I was standing right next to a production truck. I know it's vivid.

Very few things are vivid in my memory from 1994, but I remember that one because I didn't really fire people. I don't like firing people. I never have. So when I have had to fire people, I do remember him and I remember the specifics of it. And Hockey Talk, man, is just full shit. He's making stuff up.

The way Dave covered it is exactly. the way it happened. No, it isn't either because Dave started out as he often does with his own personal agenda by saying that WCW was determined to get back at. Yeah, that's a little silly. That's that's that's juvenile childish day melts to bullshit. Okay. That's very typical of him. He has his personal agenda. He reeks of agenda. The things that he writes reeks of his agenda. And it's really interesting, not to talk too much about Dave, but I'm having a blast now watching social media and all these people who are now beginning to realize that I've been saying it for 25 years that Dave Meltzer is bad for the wrestling

business. He's not innocuous. He's bad for the wrestling business. And now people are starting to see it. And the way he covers things that are going on in AEW and punk and the bucks and all that juvenile bullshit. It's becoming more obvious. But that was an example of something that absolutely wasn't true i didn't look if i wanted to get back at somebody i had the power and the authority and in the case of hunky duck man nothing keeping me from firing him that night there was no getting back at anybody that's dave's bullshit but the rest of it yeah in terms of what he covered it was absolutely on the money honey duck man cornered me he demanded something that i wasn't willing to give and he called my bluff and that was a mistake for him

I don't bluff when it comes to firing people. And I will not be held up. Money doesn't mean enough to me to, no matter how much, doesn't mean enough to me to forego what I believe in. And when I think I'm right, I'll walk away from a lot. And certainly walking away from Honky Talk, man,

wasn't walking away from a lot. I love you for that. So listen, honkies out, Arne Anderson's in. Bad's going to retain the title and win the match that neither guy was probably prepared for but it does launch a program between the two of them

and Arn winds up winning the TV title for Mero at center stage for a television taping for main event Colonel Parker and Ming are going to help Arn get the win and that sets up a match at uncensored Boxer versus wrestler and Johnny B'bad gets the win from this uncensored show

this was an interesting idea I guess maybe not the best in the world but two and a half stars is the way it shakes out. The gimmick here was Rock Finnegan, who I'm told was Mark Merrill's legit trainer when he was a Golden Gloves boxer in New York many years ago, although this may not have been his real name, but he looked perfect for the role.

He was at ringside doing the Burgess Meredith Engel. So think about the Rocky Balboa Mickey character. That's what they're doing here. It's a little silly, but it's kind of fun. Eventually, Finnegan puts a bucket on Arne's head and bad punches the bucket takes the glove off and delivers the knockout punch in 22 seconds of the third round listen it's silly it's an out there idea we had fun with it it's the second time we've seen this boxing thing once with flamingo once with arn i don't think arn ever had a bad match but

it'd be a stretch to call this a regular match now yeah it would and it's not fair to arn or to mark merrill um it's not a great idea as we talked about earlier And if anybody on the face of the earth at that period of time could have made that match work, it would have been Arne Anderson. So whatever anybody thought of that match, there was no way that anybody could have pulled it off better than what we saw, despite the fact that what we saw wasn't really that good. Let's talk a little bit about Nitro. You know, 95 is the year where we're going to create Nitro.

And we know it's going to happen, you know, towards the second half of the year. but when you're starting to put it together would Johnny be bad have been a fixture on Nitro or would it have required what Bruce would call a fresh coat of paint as you if you're looking on YouTube right now you'll see what I mean like don't get me wrong this is a fun character but it does feel 80s and 90s

Nitro certainly starts that way we got some Dungeon of Doom and selling us like that but boy when we transition to the NWO It's hard to imagine this would have still been the Mark Mara we were presented. No, it would not. It would. And that's what I was struggling with in answering the question and why I hesitated. When the inception of Nitro, would the Johnny Be Bad character have a place on that show?

