83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 278: Bash At The Beach 1995

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

On this episode of 83Weeks, we are diving deep into the development of Monday Night Nitro and all the other happenings leading up to Bash At The Beach 1995! Eric shares his thoughts on how the concept of a beach ppv came about, how Baywatch got involved with the company, and why he considers Kevin Sullivan to be one of the greatest minds in professional wrestling. All that, plus Eric's latest take on the professional wrestling landscape today. HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit HENSONSHAVING.com/83WEEKS to pick the razor for you and use code 83WEEKS and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. FACTOR - 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

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Woo! Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am, we're doing good, you know, kind of decompressing after an amazingly fun and enjoyable weekend, week, I should say. Our guests are all gone. I took my brother to the airport yesterday and sent him back to Minneapolis. He had a great time.

we're already looking forward to next year but it's nice you know we're going to i'm going to do this show with you guys this morning it's sunday morning as we're recording and then uh i think mrs b and i are just going to take it right up the north fork and uh check out the scenery and maybe stop for a cocktail along the way so it's going to be a relaxing day i love it and happy belated birthday to mrs b i know it's uh it's a holiday and a birthday it's pretty cool and you know i put two and two together after last week's episode a couple of years ago you talk about talked about being friends with the the glizzy king of the Midwest. And I think that's the fellow who was driving in last week, who had car trouble, right? Is that the same guy, the

glizzy king? That's the same guy, Bob Niedercore. And of course, he's his wife, Tammy. And they have Heritage Sausage Company in Holman, Wisconsin, just outside of La Crosse. Beautiful little area, by the way, love visiting there. But yeah, and Tammy's kind of like the brain trust behind it all. She grew up her father was a butcher. made sausage and kind of part of her childhood growing up. She's always been interested in it. So she's kind of like the real brains behind the product and all the, you know, like the bacon and the sausage and they mixed up.

She made some garlic pepper bacon and brought it out here to Wyoming for us to try. And it is otherworldly, like I've never had anything that good in my life when it comes of bacon or any meat for that matter incredible but anyway yeah tammy's the brains behind it bob keeps everything running you know he's uh he's one of those guys that could you know fix a nuclear reactor with duct tape and some you know elmer's glue he can just fix anything so that's his role but yeah if you're anywhere near holman in wisconsin check out heritage meats how about that nice little shout out for our friends and business and eric there's a lot of moving parts in wrestling these days before we get into our topic which

I'm pretty excited about. We're talking about Bash the Beach, 1995. I think a forgotten great show. What a cool environment. We're going to go long form on it here in a minute. But before we do, I wanted to take your temperature. I know you've had a lot of out of town guests this week. But were you able to catch up with any of the current wrestling?

Did you see what's going on with the bloodline or collision? Or have you seen any of the current stuff? I have not, brother. I got up this morning and wanted to watch collision from Saturday night. And it's not showing up on my Sling app quite yet, of course, it aired last night. So hopefully it'll be there later on this afternoon and I'll get a chance to see it. I'm not sure where else I can find it. But I'll look because I really want to see it.

For me, you know, I watched the first episode with the intention of really analyzing it, not from a personal point of view or just a really technical kind of strictly format and outline. I didn't want to talk too much about storyline because it was the first episode. and it's the first episode. We're starting a series of new stories with a new episode. At least that's how I looked at it. But I haven't been able to watch it since because of, you know, the nature of my life in the Fourth of July week and all that.

But I'm going to watch the next two or I think there's three now. This will be the fourth of Saturday night. So I'm going to watch them all together at some point, maybe after dinner this evening, because I want to see how they're connecting. Is it episodic? you know or are these one-off type of shows that don't really do an adequate or good job of connecting the dots from week to week to hopefully build that episodic audience you can't have

you know wrestling has always been episodic television right for years it was referred to as you know soap operas for men well you can't have a successful episodic television series if you don't have episodic story so that's what i want to look at you know i did drop in on the episode I think it was the second episode and I noticed that they changed their open which is it the show up sorry I'm dropping in and out of here what we lost you what did you say about the second episode that changed the open and what they changed the open they changed the open and it's you know you immediately had you know just single talent talking to the camera what's going to happen tonight

Um, I like that. Now, I didn't think they were very well produced. Wait, let me, let me give you some context that I know, I know you didn't necessarily grow up on it. That was my favorite thing they did in week two. Let me explain why. If you grew up watching Saturday night's main event, the WWF staple big time show from the 80s, they did that exact same thing.

Now, I know a lot of people would say, well, what's different about that? Go listen to an old episode of Saturday night's main event. Go watch it. but listen during those promos and there's a familiar little beat underneath uh i don't know how to describe it but it's very um there's a baseline you'll know it when you hear it when they started a second episode of collision i was like that's the saturday night's main event theme now it's not the exact same but it's so close it's a tip of the cap and i know you may not have had that context because you didn't grow up watching saturday night's main event but as someone who did i was

like, this is awesome. So they were really leaning into it, much like a lot of people thought, well, this logo was inspired by Nitro or what have you. Man, that open with that little bit of music underneath the promo made me feel like a 10 year old kid again. I loved it. Oh, that's, and I didn't have that context. And I appreciate that. And that makes it even more interesting. I would have liked to see those promos be less forced. They still had a lot of, let me tell you something. What I say, you know, yeah, bring it down, make it slight. more real and authentic in the delivery and less like a memorized wrestling promo and I think that open is a winner. The fact that they you're doing something different made me excited to see the

rest of that episode, especially right off the top of the hour because at that point, and again, we're talking about a show that happened two weeks ago, books. So if this past Saturday night's episode is different, please understand what we're talking about here. But I, you've probably heard me, you may not remember, but I've banged consistently on the drum that says, tell the viewers what you want them to pay attention to at the beginning of the hour. Tell them how to watch the show. Yes. A very successful producer by the name of Betty Medina, who at one time managed Jennifer Lopez and a bunch of other people, but turned into a very, very successful television producer in a meeting once told me that his his formula for success and he had a

tremendous amount of it was to tell the viewers how to watch your product and that's what AEW did on that particular episode. I think it can be done better, okay? But the fact that they're doing something different, they're telling the audience at the beginning of the show what to pay attention to and subconsciously, maybe even consciously. It's a, it's a little bit of television psychology you got wrestling psychology there's television psychology how do you keep that audience engaged how do you make them want to stay with your product tell them how to watch the show tell them what's going to be important coming up and create that anticipation before you go into the body your show they did that they did that and i was very very excited to see that

because it's an indication to me that at least they're thinking differently you know they've No, they've got, they've got three shows now. Each one of them has to have their own personality. And collisions, so far, what I've watched, obviously is limited, but production is excellent. The first show, I won't keep putting it over. I thought the pacing, the formatting, placement of certain elements of the show was about as good as it could be.

A lot of things I sell that I like, but the thing that I'm most excited about right now is they're thinking differently. how do they make collision feel different than dynamite without it being without making dynamite less than right you don't want to do that you don't want to make collision so cool that i'm skip it i'm going to do something else Wednesday night because i'm going to see the good stuff on saturn right you don't want that so you got to and that's a fine that's a delicate balance it's tough it's easy to talk about very hard to do but if they're thinking differently and recognizing that then hopefully they're going to recognize the episodic part of episodic television and maybe they're going to grow

into their potential. We know they have it, but they've got to grow into it. Well, I'm excited for you to watch this week's episode. I absolutely loved it as we're recording. It was last night. I thought FTR had a fantastic match, maybe the best match of the night, maybe even the best match of the week. But then the main event was something I was really hyped about. I first started really paying attention to Ring of Honor back in 2004. And what hooked me was a great series of matches, a trilogy, if you will, between C and Punk and Samoa Joe. And Dave Meltzer was passing out really strong ratings and it made me go out of my way

to say, all right, what is this about? Let me go check this out. I loved it. I loved what Punk and Joe did. And we haven't really seen it since 2004, as best I can recall. So the idea that we got a chance to see them do it again was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. I think you'll dig it too.

I would have liked to have seen maybe a bigger package educating. I mean, I was so excited about the matchup. I was talking Megan Ziroff about how cool it was to see those guys do their thing in 2004. And now we get to do it again. Like tapping into that wrestling nostalgia is something I think they've done well. I really enjoyed collision. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about is the ratings.

And I know you break this down on Strictly Business with John Alba every week. But real quick, I'm sure you saw or at least heard. about Wade Keller's report that had all the DVR numbers and showed that there's pretty significant growth not only on dynamite but on collision where they're adding at least 100,000 sometimes several hundred thousand viewers just on DVR and that's not a number that's readily released in that initial rating anyway. I found that to be fascinating because I'll be honest most of the time I watch my wrestling on DVR. I know the things I like. I know the things I don't like. I often compliment the things I like. I keep the things I don't like to myself

here. But more often than not, I find myself DVR in the show. I'm going to watch the stuff I like and fast forward the stuff I don't. So I thought it was cool that we got that report. I mean, that's just sort of a sign of the times, right? People are consuming things differently. Appointment TV outside of, you know, maybe a college or NFL football game or, you know, some NBA playoff or whatever. It's all just different from the way it was 20, 30 years ago. Well, of course it is. I read something interesting, it must have been about two weeks ago, and I think it was an ad age magazine or multimedia magazine, whatever, it doesn't matter.

That said basically last year, last calendar year, linear television lost 16% of its audience to streaming. That's not a lot. I mean, it's significant. Don't get me wrong, but it's not definitely. devastating. Right. But then you think about, well, that was just for last year. Right. What about the year before that? You know, because that's, it's kind of like compounding, right? Yes. But yeah, it's interesting. What I don't know. And maybe I'm going to find somebody who is in the television ad sales industry, somebody who's been in it for a long time.

Got a few friends that were in that side of the business and still are. I'm going to get them on. strictly business to do a very serious deep dive into what all this means. Because we're getting data, assuming that it's reasonably accurate. I think it's fair to say it probably is. There's no reason to jack it around, right? Right. I'd like to know how does that, how do advertisers feel about that? So if, for example, yeah, there's an extra 100,000 viewers. How does an ad agency look at that. Do they go, oh, wow, well, then let's cue that. Let's make it a cumulative number, add it to the original, and let's base our success or failure formula as an investment, an ROI, as an advertiser. Let's look at that number. Or do they dismiss the DVR number?

Because typically DVR people. Fast forward the commercials. They go right through the commercials. So it really doesn't matter to them. Right. right it doesn't have any value to them if it doesn't have any value to the advertisers or limited value then it really doesn't mean much i would if it does if it does have value then the opposite is true i bet eric it's a hybrid you know um in my business sometimes we'll see an appraisal and we'll see an appraiser who will give value to the basement but not the same dollar per square foot that he would for above ground footage so it's not it's not a zero value, but it is a fraction of what it would be if it were above ground. So I bet those DVR

viewers to your point do have value, but not nearly what it would have been on a live viewing. I can't wait to hear that episode of Strictly Business. I know you're going to hit a home run with that conversation. And I'm also fascinated, you know, when like the dynamite rating that came out this week, it was under a million. And I know, you know, the, the hardcore WWE fans and AEW haters, they do a victory lap, but it was number one on the night. So, I mean, how what I understand. Oh, well, no, okay, I get it. But it's number one.

It's the most watched thing. Like it's, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's the number one of the night on cable. Right, right, right, right. And look, I'm guilty of it. I've done it myself. I get it. I mean, you've got to promote your product. You've got to promote your product.

You have to put your product in the best light you possibly can for the consumer and the audience in this case. So I'm not being critical, but I am being honest about it and realistic about it. Having done so myself, there's a lot of spin here. And it's not a lie. Illusionary marketing, I think, is what Jeff Stewart tells it. Yeah, you know, it's trying to create perception. And Vince McMahon probably did that as well as anybody that, you know, is in argument. of course. Eventually, it becomes a fact. You know, it's kind of like if you tell a lie

enough times, eventually it'll become the truth in the minds of the people to listen to it. Yes. But, because they just kind of abandoned critical thinking. But, but it was the number one show of the night on cable. Yeah. It's a big difference in being the number one show all week. That's different. And the way that oftentimes, and I'm not accusing AEW of doing this, but sometimes, but a lot of times the real AW supporters, those in the media will just drive that home and drive that home. Keep in mind that it probably did about the same number of viewers as the Weather Channel, right? I don't know. I'm just pulling that one out of my ass. But if you look at all of the different shows on cable television and then for the week and then you look at a

dynamite rating, it's important, it's significant, but it's not nearly as significant as sometimes it's made out to be. Well, I think you, you know, Terry Funk once told Dave Meltzer, you judge a match based on what the crowd thought that night who saw it. And I think, you know, if we're going to compare apples to apples, then we should compare cable shows to cable shows. But I get what you're saying about there is a difference between saying the most watched thing on television versus the number one show on cable.

But if your show is on cable, being the number one show on cable, pretty cool deal. And by the way, I think that matters less than. because it's you and I've talked about neither you nor I have a traditional cable subscription service I'm using YouTube TV you're using sling everything's a little different and that's why I like talking about the way wrestling used to be and that's what we're doing today we're going to be talking about bash at the beach 1995 but before we do I want to give a tip of the cap we had some really cool content this past week on adfree shows.com we just passed the 25th anniversary of the night Goldberg beat Hulk

Kogan for the world title in the Georgia Dome. And we had a couple of special guests, Eric, Larry Zabiscoe and Kevin Sullivan jumped on the program. Of course, Kevin Sullivan was helping you map out all of the WCW creative in that era. And of course, Larry Zubiscoe was the guy who originally came up with the name, the new world order, and of course, one of the talking heads on the nitro program. How fun was that, man, watching that match back 25 years ago on the very same day. with Larry Zabiscoe and Kevin Sullivan.

Anybody that's listened to this show has heard me say the same thing over and over again. I had not watched that match or any aspect of that show that I can remember since we did it. Right. And it was such a great show. Talk about a format. Talk about, I mean, that show was formatted. That show was formatted perfectly. And the reaction from the crowd, and going back to Terry Fogg's point of view, which I agree with wholeheartedly, the only thing that matters is how the crowd reacts.

And that crowd was on fire. It was so much fun. I love Larry Zabisco. I've always enjoyed listening to Larry. He makes me laugh, but he's also really, really smart and has a great perspective. Yes, he was from another era. but there are a lot of basic fundamentals that I'm sure FTR, for example, would agree with and many others that that basic, the fundamental storytelling and psychology of wrestling

will always keep wrestling alive. The rest of it is exciting. It's like the fireworks on the 4th of July, but man, it's it's just icing on the cake. It's not the whole thing. And the whole thing, in my opinion, for wrestling is great story, great psychology and the execution of it in the ring. in a way that allows you to feel like you're watching an actual contest and that's something else. And Larry is one of the best.

