83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 284: Dennis Rodman

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss "The Worm" Dennis Rodman! Eric shares details on the negotiations between Rodman and WCW to get him involved in the product. He talks about Rodman's attitude towards professional wrestling, preparing for his match against Karl Malone and DDP, and managing such a charismatic character in the heat of the NBA Finals. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS HELLO FRESH - Go to HelloFresh.com/5083weeks and use code 5083weeks for 50% off plus free shipping! BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s BlueChew.com, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE AG 1 - Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkAG1.com/83WEEKS. That’s drinkAG1.com/83WEEKS. STARRCAST VI - STARRCAST VI - Don't miss a moment of the fun and excitement planned for Starrcast VI! Starrcast VI is coming home to Chicago this Labor Day weekend September 1st through the 3rd. Grab your bracelets and bundles now at STARRCAST.com SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. 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

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

Now, if you need cash without the controversy, the team at savewithconrad.com can help. But don't take my word for it. My name is Jeffrey Munson. I'm from West Roxbury, Massachusetts. While listening in the car one day with my wife, we both were like, oh, he does mortgages, we should look into this. We've tried to refinance a couple of times, and either the process was too crazy, or we were told we didn't have enough equity in the house yet,

even after owning it for about 15 years at that point, you guys started servicing Massachusetts, and we just jumped all over it. We reached out through the website, and Larry actually gave us a buzz and started walking us through the process, and it was just wonderful. It was a great experience. So we managed to consolidate a lot of debt and also take some money out, and we were still at or below what the value of the house was borrowing in. in 2005 when we bought the house.

Hi, my name is Jeffrey Munson. My wife and I managed to save $1,800 a month and are now paying $400 less each month with savewithconrad.com. And unlike the dirt sheets, these reviews, don't lie. With over 1,000 five-star reviews, find out for yourself how much Conrad in his team

can save you by checking out. Savewithconrad.com and do it today. You'd be grateful you did. NMLS number 65084, Equal Healthy Lended. Woo! Hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening for 83 weeks with Eric Bishop. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you?

Well, I was having a fucking marvelous day. Just woke up this morning, excited to do this podcast, excited to see you, talk to Dave Skilwell. I was like just fired up ready to go, drank some coffee, took a little hit of crate him. Everything was going to good. And then my internet takes another dump on me. So we're going to stumble through this show like a fucking drunk coming out at a bar, 3 o'clock in the damn morning.

And maybe we'll make it home. Maybe we won't. We'll find out as this show goes on. But nothing pisses me off more than bad internet service. That and rude motherfuckers on the highway. Either one of them will get me hot in a fucking millisecond. Well, we're going to talk about somebody who stumbled through WCW today. Mr. Dennis Rodman is our topic today.

And of course, he's our topic because he's going to be a first-time guest at Starcast. It's going down in just a couple of weeks. It's going to be at Chicago, September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. That's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T.com. Tickets are on sale now, so you can actually meet the worm. Maybe you're collecting all those NWO signatures over the years. Well, here's your chance to get one of the more elusive ones, Dennis Rodman in Chicago. Come on.

Tickets on sale now, S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T.com. We've started to announce a lot of our panels as well. Of course, when you pick up a bracelet to Starcast, it gives you access to not only one, but two stages loaded with content. I can't reveal a few of the panels that have yet to be announced, but, man, we've got some bangers. How about Tony Kahn on the Starcast stage for the very first time? That's never happened before.

And he is going to be there just a few days removed from maybe the biggest wrestling show of all time and all in. But in addition to that, we've got something I've been excited to do since the first starcast. Way back when, we had Jim Johnston talk about how he created a lot of his classic WW themes. Well, this year we've got Mikey Ruckus, the guy who's responsible for all of the AEW themes and Dale Oliver, who did all of the T&A themes. So it's really, really cool, a peek behind the curtain, and you want to talk about rare guests. How about Kawata? Yeah, that Kawata, he's going to be on stage with Eddie Kingston. Eddie Kingston's hero in professional wrestling is Kawata.

It's the reason Eddie wrestles in black and yellow. And Kawata has not been to the States here in more than 35 years. He's never done a fan convention like this at all. You can get your pictures, you can get your autographs. And of course, you're going to hear his story as only he can do. And how about Sting? Yeah. If we're going to have somebody from the NWO there, we got to have Sting there.

They're all going to be there. S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T.com. If you can't make it to Chicago, you can catch all the fun on Premiere, Starcast on Premiere.com. But before we talk about Starcast and All-Out, we've got all-in, and we are just days away now. It's this Sunday, as folks are listening to this, Eric. We've been building and hyping this show for quite a while.

while there you see the some of the original marketing right there and that was the OG marketing before punk was even announced as being back and nobody really knew what to expect when they put these tickets on sale Eric I heard a lot of people saying man 40,000 would just be an absolute home run they've more than doubled that now people didn't think it was possible and somehow some way they've sold more than 80,000 tickets that beats the summer slam 92 record in the same building that beats WrestleMania 3 with Hogan and Andre that beats WrestleMania 32 and I think that's the high watermark for WWE I don't think WWE's ever had this many fans in a building people will talk about this show for a long long time but what's most interesting is

they did it really without announcing any matches but we have announced a handful of matches now we know it's going to be MJF and Adam Cole for the world title we got will Osprey taking on Chris Jericho. Eddie Kingston, Orange Cassidy, and the best friends teaming up with the Lucha Bros. To take on the Blackpool Combat Club, and three to be announced participants. That's a stadium stampede match, which has become a trademark for AW. The Golden Elite, which is Abushi, Omega, and Hangman Adam Page, taken on DeKeshta and Jus Robinson and Jay White. Darby Allen will be teaming with Sting to take on A.R. Fox and Swerve Strickland and boy, they've told quite a story there, bloodied up Nick Wayne.

It felt like a movie. And we've got a four way for the women's title. That's how we'll slide Sheeta and Tony Storm and Soraya and Britt Baker in the ring together. And the rubber match, if you will, with FTR taking on the Young Bucks for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. They're tied at one apiece, I believe. But then there's the zero hour or they're pre-show. And you got lost the open taken on MJF and Adam Cole. So MJF and Adam Cole will start the show on a pre-show for the tag titles,

and you got to assume that'll be heavy on story because they're going to close the show as well. We've got eight matches announced so far. Who knows if there's still more to come, but man, it's close and over 80,000 tickets sold. I think people will study the way the promotion for this event went for a long time. And there will be lots of armchair quarterbacking. I mean, but you got to give them their props, man, 80,000 tickets. My goodness. It's going to be a very, very interesting night.

I've said it a couple times now. I think I may have even said it last week in this podcast. The biggest star on that show, clearly without question, is going to be the audience. That is, that's going to determine this ultimately beyond the financial, you know, upside of this. It's going to be the reaction of the crowd. And if they can manage that, if they do a great, great job of creating that emotion and making sure they send everybody home feeling really satisfied and proud of the fact that they were a part of that event. This will have positive downstream

impact for years to come. If on the other hand, they shit the bed and throw a bunch of garbage matches out there and blood and guts and tables and chairs and whatever else they come up with, and it's just another house show with some some interesting names on it um it'll it'll come back and bite them so that's going to be the pressure is really going to be on creative on this one and we'll see what happens i'm pulling for them it's certainly the 80,000 people the success of the of the AEW brand because they didn't promote any talent it wasn't the six it wasn't like sam punk through the crowd which i'm really really happy about we talked about that when CM Punk came back, you know, and I said, I'm going to show, don't advertise them.