Yes, he would have. Because we were still, I was still in that frame of mind where we were, we were still trying to replicate the success of WWE. It was still, we had a lot of leftover early 90s creative in terms of characters that was still very over the top, animated cartoonish, really built for teens and preteens, right? Johnny would have fit into that in early W, in early Nitro for sure, because we hadn't really made that transition into more of a reality-based presentation yet. That wouldn't come until 96. So early Nitro, yeah, Johnny Bavad would have had a place. Now, you know, fantasy booking, if you will, fantasy wrestling, if you will, would, see what I did there, Conrad?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Can you imagine Mark Merrill being on the roster at the time, early NWO, something happening with Mark, you know, being a WCW representative in the eyes of NWO, where he shed that Joddy B bad character, and now we turned him into the, the badass that he really is and seeing that drink because the Johnny Be Bad character was so 180 degrees from who Mark Merrill really is. Can you imagine how much fun it would have been to have the real Mark Merrill, the badass Mark Merrill and a different character? I think that could have

fit, but not as Johnny Be Bad. By 1996, the Johnny Be Bad character would have gone the way of Dungeon of Doom and some of the other more animated characters that we were still presenting. let's mention that at fall brawl mark merrow was back where he was four years ago he's going to be wrestling brian pilman in the opener this time they get 30 minutes and the winner earns a u.s title match against sting bad gets busted open over his eye and it gets the dreaded zoom out so we're not seeing much of the cut or the blood and melzer would have this to say the match was pretty slow for the first 12 minutes because they were going so long actually the length of this match was an office rib that backfired. The idea was to expose that both of these guys aren't as good

of workers as people think and would fail trying to put together a 30-minute match, and it turned out to be the best match on the card. I just want to take a timeout right there. I am a almost lifetime at this point subscriber to the observer. I started subscribing in 97. I still maintain a subscription. I read every week. However, man, when you really read that again that just that does not read like someone who really knows what's going on in wrestling to me when you say this was the length of a match that was an office rib that backfired the idea was to expose that both of these guys aren't as good workers as people think like what let me say that again the idea was to expose that both of these guys aren't as good workers

as people think now i'm not saying that someone didn't say that to dave i believe 100% that someone said that today but goodness gracious who puts a show on and says let's get these guys out there and let them stink to join out that'll be good i disagree with you conrad nobody said that to dave dave fantasizes this shit because he likes to believe he knows what's going on behind the scenes he doesn't and he doesn't know anything about he knows what he likes and i will put dave over and say that if i want to know anything about the history of professional wrestling i would go to Dave Meltzer first. Yes. He does a great job of chronicling history, but there's a difference between chronicling history and reporting information and projecting and giving people the

perception that you have insight or insight information that you don't really have. Dave is a Dave's twisted. He's a weak person. He's got his own agendas for his own reasons. What they are, I have no idea. But the fact that we've seen for so many years, the pattern of distortion, the agendas, it's just so obvious and whatever. Hey, if people want it like you, you want to subscribe to Dave because he's got some tidbits of information there that are credible or you believe are accurate, but so much of what Dave writes is absolute bullshit, and it's harmful to the industry. We're seeing it in AEW.

And that's an example of what I lived with constantly, WCW. he is bad for the business and people want to continue supporting someone that's bad for the business that's their choice i don't hold it against anybody including you he's your friend you want to support him cool with me i don't care but i wouldn't you know as someone who and i'm not even in the business i just you know spent a fair amount of time in it and hate to see it suffer because of people like dave melzer well let's let's go out of our way to agree that this is an incredible match I don't care about the back story. It was a rib.