I learned some, you know, I didn't really realize how much I learned from Larry until we started doing this show. And I was asked questions about, you know, doing play by play and my learning how to become an interviewer and a stick man. And the more I'm asked about the question, the more I find myself, in an effort to be honest about it going back to the people who really it's not like we sat down on a class and he said okay eric get up your pen of paper can take notes because here's how you do this it was a gradual process but the things that I've held on to that I think actually you know helped me to become an adequate play-by-play announcer and and that later on really helped me when it came to the creative side of what I wanted to do with WCW all started with Larry Zubiscoll and

Vern Gagne. And to a degree, Greg Gagne. The influence that they had on me, and I didn't know they were having it at the time, but it keeps manifesting or kept manifesting throughout my career. So hats off to Larry. And now Vern and Larry and Greg, I would put Vern number one. Greg number three. I notice that we keep dropping. I keep dropping out for like two or three seconds. I'm just going to keep rolling through it. Let me know if I have to back up. I think we're getting most of it. You know, you're in the middle of nowhere. So we're going to give you a pass every now and again for having some spot of internet. But you know, I just had this realization this week, Eric, I think the first

week of July belongs to Hulk Hogan. You know, I mean, we sort of gloss over it and miss it sometimes, but the dude dropped the belt to Goldberg on July the 6th of 1998. But two years prior to that, July 7th is when he turned heel in 1996. And to think that those were essentially on a calendar back to back. I realize they're separated by two years. But my goodness, that first week of July, Hulk Hogan has had so much impact in wrestling. But just that first week, man, those are huge pivotal moments. I mean, the biggest crowd, the largest gate, I mean, such a high watermark for WCW with the whole Goldberg NWO world title thing at the Georgia Dome. But two years prior is when it all got kicked off and wrestling was never the same. That first week of July,

should be Hulk Hogan week to wrestling fans, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, if you, yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you go back and you look at, you say the same thing, I guess, about, uh, all cogan arriving in WCW and bash at the beach with there. So there's a lot of first week in July, uh, dots to connect there that create a pretty cool picture for Hulk Hogan and fans of Hulk. Yeah, you're exactly right. That match, uh, Bash at the Beach went down July 17th, 1994, July, man.

Like the first week of July, but still July. Hulk Hogan month is July. And of course, we're going to be talking about Hulk Hogan today. We've covered the previous paper view prior to Bash at the Beach 95 in the archives. That was, of course, Great American Bash. We covered that three years ago. It's available in the archives right now over at 83 weeks on YouTube.com. That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com.

But what's interesting about this era is again, this is 1995. were fresh off of the announcement that Nitro was going to be a thing. And just a few days ago, I recorded a podcast with Bruce Pritchard where we talked about what they were doing for King of the Ring 1995, and that included the announcement of Nitro and how it was going to be, or how it was received by Bruce and Vince at the time. And here's what Dave Meltzer wrote. A few more WCW notes stemming from the announcement of the new Monday Night Telegram,

television show, which might be called head-to-head, which starts on August 7th against Raw nationwide on the T&T cable network. Nancy Sullivan, ECW's woman, was given a tryout as an announcer this past week, but the only word we've gotten is to expect Eric Bischoff to host for the show and for it to have a totally new look. The first show will be tentatively emanating from Sarasota, Florida, and will take place one day after a Sunday night clash of the champions from Daytona Beach we know that doesn't wind up happening but you know I'm sure there were lots of discussions about what will be called the show where should the first show take place all of that jazz do you remember the show ever tentatively perhaps being suggested that it's called

head to head do you remember hearing that no that never happened but it it could I mean not at my level now could there have been the Gary justers who were talking to the Dave Meltzers and Zane Bresloff who was friends with Dave Meltzer and who worked for me and was close with me as well. There might have been chatter at that level about, hey, what I think. Oh, a cool name would be this. But it never got to myself or Brad Siegel

or anybody in the marketing or promotional department. It was almost instantly. And Brad Siegel, this is, you know, I love working with Brad. Brad was very cool during this time. Brad was pretty sold on the idea of nitro because, again, the nitro action block was already a thing on T&T. I think it was on Tuesday nights at T&T Nitro on Tuesday nights. And it was like Chuck Norris films and, excuse me, Steven Seagall films and, you know, all that kind of testosterone action pack, Sylvester Stallone stuff. That was the nitro block, if you will.

And I think that block started at eight Eastern and when. to 11. And I think because Brad felt like Nitro, because of the nature of what professional wrestling is and how it was going to be positioned on the network, we're going after the same audience as those who were watching the T&T Nitro block on Tuesday nights, action. So that was Brad's idea to call it Nitro right out of the gate. It didn't hit, you know, it's not like we sat around and tried to come up with a name for a week or two.

It was almost instantly going to be called Nitro. Brad explained why he wanted to call it Nitro. I didn't feel so strongly about the name Nitro. I kind of dug it because it was one, you know, it was Monday night, Nitro, but Nitro was the brand and that's a nice, strong, powerful,

easy to visualize kind of action branding. But that was a Brad Siegel decision. And I was how made that decision because it was a good one. You know, I wanted to ask you about the Nancy Sullivan report too. I'm sure that Kevin, Sullivan was at least suggesting, hey, what if we try it?

Or maybe someone thought, hey, this might be a nice thing for Kevin. Obviously, we know it didn't work out. But I did think that was an interesting idea because I had to rack my brain as I thought about that. And with the exception of Renee Young, like five years ago for a month, maybe on Raw and maybe a month on Smackdown, there's never really been a female play-by-play or color analysts in wrestling. And I'm wondering why you think that is.

Like it feels like we've definitely made steps in the right direction for trying different voices, you know, so we've had different dialects or whatever and accents on Monday Night Raw, whether it was J.R. or Nigel McGinnis or whatever, but we've never really, and certainly Booker T, so we've used, you know, some, there has been diversity, but never really a lady at the desk. Why do you think that is? That sort of baffles me that here in 2023, that's That's not really been a thing yet. I agree with you, especially when you look at the effort that, I hate to even mention it because it's going to come with a fair amount of criticism, but look at what ESPN has done

over the, you know, they've done, they've made a lot of mistakes, in my opinion. They've done a lot of things that have caused them to lose support from a large section of their audience, if you will. But they've also done some things right. And if you look at, and whether it's the NFL, I mean, you. I mean, the sports leagues are doing the same thing. You're starting to see a lot more women in roles that were traditionally male roles when it comes to the broadcasting part. Yes.

And I think it's absolutely necessary. I can't, you brought up a really good point here, Conrad. If I'm, if I'm Bruce Pritchard and I'm listening to his buddy Eric Bischoff's podcast with his other buddy, Conrad Thompson, I'm going to be taking a note or two and think, hey, why aren't we pursuing this? Why don't we develop this? Because right now we see a lot of women in that backstage thing, right? But you already know how I feel about that. I think it's horrible anyway. I think it's wasted time for television.

It doesn't do the talent any good. It's just wasted space 80% of the time, whether it's in WWE or AEW or anywhere else. So, yeah, there are roles for women on the broadcast team. And yeah, it's, I guess, checking kind of a diversity box. But if someone. in WWE or AEW says, wow, that's a good idea that Conrad came up with because if people think it's my idea, especially somebody in AEW will be resistant to it, right? But this was Conrad's idea. So it's open season. Go ahead. But I think if you found the right person, it's got

to be the right person. Right. You can't just put a hot looking, you know, very attractive, telegenic, you know, women on there and expect it to work. That person, that female, has to have all of the talents and ingredients that go along with being a good play-by-play person or better yet, a color commentator. For example, now, I don't know how good any of these people would be that I'm mentioning, but as a kind of prototype, I guess, I know Trish wants, Trish wants to get back in the ring. Could you be good as a play-by-player?

color analyst. I think she could. I mean, certainly she's telegenic. So she'll, boom, check that box. But it is television, by the way. And yes, you do have to judge people by certain criteria. It's television. Yes. That's what radio is for. Radios for people that are

not telegenic. Yeah, radio's for me. Television is for people that, you know, yeah, it is what it is. Yeah. But find the right person, train that person, develop that talent, have them work with a coach, have them work with somebody

that's really, that knows the fundamentals and knows what makes a color commentator position a valuable one beyond just showing up as a special gas every once in a while, things like that, and train them and get them, I didn't put them in a prime time position. Don't give them a C show or D show. Put them out there. You want to be different? be freaking different take the chance but in the time and the effort to make it work i think it's a great idea i would love to see it happen i would love to see it happen too and and i don't know

where she is and her long term plans for in ring stuff but somebody like natty knighthart could be a modern day another another great example larry zibiscoe on the lady's side right had a lot of success in ring fans are familiar with her they respect her in ring and if she wants to transition and do something else i thought rene young did a great job i don't know that Jay Young did a great job. She's awesome. I hope that becomes a thing because when I read that about Nancy Sullivan, I was like, that was a good idea in 95 and here we are in 2023 and it's still not happening.

That could be a good idea for somebody and I hope that we see it sooner rather than later. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, your decision to be the guy out front on the commentary for Nitro. And I know we've touched on this before, but I always thought that was the right move. And I know, I think you've said before. that you maybe felt like Tony Chivani was sort of the tried and true voice of WCW you want something new. We know it ultimately

does become Tony's gig but I also felt like you know you know what we're trying to sell here you know what the long term futures are and you know the the grand scheme of things not just what an announcer might know

but the 30,000 flight or view vision whatever you want to call it of this whole operation so much like Vince McMahon was a guy doing it for a long, long time in the WWF. It makes sense that you would be that guy. Was that sort of your thinking? I know what I'm looking for and I know how to sell it and I know how to get us

there or what's the thinking? It was my thinking and Tony was in obviously still is, but then Tony was a better play by play announcer than I was. No question about it. He was more established with the WCWCW audience. Absolutely no question about it. But you, you're right. on the money, as usual, there were really two reasons for me to put myself out in front of it.

One is, I felt like we had to get away from new show, new opportunity, it had to feel different than everything else we're doing, much like we just got done discussing about collision and AEW. The same situation existed. How do I make this feel so much different than WCW Saturday night, which was our prime number one show at the time and it it required a different announced team you know it's unfortunately Jim Ross thought you know that I fired him because he was sounded to southern I didn't fire him Bill Shaw gave him an opportunity to leave because Jim Ross

requested that but the plan was to take JR off the broadcasting before Jim requested his release and that wasn't because I didn't think Jim was a good announcer that But quite the contrary, I knew the gym was a great announcer. It was because I felt we needed a change. Yeah. And so I checked the change box, even though I had been associated with WCW and people recognize me as a B or C squad announcer, I wasn't the face of anything.

Right. So check that box. But the biggest reason I did it is because I'm not really good. And you may have noticed in a lot of our other conversations, about things non-wrestling related. If I have an idea in my head, I see it very clearly, almost three-dimensionally, right? I can move it around inside of my head and look at an idea from different angles. And I see it.

Yeah. But I'm not that good at articulating it. I have a hard time communicating to someone to help them see what I see in my head. And sometimes I get frustrated with myself, not because, you know, happens with my wife, you know, three or four times a day sometimes. But I knew the feel, and that's the part where it gets difficult for me to articulate. Feeling is different than, okay, you've got to hit this at this point in time. You've got to get this talent over, you know, here's the story we've got to tell. Those are the basic mechanics of play-by-play.

but the feeling, the energy that I knew we had to create with it, it was something that I couldn't articulate to Tony. And I didn't want to drag Tony through the process of sitting down after every episode and saying, oh, that was all good, but this is what I'm looking for. I could have probably should have in some respects done that. But I just, things were moving too fast and I didn't feel like I could get that part of my job done. So it just became natural for me because I knew what I saw in my head. I knew that I could, I knew that I could generate that same level of energy

and help the audience see what I was seeing if I was doing it as opposed to explaining it. I don't know if that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. And I am excited to talk about this pay-per-view because, you know, a lot of people have been critical of your decision to do the Sturge's shows. and quote unquote give away the gate it's a free show blah blah blah but you explained hey man that's how we got the castrol gt x sponsorship it was a long-term play it was different than blah blah blah i think the best execution of this concept and model to me was bashed the beach on an actual beach uh this is going to happen in huntington beach california

and i know that people are going to be critical and say oh they ran a free show However, I am. Well, those people are dumbasses that have never run a business and don't know what they're talking about. So you just got to let that roll off your back. And in fairness, this is a totally different. I mean, let's just back up a minute. How is that much different from impact running TV way back when on a sound stage with free tickets? How is that much different from WCW running TV and center stage with free tickets?

Or Disney, MGM studios. This is another. this is a television company and and and and what matters is the pay per view buys yes there there might be a few dollars that you could pick up and when I say a few dollars I just want to put that in proper context the gates at the time in WCW man if you had a hundred thousand dollars it was high fives all around in the scheme of things the paper view revenue a hundred grand was a drop in the bucket so what mattered probably from a larger perspective a macro perspective was, is it going to look cool in our pitch book?

Are we going to be able to get some new licensees? Can we get some new advertisers, some new sponsors? Can we get some new eyeballs on the product? And remember now, this isn't, no disrespect, Daytona Beach. WCW ran Daytona all the time. This is Huntington Beach, California. So therefore, you might get a whole new audience of business people to take a look and get eyeballs.

And wow, we're hearing about this. who first came up with the idea of what if we put a ring on the beach in California? Do you remember? Couldn't pin that on any one individual. It was probably another one of those collaborative things that sitting in a room and just bouncing ideas. You know, it was called Bash at the Beach.

So the idea, it always bothered me that we'd call something a Bash of the Beach and not necessarily always have it out of beach. Like Bash of the Beach or Orlando. Yeah, it's all Cognito Recliffe. That's fucking Orlando. There's no beaches in Orlando. Right. Made beaches.

There's a couple bars. I know that had really cool man-made beaches. You could sit out on the beach, a little pond to drink margarities and fantasize that you're down on Alcapulco or some shit. But I always wanted to have it at a beach. The cost of doing so, the logistical hurdles,

the logistic hurdles that you would have to overcome to do something outside on a beach. And then, of course, you've got weather, which can be an issue. So there was a lot of reasons why we never did it in WCW up until this point, but once I was able to, I got the chair and I was the one that called the shots, it was like, okay, all hands on deck, let's find a beach we can do this at, but I don't know that it was my idea. I think it was, especially Huntington Beach. That would have been,

there would have been a lot of people involved in that. Sharon Sadella would have been involved in that. Mike Weber would have been involved in that. Zane Breslov, of course, would have been involved in that. So there were, there were a lot of people. I just want to remind everybody, that Eric is putting this show together at the same time he's getting ready to launch Nitro. And we've talked about that first Nitro and the launch Nitro. Of course, the original idea was maybe it'll launch in August. Then they realized, wait, uh, WWE is going to be preempted.