If AEW can prove that the brand can draw and you're not dependent on any one person or even a combination of one or two or three people, that's a major home run. And that's what they've achieved. So I'm proud of them for that. I'm proud of Tony Con for doing as well as he's done without announcing a card and leveraging the brand and the fact that it's a new company that's coming to a new market without depending on any one person and that's awesome let's just hope that they manage the biggest star of the show and they're going to come back to the u.s. with a massive amount of momentum if they do

i can't wait to see what happens of course you and our recording ahead of collision uh so there's still probably going to be a sea and punk match announced you assume based on seeing samoa jo choke him out the other night that it'll be Joe and punk, uh, as we know on a mega show like this. I mean, certainly any AW pay-per-view eight matches feels a little light. So there are still a few more to come, but I, I think we both agree, because we talked about it last week, your Sarsa formula, there's going to have to be a surprise. And I asked Kevin Sullivan last week, Hey, do you think that surprise is Goldberg and there

was a long pause. And then I said, do you think it could be Sasha Banks? He got really excited about that idea. of course I have no inside information I'm not involved I don't I don't know and I know some people argue and say oh Conrad and Dave Mills are on the payroll I'm not I'm not saying Dave is but I've never received a dollar from AEW but I am friendly with Tony but as you know Eric when you're friendly with people like we don't we don't text Bruce and say what's going to happen that's just not what you do but I got to think there's going to be a surprise

if you had, you know, played darts and yes, what do you think that surprise will be? I don't know if it's a guess. It's more of a hope. I hope they booked Bill Goldberg and see him punk. That would be fun. And I'd want a ticket. I wouldn't even care about watching whatever match they end up having.

I don't want to see what's going on backstage. And that would be fun. Let's see if punk can pull his sissy shit with a guy like Goldberg. That would be fun. I'd get a kick out of that. The drama that would ensue in a punk Goldberg matchup would be off the charge. So let's hope it's Bill Goldberg and see him punk.

Well, you know what? It's such a big show, Eric, and I understand just based on day parts and times and all that, I think it's going to be airing on a Sunday afternoon, if I have that right. Maybe you and I should get together and record an all-out fallout show. Are you going to be able to be situated and watch that program? do you think we could discuss that? Actually, I'll be traveling all day Sunday. I'm going to be in, I think I'm in New Jersey this weekend, but I can certainly record it and get home and watch it and be ready to do something first thing Monday morning. Yeah, let's do that. So let's make plans

right now, boys and girls. If you haven't already, plan to spend next Monday with us here. Of course, you probably listen on your way to work or whatever it may be. But on Monday, the 28th. Plop down for a live edition of 83 weeks. You can be a part of our live studio audience. By joining ad-free shows.com. We'll take your questions and we'll certainly solicit

your feedback, but it's the biggest show of the year. We should definitely be talking about it. And folks really dig hearing your take on modern wrestling. So our topic next week will be discussing the once-in-a-lifetime show or so it feels. And by the way, Eric,

you know, there's a lot of, and I'm not saying you this, but I'm saying there's a lot of tribalism and wrestling online and a lot of people like to quote unquote move the goalposts. And the thing that really stuck out to me is I've seen some people saying, oh, well, let's see him draw 80,000 again. Guys, let's talk about WrestleMania 3. When was the next time they drew a crowd that big? It was decades later.

So it's unrealistic to think, well, let's see him do it again next year. he's not even doing that year over year like this is I'm not going to say they'll never do it again but I am saying can we not just enjoy this one moment why does the pressure always have to be to let's see I'm do it again like this this is going to be a monumental show for A.W and they should bask in it I mean they're going to have the largest gate in the history of wrestling in Europe on this one I think and I got to assume that the gate is going to be top 10 all time, and probably the largest non-Ressomania gate ever, that should be enough to celebrate for AEW without having to move those goalposts. Can we agree on that air? Yeah, but look,

first of all, I think people should just embrace their tribalism. Go ahead. Enjoy it. That's, I mean, that interaction on the internet, no matter how ugly it is, in most cases, it's just stupid. That's right. It's like troll level, ignorant. and stupidity, but it's also entertaining. And the engagement and the back and forth and the arguing, that's part of the reason it works. It's Coke versus Pepsi. You see, you drive, you know, I drive around everywhere in a country,

but especially down the south whenever I'm down there, I don't pass a pickup truck that doesn't have, you know, somebody, some, you know, character on the back of a truck, stenciled on, you know, taking a piss on the Chevy logo. and vice versa. You know, it's just, come on, embrace it, quit whining about it. And to the same point, even the list of attributes that you've already assigned to AEW, which by the way, I agree with, I'm not, I'm not calling you out of doing that. But the biggest, the most, beat WWE, did this, did that. Okay, that's also a form of tribalism. You're not using in that way right here because you're

establishing a fact and you're pointing out that why can't we just enjoy this success? And I agree with that 100%. But the more people, especially the internet wrestling community, want to point out, well, we're beating the bigger crowd than some or something. I'm 92. Okay. Buck or father, that opens the gate for all kinds of other combinations of comparisons. Let's talk about the fact that AEW probably doesn't average 50,000 viewers per week in the UK. That's, you know, basically a home video, you know, or a YouTube video. There's a lot of things that aren't really going in AEW's direction right now, mostly because they're a new company and they're going through the inevitable growing pains of the new company is going to grow

through, go through. But I'm of the mind now. I used to get out of tribalism, oh, the internet, fuck it, embrace it. The more engagement you have on the internet, social media, the more people are reading about it, the more people will pay attention to the product. It kind of falls into that no press is bad press thing, unless somebody really, you know, shits the bed and it causes real damage to the brand. Let them have it, man. Engage. Fight your way through social media every day.

Put on your tribal hat. Do a little fucking war dance. I don't care what you do because it's all good for the business. That's how I feel. Controversy, as I've said before, creates cancer. no listen i'll be honest i hadn't really considered it that way but you do make a valid point uh i always make valid points i always make valid points the thing i i'm so interested in and i hear what you're saying about hey maybe it sounded like i was i'm not as interested in

comparing and saying oh they beat wb here i'm just saying that record has been in place since 1992 for Wembley like nobody's even ever tried to run that building again since 1992 i mean that's over 30 years ago that it's it's remarkable that they've done it and in spite of as you're saying there's a relatively small viewing audience over there this has just booking this building made it feel bigger the perception is bigger and i know that you were a big fan of you know perception is reality from a television standpoint like hey if we're in this sound stage and it's the same people versus you know we're on the road and we've got lights and a venue and I mean I totally get all that but this is going to look and feel so much

bigger than anything AEWs ever done before and that's what's so curious is it's not like they had 15 dream matches announced and tickets are on sale now it's it's something else. I think it's curiosity. Look, it's a new come. I think the success of the event also has a lot to do with the success of the professional wrestling industry as a whole. There you go. I think while, you know, to counter my own point, the lack of television success or penetration, I should say, more accurately, is interesting because I think social media and streaming and all of the other things that are many ways, you know, hurting television and wrestling, probably play into the success of what we're having now. You know, I think the Internet and the perception and the buzz and the fact that AEW has been around now for four and a half years close to it are working on it.