It wasn't a rib. Dude, you want to see a great match today? If there's one match, we're going to recommend that you see from the Johnny Be Bad era of Mark Marrow's career. Make it Fall Brawl 95 here. Fall Brawl 95, him and Pilman, they go a ton of time,

and it gets four stars in the Observer. Fantastic match. You can really see what these guys are capable of. And it's fun to think about, you know, this was really his first match. match. It was Pilman and Mero, and at the time he was the yellow dog, of course. But goodness gracious, you know, the growth we've had in just a handful of years. Now we're on

pay-per-view going 30 minutes and it's to critical acclaim. Really, really good stuff. Go out of your way to see it. Bad never actually shows up for his title match. And this is one of those great classic stories that had been used in the territory days for a long time. But now we're seeing it on wcw tv you see what happens is it's wcw saturday night and max muscle is out here talking about how johnny b bad wasn't here because unfortunately he had four flat tires and bad had only said he didn't make it because he had a flat tire he missed the show because of a flat tire he didn't say four that must mean ddp and max muscle are messing with me it's a classic angle where the heel tips their hand, and I know it's a little cheesy, it's a little corny, but it's a classic

story that works. It feels like it's right out of an old school Western or something like that. I'm really impressed with it. How many times have you heard me said great television is nothing more than a bunch of little details? Yes. That's a little detail. Yes. That made that angle work. And you can say it was a silly angle. Okay, it was silly, but it worked. And it worked because of a little detail. That's awesome. I don't know whose idea that was. It wasn't mine.

I don't know if it was flare or if it was dusty. Again, the timing on that is a little different, but a little hard to pin down for me. But whose ever idea that was? Or if it was the talents idea, because a lot of time, you know, it's a collaboration as we found out, right, at Top Guy Weekend, which was, you know,

we did a little five-man booking committee with essentially Conrad was the Vince McMahon of the room and was making the final decisions for the, most part, but that's how things happen. So likely it was a talent idea. Who knows? But whose ever idea was, or the team of people that put it together deserve a lot of credit, because that was one little detail that made an otherwise hokey angle into an entertaining and interesting one. Let's remind everybody the next thing is to continue this story with DDP, because it's DDP who's trying to steal this U.S. title shot that Bad has earned. So they're going to

face off at Halloween Havoc and what do you know bad wins the TV title back from DDP and a month later at World War III in November now that we've done the title match now we've got a stipulation Mero or Johnny B. Bad as it were he's putting his TV title on the line but DDP has to put the diamond doll on the line Johnny B Bad wins 12 minutes and 35 seconds it's the first match on the show it gets three and a half stars this is one of the best best performances that DDP has had on TV or on the main stage at this point, and certainly a step in the right direction for his career. We know by January of 97, he's going to be a made man, but as we wind down 95, I think it's this match and this story with Johnny B. Bad that really

gets him going. And we also see Kimberly come around as Johnny B. Bad's valet for the next few months. We get another rematch at Super Brawl in February of 1996. And the still stipulation here, and this is funny, silly, old creative, is that Kimberly would win DDP's $6.6 million fortune if Johnny B. Bad wins, and of course he does. So here at Super Brawl, Johnny Babbat retains the WCW TV title and quote unquote wins the $6.6 million from Diamond Dallas Page. It's a good typical opening match according to Dave Meltzer, lots of good near falls and a good build. From a wrestling standpoint, it blew away. It blew away. everything else on the show bad reversed pages attempt at a tombstone pile driver and

delivered one of his own for the pen three and a quarter stars listen think about the trajectory we're on guys he's less than five years in his wrestling career and he's having the best match on the card and it's against a guy who also got a late start in ddp i just think knowing their history knowing where they are now that they're essentially motivational speakers for different people across all walks of life across the globe how cool is it they have this piece of shared history too no but all the odds were against them nobody believed in them it's a silly gimmick they're too old blah blah blah blah still having the best match on the card it's all about chemistry isn't it you know these are two and it's manifesting today you know you two guys who were determined um

they're passionate about what they do they have generous hearts they're willing to work together to make each other better in their cases now. DDP's working with people and making their lives better. Mero's working with people making their lives better. And they're probably just as passionate about what they're doing respectively today as they were when they were trying to prove this point back in 96. It's the chemistry. It's two really talented, driven.