We can go unopposed. Let's do that instead. And now we're also trying to expand and look at new talent. We've talked about this before, uh, folks who caught our attention in New Japan, like Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. And certainly folks who had quote unquote indie buzz. like Al Snow and Sabu. We've had all those conversations when we talked about the first Nitro.

So if you haven't already, check that out over on the archives. It's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. But there's a lot of moving parts here. And you're even going to bring in some more, I don't know, um, legacy talent, if you will. Kamala is going to debut with Kevin Sullivan as his manager. Is, is this really about, hey, we've got Hulk Hogan. He'd make a nice opponent for Hulk Hogan. I mean, they made money together way back.

when why not do it again i think so i think i think i think that's fair you know when when halt came in we've talked about this a lot i'll try not to refer back to it too much but for context you know howl came in in 1994 two or three years earlier five years earlier for certain which as we've seen you know AEW has been around now for what What, four years? Yeah. It seems like yesterday, right? It does.

So when Hulk came in in 1994, of course, he's going to be comfortable with talent and versions of stories that he was involved with Amir four, five, six years earlier. And I think we can see that. Look, see him punk, Samoa Joe. What are we doing over at AEW? Oh, something that started way back when. right now it's working obviously and it's a different situation different talent different stages of their career so forth but the idea of going back to things that

have worked in the past even if they're four or five six seven years old should not be unusual if you have a critical mind and you're kind of looking at what's going on because we we see it all the time it happens um so kamala and a lot of the former opponents who were kind of lined up to feed the the baby face and feed the monster. Sure, Hawk felt very comfortable bringing them in. And who is I? Just say, no, that won't work. I didn't know then what I certainly know now by any stretch, nor did I know then what I figured out by 1998, right? In that two or three year period of time, I went to school. Right. I learned a lot, you know, by trial and error. Some things work.

some things didn't but we're talking about 1994 here um yeah a lot of that talent like kamala we're in wcw to set them up to if things went the way we hoped they would go at that time would be there to feed the monster again of course we know he's going to be a part of the dungeon of doom and we were lucky enough and fortunate enough to have kevin sullivan join us at our top guy weekend and we did a conversation with conrad but normally that's just me asking the questions we had all of our top guys there so we let them ask a lot of questions and one of the biggest questions we got was hey if you had anything to do over again with the dungeon of doom what would you do differently and he said nothing he wouldn't do anything differently

and i think a lot of people were like really and he said look guys i had to bring in all the hogan's friends that was part of the deal would you rather see them across one segment or six and it was like okay wow I hadn't really considered that so if we're trying to make Hogan the golden goose comfortable let's just you know we got to bring these these cast of characters along let's do something with them and let's put them in one segment and one program as opposed to all the Hogan's friends are working up and down the card that made a lot of sense not to be disrespectful to those talent I'm just saying hey if we if Hogan wants to work with a certain group of guys let's give it to them it's a whole stable of Hulk Hogan killers guys here to end

that made a lot of sense and I'm looking forward to picking Kevin Sullivan's brain more often because he's going to be joining us on Tuesdays over on ad free shows.com. It'll be Tuesdays with the taskmaster. How fun is that going to be, man? I'll tell you what, you know, I got to hang out with Kevin, um, at Top Guy weekend in Huntsville. Yeah. It was past, and I really enjoyed it. Um, Kevin, you got to really listen closely to Kevin. You got to really listen closely to Kevin. Because a lot of the real diamonds that can come out of the mind like Kevin Sullivan's, they're not obvious. He doesn't.

Bees you over the head with it. Yeah. Pay attention and listen closely to what he says and you almost have to read between the lines. And then every once in a while, these little nuggets of diamonds of psychology and experience come out. And I don't want to suggest that I've agreed, you know, Kevin sees things creatively so much differently than I do. It did at that time. But that's part of why it worked with he and I because we contrasted in many respects. But when it came down to, and this is what, when I think back and, you know, I said the Dusty Rhodes, once I got into a position where I could kind of affect

change, I said, Dusty, what do you need? Who do you need to make your job better? to make your job easier and to do a better job with it. He said, Kevin Sullivan, he knows heat. He knows how to create heat. So I brought Kevin in to support Dusty at Dusty's request. And it took me a while to understand Kevin and to see where that value was. Dusty had obviously worked with Kevin much more than I did. But I saw it and I see it now.

And I was reminded of it in Huntsville. We were sitting across from each other. You know, Kevin's like me. You know, if I sit down and somebody wants to start talking to me about wrestling, typically it's, I've got to get myself in a right frame of mind. I've been doing this stuff for a long time, folks, and talking about it for even longer. So I don't readily jump into a wrestling conversation too often.

But with Kevin, it started off slow. And before you know it, we're talking about what's currently going on, good and bad. And it just starts picking up steam. And in Kevin's enthusiasm, Yes. Not talking about the old days and, you know, putting each other over like two old men sit in a bar, which we do a lot. But you listen to Kevin when he starts getting a little excited.

Sometimes I do it here, you know, you really get into it. Man, those nuggets just start popping off. It's like, whoa, whoa. Now I know what Dusty thoughts you were good. Now I get it. I remember he's a brilliant guy in his own way. You've got to listen to him. And I'm fascinated.

I hope it does well because Kevin. is one of those rare, you know, there's a few of, few of those from Kevin's prime era that are still with us today and willing and able to talk about it. And I, I look forward to Kevin's show, man, he's a, he's a source of valuable insight. And this is a fun time to talk about the Dungeon of Doom and all that was going on with that. there's a Saturday night taping that happens at center stage and Paul White is in the front row he's going to do a stare down with Kamala and you know this of course is the future big show was there ever any thought given to debuting him as anything other than the giant

as best you can recall or was that always the working plan here we go again it was Hulk Kogan made that. But Hulk was the one that really brought Paul in. I can't remember the details of how they came together. I think Hulk was at a charity football basketball game in Chicago. And Paul was playing on that game. And Hogan caught sight of Paul. I think Paul was interested in wrestling.

I don't know enough of the details to even sketch it out. But at the end of that conversation, it was Hulk Hogan who said, hey, you got to see what I found. And Hulk was so excited about Paul White. And again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, Hulk or anybody else that's been successful is going to go with what they know. What's worked for me in the past? How do I recreate that?

Make it feel a little different. But do something that I believe the audience is going to respond to based on my experience in the past, which is not a bad way to make a decision generally. Hulk wanted him to be the, he wanted him to be the son of Andre or the nephew, whatever he was. That was all Hulk. So there was no discussion of maybe we should make him something else.

Never happened. Well, we, we also see in this era the shark debut, uh, along with Kevin Sullivan as his manager. Of course, this is John Tenta, the former earthquake. Uh, and of course,

Earthquake was another guy who drew a lot of money with Hulk Hogan. Not that long ago. Again, I know when we talk about this, to Eric's point, it feels like, well, that was a hundred years ago. No, that was a big program in the summer of 1990. And now here we are just five years later. So it's not nearly as long ago as we may remember. But the idea that everybody's got to have a goofy gimmick.

Of course, John Tenta was a legit badass, but the earthquake name is what has been branded. So we've got to come up with a new persona. Shark is what we go with. He's going to shave his beard, paint his face, put those shark-like teeth up. Yeah. What do you think he thought or what did you think of this shark presentation? Wasn't my cup of tea, but I also knew that not everything could be my cup of tea. So went with it, obviously. And again, and I thank you for putting this into context. 1990 this was a hot piece of business we're five years later which is about a blink of an eye yes and it's not as ridiculous to go back to something five years ago people may think it is looking at this because now you're

looking at something from 1995 that's so radically different than anything that you see now but again put yourself in a time machine go back in time it wasn't that long ago before this was a hot piece of property in the highest wrestling highest most watch wrestling show in the world at the time. So go back to what did I think of it? I didn't like the gimmick. I didn't know John Tenta. And I was thinking about when you Dave Silva brought that image up for us to see of John.

Again, I've said, what regrets you have? I have very few regrets in life in general. I wouldn't be where I'm sitting today if it were not for the good things, the bad things, and all the things in the middle that happened. I wouldn't be in this podcast right now. so I don't regret things. But I really wish I would have spent more time getting to know John Tenta because I didn't in the beginning.

He was not one of the talents that I regularly spoke to. I mean, I was cordial, of course, but there was a lot of things going on and there was a hundred guys backstage. And John Tenta wasn't the type of person that was going to come knocking down my office door to chat, right? He's a very respectful guy. But I got to know him. a little bit towards the end and what a sweet man what a genuine genuinely kind gentle man who was an incredible incredible badass he may not look like hollywood's version of what a badass should look

like he was and and that contrasted with the man because he was just i you know it sounds weird to call another man's sweet man but he was just a sweet sweet guy wish i would have gotten to know him better well said i wish he was here with us today he'd be having a lot of fun with all the the silly nonsense that happens online and wrestling these days let's talk a little bit about some backstage stuff in this era uh there's a report in early july in the observer that goes like this rumors like crazy abound about the booking situation as of press time i don't believe there's been a change, but there probably will be before you're reading this. Rick Flair and Eric Bischoff haven't seen eye to eye on several matters, and it appears Kevin Sullivan

will end up his booker. Among the disagreements are that Bischoff wants Flair in the office five days a week. Flair has been unhappy about some of the direction the booking is going, which is out of his control, and quite frankly, his points appear to be valid. So maybe Rick was talking about are here. Clearly, it's time for a change, and we know that Kevin Sullivan is going to be maybe the secret sauce for a lot of the success of Nitro. Do you think that Nitro would have been the success it was if Flare had remained more in power and Sullivan never came over?

Or would it have been a totally different presentation for Nitro? Okay, here we go. You had to bring it up. And I can't do anything, but be as honest as I can be about my perspective. Right. So Meltzer's reporting that we didn't see eye to eye and Rick wasn't in charge. That's right. Control.

It's not true. I didn't want to be involved in creative. I had, I was insecure. I was aware of my lack of experience and feel for that aspect of the business. I wanted Rick to have as much control as he needed to feel comfortable and to execute a vision. But that's a full-time job. And that's a full-time job that requires a lot of grinding in the office with the team. It's not fun.

I mean, it is fun if you're the type of person who enjoys that process. That wasn't Rick's strength. It didn't mean he didn't have the knowledge and the ability. but sitting in a look he's your father-in-law you know what i'm talking about yeah this is not you know being in that and yes he had to be in that you can't do this you know at the marriott you know out by the pool you know you've you got to do it as a team it's just the only way it works right and that wasn't rick's thing and he was uncomfortable with it i'll tell you the other thing that that made rick not a good choice to be the head of creative

certainly had the experience and the knowledge and the respect of many, not all, but many of the people that were working for us at the time. But, Rick, being in that position, you are going to get so much heat. Yes.

Particularly when you're one of them. Meaning to go from being in the locker room and a well-respected performer, on people looking up to you and you're the guy. Rick Flair was the guy from such a large part of his career. But once you leave that room and then you go into the room where people wear ties and control other people's lives, you're no longer one of them. Now, doesn't mean that the whole roster felt that way. But over time, people aren't getting what they want when they're not getting the push

that they hope they're going to get when they don't like the finish of their match and the guy that they used to hang out with in the locker room is the booker yeah that's a different kind of pressure rick didn't want that rick loved being a heel out in the ring he did not love being a heel when it came to being in the office and that's the reason why rick would have never unless rick was willing to acknowledge that and change that and take on a different view of life, meaning I got to be to work at, you know, 10 o'clock at a morning and leave by 8 o'clock at night, you know, five or six days a week, you know, it would have never worked out. It just wasn't. And it's not, again, not because he didn't have the experience,

I'm working real hard here to give credit to Rick for what credit, what Rick was good at deserve credit for. But just because you're, you're an amazing performer in the ring doesn't mean you can be an amazing executive in the office. There are two different worlds. There's a couple of specific notes that I assume Rick told Dave, or I don't know how else this would have gotten to Dave. Here's what's written. Two points in particular we've heard is that Flair wants to book TV around the TV title

matches, and with Renegate as champion, that makes that impossible because the few times they've tried to book him in matches longer than two minutes, it's exposed him and rendered him less over. Flair wants the belt put back on Arne Anderson so he could have a lot of TV title matches to fill up a lot of TV time. The other is that Flair was against the idea of putting Vader in the Dungeon of Doom, which took place over the weekend for only two weeks before his face turn since the turn is on Flair and Arne, who he's been associated with the past few months anyway. I guess the idea was that they, I suppose, meaning Hogan, want the Hogan versus dungeon feud to be the prime focus of the promotion, and it couldn't be the prime focus

when the key issue is Hogan Vader. Sullivan's ideas are that because he's more familiar with outside talent, he'd bring in a lot of wrestlers who haven't been exposed nationally. Now, listen, that is a criticism that we've heard a lot about is that Rick tried to take care of his friends. And I don't think that's a bad thing to do. That's what friends do. That's a good thing. We hear that often. Unless your name is Hulk Hogan, then it's, know, then you ruined a promotion. Well, that's what I was going to say is Hogan did that. And, and certainly other guys, we don't have to name names in the modern era,

but we know who they are. And they're bringing their friends in and roll tide. Good for them. I like when people can help their friends. That's a good thing. Shout out to Cassio Kidd. I'm just saying, this Arne Anderson piece of business feels like a smart thing. If we're going to have a television champion, maybe the, you know, the guy who has that title should

I don't know, be able to have good matches on TV. So I understand, but I wonder if the criticism wouldn't have been where it was if he had suggested someone other than Arn. Like taking the TV title off of Renegade, okay, I get that. But then suggesting, well, we should put it on Arn, people are going to look at that a certain way, right or wrong, right? Yes. And, and, look, I mean, it's hard, first of all, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I have to assume that conversation because it was fairly granular with regard to the Dungeon of Doom invader and Hogan. There is enough detail in that that suggests to me that it was probably Rick talking to Dave, which is, you know, unfortunate, but whatever. Not unusual for Rick or a lot of people at that point because they wanted to see their frustrations out in the wrestling media because they knew or they thought. at that time that wrestling executives in Turner or television executives at Turner were relying on their information from dirt sheets, much like they did when it was Jeff Carr, who was the head of programming for TBS, back in the initial WCW birth on the network. What people didn't know is that whatever was written in the dirt sheets really no longer mattered to executives because we were having enough of our own success that they weren't

looking outside of me, for example, for information. It was a lot easier just to come over to our office and talk about it. And they started doing that. But anyway, there was enough detail in that conversation that you just revisited with Dave to suggest that that wasn't, what I don't get is the whole renegade thing, because that was like a minute. Right. And there was nobody that, that I know of that was like, oh, no,

renegade is the guy. Nobody felt that way. And I think even Hulk, I don't want to speak for him, but I think there was a lot of excitement, mostly from Jimmy Hart, because that was like his baby, his project. And again, we're reaching back into something that worked four or five years earlier, whatever. But like after we saw one or two or three outings of Renegade, nobody felt like, oh, man, I'm going to give that my endorsement. Right.