And the folks in Europe have never had an opportunity to see it, they're the new kid in town. and people want to check it out. Let's take this new car for a test drive and see if it's any good. I think that has a lot to do with just the overall success of the wrestling industry in general. And it's maybe, you know, perfect timing, you know, moon and the stars are all lined up right for this event. And like I say, let's just hope that they walk out of there with everybody that was there in the building and people that have watched wherever they watch it going, damn, that company is legit let's hope they do that manage the audience and you win it'll be interesting

to see what they do on dynamite the following week of course dynamite is going to be in Chicago and this is really the first time I've seen something like this happened before we've got pay-per-views a week apart and I know if you go back and you take a look at like Survivor Series 1991 they pretty quickly followed it up with Tuesday in Texas and I thought that was an excellent way to you know brand the name of the show and all that sort of thing but he you know that was November 27th 1991 and then we followed it up on December 3rd 1991 so we tried this concept in 1991 and now we're going to try it again but this Tuesday in Texas was really announced right after the the the

controversial finish for Survivor Series 91. I mean, as far as I know, at least as we're recording this, they haven't announced anything for All Out. So this is a real daunting task to ask fans to come out of their pocket for All In, which I'm excited to do. I don't mean to interrupt you, but here's what I find interesting. One of the things when I was put in charge of WCW,

that, and I could affect basically any change I wanted to, to affect. One of the things I did, especially with regard to a night show, is not promote next week's event. And at the time, it was so, it was 180 degrees from the formula that it worked so well. You know, I remember working for Jim Ross at the time. And Jim was just, he was a machine when it came, when he made his notes going into a show of the points that he wanted to cover, whether it was the WCW magazine or tickets on sale in Oklahoma or whatever it was he had to promote on an episode always was promoting next week's show and promoting the next pay-per-view promoting the big things and it got to the point where and it wasn't wrong at the time it was well it wasn't effective in WCW

but that had nothing to do with with promoting the following week show it's just they didn't have anything to promote that anybody cared about That was the problem. But when we launched Nitro, I wanted people to tune into the show. I wanted the show to be over. And you can go back and watch as many nitros as you want to watch, especially in the early, don't look at 2000 or even 99. But if you go back and look at the beginning of Nitro,

you don't know what's happening next week. You have to tune in to find out what's going to happen to next week. And at the time, it was like, well, how could you not promote next week's show? You promote next week's show by doing something so exciting and leaving them wanting more to the extent that they have to tune in to see what's going to happen next week. That's called creating must-see TV. No, I don't think Tony and company have thought through what they're doing necessarily from that perspective, but it doesn't matter because it's working. It has worked. Let's put it that way. It has worked. And

I don't think they should or need to promote what's going to happen on dynamite after the paper view. I think they're doing the right thing. They may not know they're doing the right thing or they may not have the same reason I did at the time for not promoting what's happening next week. But it doesn't matter if it works and it's working. And hopefully, you know, the success that I anticipate that they're going to have at the pay-per-view, the success they're going to have on dynamite following the paper. review, maybe a light bulb will go off in her head and they'll quit over promoting because you're giving people, in the case of AEW in particular, and WWE does it as well, you're

often, you know, you're promoting things that actually nobody really cares about. And you think by promoting it, it will make people care about it. No, what happens, in my experience, what happened is when you're promoting things that don't have any momentum, that don't really matter, you're giving people a reason not to tune in. You're actually giving them permission not to tune in because you're telling them something that's going to happen that they frankly just aren't interested in. Unless it's a major, major matchup,

or there's some incredible stakes on the line, something really major. Fuck it. Don't promote it. Create, condition the audience. And that's part of audience management that I'm referring to in the beginning of the show. managing the audience is getting them to do what you want them to do having as much control over

the audience's reaction as you possibly can that's what that is and if if AEW can get to the point where the brand is so hot like it is obviously in the UK where people will instead of buying a ticket flock to the television to watch and see what's going to happen they're going win big time. It'll change the way they do things, hopefully, because clearly what they're doing isn't really that effective, you know, collision, you know, down to a little over 400,000 viewers this week with no real competition. That's not a good sign. Dynamite is flat as piss on a plate. That audience hasn't grown even incrementally in the last year, year and a half, no matter who's on the show. And maybe it's time and maybe all in will and end dynamite, the fact.

follows will provide kind of a roadmap of how to change the way they're promoting their shows we'll see i hope so do you think uh collision is going to suffer because of football uh i want to come back and ask you about all out but you mentioned the collision rating do you think a lot of that had to do with with football coming back and is that going to be something we see more problems with in the fall i think well college football hasn't started yet has it no pro football It was up against preseason football. But college football, of course, is going to be. Well, I'll tell you what, if preseason football, and let's take the head-to-head against SummerSlam, let's just put that off to the side.

That's an outlier. You know, it's probably going to happen more in the future. But let's just set that aside like it never happened. They went from 750,000 viewers two weeks ago, whatever it was, down to a little over. $400,000 because of preseason football that nobody really gives two shits about. It's not necessarily a big draw. But if collision is that susceptible to, even though it's the NFL, it's still preseason, nobody cares.

Right. I don't even know it was happening. So unless you're probably, unless you're a hardcore fan or you're just, you love to bet and you're betting money. If collision is that susceptible to preseason football, they're going to get. get killed by college they're going to get killed by college college football is becoming more and more and popular it's it's it's they're going to get crushed and we'll be looking at collision ratings in the 300 350,000 viewers when college football is a factor definitely

think it's going to hurt them I want to ask about um all in again and then we'll move on but you said hey we've got a you weren't a fan of necessarily promoting next week you want people to tune in to see what happened have something so exciting that they feel like they've got to tune in next week i totally get that from an episodic television standpoint but are you suggesting that they should treat all in as if it were that like man this was so awesome I got to buy the next pay-per-view to see how it finishes. I think a lot of fans might be disappointed if all-in really becomes a way to sell all-out.

And that would seem backwards to me. No, no, no, no, paper views have to be treated differently. You know, and I think it's fair to say the consensus amongst a lot of fans is that AEW delivers pretty well on their pay-per-views. Oh, yeah. You don't, you don't hear a lot of people complaining about the quality of the pay-per-view or what happened in a pay-per-view. So I think AWs established itself pretty firmly, if not broadly, but firmly amongst the audience they currently have, that they deliver. And I'm

not suggesting that the pay-per-view should at all be treated like just a really, really important episodic television event. The pay-per-view has to feel like it's delivering on stories. The pay-per-view should be it should be weekly television escalating a story escalating the arc you know focusing on air but the pay-per-view should be where at least 50% of the stories come to an ending and 50% of the stories for example are really beginning the next stage of their arc i mean that would be a perfect balance right so you're actually achieving a little bit of both but you've got to have stories that come to a conclusion of some sort on that pay-per-view. Otherwise, if everything that you do on that pay-per-view is leading you to television or leading you to the next pay-per-view,

you'll end up disappointing a significant part of the audience. You've got to make them feel like they paid to come to see the conclusion of the best movie going for at least half the card. and then go ahead and use the rest of the card to kind of build and escalate to the next big event, whether it's TV or the next pay-per-view. It's a balance. It's managing the audience. Do you think things like title changes matter in a show like this?