They were more driven than they were talented. They were both very talented. But it was that drive and a passion that got them to the dance. let's uh let's catch everybody up as to where we are here and just put this in perspective this is this is before the luchadors have really taken over nitro this is before the cruiser weights are what we know them as now and in these in this era johnny be bad was the guy who more often than not was in the opening match of the pay per view he could do the aerial stuff you need a shooting star press no problem you need someone to do a tope no problem you need me to do

Matt stuff, I can do that. You need me to be over the top flamboyant and shoot gimmicks into the crowd and have a fancy knockout punch that we set up. No problem. He is really a master of all trades here for all things, WCW. Like, hey, we need you to go. Okay, on the way. And on March 9th, 1996, it's an episode of WCW Saturday night. We see Johnny Be Bad lose the TV title to Lex Lugar. DDP is going to help costing the title. Lex Lugar is now going to be the champ. And that is his last WCW appearance. They had also begun an angle to sort of split up Johnny B. Bad

and Kimberly, when he's questioning her as to what she was doing the previous week on Nitro when she came out wearing white and holding roses, but Kimberly's refusing to talk about it. After the match, bad cut of promo on the upcoming match at uncensored, lashed out at

Kimberly for not looking out for him during the match with Lugar. I guess this was supposed to lead to a loser lead to a loser leaves town match and uncensored between him and ddp but as we know merrill left beforehand so in merrill leaves he's replaced by brutus the freaking barber beefcake who's now going to be known as the booty man and i guess that makes kimberly the booty babe wow uh let me just ask here as we're talking about the pairing of kimberly and i understand that was a uh storytelling device

because of his feud with DDP, was there ever any consideration given to putting Rina on TV with Mero? No. Okay. No. It, number one, if somebody would have come to me and said,

hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we bring Rina Mero in for that spot? I wouldn't have been able to take it seriously because I never had one indication. She was so shy, as I said earlier. Right. She was an introvert.

She never expressed any interest. and really she was there because mark was there she wasn't there because she knows at least that was my impression now i could my impression could have been wrong clearly but i would have never guessed in a million years that she would have even entertained a conversation about being on television at that time why was i wrong well let's talk about how maybe that was a part of the issue at least that's was reported in the observer of course his contract expired on February 28th, and, well, Dave had this to say.

Merrill had also recently begun an angle involving being managed by Kimberly. He wanted it dropped, blaming his deep religious beliefs and not wanting to be on the road affiliated with another man's wife, even though it was all the role. The original angle was supposedly to be where Kim would be with him, then screw him, costing him a match, not figuratively, and things would go back to how they were. However, some felt the chemistry of the two in the ring entrances were strong and they were planning on keeping the two together over the long haul. A recent storyline deal where they were having problems was done at Mero's request because he wanted it broken up, citing his religious faith. Bischoff apparently said he didn't want to be in a situation where every time they booked him in an angle, he'd not want to do it if Jesus Christ wouldn't approve of it. Now, that is an interesting take. Um, we know that Mero is a religious person and we greatly appreciate and support that.

Uh, it's a personal choice and roll tide for everyone involved. However, do you remember that ever being a discussion or is this just newsletter stuff? I don't remember anything even remotely similar to this. This is the first I've heard of that. Johnny came to me at the airport and he was determined that he wanted to get to the next level and he felt that Vince McMahon could do it for him. That's it. There was no issues regarding, you know, Jesus Christ approving his creative. That is so silly. It's so, it's twisted. It's demented is what that is. Nothing is further from the truth. It's that simple. Meltzer had this,