So I, that, that big renegade issue being an issue is suspect to me, or whomever, let's just say whomever, was talking to Meltzer about that, probably was using that as a red herring to open up the conversation. Here's an example. And everybody would have agreed with whoever was speaking of Dave. Yeah, that's a really bad decision. And if you disagree with it, you were right. That's an easy one.

That's a give me. Right. So I don't think that. know that wasn't an issue. I do believe that the scenario that was laid out with regard to Vader in Dungeon of Doom, Sullivan, I do believe that was an issue. In fact, I know I was because I ended up getting in the middle of a couple of those discussions. So that part was true.

And if that was Rick's, again, assuming it was Rick that was speaking to him, maybe it was somebody else could have been easily we could have had that conversation with somebody who then had it with day bouncer we don't know but it was an issue it really was well listen it's not a surprise it's not a secret that rick was talking to dave we're not we're not oh well i didn't know that so yeah that's too bad um let's also talk about something that it had to be a coup at the time i realize these days when we talk about well you guys were in usa today that's so few people listening to this actually go pick up a USA today that that doesn't feel substantial. However, I want to remind you, there was a time when there weren't a thousand television channels,

and there was a time when you didn't have the internet in your pocket at your fingertips with push notifications 24-7. We didn't have information overload. So to be in not just a regional paper, but one of the few papers that's literally all over the country is a big, dog-on deal, especially in a year like 1995. Well, they do a huge write-up about television advertisers in the USA Today. And I guess, according to the rumor and innuendo, Titan had been campaigning to get whatever positive press they could about their advertisers in that thinking, hey, this could add to the bottom line.

We could take this on our next round of pitches and say, hey, look, here's how well it's working. Did you see the most recent USA Today? that becomes third party social proof from a sales perspective and instead more than half the article is about WCW and Slim Jim and Hulk Hogan is the guy that they put on the cover of the thing and of course Slim Jim is a sponsor that used to be with the WWF but when Savage came to WCW so did Slim Jim this was one heck of a coup to have this sort of quote unquote free press coverage in USA Today when

when you're focused on advertisers and how well it's working, man, that is dynamite for you, especially the timing with you about to launch this new show. This had to be high fives all around the office. And it also supported the very idea of why I wanted to bring Hulk Hogan. To be able to get that kind of press, which we would have never received from anybody other than maybe a local newspaper

in a small market, to be able to get that kind of press and then be able to effectively hijack it and it really end up being about WCW and Hall Cogan and Slim Jim, that would have never, ever, ever happened had I not brought in Hall Cogan, period, end of conversation. And the value, the value, the dollar value, and the opportunities that that one news paper art in the USA Today created is something that the Dave Meltzer, Dave Meltzers of the world and the people that write about it. You know, when we make something clear. I respect the perspective.

And I, even when I was in the business, I'm no longer in the business. But when I was in the business, I was not one of those people that believed, you don't even know how to lace up his boots. Who do you ever beat? You know, that was clearly, you know, I never laced up a pair of boots. I never was involved in a professional wrestling business before I, by happenstance, ended up getting a job on a sheer coincidence with Verganya and then go from there. So the idea that only people that are in the business have a valid perspective,

I don't believe that. Right. I do believe that a lot of people, who are obsessive, compulsive wrestling fans who write about wrestling make the mistake of trying to convince people they know about aspects of the wrestling business that they don't have a clue about. And I do call out that, which is one of the reasons I call it Dave Meltzer all the time because he's like the most guilty version of that, although there has been others in the past. Most of them have grown up and evolved and gotten with the times, I've gotten away with that.

And I'm talking about guys like Waite Keller and others who have, you know, Dave Shear certainly and everybody over Pro Wrestling Insider, Mike Johnson, particular. Everybody has grown and evolved. Sean Ross Sapp, some great people that cover the industry. Yes. But they're not trying to convince you that they know how to produce television. And that's what I end up getting a little hot about, not the fact that you have to be an expert. or you have to have been in the business to be an expert about the business. But if you're going to talk about television and creative,

you better fucking have an idea what you're talking about. You know, and how to get people over, which is, I think, the most difficult thing in the industry because it's fickle. People's, what interests people is fickle. What people find entertaining is fickle. You know, people's taste and music and fashion and anything else is, it's tough to to hit that perfect timing you know so when i hear people writing about it the failure

to get somebody over more importantly how to get someone over when they've never ever even attempted it you lose me anyway sorry sorry to go off the path well i know how we won't lose you and that's if you go ahead and hook up with henson shaving if you're seeing eric right now let's go ahead and get a tight shot of eric a full head shot of eric take a look a look at Eric you know he's bald now because of henson shaving now that that's not a hinson razor that did that okay but i am saying that we made a bet on this program about henson shaving and we did it well sort of accidentally but there's no accident and henson is our favorite razor we've ever used and i've been using henson shaving since they first sent us a kid see we

we vet every sponsor here on the show and if someone is interested in advertising on our program. They'll send us their products. We try them out. The ones we like you see here on the program. Every now and again, we'll find one and we say, this ain't for us. And that's the end. Hanson shaving is going to be a part of my life forever and ever. Amen. Even when podcasting's in my rearview mirror. This is the best razor I have ever used. And I like it for so many reasons. But what I like most about it is not only is it better than what you've been using, it's also cheaper. And normally when something is better, it costs more money. How in the world this is better and cheaper? I'll never understand. But I like these guys. They're a family-owned aerospace parts

manufacturer. I know what you're thinking. Wait a minute. I thought this was a razor company. Well, that wasn't the original plan. You see, these cats made parts for the International Space Station and the Mars rover, so they have what's known as an aerospace grade C&C machine. And that allows them to cut metal razors thinner than you've ever seen. I'm talking 0.0013 inches. And when you hear that, you probably say to yourself, self, how thick is that? Well, it's thinner than a human hair. And that means a more secure and stable blade and a vibration-free shave.

Now, this Henson Razor, if you're looking online right now on our YouTube, you can see it. It has built-in channels to evacuate hair and cream, and it makes clogging virtually impossible. What I admire most about this product is they didn't try to make the best razor business. and let's just talk about that. If they were trying to make the best razor business, then they would have something that's plastic that's going to break down on you, and you'll have to replace,

like every other razor you've ever used, probably. They'd probably sign you up for some hokey subscription, and then you're going to get a ton of razors you don't actually need, and they'll just keep coming, and before you know it, you've got a garage full of the dudes. And they don't have anything proprietary. You see, if they were building the best razor business, then they would make sure they made a razor that you couldn't use anywhere else,

Like the only way this handle works is if you get iron proprietary blade. That's not the case here. This works with a standard old school dual edge razor, just like your handsome-ass grandfather used to use. Except Pop Pop never had a razor that was thinner than a human hair. Because they didn't have aerospace grade CNC machines back then. But Henson does. There's no planned obsolescence.

It's not like this is the 2023 version of the razor, and it's going to be different next year. Take a look at this. If you're watching on YouTube right now, look at that razor it looks like something that your grandfather would have used but you're using it now so it gives you that old school feel but all the benefits of the new school tech now let me explain my favorite part of this once you buy the razor which is what you're seeing there the stainless steel head and of course the shaft when you own that all you got to do is replace the blades you see and these blades are thinner than a human hair and they're three to five bucks not three to five dollars a blade not three to five dollars a blade not three to three to $5 a month, not $3 to $5 a quarter, $3 to $5 a year. Now, I've got a beard, so I shave above the beard and below the beard. It's $3 a year for me. I made a one-time investment in this razor, and for the rest of my life, I will spend $3 a year. Not only that, because you listen to this

podcast, we're going to hook you up. We're going to get you 100 razors free. That's right, 100 blades free. Here's how it works. It's time to say no to subscriptions and say yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime. Visit hensonshaving.com slash 83 weeks to pick the razor for you and use the code 83 weeks. That code 83 weeks is going to get you two years worth of blades free. Just be sure to add them to your cart. That's 100 free blades when you head to H-E-N-S-O-N-S-H-A-V-I-N-G.com slash 83 weeks and use the code 83 weeks. Now, let me put this in proper perspective here, guys.

When we're saying 100 razors and we're saying it's two years for free, that assumes you're putting a new blade in every week. But if you're not shaving every day, and I don't, 100 razors could last you for years and years and years. This is the best value proposition that you've ever seen with a razor. I love this product. I hope you can hear it in my voice. Hensonshaving.com slash 83 weeks.

Don't forget to use that code 83 weeks. and add those razor blades to your cart and that code will make them free. This is one head of a product. Is it not, Eric? It is. And we've talked about it before. If you were to come into my house right now, go up the stairs into the master bathroom, you would see my Hansen Razor sitting there in a very,

and by the way, Ms. B hates when I leave shit out. Like she's, I don't want to say obsessive-compulsive, but she's, yeah, she is.

She's a neat freak. It's like everything. Like, if she comes down in the morning and there's a coffee cup where the handle is turned a little bit too far to the right, she'll adjust it, right? Wow. So everything looks the way it's supposed to. So she knows that I have my razor, my handsome razor sitting up on a little pedestal by my sink, not because I use it every day. Clearly, I'm letting this shick her out in summertime. I don't have to do anything on camera, well, other than this for a while, but you all know what I look like.

You don't care. but it sits out there because I like the it reminds me of when I was a kid yeah and I go into my we only had one bathroom when I was a kid and I'd go into the bathroom and there's my dad's razor sitting up there so it's that little bit of throwback nostalgia but when I do shave it's amazingly close and easy and I love the product it's good product you're going to love it check it out I think you'll dig it and I'm looking forward to uh to seeing what you think tell us about it tweet us about it we're at 83 weeks and his pictures well yeah we'll post them we'll post your pictures we'd be glad to share some of those i had somebody a few i maybe it was

over a month ago now who reached out and said man i i didn't have a good experience it cut my face i i don't like this razor i've got to get a full refund and i said hey man are you sure you put the bottom on right maybe it's upside down he goes nope i followed the instructions and a day later he goes dude you were totally right i had it in backwards once i put it back on, this is the best razor I've ever owned. I'm talking about 100% satisfaction. I did the same thing, bro. I did the same thing first time.

I've never seen one complaint about this. When you put this thing on right, this is a home run. Go check it out. I think you'll love it. Let's talk a little bit now about the next piece of business that we got to discuss, which is you promoting this new show and just WCW. You're going to appear on the chat, the chat copic show. He's no longer with us.

He passed away four years ago. but a legendary broadcaster from Chicago had a big influence not only on radio but on television as well. And Vince McMahon had recently been on the program and he was just attacking Ted Turner and WCW left and right. It's clear that you're ready for that line of questioning and you're very careful not to attack Vince or the WWF. But when he tries to press you on the fact that WCW stole Bobby the Brain Heenan and Maine Gene O'Korland and Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the macho man Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan, you quickly point out, you know, all of those guys you just

named worked for another promotion and Vince McMahon took them from that promotion, right? Which is something everybody sort of glosses over and forgets about. And you bring up the fact that WCW on their syndicated side of the business has 198 stations that reached 94% of the country, whereas the WWF only has 171 and 90% of the country. So this is sort of like what we talked about maybe at the top of the program with regard to DVR viewership and being number one in cable, maybe a little bit of illusionary marketing. We would imagine that WWF is still the bigger player in the game, the more well-branded

player in the game. But hey, let's just use some facts. We got more stations. We got more coverage. what do you remember of this topic appearance? Nothing. Okay. I mean, it wasn't, you know, like a monumental interviewer promo, but I, you know,

I'd love to go back and hear it, actually. But yeah, at the time, you know, I wasn't, my frame of mine wasn't, I wasn't being aggressive at this point in time. I'm trying to be factual. I was trying to bust the narrative. And there was a lot of that narrative. Vince McMahon immediately, because he always positioned, oh, it's Ted Turner versus Vince McMahon.

Ted Turner called the ball. I mean, he's the one who said, okay, go head to head. But beyond that conversation, which took seven minutes, maybe, that was it. Ted Turner didn't have anything to do with what I was doing. We didn't speak on a daily basis. I didn't speak to anybody on the, they called it the North Tower, the Turner executive side. I had free reign with as long as I worked within the budget. that had been approved for me,

I'd free reign to do whatever I wanted to do. But Vince, rather than acknowledging that it was Eric Bischoff, especially early on because he probably didn't care at that point, but he wanted to set up the battle. Yes. Babyface Vince McMahon, baby face Mrs. Man, little family business, getting beat up and attacked by the big, bad billionaire Ted Turner,

who's just throwing money at it. This Eric Bischoff, he's got an open checkbook to do whatever. That is a bullshit narrative that started with Vince McMahon because he wanted to position himself as the underdog and was kind of carried forward by the dipshits of the world like Dave Meltzer. That was, well, the only reason they're doing well is because Eric Bischoff has an unlimited checkbook. No, motherfucker.

The only reason we did well is because we are better at what we were doing at that point in time than you were. you were stuck Vince was stuck in the mud we weren't but Vince felt the need to just you know position himself as the baby face and I I would point out when he when he was full of shit as I probably did in that interview sounds like I did but it was after that that I started getting more and more and more aggressive let's also mention that you're making some changes not just with putting yourself on nitro but Gordon solely is going to be replaced on the WCW Pro show that airs on TBS. It's a Saturday

morning show. And he's replaced by Chris Cruz. I'll never forgive you for that one. Yeah. Chris, Chris was there at WCW before I got there and he was doing

I don't know what Chris was doing. But he would, if I was a C squad announcer, he was, he was below me. But he had a good voice there was something about his voice that i liked made you forget he was an asshole i didn't know he was he's a super asshole i've i've learned that and i'm not going to reveal the reason why chris cruz by let why i made sure he was gone i'm not going to tell you the details for for legal reasons okay however once i kind of

figured out what Chris Cruz was all about, he vaporized. Yeah, there you go. Good for you. But keep in mind, the reason that we made that change is Gordon was having a difficult time. Yes. His health was not good. The travel was getting to him.

He drank a little too much. He drank a little too much. So it was, you know, it was time. It wasn't because he wasn't. one of the best that ever has done it. I love to this day, I love when I stumble across, you know,

a match where Gordon Solie is doing play-by-play, or even in an interview. I think he was best at play-by-play. I love his play-by-play. But he just had that voice, man. It reminded me, it reminded me when I was, like, really young, and I'd listened to fights on the radio with my dad,

like Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. I listened to that fight on the radio. And I loved the feeling that good radio announcers at that time, Play-by-Playing Color Men, they just made it feel so exciting. It's like I'd rather enjoy a fight on the radio than watching it on television because the announcers did such a phenomenal job. And it still happens today. There is a radio announcer, just local radio announcer here in Cody by name of Cole Havens.

and he covers the Cody High School sports teams. And he does such a phenomenal job that, and I don't know, Cole, I've never met him. If I have, I don't remember it. It was insignificant. But I listened to Cole Havens when he calls the local American Legion baseball games.