Like, you know, that's a general question. Sure. If there's a great story behind it, if the arc has done well and the story is escalating and the tension is, you know, there, and the drama leading into the event, absolutely a title change to make a difference.

If there is no real story, and I'm talking about, you know, internet wrestling fans version of a story because they think anything is a story. Shoot an angle, oh, there's a story. Yeah, but they wrestled 10 years ago. Yeah, but, you know, they've got history.

It's like internet wrestling bullshit. But if there is a disciplined arc that's building and it's got the drama, the anticipation, story is there and then you have a great finish where the title has changed hands and yeah can hell of a hell of a big impact but just a title change for the sake of the title change without any of the backstory without a good arc without the drama without the stakes now you're pissing in the wind well i ask because like when i think of wimbly stadium i think of the first time

the british bulldog won the intercontinental championship and he beat brett heart for that and it was the main event and so it felt substantial it felt special so i'm wondering you know maybe if there is some sort of title circumstance and then the follow-up act act two of that if you will because i know you said it should be the finish of a great movie but maybe that leads us to all out a title change we'll see uh were you watching wrestling or have you ever seen summer slam 92 i mean do you do you get the historical significance of that with the british bulldog i don't i don't i don't I don't, to be honest with you. Well, it was really built around, you know, Davy Boy Smith, the British Bulldog.

This is, he's in the main event and it's really one of the first times that we saw, no, the world title isn't the main event. And it's not necessarily this hot, heated issue. It's essentially like two family members battling over a title. And the parallels are there, except, you know, of course, we're not in Adam Cole's home country. But Adam Cole has not had. the AEW world title and he and MJF are not necessarily family members but they are best friends if you will and so the similarities are there but man it was such a monumental moment

when Davey boy the British Bulldog won the world title or the the intercontinental title which went on last which almost never happened it was always the world title or some hot issue instead now it's the intercontinental title that was last it was a big moment for Davey boy Well, he's outside to the company, but there's a cat running around Davy Boy Smith, Jr. And it just makes me wonder, man, I wonder if there's an opportunity. They'd do something with him. I think there's a, there's a handful of fun surprises. And maybe you're looking for to give some fun surprises around your house.

Well, heads up fantasy football fans as draft season approaches, don't neglect the most important draft pick of all your game balls. We know how injuries can ruin a season. So let Manscape take care of that Reggie Bush. yours with their skin safe technology. This should guarantee you have a smooth ride into the playoffs. The leaders in below the waist grooming

have created a championship lineup with their performance package 4.0 and it's time for you to do the same. Join the 9 million men worldwide who trusts Manscaped and get ready for kickoff by going to Manscape.com for 20% off plus free shipping with the code 83 weeks.

Inside their performance package 4.0, you'll find the lawnmower 4.0 tremor the weed wacker ear and nose hair trimmer, the crop preserver ball deodorant, the crop reviver toner, the performance boxer briefs, and a shed travel bag. Slotted at quarterback, we have the lawnmower 4.0 trimmer. This spaceship is here to guide you on a journey to trim your body, your balls, and even your A-gap. The fourth-generation trimmer also has a ceramic blade.

It's going to make sure you don't have any of those grooming accidents. Thanks to that advanced skin-safe technology. The lawnmower 4.0, dude, it's serious. 7,000 RPM's plus a travel lock. It's even waterproof. But how about this? A 4,000K LED spotlight that's brighter than Bryce Young's future in the end zone. Let me tell you about the weed whacker. This is a way to run through those ear and nose hairs like Aaron Donald through your favorite quarterback. The weed whackers also waterproof. If you really want to be popular, just shave your nose hairs in the shower. Shave them in a hot tub. Shave them in a pool. Shave them on the beach. You can.

Got a 9,000 RPM motor. It's got a 360-degree rotary dual blade system. And once again, proprietary skin-safe technology. It's going to make sure you don't have any nicks or snags or tugs in those delicate little holes of yours. Speaking of delicates, how about the crop preserver bald deodorant? And we've mentioned it here before on the show. But if you have the opportunity to see Tony Chivani at a live event, maybe a meet and greet, something like that, just ask him, is it true that you had really stinky nuts?

you worked at Starbucks, but once you started using the crop preserver, Tony Con got your phone number and put you back on TV. That's a true story. He'll back me up on it. The crop reviver can also help you. Maybe get those benchwormers of yours, you know, your danglies. Get them on their egg game, especially in this summer heat. They've even got two free gifts here, y'all. We got the boxer briefs for Manscaped and the shed travel bag, which, uh, well, J.R. uses for a variety of things. Just ask him about it when you see him. He'll tell you the whole story. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code 83 weeks at Manscape.com. That's 20% off y'all and free shipping. How do you beat that? Just use our code 83 weeks at Manscape.com. And ta-da,

you'll put the P-P back in your PPR and get a grip on the pig skin this season with Manscaped. Boy, Manscapes has some good coffee. Do they know how to talk to us about taking care of our dangle bids. They must have a, they've got a roster of some pretty good comedic writers. writing this stuff because it's good stuff I cracks me up every time I hear one it's great stuff and so was involving Dennis Rodman he's our topic today of course next week this time next week we'll be sitting down to talk about all in but we're going to talk about how you went all in on Dennis Rodman I think a lot of people just assume oh he showed up in Chicago throwing up the wolf pack side smoking a cigar he was a part of the NWO

that's not how it started it actually started way back in July of 95. Yeah, not 97, 95. He's hanging out with Hulk Hogan and Bash at the beach. This is that outdoor event, of course, in Huntington Beach. Rodman had just completed at the time, his second season with the San Antonio Spurs. Of course, he became one of the bad boys of the Detroit Pistons in the 80s and early 90s. And he just doesn't really get along with the Spurs.

And it's not long before he's going to wind up. missing time due to a motorcycle injury and he's going to lose to the underdog Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals. I'm curious, Eric, we've never really talked about it. How do you get hooked up with Dennis Rodman in 1995? Did Hogan meet him? Did you have the connection somehow? How does that come to be?