Romero had this to say. I love to straighten that out. First of all, I was making really good money with WCW at the time. I was on a guaranteed contract and they treated me really good there. They gave me a great deal and at that time it was amazing. What happened was, Kimberly was a sweetheart, I enjoyed working with her. But what happened was at the time my daughter was eight or nine years old and it was difficult for her to see me on TV with another woman. She'd be crying at night when I came home and she'd say I was leaving her mommy and stuff like that. All I said was I don't really need a valet. I mean, Johnny Be Bad didn't necessarily need a valet. he didn't need to have someone walking with him to the ring and i brought it up that maybe it'd be

better if i didn't have one then it became this whole religious thing and stuff and it was not that at all it's just that it was more about my daughter being hurt seeing her so upset it just got blown out of proportion maybe someone has their own version or whatever but that's my point of view i just remember that being the reason that sounds a lot more logical to me that yeah and that's yes there was this whole idea of me reacting because of his faith I'm working real hard just to keep my shit to myself right now because it's going to get ugly here in a second okay no I don't want to do it I don't I mean this this one actually

make you know Dave's stupid stuff the things that he says it doesn't matter these are it's just Dave being stupid they being the weak individual that he really is and the needy individual that he really is. But this is different, and I'm just going to leave it at that, but it was not true. None of that was true. Mark's issue, if he had one with Kimberly, that's a conversation. That's an easy conversation to have. And one, by the way, I wouldn't have disagreed with because he didn't need a valet.

The whole idea of a valet is kind of a dated, silly thing anyway, unless there's a creative angle or there's a plan for it. There's a reason. But just to have a valet for the sake of having a valet is a, is a waste of money. And it actually dilutes the character that you want to have focus on. So I would have had that conversation all day long with a smile on my face. But this whole thing that Dave reported is Dave's sick, twisted shit.

Well, we know that he's out of here. He's going to sign with the WWF. He's going to start at WrestleMania 12. A few weeks later, Sabel will be there officially. as his valet. The NWO, of course, is starting to take shape in 1996. And I wonder where that would have left Johnny B' bad.

I mean, do you think perhaps if he would have stuck around, we both agreed that the Johnny Bidt Bata persona would have changed, do you think he would have been carrying the flag for WCW or could you have seen him being a heel member of the NWO? I couldn't have seen him being a heel member of the NWO, but I could easily have been. have seen him getting very serious and transitioning out of the Johnny v. Bad character

into another character, or perhaps just Mark Merrow, but a more serious defender of WCW along with, at that time, the Stings and the Lugers and the Steiner's and a lot of other people who were, you know, opposed to the NWO. Certainly Johnny would have been a big asset in that, that story. Mark does find some success in the WWF, first as the Wild Man and then eventually Marvin. marvelous Mark Mero, but ultimately it's Sable, who becomes the breakout superstar. He leaves the company at the end of 98. She winds up leaving in May of 99 with a sexual harassment lawsuit and toe.

And shockingly, she shows up in the crowd on Monday Nitro in June. And it's kind of weird. We didn't do much with him or her, rather. And then we see him make an appearance. Maybe he has a one-off in June of 2000. for WCW. He's going to confront Take Abbott, which we recently discussed on our Slambery 2000 episode. Why don't you think we were able to do more with Mark? Why don't he have a second act in WCW, do you think?

Well, if, if Mark was interested in making a comeback to WCW in 2000, 2000 was a really, really, really, really bad year for WCW. Yeah. I don't know what month that particular, I may not have even been there. so I can't really address as to why nothing was done with Mark back then. I don't think I was there. I can't answer that, honestly, other than to say WCW was a disaster by 2000, and it would have been hard for anybody to come in and be successful. He dusted off the Johnny Be Bad persona for TNA,

a handful of shots here in 2004 and 2005, before he officially called it a day in 2006. briefly tries his hand as a wrestling trainer. And we know these days he's helping a lot of folks do a lot of good things as a motivational speaker. Have you seen one of his speeches? Yes. Yes.

What did you think? He's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. He's he's got a gift and he's passionate. And when you have talent and passion that kind of there's a confluence and that confluence becomes magic. And he's a magical. He is.

I imagine it's not the right word. He's a powerful inspirational speaker because he's real. He's honest. He's authentic. It's hard to find. What do you think his legacy in wrestling will be? Different today than it was before this podcast, I hope. I hope people appreciate him more.