And I'm not even a baseball fan. But Cole does to this day, last weekend I was listening to him, he makes a local sporting. event to so much more interesting to me. Sean Pendergast, CBS Sports Network, same thing. Sean Pendergast can make me interested in sports that I wasn't otherwise interested in because of the way he covers it. And I feel that way about Gordon Solie when I hear him again. He just made it feel so much more important than maybe otherwise I would have felt it was. So it's not because

I didn't appreciate Gordon Solace is because it was time for Gordon. But when I hear guys like Cole Havens here locally or a guy like Sean Pendergast who could actually make me interested in basketball, otherwise I'm not interested in basketball, but he can make me interested in basketball because the way he covers it. And Sean is another one of those guys, sports guys, that really has learned how to weave storytelling into the actual sport. Because sports are sports. By nature, sports have stories.

injuries, you know, recruiting, competitiveness. I mean, there's so much, there's so much to work with, even though it's a legit sport. Where in wrestling, it's not a legitimate sport, so you have to make up the story. And Sean Pendergast is a guy that does such a great job weaving story into otherwise just sports information. And I don't know why I went off on that tangent. But I just, I can't, I guess what I wanted to say is good color, good play by play. is an art form that I think is sometimes undervalued. And when you hear a guy like Gordon Sully, you'll agree with me.

Well, I can't believe this is a real thing. But in just a couple of weeks, or I guess as folks are listening to this, next weekend, I'm going to receive the Gordon Sully Award at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. I can't believe that's a real thing, but I hope you join me. It's in Waterloo, Iowa, NWHOF.org. That's National Wrestling Hall of Fame, NW. H-O-F-O-R-G.

A man, it is a who's-who being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame that night. JJ Dillon, Jerry Briscoe, Joe Malinko, Colt Cabana, Marty Janetti, John Nord, who we knew was the berserker, Sin Bodie, Baron von Rasky, Ross Hart,

Tommy Rich, Haku, Thunderbolt Patterson, Bill DeMott, Les Thatcher, Ken Patera, Demolition, unbelievably, JBL, how was he not already in there? And somehow I am too, it is a whole weekend there's going to be silent auctions there's going to be meeting greets there's going to be panel discussions there's going to be a lot of podcasts there's going to be a

wrestling show and a couple of meals including the actual induction ceremony the one and only bruce pritchard is going to induct me i can't believe that's a real thing nw hof dot o rg it's it's 130 bucks and i hope to see you there next weekend be here before you know it eric and i'm receiving the gordon soli award like what in the world i don't deserve to be there, but I'm excited to be there. I think people that have contributed to the wrestling business, whether they're in the ring, actually contributed in a positive way, deserve that Hall of Fame. And certainly you do.

And by the way, while you're there, you get a chance to talk to Dan Gable, you can, you can acknowledge to him that one of the reasons that he went on to win a gold medal in the Olympics was because of your podcast partner, Eric Bischoff. A lot of people don't know that. But, yeah, I actually squared off with Dan Gable. I think it was in the summer of 71, I think, is when they had the Olympic tryouts. And the Olympic triouts were held in Minnesota at that point in time. And I was on the high school wrestling team.

Me and my buddy Greg Hagee, H-A-A-G-E, me and my buddy Greg Hagee jumped into 68 Camaro convertible, awesome car, by the way. and we drove up to watch. And, of course, we brought our bags with us, our good break. So we're going to go up there and work out to, you know, a big wrestling gym. I think it was in Fiddly, Minnesota or somewhere up there. Anyway, went there and, of course, we got to watch all the,

you know, these guys are trying out for the Olympic team, right? They were all collegiate wrestlers and they were great. But I just happened to be in a room where Dan Gable was getting ready to warm up for one of his matches. And my buddy and I had been in there working out, just practicing our takedowns. We just wanted to feel like we were involved, I think, and justify our reason for being there. But anyway, we're working out. So I hadn't, my sweats on, my wrestling boots and all that. And I was about the same size as Dan Gable at that point in time.

So Dan Gable looks over me, points me as his, come here. Whoa, this is not being mine. He wasn't a gold medalist back then. I knew who he was, but I know as much as I should have. Anyway, I actually was a takedown dummy for, for Dan Gable. he took me down about 10 times in a row faster you could say it and that was the end of my experience training with dan gable getting him ready for the olympics tell the truth you whipped his damn ass i mean that's what happened no it was it was it was i'm just thought i'm there i can i can have

fun with i can have fun with it like i am now but no i watch the olympic trials chris taylor who actually made the olympic team the same year um was also there and actually ended up getting recruited by Vern Ganya. And after the Olympics, Chris Taylor went and trained with Brad Riggins and actually, you know, became a part of the AWA roster for a while. He was also a bouncer at a bar called the Hopkins Bowl,

which was really fun to go watch him bounce. Nobody messed with it. He's a big dude. Well, speaking of big dudes, we have a WCW Saturday Night Show that airs on July 1st. and Meltzer will tell you it's one of the worst ever they do a Dave Sullivan diamond doll dating segment where DDP and max muscle jump Dave on the street and they splice in kung fu movie sound effects ha ha ha ha ha ha ha kung fu sound effects on WCW Saturday night and somehow Dave Sullivan is dating the diamond doll this is just rest of it if you ever heard this saying there's no such

is a bad idea. Well, we found one. It's a lie. Yeah. Don't believe it. Let's talk about the, the official booking change. It happens on July 5th. It's made official. Kevin Sullivan is now the head booker. He officially replaces Rick Flair, although Rick says, I was never the booker. Well, whatever. Let's talk a little bit about that's actually the true. That's actually a true statement. Let's talk about the difference in philosophy because I feel like with Hogan, uh, obviously helping steer the ship. I mean, he is the, I'm not saying he has his hands on the steering wheel. Maybe that's the wrong turn of a phrase there.

But certainly, you know, he's the guy on the cover of USA today. He's the guy who's getting some of these licensing deals and partners in the door. He has a totally different approach to the wrestling business. And we've never really talked about that here. And I want to get your perspective because I think it's interesting that what Hogan was pushing for in this era as let's get all the belts on all of our top baby faces and let's just feed them heeled opponents. He does that because that's what works so successful throughout all the 1980s for the WWF. Like Hulk Hogan would slay different dragons every single month. We had at the time

what was called a heel factory. Here's a new monster for Hogan to slay every single month. Now on the other channel, all the belts are on the bad guys in the NWA, like the four horsemen, like Rick Flair. And as the touring NWA champion, something Flair did that Hogan did not do, he had to be the bad guy who went into every market and would barely eke out a win over whoever the top baby face is.

And I find it ironic that Hogan is championing and campaigning for, no, we need the belt on the baby face defending against all comers. And in actuality, what really did it for Hulk Hogan and WCW was him being the heel champion against all the baby faces. At the time, you clearly went with Hogan

and thought that's the right way to go because he is the brand and he's had more success financially in the business, et cetera, et cetera. But I find it ironic that where he enjoys his most success in WCW is where he's doing the flare philosophy in WCW. Do you have, like certainly we see what WDB is doing now.

For years and years, it was a quote unquote baby face territory. But Roman reigns now, over a thousand days as the heel champion that seems to be working out all right mjf is the heel champion in aew do you think that's the way it has to be in wrestling now or is that the way it should have always been can you speak to what your philosophy is about who should be the champion and who should be chasing in in general i i get far more excited about creative potential when the heel has the championship yeah because now you've got aspiration You know, that's a human emotion.

You want the audience to, to aspire to see that. They want to see that he'll get beat. They, they, I absolutely believe in, we'll call it the Rick Flair philosophy that heels should have the belts. And maybe I've, you know, at that point in time, you're right. I mean, you characterize it correctly. Hogan's here. We're invested in Hogan.

We're getting big dividends on that investment right off the bat as we covered to the top of the show. am I going to bet on the horse that's actually won a race or am I going to bet on the horse that's constantly been in second or come in second or third? So I bet on the horse, I bet on history. It was a bad bet. I think we wasted a year or more. The Brickflair philosophy of having heels, have the belts and having the baby faces chase it

and making it aspirational and hoping that this is going to be the week we finally see it. I mean, that's, you know, the bloodline thing, right? So it's been driving at for a year and a half for however long it's been. So yeah, I'm in that camp. But I did, you know, I bet on, I bet on the horse that had the best record at the time. Well, you're betting on some other new talent too. It's in the observer that you're having conversations with guys like the headhunters, the public enemy, Eddie Guerrero, Al Snow, Crispin Waw, Shane Douglas.

woman and even Glenn Gilberty, who at the time is working as Disco Inferno. But our man Dave really focuses on Eddie Guerrero. And he says he's probably one of the top six or seven pure workers in the world today. But nobody's even tried to bring him in because they can't see him being anything past the midcar just based on his size. But he does say he being Dave, the WCW has a track record with Brian Pilman, who although he is a slightly bigger man than Eddie Guerrero,

maybe isn't quite where Eddie Guerrero is in the ring. And at this point, Eddie's only 27. He's been looking for a shot in the U.S. The spot he has in AAA is drying up because the money's drying up. So he's been working part-time in Japan and a little bit in ECW. And Dave says if they want him and make him a serious offer, I can't see him turning it down.

And if he's used correctly, perhaps recreating the light heavyweight title and giving it some serious play and being put in a feud with Pilman, the two will be all but able to save the very worst pay-per-view shows. Now, of course, we know Eddie's going to go on to have much more success than anybody probably could have imagined then. And I can't help but wonder, with the benefit of hindsight, we saw Eddie become the man beating Brock Lesnar in 2004.

Do you think had WCW not collapsed and had some of the booking stuff that happened where he winds up jumping in 2000, do you think you could, could have ever seen Eddie as being the top guy or because you had that experience with him having some substance issues. Would you have trusted him in that spot? What is there a scenario where perhaps one day we could have seen Eddie Guerrero wearing the big gold belt? I don't know, man. It's such a hypothetical. It's the it's the hypothetical of hypotheticals. It is. I mean, who knows? Do I think look, when Eddie came in, I was aware of Eddie, but not close.

You know, I wasn't watching closely. Eddie was working at Zalgato in New Japan. I think it was El Gato. It was just gimmick in Japan. And I was working closely with New Japan. And I know Masa Saido really appreciated Eddie and liked him a lot. And the reason that Eddie became a conversation, between myself and Masa Saito was because they wanted,

they wanted to keep Eddie booked as often as they could, but they couldn't put them on a full time or weren't willing, I guess, to put them under contract. So when I talked to Masa about what I wanted to do with the Cruiserweight Division, well before I had my first conversation with Eddie or Chris Benoit or any of those, I had the idea for the Cruiserweight Division. and I was talking to Masa about it because a lot of the talent that I saw that would really help make up that division that talent would have come from New Japan Pro Wrestling, right?

So it was Masa Saito that said, no, man, you could hire Eddie. If you can put Eddie under contract, I guarantee you I will book him X amount of days a year. Well, the reason that that was important, and it was a financial, It was a good financial play on my part is because as I'm adding talent to the roster, I've got to figure out, okay, as best I can, how do I justify this? How does this make sense financially? So if I hire a guy, whatever I hired at EAD, I think I brought him in at 175 or whatever it was, whatever the number was, I had Masa Sayido sitting across me at the table saying,

well, I'll cover half. Yeah. And that was the nature of the relationship that went beyond. occasional booking opportunities and you know things we did on tv the real opportunity for we to help me manage because again at this time we weren't profitable right we're getting close so these decisions despite the the fact that the you know melzer and in Vince McMahon were out there laying the groundwork for this this bullshit narrative of oh you just write a check it doesn't have to justify it bullshit at that time i had to justify everything but when i'm sitting across and i got my

Masasaito and Brad Ring is saying, no, Eddie grew. Awesome. We would. And if you hire him and you put him under contract and we have this deal, we'll eat half his contract. So now I'm getting a guy for 80 or 90 grand a year. Yeah, a badass. Pretty good deal. Now, did you, did I see him as potentially being the guy? The top spot at WCW at that time? Of course not. And nobody else would have. No. It was in their right mind, right? Eddie made it to where he made it. in WWE as a result of how well he built himself, how well he did for himself, how well he performed, how well he created his own character.

I didn't do that for Eddie. Eddie did that for Eddie. I gave Eddie the opportunity and I said, wow, this is good. That was all on Eddie. It wasn't on me. It wasn't on anybody else. But had Eddie not gone through everything he went through at WCW,

he would not have been in WWE, end of conversation. It wasn't like WWE would have said. seen the handwriting on the wall with Eddie Guerrero in 1995 or 96 or 97, 98, or 99 for that matter, or 2000, had it not been for the success that Eddie created for himself in WCW. But while he was creating that success, did I ever see him as a potential? No. And in reality, even in 2020 hindsight, sitting here being really honest about it, I just don't think because of the time in the context of timing.

God, I'm starting to sound like Kamala Harris. It's all about the time and the essence of time and the passage of time within the context of time. Sorry, flip me out. I saw it this morning on the news. To be able to sit here and honestly say, yeah, I could see how Eddie could have done it. That would be pandering to this audience and I won't do it. I just won't do it.