I didn't have the connection. And I don't think I even really had much of a conversation with Dennis back then. Dennis lived, I think he lived in Newport Beach, California. which wasn't far from the event. I'm not sure if he lived there at that time, but I know he has lived there for a long time. I'm assuming that's all this is, I'm guessing, I guess,

is that Dennis was in the era. He was a big fan of Hulk Hogan. The event was going on, and he and Hogan just connected. I don't think I even really had a conversation with Dennis while he was there. Well, I'm curious, you know, how the pairing came to be. I mean, he's going to be out here with Hulk Hogan, who's Don in the Red and Yellow,

but he's always been perceived as being like this bad boy of basketball. Maybe we're just trying to get our biggest celebrities together. That makes sense. Nonetheless, Rodman's going to join Hogan for a pre-match promo. He's going to be walking around the outside of the ring during the main event, which is a cage match on the beach where Hogan's going to be wrestling Vader. And, man, he has a really long NBA career. he's probably most well known for his run though with the bulls and that's where he started

to sort of level up his persona I mean my dude had different hairstyles and I mean he was doing I'm dying my hair blind and now it's going to be multicolor and he'd wear different you know nose rings and earrings and these and all the tattoos and stuff that's pretty common these days yeah but Dennis started that Dennis you go back and look at the NBA back then you don't see a lot of especially the stars tatted up and that was something that really i think again i'm not an expert on the nba but i think if you go back and look nobody was doing that before dennis did it he was really an innovator in that regard i mean and he also became a media darling i mean i'll never forget him showing up to his book signing in a wedding dress

you know he he had a book come out and this is the time when uh maybe the book publishers realized we should just lean into celebrity as much as we can and and big book releases became big business and a big thing again. Well, Dennis Rodman, man, he was on all of the new shows, the entertainment tonights and national inquires and all the different magazines. He showed up to one of these in a wedding dress. Now, I know you might be thinking to yourself self, why would he do that? He wanted promotion. He wanted to make sure everybody was talking about him. You wanted to make sure he didn't have to and the book publisher didn't have to fork over millions of dollars in press and promotion and coverage i got it why don't we run down to david's bridle

and i'll spend a couple grand on a on a dress and i will get millions of dollars in coverage and i know at the time a lot of people who didn't get it were thinking and saying what is he doing has he lost his mind? Is this crazy? Crazy like a fox. This was unpaid promotion for his book, the likes of which we've never seen. This was genius. And this is years before guys were doing this on TMZ. I mean, as far back as maybe 10 or 15 years ago, we would hear about, you know, celebrities. Hey, can you let the paparazzi know that I'll be having dinner at so and so? And it would be great if they got a photo. We're not co-opting that at that time, I don't think. I think Dennis just knew, hey, if I wear a freaking wedding dress,

everybody's going to be talking. Dude, he knew controversy created cash way back when. Yeah, he also had vision. And I want to, you know, for the fans to get an opportunity to meet Dennis at, at Sarcast, uh, Dennis oftentimes comes off as an introvert. And I think he is in many, many respects, but he's also, to your point, one of the smartest, most intelligent, and just native intelligence, just born with that gift to not only see what's going on, but to see things before they happen. I know that sounds weird, but he's a very intelligent guy. I think one of the reasons, again, I am not an NBA expert.

I'm not even an NBA fan until the playoffs, to be honest with you. but I would imagine as a novice if that that in order to be a great rebounder you have to see a play develop before it develops you have to be in the right place at the right time you have to see a little bit into the future even if it's just moments or seconds right to put yourself at a position to to be the rebounder that Dennis Rodman was and I think the same is true in life to a degree at least it is with Dennis because he is so smart and he sees things before a lot of other people see them know when you meet Dennis that while he may not be completely over the top trying to entertain the masses at assigning you're talking to one of the most intelligent

people I've ever worked with he's he's a really interesting cat and just a genius I mean I know that we keep coming back to that, but this book thing in 1996, like, name your next favorite book promotion, Eric. Can you even name another famous book promotion besides that? That is the biggest one, maybe ever. They pale in comparison. I can't think of one for sure. It's crazy. And people still talk about that to this day. Now, just to give you context, he's with Hogan at Bash at the Beach in 95. We know it's coming in 1997 with the NWO. The book signing, that's 1996. It's right in the middle.

His star just continues to rise. Not only is he playing basketball with Michael Jordan, and they're dominating the NBA and winning championships. And by the way, in that era, if you're on a team with Michael Jordan, you're on ESPN and USA Today and everything else that matters every single day. And Dennis, frankly, did not look like any other player on the court. He's got the multicolored hair.

He's got the piercings. He's got the tattoos. He's made himself stand out. And like Eric said, maybe not with his words, but with his personality and his freedom of expression with his look. He just leaned into that. And dude, he was a media darling back before that was a thing, really. And you wrote this in your book.

Paul Cogan called me one afternoon while I was at a meeting at the airport in Atlanta. He had just gotten off the phone with Dennis Rodman. Rodman, the eccentric Chicago Bulls Forward, was talking about doing a deal with WWB. Hogan wanted us to grab Rodman instead. If I get you Rodman's number, he asked, can you give him a call? Sure.

So let's just pause right there. There's been lots of rumor and innuendo that again, let's give the context. It's 1996 when he does this wedding dress stunt. At the time, they had a hot character on the other channel named Gold Dust. He was introgynous, you know, was it, what was going on there? Well, now you've got Dennis Rodman doing all his crazy antics in the wedding dress.

We know they're looking to leverage celebrity. Hell at WrestleMania 96, they had Gold Dust, wrestle Roddy Piper, and then Roddy Piper escaped in a white Bronco, or Gold Dust did rather. No, it was Piper. whatever the circumstance was they showed the white bronco footage from oj so in 96 they're really trying to lean into pop culture as much as they can and they have this conversation about what if with dennis rodman dennis remembers hogan from working with him in wcd at july uh bash at the beach so here comes the the call and you wrote in your book i ended up talking to

Dennis' agent, Dwight Manley, and I didn't ask him much about the WWE, it wasn't my concern. And we ended up doing a deal pretty easily. What do you remember about this call with Dwight Manley and how you got, you know, this interest in Dennis? Because the way it reads is, WWE was interested in Dennis. And Dennis thought, if I'm going to do something in wrestling, I should call Hulk. You call and pick up WWE's idea. Is that fair to say? I didn't pick up an idea. I don't know what their idea was. If an idea is bringing someone in, I didn't, I mean, Dennis called me. I didn't, I didn't hear about the

WWE, I didn't know about the WWE conversation until actually, yeah, it was Hulk or Dwight that told me it was a real thing. I wasn't aware of it. So it was just an opportunity. It's not stealing an idea. It's an opportunity. And the conversation went, Dr. Sarah Kinsman from the Health Resources and Services Administration tells us about one of the biggest drug overdose poisoning threats we face. In the last several years, almost 70,000 people a year have died from fentanyl poisonings. If a person's alert and active and breathing, you would call Poisoned Helpline and they would help you right away. Get ahead of a poison emergency. Call the Poison Helpline, 1-800-222.

Let's be honest, finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming. But with 4-imprint, it's easy. Four-imprint makes it stress-free, straightforward, and backed by real peace of mind. That's 4-imprint certainty. Not sure what promo products to order? You can get free samples, expert advice, even free help with your logo, so everything turns out even better than you expected. Need options?

They've got thousands, including summer-ready gear, like branded apparel, drinkware, outdoor and all the trade show essentials. And when your order arrives, it's packed with care and backed by their 360-degree guarantee, which means it shows up looking great and right on time. In a rush, 4-imprint has quick turnaround options too, so you can hit your deadline without breaking a sweat. Whether you're prepping for a summer event

or just refreshing your promo lineup, 4-imprint helps you get it done confidently and with simplicity and ease. Head to 4imprint.com to find out more. I mean, when I hung up the phone, from what I remember, it was a minute ago. Yeah. I was, in fact, I think I called Hulk back right after I was done talking to Manley and said, yeah, we got it done. You know, it was not a hard deal to do.