I do, by the way, by virtue of this podcast because I've learned things about him that I didn't really remember or even know to begin with. So my respect for Mark Merrow has been elevated substantially. as a result of this podcast. And I hope that people listening kind of spread the word. Mark deserves it, support him, cheer him on, but what he's doing now, I will, even more so now than I ever have because of what I've learned here.

The fact that he made the progress that he made and achieved the success that he achieved in such a short period of time in and of itself is worthy of, you know, legacy conversations and at least making sure that people understand it because it's so rare. he's like a wrestling unicorn in that regard in terms of the progress he made and the success that he had beyond that as a human being to take that success that he had and all the things that he learned the good experiences the amazing experiences the bad experiences the challenges all of the you know it's not forget to talk about the fact that he had heart surgery

not that long ago and kicked out of that and looks great, it's healthy today. He's an inspiration. That should be his legacy. He's an inspiration because Johnny did it. Johnny did things that other people, very few people have ever achieved other than I guess Kurt Engel. In terms of the progress that he made success he had so early on things that would take your average, you know, I don't know if average. I would guess that if somebody did a statistical average and studied it, it probably takes an average of five, six, seven years to achieve the level of success that Johnny had in 18 months. That's inspirational.

The fact that he achieved as much success as he did even after he got that break is inspirational. The fact that he has turned his life into something that helps other people is inspirational. So when I think of legacy and Mark Merrow, I think of the word inspiration. And I hope other people do too. Hey, let me ask you something. Bruce has often said that he, he being Bruce, didn't really know how to go out in front of a crowd and be Bruce Pritchard.

But if he was tasked with being Brother Love, well, he had that all day. But he just didn't have an understanding of who his character was and who he was supposed to be as far as Bruce. But like he knew exactly how to be Brother Love in public. But he struggled with how do I, how do I be Bruce and I thought that was fascinating and I wonder in hindsight do you think maybe mark Miro had some of that too like he just took to that Johnny B bad character and crushed it

but like Mark Miro who is a legitimate badass who is a golden gloves boxer who can sell his ass off and lock down the arenas of the world like this guy can talk and and he can perform and he can check all the boxes but I wonder in hindsight would he have had the same issue maybe that Bruce did he knew how to be brother love he knew how to be Johnny be bad could he have had the same successes quote unquote just mark marrow not as just Mark Merrill because Mark Merrill is a pretty soft spoken polite respectful individual so he would have had to turn up the volume even as a baby face on some of those characteristics and and played it up as opposed to being who he really is as

walking down the street or talking to someone, you know, into school. I don't think he would have had any trouble. It would have, he would have had to find that character and find out what works for the real Mark Merrill and what elements of his personality, he felt comfortable dialing the volume up on. But the real answer to your question is, I don't know. And I don't think any of this he'll ever know because he never got that opportunity. J.M. Wagner wants to know how much of Johnny B. Bad Success in W.C.W. was his talent.

and how much was his epic tan do not underestimate the power of a tan you do so at your own peril it's all i've got to say it's advice right take it or leave it i don't care it's all talent man it was all talent and yes it was his he had a great look let's not diminish that sometimes the right look at the right time can can take you far um but it was his talent his talent spoke volumes And I think that's pretty obvious and just watching his trajectory on this episode. Let's talk about Tristan's question. He says, do you think Johnny B. Bad is one of the most unfairly criticized character in WCW to me.

He's synonymous with 93 to 95 WCW. And in my opinion, really stood out for most of the midcard guys at the time. I would say yes, he is unfairly criticized. What say you? Most definitely. You know, you can criticize the character. and the use of that character all day long. And it's subjective. It's an opinion. Some people loved it.

Some people didn't. Whatever. That's what we're here for it, right? But criticizing him as a talent and a performer, that's a criminal. Chance Ellis has a great question for us. He says, Johnny B. Bad was such a great gimmick and performer pre-NW.A. Both he and Marcus Alexander Bagwell were both rising talents for being athletic and charismatic. Eric, who did you see having a brighter future at the time? Great to meet you in Huntsville.