Well, something you did do is you allowed Lee Marshall and Mike Teney tryouts. as announcers, Meltzer would say both auditions were said to have gone well and it wouldn't be a surprise to see either of them get a regular gig. Reports that either would wind up on the Monday night show seem premature. As it's almost a certainty that Eric Bischoff is going to host that show. How did, how did Lee Marshall fall in your lamp? I worked with Lee Marshall in the AWA. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Lee Marshall was in the AWA about the time I got hired. Maybe he came in shortly after in 1987. Lee, he did, he worked with Vince Scully,

legendary baseball announcer, did some work with the Dodgers in the L.A. market, had a radio show in L.A. Did a lot of commercial voiceover work. Famously, he was the voice of, right, Tony the Tiger, for decades. So Vern brought Lee in. Lee absolutely

I don't want to say he despised me because I didn't have any experience it's like who the hell is he and why is he here and why do I have to work with him he called me the choir boy first time I laid eyes on it was in Chicago a big show we were doing I remember what year was and I was intimidated by Lee because

he was a professional I was the guy that just happened to have a fucking jacket hanging in my closet and got thrown in front of a camera and didn't really know what I was doing right trying to pretend I did but I knew I was out of place and didn't deserve to be sitting next to Lee Marshall I didn't have to remind me I already knew that but he reminded me anyway that's one of your best one write that down when we do a live show again that is one of your best one liners that was fantastic he he reminded me anyway and it just made me feel like a bigger piece of shit you know I felt even more but through

it all we started working together and either it's kind of like being nose blind you know like sometimes like I like Lori will say to me Eric is you guys time to give the dog a bath okay I said why I always down I pet my dog else she doesn't smell she actually does but i'm around you so much that i get used to it yes and i think that's how lee and i ended up becoming friendly is he just he got used to the smell that rookie smell what a line but yeah he uh and when we realized that we're gonna you know we're expanding and i want the show to feel different i want to use announcers in a little different way than we've been watching them for the last 30 years so i knew i was going to bring in

some talent and Mike today was suggested to be by Zane Bresloff because I didn't know who the hell Mike today was right heard of him but but Zane was very high on him and I had confidence or trusted Zane's instincts enough to give him a tryout and leave because I had worked with him before and I knew I knew what he could bring to the table for the role that I saw him in I was excited to bring him in well we we should talk about the WCW Pro tapings again that whole whole Booker change happened on the 5th. Well, on the 10th, we're in Augusta, Georgia. We've got 1,500 fans paying $8,000 and like 3,400 comps. Jimmy Hart and Kevin Sullivan are going to run the show. Paul Orndorff and Terry Taylor are serving as editors and they're actually going to have

some matches to be retaped, which previously hasn't been done a lot in WCW. So we're very quickly changing the way we're doing things here. And it's written here that you guys ordered new tag team and TV title belts, who would have been the guy who would have been in charge of ordering or designing or whatever, the titles in this era? Hmm. God, I don't know. It would have come to me for approval eventually, or if they were brought a couple of designs, I would have, even if it was just informal, I would have given a nod.

But as far as who was hands-on, If I had to guess, it'd be Terry Taylor. Wow. But it, it, it, I'm not sure to be, to be really honest, I don't know. I can ask, I'm going to ask about that. I also want to ask you about this. There was a rumor that you guys at least reached out to Madison Square Garden about potentially running the paramount, which is the theater below MSG, where we've seen a

couple other things before, but there was an idea that perhaps the first Nitroids, would be there. Now, we know it's going to wind up at the Mall of America. But boy, this feels like it has your fingerprints all over it. Not only am I going to run a show. Heads up with Monday Night Raw and debut it on a night where Raw was preempted. I'm going to do it in the freaking garden. Now, of course, we couldn't have packed out the actual garden and they may not have even allowed you to book it. But the Paramount Theater inside the garden, that kind of feels like an Eric Bischoff idea. Do you remember liking that idea or that idea crossing your desk? Yeah, the idea across my desk, and that would have been a Zane Bresloff call, and I would have jumped all over it and embraced it and tried to do it.

But I think when we put pencil to paper and you start looking at the economics of producing a live television show in New York, just we weren't ready for that. We just financially couldn't justify it. And as much as I like the idea of doing it in Vince's backyard, as you just pointed out, we drew $3,400, $8,000 house. Yeah. We were not drawing big numbers. And as much as I wanted to do it, had I taken that risk and it not worked out and we didn't get that crowd we were hoping for, it would have been a disaster. We had to go, I had to be somewhere that was bulletproof, meaning we know we're going to get enough bodies there.

Visually, it's going to look okay without having to hope that we're going to sell tickets because we couldn't give them away, as you pointed out, 3,400 comps in a 5,000-seat arena. Yeah. Come on now. So, yeah, it was an exciting opportunity, but it was bad timing. maybe it was good timing for a conversation apparently one happened at the bash at the beach hotel so the quote unquote tv hotel which is the way guys in the business talk about it where all the wcd talent is staying tank abbott's there fresh from the ufc talking with you before the show and he had dinner with zane brestloff after the show and i guess there's an idea there's a report that you might send him to k1 in japan and try to do some stuff there before you bring him in for wrestling. And there's even a discussion that Jim Helwig,

the ultimate warrior, was actually hanging out at this show backstage. I find all of this fascinating because it wasn't a horrible picture of Jim Helwig, by the way. If he comes back from the warrior grave in a taxi to one of us for putting this thing on here with the bangs and the Dave Silva. I'm going to send them over to Dave Silva. Yeah, ain't me. Send him to Silva. Talk to me about both of these two rumor and innuendoes.

Do you remember meeting with Tank Abbott prior to this? This is 1995. Just to add perspective, the UFC is this new thing that's only been around for a couple of years. Uh, it's still no holds barred and outlawed on certain paper views and certain states you can do it and some you can't. And John McCain's calling a human cock fighting and blah, blah, blah. But there is a buzz. And we know Tank Abbott does eventually wind up in WCW, just like Ken Chamrock and Dan Severin, wind up in the WWF. Do you remember this preliminary conversation? Was he interested in wrestling? Did you see something there?

Talk to me about that. Yeah, I do remember meeting with him. It was relatively brief, but I knew who he was, obviously. I loved his character in what I saw in UFC. Well, it wasn't really a character. It's who he really was. Yes. And, and Tech lived in the area.

area. So he came down and we did meet. I liked him. We got along right away. I felt instantly he could easily transition into professional wrestling because he had, I mean, this is a real character. But I was working closely with K1 at the point in time. A lot of people don't know that. Ishi Kanjo, the guy that actually created K1, he and I became fairly good friends. And he brought me over. first to just see be apart and then he brought me over to do play by play in color and I worked with Bruce Lee's daughter he brought her in to do color commentary for one of his K1 events in Tokyo and I think I did play by play on it Isikonjo ended up going to jail I'm guilty of doing a bunch of different stuff I think he sold off K1 but yeah at that time I was working with Eiji and We were talking about maybe doing some crossover and things like that, very preliminary.

But I think he brought me over to two or three different K-1 events in its early inception. Now talk to me about Jim Halewig. If he was there, he never said hi to me. Okay. And no one came up to me, said, do you believe it, the ultimate warrior's here? So that may have been true, but this is the first time I'm hearing it. By the way, speaking of first times, this is the first time today I'm going to ask to take a quick break. But before I do, I want to give a shout out to our Grammy award-winning ad-free shows family member.

Isaac Christian is with us. Coach Rosie's with us from all away from Hawaii. It's 4 o'clock in the morning. Derek Reynolds is with us. This is our ad-free shows family who get to watch along with this live. And by the way, I'm going to be making rando ad-free shows family member phone calls later. on this afternoon. So if you happen to get a phone call from a 307 area code, you don't know who it is. You might want to pick up the phone. But for just one second, I got to take a quick break.

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to do is heat it and you're good to go let me explain if you're watching along with us over on youtube it comes in like this white little sleeve that tells you exactly what it is you pull that off and there's a clear piece of plastic with a couple of dividers in there that separate the different ingredients and side dishes and main course and you can actually see what it is you're going to pop a couple of holes in the top of that slide it in the microwave and in two minutes peel that plastic off i throw mine on a plate and boom it is fantastic i can't recommend this enough i'm trying things i wouldn't normally try they've got 34 different weekly restaurant quality options like bruchetta shrimp risotto green goddess chicken grilled steakhouse filet mignon all of this is ready

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It's a home run every time. I know you and Mrs. B are loving factor too. Yeah. And I brought this out here because I wanted to show people. I am. I actually do use a product. But the reason I like, now this one was turkey, chili, and zucchini.

And the reason I'm excited about this, by the way, how do you like my cheaters. I like, these are like $6 at Walmart. You look like Moby. I think I look a lot more like Kevin Sullivan right now. Oh, God. Damn.

I do. But you've got 40 grams of protein in this particular dish. Come on. Only 14 grams of carbs. Come on. Now, this was a, this was a keto design meal because I'm on that keto diet. So I try to keep my carbs as low as possible.

There you go. But when you can get something that tastes as great, as factor does. And this turkey chili zucchini was off the charts. But you've got 40 grams of protein and only 14 grams, net grams of carbs.

That's a pretty, pretty interesting meal. And it was delicious. And it was right in my refrigerator, took about three minutes to prepare, and we were off and running. And I can't recommend it highly enough. If you're busy,

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at the show filming. I remember as a kid, Baywatch was the number one show in the world. We know why. And it wasn't David Hasselhoff. Roll tide. But they're wanting to associate with WCW.

That is a big deal that a lot of people don't really focus on or spend a lot of time on. And I realize now we can say, oh, it was Pam Le Anderson running in slow motion. It was the most watch show in the world. This thing is syndicated in all these different languages

in almost every country in the world. if you had television in your market, in your environment, in your city, in your state, in your country, you had freaking Baywatch, which meant you were going to have the stars of WCW on here. That's a cool thing. How did that deal come to be? Through Hulk, there is the production company that produced Baywatch was called Schwartz Bonin. I think it was Doug Schwartz. I remember Doug Schwarz very well because I had a lot of meetings with Doug.

And I think his partner's name was Steve Bonin. I didn't work with Steve Bonin, if it is Steve. It could be something else. But I worked primarily Doug Schwartz. We get along really well. Doug was close to Hulk, which is how I met Doug Schwartz. And it's just kind of one of those relationships that, you know, the chemistry was good. And as Van Morrison would say the crack was good.

And we hit it off and just started looking for ways to work together. And it started out very early on because Schwartz and Bonin, Doug Schwartz and his partner, Steve Bonham, we're producing the Thunder and Paradise show at the Disney MGM Studios when I first met Hulk Hogan. So my introduction to them was very early on in Hulk's introduction. And we just, we hit it off right away. And before we know it, we're kind of co-producing shows with them. Now, I don't say, I shouldn't say co-producing.

We're collaborating on shows with them. They were the producers. We were just collaborating creatively. Let's give some context to the show we're about to cover. because we're finally here at the pay-per-view. Bash at the Beach 94, one year prior, was Hulk Hogan versus Rick Flair. It was at the time the most successful, highest grossing,

it's not even close, WCW show in history. That was in Orlando. We had Mr. T there. We had Shaquille O'Neal there. It was a big deal. Hulk Hogan is here. He's going to beat Rick Flair in what should have been a WrestleMania 8 dream match.

It finally happens and it happens at Bash at the Beach. and now we're one year later so it's the one year anniversary of Hulk Hogan's WCW debut if you will and we're going with Hogan versus Vader and you have said pretty clearly right up front when he were bringing Hogan in he needed to be comfortable and a guy like Rick Flair could make him comfortable and certainly all the other cast of characters we've added along the way whether it's Tinta or beefcake or Kamala or Savage or boss man or Duggan these are guys he's comfortable with Vader had a reputation for being a little stiff and he could take it too the dude had his eye poked out in Japan but it is a different

style presentation than what Hulk Hogan is probably looking for but we're a year in now did Hogan warm up to the idea of Vader as a headline opponent for him yeah I want to make one thing really clear Hulk was not intimidated by Vader physically. It was just look, Leon, so many great things you can say about Leon. Leon White, Van Vader, or Vader.

But emotional maturity and stability wasn't that high on the list. He could be, it could be volatile. And I think it took Hulk because, you know, all Hulk ever hurt, he didn't know Vader at all. He just knew of him through his reputation.

And I think Halt just wanted to get a feel for him before he jumped off the cliff and, you know, jumped into a match with him. So over the course of getting to know Vader and Vader getting to know Hulk, by the time this opportunity came along that we knew, by the way, we wanted to build for, it sounded like we, you know, we didn't have a lot of monster heels that were ready to go. And Vader was the closest thing we had. So by the time it came time to start planning this and talking about it and scheduling it, it was a very easy thing to do.

There was no issues. well let's talk about the show itself it does 160,000 buys that's up a hundred thousand from the previous month but it is down from a year prior Hogan versus Flair did 225,000 buys that was a dream match it was the first time we saw Hulk Hogan here we had a lot of pomp and circumstance this is a little different and the readers of the wrestling observer did not like this show and I have to admit it's not the best show but it is an interesting look And I think there's a lot of times in life and certainly in business, not everything's

going to work out boys and girls. You've got to be nimble enough. You've got to have an appetite for risk. You've got to be willing to try stuff. And the key to success in business, at least in my opinion is we figure out what works and do more of that and then figure out what doesn't work and do less of that. We never did this again. But man, what a cool visual.

I would encourage everyone to at least go look at the visual. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see it right now. there's a wrestling ring on the beach and i know triple a has done this occasionally at smaller shows like the hard rock and cancun and things like that but this felt big it felt special it felt different than and i think it was an event yes yes now the actual wrestling itself okay maybe not the best 89.4% thumbs down according to the readers of the observer and maybe one of the silliest things that we did here is we had the announcers like Tony Chivani say that there were hundreds of thousands of people here.

They're that graphic back up there, so everybody can see the crowd. There's a lot of folks there. I don't know that I would go so far as to saying hundreds of thousands. Now, Conrad, you see, I really work hard to be as authentic and non-bullshit as I can when I do the show when we cover things. Yes. Some things I remember vividly. Some things I don't remember at all.

Not because I have a bad memory, but maybe they never. fucking happened in the first place. But I also admit when I do certain things that are less palatable that I wish they would have been. One of the things I admitted right at the beginning of the show, hey, I'm kind of guilty of, you know, spinning shit and exaggerating and, you know, maybe making things sound better than they really, really are. Do you remember when I raised my hand?

I said, I've done it too. Here's a perfect example. We're calling back to the open of the show. Yeah, calling you a especially. when you can see your own eyes, you're sitting at home, you're hundreds of thousands. You've got 15, maybe, 10, hundreds of thousands. I mean, listen. Yeah, I can, I can even get into if you said, I don't know how to, I mean,

listen, I know somebody on there is going to go count all the dots. But if you told me that was 50,000 or 60,000 or 70,000, I don't know that I can argue it. I'm not going to sit there and count it. But hundreds of thousands, sounds a little silly, but that's, was not all negative on the setup, though. He says the idea of doing a show on the beach with the crowd shots and aerial shots with a different location was a great idea. And I hope they make it an annual affair at the same beach. It was a great afternoon, but the wrestling matches were clearly the worst part of the afternoon. It was hard to tell on television, but there was very

little heat for most of the show. And there were people there for the most part that had some aware of wrestling, but I wouldn't call them wrestling fans for the most part. They knew the wrestlers and the stars from the 80s like Hogan, Flair, Sting, Savage, and Hawk, but they didn't really react to anyone else. And I think that's been a criticism, Eric, even of the Sturgis concept, that we're getting a lot of people here, but they might not be huge fans, which means they might not provide the best backdrop. And if you go watch a match like Hogan and Rock from WrestleMania 18, if you watch it with the sound off, it's just an okay at best match. If you watch it with the sound on, you'd walk away convinced, I just saw,

saw the most special match in the history of wrestling. The crowd made it. We're not going to get that response here. However, from a visual standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from a licensing standpoint, stepping back out of the wrestling bubble

of let's make the most enjoyable show we can, and now let's use it as maybe a lost leader to get new business opportunities, new licensing opportunities, and people on the West Coast to pay attention. When we hear about beach blast and bash at the beach. Those were typically held in places like Mobile or Biloxi or Daytona Beach.