It wasn't like, oh my gosh, WWE offered him this and I have to offer them that. I don't even know if there was a formal offer to Dennis. I don't think there was. If there was, it certainly didn't come up in any conversations I had with Dwight Manley. It was, this is, Dennis is interested. Would you be interested in Dennis? And I immediately started doing the math in my head, just thinking about all the press that was going to come with it. And that was a pretty easy deal for me to do.

It fell within my authority at that point in time. I could commit up to a million dollars, but not a million and one. So I had the authority to enter into an agreement. without having to get it approved by anybody as long as I was working within my budget and I had enough money in my budget at the time to afford it. So I basically cut the deal with white over the phone and the first phone call. It's pretty, it was one of the easier deals I've ever done, to be honest. I'm not saying this to be funny. I'm trying to learn sometimes when we go out, not we, but I've heard that sometimes when when folks go out and they make a deal like this to bring a

talent in. It's because they have an idea. They have a match. They have a payoff. They have some sort of a story or concept in mind. And other times, it's just, hey, man, this person's hot. Let's just see if we can get them to agree to do something with us and then we'll figure it out. Was that more of what this was or did you guys already have? A hundred percent. I mean, I cut the deal with Dwight Manley on the phone without even knowing I was going to have a conversation with Dwight Manley about Dennis Rodman on my way to the Atlanta airport Marriott for a meeting. It was just like I came from out of nowhere.

I knew there was urgency on it. You know, Hulk made it clear to me that there was conversations ongoing with WWE. And Hulk saw the opportunity immediately. And when I say pressured me. It's not like he, you know, leveraged his Hulk Hoganess and pushed me into the deal. But the enthusiasm in his voice. along you know i caught that it was contagious and i got a case of it and again dennis was so hot it was so obvious to me that it was the the latter of your two scenarios where i went fuck

this guy is hot as he is the media loves him i'll find a way we'll find a way i'm not worried about it and i was a little bit involved more so involved in creative at the time that i was in 95 when when Dennis showed up. But yeah, it was no question that we could figure out what to do. And I think in the conversation I hand with Dwight is, you know, what does Dennis want to do? Is you just want to stand at ringside and be kind of like a Jimmy Hart and a manager and, you know, do a couple media things or does he want to get involved? The Dwight made it clear. No, he wants to get involved. I'm like, okay, we'll figure that out when the time comes. It was reported in the, in the observer that Dennis Rodden was offered

$500,000 to be in Gold Dust Corner at WrestleMania and then to tag with him at SummerSlam. And we know that Hogan is certainly a much bigger star than Gold Dust. And, you know, I mean, he probably had a relationship with Dennis. They certainly had each other's phone numbers. I just think that's interesting to think, you know, if I'm Dennis Rodman and I have an opportunity to work with the WWF, which no doubt was the bigger brand at the time, but I'm going to be with gold dust or I could go do something with Hogan that probably makes it a no brain or two no disrespect to Dustin Rhodes but it's like goodness gracious Hulk Hogan's

the biggest star in the history of wrestling if you have a chance to do that that probably is bigger for what he's trying to do which is court attention I mean and if that's what he's looking for with crazy hairstyles and and wedding dresses and yeah it's a no brainer to go with Hogan, right? And two things. One is, I am convinced, you know, if, if Dennis could have made $500,000 for being in Gold Dust Corner and then building to a pay-per-view, Dennis would have made a lot more money with WWE than he did with WCW, absolutely convinced of that, or at least he could have if that's what he wanted to do. And again, like you said, no disrespect to Goldus. You know, Dustin is a friend of mine. We, you know, kind of stay in touch every once in a while.

and I have tons of respect for for Dustin and what he's accomplished in his career. But Dennis was a wrestling fan. He is a Hulk Hogan fan. And I think the fact that he just liked Hulk Hogan. I mean, they got along. They were friends, the legitimate friends, not just, you know, friendship as a result of an opportunity. And that was the factor. It wasn't really the money.

It was the fact that Dennis, as you pointed out, got a chance to work with Hulk Hogan. And the little kid came out and Dennis at the point. You know, the little kid that grew up as a wrestling fan of Texas came out. And he wanted to, he wanted to be there with Hulk. Not anybody else, nothing about, has nothing to do with Dustin. Just everybody else wasn't Hulk Hogan. Not trying to argue with you about the money. You did it.

I wasn't there. I think I was 16 years old. So what the hell do I know? but you wrote in your book, I don't remember the dollar amount or the exact terms, but it was probably in the area of two television appearances and a single pay-per-view, something in the area of a million dollars. I'll pause right there. You did say a minute ago, you could go up to a million dollars.

You would continue, that's a bit lower than what was reported at the time. Dennis was a very high profile, very controversial character at the time. His basketball career was at its peak, and the Michael Jordan led bulls were in the middle of what would become a historic second three-peat as champions of the NBA. So the observer was saying it was 500 grand that WWE was offering. If you are offering a million, not only is it a bigger star with someone he grew up loving and he was a big fan of, it's also more money.

And I got to think with hindsight being 2020, that was probably a worthwhile investment for you. Was it not, Eric? It was a massively good investment. And by the way, we don't know that that that's Dave Meltzer reporting and that's true Dave Meltzer has reported a lot of things that weren't accurate or true um he's made a career of it actually um so just because Dave Meltzer said it doesn't mean it's true number one number two even if it was double

let's just let's just take that position okay I they offered 500 I offered a million but I got TV out of it yeah it wasn't just showing up in a corner you know, and being a Jimmy Hart as manager, right? He was promoting and he was going to be involved in the show and he was going to wrestle. That comes with a much different price tag and a much bigger benefit. So I still think the deal that I did with Dennis, whether it was 10 times more than the WWE offered or not, was one of the best deals I did in 1996 or 97. well i'll tell you what if you're looking to save some of that money can i recommend rocket money

this has been a real game changer for me we've talked about it for a while now because i really believe in it and i have to admit i didn't think this thing could save me any money you see what it does is it helps you find all the subscriptions you're paying for and it cancels the unwanted subscriptions and i said to myself self i'm on top of that i'm not paying for anything i'm not using wrong. I can give you two examples. I still remember right off the top of my head. One was DeZone. I probably shouldn't be saying a brand here, but whatever. I'm just telling you all the truth. I signed up to watch one fight. And I guess what I did is it was included in a package where it was a monthly membership. Hell, I didn't know that. I thought I was paying

for one fight. And I did pay for that one fight. And then I paid 11 more months at the same dollar amount and never turned it on. That saved me a boatload of cash. Not only that, At the height of the pandemic, my wife and I felt like we had reached the end of Netflix, so we both signed up for Hulu. Dude, we watched TV together. She's not watching TV without me. I'm not watching TV without her. We don't need two Hulu accounts. We found that and so many other things that made us feel foolish because we had signed up for something and just totally forgot about it.