Wow. Oh. Totally different presentations, but I get the question. I can't pick one. That's, I can't. I wish I could. I wish I could answer that question with a definitive answer that would be entertaining and somewhat provocative or controversial,

but the truth is I can't. they were both really really good and probably both at or near the best parts of their careers in terms of their abilities and their ability to be a great character for a number of years so they were both at i don't want to say at their peak but damn close to it and they both brought so much to the table that i couldn't pick one it's just impossible for me last one uh jeff wants to know. Any thoughts on the similarity in the Johnny B. Bad character to that of gorgeous Jimmy Garvin? Also, did you feel Johnny had more chemistry on screen with Kimberly than he did later with Sable? So we'll answer the last question first. What did you think of the Johnny B.

Bad Kimberly pairing compared to the Wildman, Mark Mero, Sable pairing? Well, it's the best of my recollection. The Kimberly pairing was a storyline that had an arc. It was never meant to be permanent. It was a temporary creative approach, right? I think the chemistry was better with Kimberly and Mark, even though apparently Mark was uncomfortable with it for valid reasons, I guess. But the energy felt, my impression watching Mark Merrill and Sable in WWF was awkward. It was awkward.

I don't know why, but I just, it may be because in my head, I'm going, why in the world are they putting Rina on, why all of a sudden Rina wants to be on television or is willing to be on television? She was so shy and introverted, you know, in my experience with her. And then seeing her out there in the way we saw her out there was so weird for me that maybe the strangeness of it because of my previous experience with her, or impression of her, I should say. made it feel awkward to me.

I don't know how the rest of the audience felt, but Kimberly and Mark felt a little bit more natural to me and maybe only because I knew it was a storyline. That makes sense. Totally get it. The last piece, Jimmy Garvin, you know, I mean,

this guy was doing the gorgeous Jimmy Garvin persona. You could certainly see, or it looked to me at the time, that maybe John, had uh or mark merrill had been advised hey go watch some gorgeous jimmy garvin it felt like some of those same mannerisms were there but again is anything really all original in wrestling like somebody's borrowing from someone else and not just in wrestling but in music and everything did you see the similarities between the gorgeous jimmy and uh and the and the and the johnny be bad

character it never did but that could likely be due to the fact that i didn't watch a lot of gorgeous Jimmy Gervin. So that's probably the real answer. Well, listen, we hope you guys have enjoyed a stroll down memory lane. We did our best to pay homage and give flowers to somebody. We both agree is criminally underrated and needed to be celebrated a little bit today. So let's all wish Mark a happy birthday. It's coming up before you know it to be the big six three.

By the way, we've got some fun stuff playing for ad-free shows.com. You heard us talking about Top Guy Weekend at the top of the program. greatly appreciate everybody coming and hanging out with us today for our live watch along our live recording of this but we are doing a big watch along Eric I can't believe this is real but as folks are listening to this this Thursday so just a handful of days from now this Thursday is the exact 25 year anniversary of Holcogen and Goldberg at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia and we are going to do a live watchalong to celebrate that 25th anniversary over at ad free shows.com and you never know

who might show up at these because we've been known to have some surprise guests and some surprise run-ins, but it's the biggest WCW show of all time. Over 40,000 fans in the arena to see Goldberg become the man and finally topple Hollywood Hulk Hogan for the world title on free TV. The high watermark for WCW 25 years ago and you can join us over at ad-free shows.com. Come on, jump on, chat, chat and chop it up with Eric and a whole host of other folks as we relive one of the most important moments in wrestling history. And Eric, when you think about, you know, the highest to highs of WCW personally at Georgia Dome show has got to be near the top

of the list now. It was in some respects because it was our backyard and of course, all the Turner executives who previously couldn't wait to unplug WCW and distance themselves from the WCW brand and business so much so that a lot of the WCW employees felt uncomfortable wearing their name tags down to the atrium to eat lunch because they were feeling so unwanted and unwelcome to go from that environment to having senior executives from Turner Broadcasting calling to see if they could get tickets for their family and friends to an event. That was very, very satisfying to me. In that respect, yeah, it was an awesome, awesome moment in my experience with WCW.