Nothing wrong with those. That's my home area. I love it. But California is a different animal and it affords you the opportunity to have the Baywatch crossover. It checks a lot of boxes. But there is a delicate balance there as far as we need to handle business, but we also need to put on a good show.

How do you reconcile that in your mind of they're not really wrestling fans? So they're going to pop for the big stars, but they don't really know what's going on here. I mean, you have to accept it. You know, it's, you weigh one against the other. And, you know, you went through a pretty good list, a solid list of why this was a smart move strategically. One of the things you didn't mention, which was, in my opinion, what was driving me to support this and aggressively as I possibly could, was that, It gave Bash at the Beach a personality. It made it unique from everything else that we were doing the other 11 months out of the year.

And I've always believed, and still due to this day, that unless an event has a personality all of its own and a characteristic all of its own, it's just another television show. It may be bigger. The matches may have been built differently than he would for a television show, but from a television show. visual perspective, what you're offering to the consumer, paper views, because we're asking them to part with a significant amount of money, to see all the same stars and so much of what they see anyway on free TV, there better be something different. There better be a value exchange there where the customer feels like they're getting their money's worth. And even though the matches may not have been, ideally what we would have wanted, I would say mostly

it's because the audience didn't react to the matches, that the matches didn't come off as well as they should. As you pointed out, turned down the sound, same thing, right? I'm not so sure that we would, I'm pretty sure we've gotten much different reaction had we been inside of an enclosed arena. Why do I say that? And I think human nature, plays a big factor when you make a decision to come to a wrestling event you're you're coming there sensibly to watch the action and see your tv stars and all that but much like we saw it and i know this is people going to shake their heads i think i'm fucking nuts but much like we saw at our top guy weekend event where everybody became engaged and they were there as a community

the same thing holds true the same thing is going on right now in wembley people are buying tickets to that event because it's an event and other like-minded people are going to be at that event and usually what happens when like-minded people all assemble in one area confined however large that area may be in this case an indoor arena or an outdoor arena um they're all there to party and they get enthusiastic and they they jump in whereas with sturgis and in this case the beach most of the people were probably already going to be there anyway and there just happened to be a wrestling event going on and those people while they probably do many a lot of the talent watch tv and watch wrestling good television it wasn't the same

kind of vibe you're not in that confined area all of the ambient noise and this is the important part of it a lot of that ambient sound that you would otherwise really feel it here in an indoor arena dissipates into the atmosphere. And as a result, what's going on in the ring just doesn't feel that significant. So there's a lot of reasons why the show felt different from an enthusiasm point of view. But if you think back to why I wanted to do it, why I wanted to do Sturgis, because I wanted to have its own vibe. I wanted to, when people thought of WCW and Sturgis, they knew they were going to see something way different than they saw the month before or a month after.

And I firmly believe that each one of those 12 pay-per-views had to have that personality, those characteristics that made it stand out from the other paper views. And that's really why we did it. It's, uh, it's interesting to take a look back at this crowd. It's going to be, of course, debated a lot, uh, by Dave Meltzer. He says the largest number I got was an estimated 9,500 during the main event show. As a reminder, they did the main event. as a pre-show to get you to buy the pay-per-view.

And he says there were definitely more people between 3 and 4 p.m. than any other time. Of course, let's just add context to that. There's a lot of people who hear that wrestling starts at this time. They're going to come check it out. It's a marathon show. They're not necessarily die-hard wrestling fans. They are outside. And the infrastructure is maybe not the best.

Meltzer would even say as compared to major beach ball tournaments. This was a terrible setup. There's no bleachers except for a small section of reserved employees for Slim Jim. Perhaps they needed more of that. But again, this is the first time we do something like this. WCW officials are telling him that maybe it's closer to 12 or 15,000 folks, but we're probably going to claim it's 20 to 40,000 people. No matter what, here's what Dave had to say. The show got tremendous news coverage on all the local TV stations and was the front page of the local Orange County register the next day. So from a visibility standpoint, it was a success, although many

of the stations were calling it a World Wrestling Federation show. It didn't appear to me that there were any more fans at this show than at the AAA show the night before, and I've been to beach volleyball events that drew 10,000, and it seemed that more people were at this show, and the AAA show tickets were $21 per head, and this show was free because of the lack of bleachers, whatever the number was, there were about as many people that weren't going to be able to see anything. So in hindsight, maybe we needed a little more infrastructure, but certainly we got lots of coverage. It's a fun idea.

Do you think if you were to do this again, you would have had more bleachers and infrastructure and things like that? Would you have considered a ticketed event? Or maybe more specifically, why did we never do it again? Context is king. I think we coined that phrase that I hear often now

in other podcasts. That's very, very flattering. A lot of the things that we started here, a lot of little phrases and ways of saying things that started here are now. was seeping their way into the wrestling podcast universe. Look, 1995, we had not yet turned a profit.

This was the year that that was going to happen. I was as focused on finances and saving money and expenditures as I had ever been. Going back to one of my first days in a job, but I made everybody famously go back and count the pencils in their death. so they understood that you have to make sure you know what you have for resources and manage the resources properly. That was the message, right? But we were still in that frame of mind.

So why didn't we have half a million dollars with a staging, quarter of a million dollars with the staging? Because we could afford it. It wasn't in the budget. If we were to have continued long term, if I was still there today and things were rocking and rolling, and we had the budget, of course, we'd make it look like the Super Bowl.

as best we could at a beach. But at this point in time, I didn't have it. I had a production budget. It was approved for me 12 months earlier, and I had to stay within that budget. And I also knew that I was within, I could actually smell the first dollar profit by July.

There's around this time that I made a bet with a guy who was the head of finance at the time by the name of Harry Anderson. I made him a bet that if I won my bet, that he would show up in hand the first dollar of profit for WCW to me at a Christmas party in December of 1995, a WCW Christmas party, to his credit, despite the fact that he laughed at my face when I said it to him in front of Bill

Shaw. There's a Bill Shaw's office. I said, Harry, I guarantee you, we're going to make a profit this year. And he laughed at me, not at me, but he laughed at the concept. And that's when I bet him. And then seven months later, whatever it was, he was down on one knee. I didn't make it. I didn't even make that a part of the bet.

But he got down on one and he handed me that first dollar profit. Wow. But at that, at this point in time, we didn't have that. And I wasn't going to risk it. That's why. It's not because we didn't understand. It's not because we hadn't given it any thought or that we were bad at our jobs. We're working within the budget we had.

We did the best we could with what we had. That's how you manage your resources. Do the best you can. what you got. Let's talk about the pre-show before we get into the actual pay-per-view. Mean Gene is going to interview Nick Bockwinkle, who's going to announce that the cage match is going to have an over-the-top climbing stipulation rather than the cage match has to finish with a pinfall like a lot of WCW matches had been. Meltzer would say this may have been done because nobody wanted to do the job, whether it be Vader or Hogan. Then they follow the

Dungeon of Doom around and do some interviews there. They even have an interview with Hogan and Dennis Rodman announcing that Dennis Rodman is going to be in his corner later. The Baywatch Babes are going to be out here and give a motorcycle to Hulk Hogan. He's going to say he wants to raffle the bike off to the fans. That doesn't actually happen on the show. But at this point, a really tall guy showed up. And he's wearing a shirt similar to the one Andre used to wear. And he's going to take it off and throw it at Hogan.

And Hogan's acting like it stunned and saying this was Andre. shirt and they're saying that he's seven foot three or seven foot four this is the official debut of paul white man this pre-show is loaded dick bachwickle the ladies of bay watch dennis rodman and holy cow we just debuted the giant this is a pretty notable and memorable pre-show no it was it was interesting by the way is this is a little side note i'm pretty sure that that motorcycle is in clearwater florida right now now in my son's garage. Really?

And it was either that exact bike or one exactly like it. I gave it to me for Christmas later on that year. That's amazing. And I shipped it on down to Florida for my son to drive. By the way, my son is part of an organization called Baca, Bikers Against Child Abuse. And it is a club of motorcycle enthusiasts that do a lot of good work. It's a national organization, but Baca is there for children who are caught up in litigation because of family violence issues and others, things like that.

And they're there to support the children because a lot of times kids get caught in the crossfire and they're intimidated and parents actually do their best to leverage the kids and the kids are caught in the crossfire. So the Baca organization will show up at a young person's house, a child that could have used a little bit of encouragement, strength and support, and they go to court with them, they go through the whole process with them, just so that they know that they've got friends that are big and hairy and loud

and drive big, noisy motorcycle. So it's a great organization. It does a lot of good. And that's what that motorcycle is doing right now down to Clearwater, Florida. Let's talk about the matches. Let's get into it. We've got Sting,

opening the show, retaining his U.S. title, pinning Ming. That's right. Sting and Ming. They go 15 minutes and 31 seconds. after the match ming is going to attack sting and get a lot of cheers because well we're just cheering the bad guys here um two stars hawk is going to come out at the end but man sting and ming i didn't even remember that happened on pay per view until i watch this uh coming back here

i love ming i love sting and sting just fits in this environment wrestling on the beach this is a crowd made for sting now yeah it certainly was again i don't know how how many people there were familiar with. Stinghorming, because L.A. was not a strong market for WCW. That's another thing that we didn't cover as we're talking about the crowd or the lack of enthusiasm. I cannot think of a market in the United States that we had less penetration or audience than the Southern California market. TBS as a whole was just not watched in that market and wrestling in that market were even

fewer so that had probably had a little bit to do with it as well next up we've got the renegade who i assume we're still trying to make everybody pretend hey look he looks like the ultimate warrior is going to retain the tv title pinning paul orndorff in six minutes and 12 seconds boy it's just not good uh lord bless hey do you think conrad you said did you remember ultimate warrior being in being at the show and i said no i never heard that before tonight i'm telling you somebody probably saw Well, the Renegade and it called Dave Meltzer and said, Ultimate Warriors here. And of course, Dave being Dave, the guy that repost stories that fake people actually write

and send into him went with it. That's probably that's the explanation right there. I hope not. Um, still, this is not a good match. I would recommend you go watch it again because Meltzer would say that Renegade hit two of the worst drop kicks on record quote, Renegate is said to be a student of Killer Kowalski, but you can guess that killer disavows any knowledge of ever teaching him anything. apparently nobody else did either

Renegade won with a sloppy back suplex with the storyline being Orndorff got his shoulder up but the ref was out of position to see it. Orndorff attacked him and piled drove him after the match but Renegade popped back up and hit a crossbody tons of booze when Renegade popped back up. Dudd.

He's just, uh, it's not working for the renegade and it's not his fault. I know that, you know, that seems a little silly for us to say, but I feel like, you know, Renegade was, was set up for failure. here in WCW. He was probably a nice man trying to do the best he could too much too soon, not ready for prime time. And unfortunately, he's no longer with us. It's probably the beginning of the end of the renegade character over the next three months. He's going to drop the title to

DDP. So we're still going to try a little bit. Next up, we've got Kamala and Jim Dougan. This is not 1985. This is 1995. Melzer would say this match belonged in another decade. and so did the finish. Duggan hit a close line, then went after Sullivan with the ref distracted. The Zodiac, who's Brutus the freaking barber beefcake, hit Duggan from behind, allowing Kamala to make the pin, negative quarter star. And before the next match,

they plugged that the next pay-per-view will be on August 4th from Korea, before 300,000 fans. And we've got DDP wrestling Dave Sullivan in five minutes and four seconds. this is just not very good um i don't know what else to say the match itself has no heat sullivan gets his upside down bear hug on and guess what max muscle jumps on the apron sullivan goes after him page gets him from behind uses the diamond cutter for the pen quote this was the fourth match in five matches that spot had been used three of the four being he'll win finishes suffice to say nobody spent more

than a few seconds going over finishes. This has always been a chronic problem with WCW. You've laid it out pretty clearly here on 83 weeks over the years. You didn't have the right finishes. You didn't have the right agents. You needed a Paterson. We didn't have him. It's evident here.

And then we get some really great wrestlers in the ring for the next one. But man, it's just hard to follow. We got the Harlem Heat retaining the tag titles in a triangle match over the Blue Bloods, an underrated tag team of Bobby Eaton. and Lord Stephen Regal and the nasty boys. Meltzer would say the rules were never explained to the fans' lives so nobody understood the finish. They were explained on television, but nobody understood it there anyway.

Bobby Heenan clearly didn't understand it based on his commentary. The only one who figured out the rules was Tony Chivani and whoever came up with them. The deal was it's not an elimination match. It just ends with the first pinfall. And whoever gets that pinfall is the world tag team champions. And Heenan kept talking about both teams, wanting to keep the heat in the ring so they could win the title, and keeping the heat in the ring was irrelevant. And also made no sense because whomever scored the winning pin

would get the belts. Why would a team member tag someone from a different team ever? It would eliminate their chances of winning. Chivani actually picked up on that point, but I guess whoever booked the match did not. So the match consisted of sloppy brawling and made no sense. The finish would see Jerry Sags, backdrop Booker T, who fell on Steve Regal, Brian Knobbs went for the pin on Regal, but T fell in between. Since T was the one on top of Regal, it meant the heat won the match and retain the title. But it was never made clear live and nobody knew what was going on. Negative half a star.

Now this is one of those interesting ideas, a triangle match, like I think it could have been done well. I like the idea that you could lose the titles without actually getting pinned. But I could see how if the announcers don't really understand that, is that just lack of a pre-production meeting or what's, going on here in that regard? Clearly, lack of pre-production, which leads to horrible communication and then day of the show. So let me back up. Somebody says, oh, we're going to have a tight team triangle match. Cool. Like it. Different. Never done that. How's that work? Here's how that works.

Here's how I see that happening. We're saying two weeks before, right? Or three weeks, month before, whatever. In advance of the actual event with a decision is made to include this match on the format. So a finish or the layout or the rules of that match are probably articulated in that original meeting and everybody signs on for it. Cool. Because we didn't do a, not even a good job, we didn't even do an adequate job. We didn't even do a fair job.

We did a piss poor job of, number one, emphasizing finishes. so it's something more than just oh yeah that's something we need to do we need to end the match putting as much emphasis on the finish as anything else if not more because that's all people are going to remember just like the only thing they remember is the end of the movie really the emotional aspect of it um we sucked at finishes we sucked at communicating and then day of i'm i'm almost certain i know what happened Kevin and company, booking committee, creative, had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to do.