And as I said, we were paying for some things twice. And here's what we found. It was so easy with Rocket Money. have you ever tried to cancel something hell have you ever tried to unsubscribing from an email they make it difficult you know they even advertise on tv three easy payments well guess what the hard part of that is canceling one rocket money takes care of all that and they even give you an alert for a subscription price increase but this is a brand new thing i can't believe this is real they'll help you negotiate those prices down you see rocket money is a personal finance app that will

find and cancel all of your unwanted subscriptions. It will help you monitor your spending and help you lower your bills all in one place. And if you're like me, you probably think you're spending like $80 a month on subscriptions. It's closer to 200. And you're signed up for so much stuff, man.

Maybe it's signed up to watch one show. And then when that season was over and that's the only reason you watched it, you forgot to cancel. I did that with Godfather of Harlem. I don't need that stuff the rest of the year. I needed those 13 weeks. them done or maybe there's free trials where you're like yeah it's only a dollar or it's free for the first month and then you forget about it and now you're paying it and you forgot

about it so you darn sure aren't using it and it's such little money you think well i don't care i mean i didn't notice it added up man i was saving a boat i saved a well over a thousand a year with this y'all and it was so easy with rocket money to cancel you just press one button they take care of it. No more long hold times, no more annoying emails back and forth. And how about this? This is brand new. I didn't even know they could do this. Now rocket money can negotiate your bills lower for you. Up to 20% sometimes. Here's what you do. You take a picture of your bill. Rocket money goes to work. They take care of the rest. They let you monitor all your expenses in one place. They even help you create custom budgets based on your past

spending. They'll send you a notification to give you a heads up. Hey man, you're overdoing it. You set a spending limit and you've overdone it. You'd like to have a heads up that you're getting there before it actually happens. Rocket money can help you do that. You see, they've had over three million users using Rocket and they're saving the average person $720 a year. As I said, they save me more than $1,000. But how much can they help you save? Well, stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel. your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks.

That's rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. Rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. So listen, Eric, I'm curious, you know, T&T has a relationship with the NBA. And I'm not saying that necessarily is a big deal, but it is going to be a rather substantial amount of income, not to be disrespectful, but it's a. not like you're paying him power plant wrestler money is this something you run up the flagpole at all either from a money standpoint or from a oh yeah he's also a part of the NBA which has a deal with T&T and what if that pisses off the NBA does any of that matter no okay nope

didn't didn't ask for permission I think Rick Flair was the first I don't think Rick Flair came up with this quote, but he used it often. It's always better to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission. Yep. And I heard that. I think it was Rick was the first person I ever heard say it. So I, and I went, you know, that makes a lot of sense, especially in this environment that I was working in. So I'm just going to do it.

And the good news is by 96, I had so the wind was at my back in terms of, I had Ted Turner, you know, was one of my biggest fans in Turner broadcasting at the point at that point. so I was like yeah I'm not worried about it anybody throws a fit we'll work it out so I did it didn't even occur to me to ask for permission or to give anybody a heads up and that I guess that sounds like I wasn't much of a team player but I wasn't I was more concerned about WCW than I was anything else dude you're trying to be a pirate and it was working uh and you were getting a lot of gold or as you were probably calling it at the time booty uh hey did did Hogan come up with the idea of putting Dennis in the NWO did Dennis asked to be in the NDA or was that just a natural fit?

I don't I don't know who was the single individual behind that. I think that pretty much evolved organically. I mean, Dennis, Dennis was NWO before NWO in many respects. I mean, that was his, he was a renegade. You know, he was his own man. He had a lot of issues with the NBA as a result of it with his teams. as a result of his kind of rebellious attitude.

That just fit into the NWO. So I don't think it was any one person's idea. I think it just evolved organically. Certainly, Hulk Hogan was an advocate because Hulk is smart as fuck and realize that, you know, with the amount of press and attention that Dennis gets, you know, there's nothing wrong with getting a little piece of that rub. So it just happened. it wasn't one person and said hey i got an idea let's put oh let's put dennis rodman in the n w o brilliant

idea it wasn't that it was organic as hell let's uh let's also mention that uh you wrote in your book if dennis wasn't born to be a wrestling character i don't know who was he was an outrageous over-the-top character he attracted media attention whenever he wanted he fit in perfectly with the NWO bad boy image and Guy Evans actually wrote this on the Nitro book A week prior to uncensored TBS viewers noted Hogan and Bischoff

sitting behind the Bulls bench for a road game at Madison Square Garden WWE's backyard later that night Rodman filmed the vignette that aired on Nitro contributing to an impressive pay-view buy rate that would easily outdraw by almost 100,000 buys

the WWF's flagship event in March WrestleMania, man, you want to talk about crazy. I mean, Dennis Rodman being advertised that at uncensored certainly added a lot of mainstream media attention and press and that sort of thing. I don't know how many buys it added. It probably added some, but momentum is such a real thing that uncensored, which not one person ever in the history

have ever, as claimed was the best WCW pay-per-view. Like, I hear it all the time. People say, I loved bash at the beach. I loved Great American Bash. Halloween Havoc was my favorite. Man, I missed Starcade. I miss uncensored. It was my favorite.

Those words have never touched. But this show, uncensored 97, is not only hugely successful, it beats WrestleMania, which for years and years, man, WCW would have done anything and hoped against hope, boy, if we could ever just get to a WrestleMania buy rate, man, if we could ever touch that WrestleMania level, we would be printing cash. I can't believe that they could even achieve such a high water mark as WrestleMania. And now, not our A pay-per-view, not our B pay-per-view, maybe a C

pay-per-view beats WrestleMania. When that rating comes in, when that buy rate comes in, when you see, here's the preliminary buy rate for WWB WrestleMania, and here's the preliminary buy rate for uncensored. That has to be a high five, let's go down to Jocks and Jill's, beers are on me moment, is it not? For sure. It also was, you know, I did the ROI in my head. You know, you get a million dollars.

You look at the impact that it had on television ratings, the impact that it had on the advertising community, the impact it had on the perception of the, WCW brand all of the above made that million dollars look like jump change absolutely it's so exciting to think about how hot the business was back then guy Evans will continue to write in the nitro book which we highly recommend here but despite the box office success media coverage of the event reminded bischoff that in terms of the public consciousness his competition retained the upper hand. It was only inevitable. Dennis Rodman has signed on with the WWF. That's what the Atlanta

paper reported, by the way. Various international outlets repeated that same misprint, demonstrating a woeful ignorance of the post-Nitro landscape. Certainly at that time we had a lot of fans reflected Eric Bischoff. We had called up to the WWF and we were neck in terms of the awareness of our brand, no doubt about that. But at no time during that period, and we get to the point where when the general public thought about wrestling, they thought about us first. And what's most, I don't know, troubling or hurtful about this is this isn't, you know, the Sheboygan New Press Times or whatever.