I'm glad we're going to get to celebrate it. It's happening this Thursday. Come join us, ad-free shows.com. By the way, you get all these shows early and ad-free, including a brand new Insiders conversation I just did with Dirty Dick Cheatham. Now, you might not know that name, but we've talked about it here and there on the show before. He was one of the chief accountants for Turner. He didn't necessarily work for WCW. He worked for Turner, and he's got stories that you've never heard before about how the business of professional wrestling worked inside that organization. So check it out if you haven't already. It's available now at ad-freeshows.com. I want to mention, too, if your business

targets men that are 25 to 54 years old, buddy, there's no better place to advertise than right here. You hear some of the same commercials week after week after week for years. For years, years. Now why is that? Well, because it really works. You see, with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. So go right now to advertise witheric.com and find out more about advertising here on the program. The easiest and cheapest and best way to support the program is to go like us, hit that subscribe button, turn your notifications on, hit us with some comments on our YouTube. That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. We're both active on social media. Twitter handles are at E. Bischoff and at hey, hey, hey, it's Conrad. You can catch us on

Instagram at the real Eric Bischoff and at Hey, hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Also want to plug our show handles. It's at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and we've got tons of new swag and merchandise. Something for everybody. You need a beach towel. You need a cooler. You need a coozy. You need a hat. You need something for the summer. You need that tank top. We got you hooked up at box of gimmicks.com. Eric, I don't know what I expected today, but I'm glad we got to celebrate Mark Merrow. And I'm looking forward to your favorite holiday tomorrow, man, Independence Day. Here we come. We are cooking. We're having a couple cocktails. We're going to go into town. Fourth of July morning, I get up about

536, heading to town because the parade starts around nine. It is the best Fourth of July parade I've ever experienced. I actually enjoy it so much. I look forward to it all year round. It's a real special day for us. It's my wife's birthday. It's the 4th of July. My father passed away on the 4th of July. So it's a little bit of a family reunion, kind of get together. So there's a lot of things going on emotionally for me on the 4th.

But mostly it's about living in a great country. And regardless of what you think or what you believe about what's going on, we all have opinions, but this is still the greatest country in the world. And I'm proud to live here. I'm proud of the country. I get to go watch a bunch of people that feel the same way I do express their gratitude for everything that this country has to offer. So I'm looking forward to that.

It's going to be a great time. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and be sure to check back in with us on Thursday at freestows.com just in time for the 25th anniversary, Goldberg and Holkogen. We'll be back next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey guys, Tony Shavani. You need to call the timeout real quick.

Wanted to tell your listeners and what I've been telling me what happened when listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-freeshows.com. On a new edition of The Insiders, Conrad sits down with former Turner Finance Executive Dirty Dick Chita, talking about the internal war between WCW and Turner and the Monday Night War with the WWF. And the systems said, hey, you're not going to believe his down there. I said, she's China's down there and his own talk.

And I went over to her window because, hey, the whole, All the Deggs is down there. Get the camera! So we went down there, and of course, every DX was back to what was down there in a fight with security. On a bonus episode of My World, Double J watches back his tag team championship match against FTR and breaks down the hilarious Briscoe Farms kit that preceded it. And they said, can y'all be in their background talking? And the four of us are down there, really just all four of us.

But lethal and sign jazz said, we got to start being silly. I just started to drumming the guitar and Sondon started announcing that baby and Sajan started doing the dose of dough. I think this is, I don't know, the funnies, but I still think it's hilarious. It's a complete ad libel, but it played to, you know,

the line he said, them clowns, and we're down there dancing. Perfect. That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you with four levels to choose from, see for yourself. My ad free shows is the best value

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