Kevin's got his, right? I mean, Kevin's got his own shit going on that day. Not only as a talent and all the other stuff that he's doing, but he's also supposedly overseeing this process, but he's pulled in a lot of different directions. So what happens in that situation? The talent takes over. And if you've ever been around talent,

and I know you have, but maybe not in the heat of battle, like in the moment of laying out finishes right before you go out for pay-per-view and all that. If you've ever watched what happens when talent starts laying out a finish, it gets so overly complicated. Like, talk about 10 pounds of stuff in a 5-pound bag. We're talking 50 pounds of stuff in a 5-pound bag. And then, and the closer you get to show. time, or to bell time,

oftentimes it's the little things that change in the way the match is going to finish, which affects the way it was promoted originally, or what at least the conceit or the original idea was for that match. And so while everything is changing and evolving, and it's the talent that's actually driving that ship, and the talent is not communicating to anybody other than themselves of the ref. director in a truck doesn't know what's going on your announcers don't know what's going on and rather than say anything they say nothing right do no harm kind of like a doctor do whatever

you want to do just don't do any harm so they play that safe middle ground and it's you know ambiguous as to what the rules are what the match is so the end result is exactly as it was covered by Meltzer fans in the audience didn't know fans at home didn't know and even if they didn't know it wouldn't have fucking mattered anyway because it made no sense and the reason if they make any sense is talent got a hold of the finish probably 45 minutes before bell time everything changed and nothing was communicated that was typical I saw that over and over and over again versions of that next up we've got arguably the best match on the show it's Randy Savage and Rick Fleer no surprise it's a good match and boy they

gimmick it up you've heard of a lumberjack match but have you ever heard of a life card match well it's a lumberjack match except it's on a beach flare is going to talk about how uh he's talking about elizabeth during his interview and melzer would say at this point she isn't coming in it's just flare doing promos the finish would see arne anderson try to interfere but he gets decked savage then backdrops flare over the top rope the face lumberjacks are going to catch him breaking the fall and with the ref distracted arn gives savage a dd t flair goes for the pen savage kicks out savage makes the big comeback big elbow drop off the top melzer would say it's not nearly as good as their previous match but compared with the rest of the show it was clearly the best match

on the card i find it interesting that he's name dropping elizabeth without her actually being here but of course if you watch their match at russomania that was the centerpiece of that story. And Rick was going back to what worked in the past, wasn't he? Yes, he was. And then in our main event, it's finally here. Hulk Hogan and Vader happens. And it's on paper view 13 minutes and 13 seconds. Again, Meltzer gave two and three quarter stars to Flair and Savage. He gives two and a half here. It's pretty decent for what it is. Hogan's going to, of course, make the big Superman come back, hit a couple of leg drops. And at this point, Hogan's stalling doing posing. I I guess his buddy and Booker were a little slow on their queue.

Finally, Sullivan and Zodiac do a run-in, but they're chased off by Dennis Rodman. Hogan starts climbing the cage. Vader gets up after him. Hogan's going to punch Vader who crotches himself on the top, and Hogan climbs out. And they're pretending to go off the air while Flair comes out, but the camera's kept rolling. And Flair starts yelling at Vader for losing, which made perfect sense since Flair never lost to Hogan. Vader gets mad, Arne Anderson comes in. Vader says boo and both run away.

and the incident was so strong that Vader then issued a challenge to both men in a handicapped match and it's one of the weakest baby face turns on record. Still, we checked all of our boxes and this is in fact Vader's last pay-per-view match with WCW. As you may recall, he's not even here for the open of Nitro, but I think this is also the match where he gets hurt and suffers an injury where he's actually going to wind up taking a little time off even after he debuts in the WWF. This is a classically, quote unquote, bad show, but man, I just love the concept.

I think I like this look and feel and environment even more than Road Wild or Hogwild or whatever we want to call it. When you think back about this show, do you remember it fondly because of the concept and the idea and the look or is it more about, man, these matches and that crowd, they just No, no, I look back at it very fond. I'm proud of this show. Look, was it a great, was it a perfect show? Absolutely not.

It had worked some flaws and all. But it achieved everything and more that I hoped it would achieve when the idea was first mattered about. We got a tremendous amount of coverage. We've got a lot more interest. You know, another thing that. Myself, Sharon Sadello, Mike Weber, Rob Garner, VP of syndication. What we were doing is we were out there selling to our respective business-to-business counterparts.

We wanted to get people, we wanted people to be aware that WCW was more than just, that they were professional wrestling in America was more than just WWF. Yes. The CWF was the Coca-Cola of soft drinks. Nobody knew that there was anything else at that time when it came to wrestling. And we had to break through that. We had to change that. And that's why we brought it home.

It's why I did a lot of stuff we did. But then this particular event, we saw the manifestation of those efforts. We saw people reacting to it, the coverage that we got, interest that we got from advertisers. But more importantly, it gave us the opportunity. It gave us the opportunity, us, meaning the management at WCW, to go out and talk to advertising agencies about why we were different than WWF. Yeah, we've got Hall Coga, we've got Randy Savage, but look at the types of things that we're doing here.

Look at what Nitro does versus what Monday Night Raw does at that time in particular. This gave us tools in our toolbox to talk about in ways that allowed us to differentiate, differentiate ourselves from WWF, but at the same time, convince people that we had the horsepower. We had the star power too. And this event in particular, and the Sturgis event that would follow down the road,

gave us those opportunities. Halloween Havit gave us that opportunity because it was Vegas. So, yeah, I was, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it. Do I wish it would have come up better, of course. I think you should be proud of it. I like the idea, and don't get me wrong, this essentially works as like proof.

concept we've made lots of reference to hog wild and road wild as a reminder that whole phenomenon started in august the 96 so we're 13 months ahead of that here with bash at the beach 95 and this is even before you were doing the spring break nitros nitro is not even a thing but people just loved when you guys would do those shows at lavella it just felt different than which has certainly become a hallmark of your career in wcc i'll think in large part thanks to this show i mean i adopt it and use it all the time now but i loved you know, we're stepping out of our norm. We're going to have the first nitro at the Mall of America.

And we're going to have a biker show and we're going to have a spring break nitro. And this is sort of the thing that made all that possible. It paved the way, if you will. Bobby, one of our top guys had a question. He says, what are the challenges of an outdoor pay-per-view that don't keep you from having it? And what are the attractions of having outdoor paper views from a production standpoint? Real quick, I know off the top of my head, Eric, if this rains or we got thunder and lightning boy we got to have a backup plan in a hurry right

you got to have a backup plan but even beyond the obvious um and a backup plan is you know it's generators and tarps and and we've been rained out you know i remember dusty roads and a a nitro from charlotte and or maybe it was a sunday night made of a show either way i remember we were hosting a live show from charlotte uh wrapped around a NASCAR event in the pouring rain and what do you do you just go out and do it it's a live show you got no choice you just go out and we were standing there in a rain you know setting up this show that was supposed to happen later on the evening um look in southern california you're pretty safe on rain you know you can you can pretty well predict that in certain times a year

the odds of getting rain are minimal in southern california so that wasn't the biggest issue consideration yes but an issue now the biggest chance challenge is space because you want to be able to stage this event in the right section. And there are limitations, too, you know, by the city as to where you could do what you could do, right? But you also have to have access to bathrooms, to power, to generators, parking. I mean, there's a lot of thing, emergency vehicles have to be able to get in. And all that has to be a pre-approved. So I think the logistics, just the physical logistics of doing something outside is the biggest challenge because in an arena you could look at a

blueprint of an arena you can sit in Atlanta say okay I'm going to book a show in this in this venue and they'll send you you can see where all the electrical out you can see everything you need to see to come in there and you'll be able to in advance order everything you need to order make sure you have everything you need to show up there and just plug in and play but when you're outside you're just it's you in the sand and then you've got to get to work. That's the hard part. The weather consideration, but the hard parking is just the logistics of it all. Here's another question. This one comes to us from J.M. Wagner. How did the Baywatch TV crossover episode come about with this pay-per-view? You explained to

Colcogen. Did Turner have an issue with Baywatch not being a Turner Network show and their wrestlers appearing on it? Do you have to get that approved? No. No. First of all, it was a syndicated show. It wasn't on a cable network or a television. So as a syndicated product, you know, it wasn't perceived as competitive programming. If anything, Turner would have liked to a bid for the syndication rights. So if there was any interest at all on Turner executive side, it would have only been self-serving to the extent of, hey, if that works good, maybe we can help. Maybe Eric Bischoff and WCW and Hulk Hogan can help us, you know, sit down with the syndicators and talk to them.

Here's one from, and this is a logical question. Ryan Purvis wants to know, how hot was that ring? I never got in it, so I couldn't tell you from first hand experience, but the sun beating. I figure it was 75 or 80 degrees. Now that close to the ocean, probably 70, 72 degrees all day long. But that, yeah, that canvas will warm up. But, you know, there was a nice breeze on the beach and it's a cooling breeze. so I don't think that it would have been a bigger issue in Sturgis than it was there for sure

Sturgis is hot and you don't have an ocean breeze uh the Matthew podcast network wants to know was an angle ever discussed or a spot ever discussed for a match or something using the water the idea being you're right here near the water we know when we saw things happen at like club lavila we would see wrestlers take a bump in the pool or get thrown into the ocean And that doesn't really happen here. Was that just logistically? We were so far away from the beach. It would have been tough to get a camera out there and back.

Tough to get a camera out there and back. And shooting in the water is different than shooting on dry ground. You know, that takes a different equipment. It takes a different type of a cameraman that's got an experience. No, it was never discussed. It's a good idea.

But for all intents and purposes, it was impractical. uh, Adam Lason wants to know, was it difficult for Turner higher ups to allow this to take place on an actual beach? I think you sort of addressed that. Why does Eric think Vader was such a failure in the WWF? I wouldn't go so far as to say Vader was a failure in the WWF, but he didn't achieve the same amount of success he did here in WCW. Fair question. Why do you think that was in your opinion?

Timing, I think. Uh, and. When you go from, when you went from WCW in the mid-90s to WWF in the mid-90s, yeah, still professional wrestling, but the culture is completely different. And I think one thing that, and I don't know how much Bruce talks about this because he's in the middle of doing it, But I can tell you that the WWF culture is very different than the culture that probably any performer who had not previously been in WWF has ever experienced, had ever experienced. So it's not just adjusting to perhaps the size of the ring, simple thing. WCW had an 18 by 18 ring.

WWF had a 20 by 20 ring. Doesn't sound like that big a deal. It's something you got to get used to as a performer. I'm not speaking from experience, obviously, but from conversations I've had with dozens and dozens of dozens of people who made that transition. You do have to get used to that. The WWF ring was a little stiffer, a little harder.

You have to get used to that. The expectations, you know, Vince McMahon was very, very hands-on when it came to creative and finishes and much more so than I was. He'd spent more time doing it, right? That was very different. You know, I think Chris Jericho told me a story, and I don't want to try to tell the story, but I'll give you the message that I at least interpreted from it. And again, paraphrasing, paraphrasing completely, but Chris, when he left WCW, really felt like he was

ready for WWE. He thought he was more than ready until he got there and realized he wasn't. And that wasn't because Chris didn't have the technical ability or a potential. It was because the expectations were so much different and the culture was so much different. that he had to get used to that too. And he wasn't ready for it. So I think going back to the original question, why didn't Vader achieve the same level of success,

if you could quantify that that he achieved in WCW and WWE? If there's a reason, it wasn't because he didn't have the potential. Right. It wasn't because he didn't have the ability, I guess same as potential. It's because he didn't adjust to the culture. And I think the misstep over to the Middle East, Yeah, that doesn't help.

Because once you, here's what I think I know of Vince McMahon is once you do something that hurts the company. In the case of Vader's issue overseas, hurts the perception of the company, whether it actually hurt them or not, if it hurts the perception of the company, he loses a lot of faith in you. very quickly and it's very difficult to earn back so if there's anything that i would point to it's just the transition and in adapting to a new culture well we're going to be talking about that transition and the culture change between wcw and the wbf because next week we're going to get deep in the woods or in the weeds rather on hypotheticals and sort of fantasy booking if you will we're going to talk about the WCW invasion of the WWE, how you felt about it, what you would have done

differently, what your role was, and what it could have been, and why ultimately you think it failed, and you can be a part of our live studio audience over at ad-free shows.com. You'll also get that fabulous interview we just did with Dick Cheatham, tons of great feedback on my timeline from people who were surprised at how much inside scoop they had never heard from Turner accounting. Dick Cheatham was one of the Turner accountants. He knows where all the bodies were buried. And you're going to hear him do a very rare interview over at ad free shows.com. Not only that, you'll also get the fun watch along between Larry Zabiscoe and Kevin Sullivan and Eric Bischoff when Goldberg finally beat Hulk Hogan to become the world champ.

I want to mention if your business targets men that are 25 to 54 years old, buddy, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 weeks. You hear some of the same commercials and sponsors week after week after week for years and that's on purpose why do they keep doing it well because it really works you see with our super targeted audience there's just very little waste so go right now to advertise witheric.com and find out more about advertising here on 83 weeks love to have your social interaction as well it's easy to find us we are at 83 weeks on Twitter Instagram and Facebook the easiest cheapest best way to support the show is to go ahead and follow us and leave some comments tell us what you like what you don't like

interact with us over on our youtube that's 83 weeks on youtube.com tons of new swag and merch available for you as well just in time for summer over at box of gimmicks.com or 83 weeks merch.com Eric I never know what to expect when we sit down and click record we went nearly three hours today about a pay-per-view that's pretty universally panned but I think you and I wound up on the same spot it was worth a try it's a new initiative it looked cool i hope that somebody brings it back i would love to see a live wrestling show on a beach again and it feels like if anybody's going to do it it might actually be a w i could see them trying something outside of the box like this i hope it happens someday and and uh i like the idea man i mean listen it was worth to try and it certainly

paved the way for a lot of other fun stuff we did enjoy the mall of america show and certainly hog wild and road wild and my goodness the spring break nitro like that's all born out of this this was fun today i i always have fun doing these shows and looking back because uh i'm i'm forced to try to recall things that you know i've long forgotten and and seeing images and photographs and talking about some of the people that were you know instrumental at that time is always fun for me so i appreciate it shout out to dave silver the producer of the show and everybody in our ad free shows community that joined us live i really dig that um i can't read the comments because i've lost my regular glasses my new glasses are in the mail they're on their way i should

be receiving them shortly but uh really appreciate everybody joining us this is the highlight of my week so far well we hope you guys have a great week and we will see you sooner rather than later right here on 83 weeks with eric bischoff hey guys tony shivani need to call the time out real quick. Wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling what happened when listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-free shows.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 my assistant said, hey, you're not going to believe who's down there? I said, China's down there. What do you talk?

And I went over to her window and looked at that's not. He did the whole, all the Deg's down there. Get the camera. So we went down there. And, of course, every DX was down there in the 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 Sanjay, I said, we got to start being silly. I just started to drumming the guitar and Sondon started bouncing that baby and Saj and him started doing the dose of dough. I think this is, I don't know those 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 why ad-free shows is the best value in wrestling today sign up now at atfreyshows.com