This is the Atlanta newspaper where you've created hundreds of jobs. It's in the same city you're there. And they run a headline that Dennis Rodman has joined WWF. but that speaks a lot to just the lead and the advantage that they had as far as brand awareness and we've made this comparison a lot here in the south people will go to lunch and what would you like to drink i'll have a coke we don't have coke we have Pepsi oh i like Pepsi better anyway but coke is the brand and bandaid is a brand you really want a bandage you really need a tissue but you call it a Kleenex that existed in the wrestling space where people would just say oh he's doing

that WWF stuff. But man, when your own Atlanta paper says that, that's got to make you just want to punch a wall, does it not? It makes me want to punch a dumb fuck reporters, what it made me want to punch. There you go. And two things were a factor there

or at play, I should say. One was exactly what you articulated. You know, the WWF had done, and it was WWF at the time, such a great job over such an extensive period of time. We're talking probably 20 years, 30 years of branding WWF in the most densely populated part of the United

States on East Coast, New York, the big markets all for years recognized WWF as professional wrestling. And whenever anybody talked about wrestling, they didn't talk about world class down in Texas or they didn't talk about the NWA or the Florida Championship Wrestling. If there was a new story that broke, inevitably some idiot, because, you know, basically reporters are lazy fuckers anyway. They hardly ever get anything really right. They're just looking for a headline. And you've got a very well branded company for a long period of time in WWF. And then you've got lazy news people and reporters. So that that's a deadly combination for somebody trying to break through. And I'm sure Tony's frustrated with it at a certain point.

or will be at some point because you still have that issue today. And that's going to go back to one of the things that I pointed out early in this show. That's why I think it's so incredibly valuable that Tony has created this potentially massively successful event. And he's doing it off the AEW brand. because if he would have been building this around, say, Chris Jericho or see him punk or Miro or any of the other, you know, ex-WWE stars, it would be WWF who sold 80,000 tickets in Wembley in the media because people are just stupid and lazy generally in the media in the news.

They don't really do the work. They're just slapping shit together looking for headline. So, yeah, there were two things at play, and it was frustrating. but, you know, we started to overcome that. But to have it happen in your backyard, it was just like, man, who wrote that? Haven't come by my office. Close the door behind him and turn up some loud music for just, I don't know, a minute. The Nighter book would continue.

Anxious to further its mainstream awareness and momentum, WCW signed Dennis Rodman to appear at July's bash at the beach pay-per-view. This time, however, Rodman would be paid to actually wrestle with a deal promising $750,000 plus 50% of revenues above $3.9 million to get into the ring himself. Hogan's the one that got that started, recalls Mike Weber, WCW's former director of marketing. In 95, we did Bash at the Beach in Huntington Beach, and I remember it like yesterday. I'm getting on the elevator, and there's Hogan with Rodman. Hogan goes, yeah, I'm getting Dennis drunk here, hoping to get him more involved with our company.

man hogan had a vision for this did he not man he knew how to schmooze and and leverage his celebrity and build relationships this is a story we heard with uh with a lot of other folks dennis rodman he uh he fell into hogan's spell it sounds like yeah well i think i think jennis rodman was already there like i said he was a massive fan of hulk hogan um rick flair was similar you know i got charles barclay to you know participate in wccd paper or It might have been TV. I don't want to pay-per-view TV, whatever. But Charles Barkley at the peak of Berkeley's career jumped on board.

I don't even think we paid Charles Barkley because Charles Barkley was such a great friend of Rick Flares. There was a lot of people that kind of fell into that category where top talent like Rick Flair or Hulk Hogan could convince them against their will or possibly their agents will or even their team owners will to get involved. Yeah, team owners. We should talk about that because Meltzer wrote that that's probably the reason he didn't do anything physical and uncensored. Quote, Rodman's contract with the Chicago Bulls wouldn't prohibit him for passive participation at something like pro wrestling, like he could be in the corner, but he couldn't get physically involved to any real degree during the season. But when the season ends, Rodman will become an unrestricted free agent, and that's without an NBA contract, he would become free to wrestle or perform in a pro wrestling match.

Is that the way you remember it that, hey, uh, we'll have you just sort of there, but not doing much, but once your contract's up, let's have some fun this, this off season, is that right? No, I mean, fuck, Dennis Robin was playing in the playoffs when he was involved with, with WCW. There was no, that, that fine print, if it existed, I wasn't aware of it. And clearly neither was Dennis. Let's, uh,

Let's do a little quote here. Perhaps the most play was Hogan and Rodman appearing on the Howard Stern show on March 10th with reports from the show saying Stern pretty much blew off Hogan's attempt to plug the WCW pay-per-view to instead concentrate on talking to Rodman. And again, I love Howard Stern, but that makes sense. Okay, I know Hulk Hogan's here and he's a big deal and he wants to promote a wrestling paper view. But Dennis Rodman had been in a relationship and had discussed his sex life.

with Madonna. I think he had recently said that he was bisexual or gender fluid before that was maybe even a word. And he's appearing to marry himself in a wedding dress. He's got the crazy hair. He's a part of the Bulls. He is a bigger mainstream star at that point probably and certainly a more lightning rod for clicks and ears and eyeballs and all that than perhaps Hogan is at the time. But I believe if the rumor and innuendo is true, that appearance on how Stern almost didn't happen. Is that right? Yeah, there was, well, no, it was going to happen. It was just a matter of how sober everybody was going to be by the time it came. It, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, you, both how can I got into New York the night before and, and, and Dennis was, I think he Dennis was already there.

And, uh, yeah, there was a, a massive amount of, uh, of alcohol consumed until about three o'clock in the morning, two 30 or three o'clock in the morning, two 30 or three o'clock in the morning when I had to tap out you know at that time I could hang pretty well with just about anybody I mean there were certainly some people that I couldn't keep up with but for the most part I never had an issue with it but I remember like around midnight and I'm going man just this is how do we keep doing this but it was fun Dennis was having a blast and people were leaving us alone it wasn't like you know we're mobbed just three guys hanging on the bar and it was fun And it's about like three o'clock in the morning.

I said, man, because I'm thinking, okay, I got to be there at seven. That means I got to get Hulk up and moving. And Hulk Hogan is like a freight train in the morning. And it's like a freight train you have to push uphill. It takes him a while to get going. He's just got his system and his routine and it works for him and he doesn't like to change it. And I'm thinking, oh, I know what this is going to look like. getting everybody out of bed and getting them to the studio because then or a

Howard show was pretty early in the morning I think we had to be there by seven if not earlier so yeah it was close it was it was a close night it's uh it's a fun time to be here in um in wc w hogan is going to be written about in the observer he's talking a little bit about the uncensored match hogan made sure to surgically blind himself to Rodman's side as much as possible at the pay-per-view show. So in the horde or photographers, particularly shooting for every major sports paper in Japan, got their shots of Rodman wearing his NWO shirt. Guess whose face is side by side?

Actually, the main event seemed more of a backdrop to the real story. The NWO guys posing for photos with Rodman and everyone who has power trying to get themselves hooked up with him for photo ops, which wound up being Hogan, Savage, to a lesser extent, Hall of Nash. And of course, Roddy Piper, man, this is just sour grapes. Like, this reads like Dave just doesn't like it. It reads like it absolutely should read. It reads like the coverage from a little bitch.

Oh, wow. Okay. That's Dave Meltzer. Dave Meltzer is a little feeble, miserable bitch. And in order, rather than looking at something and oh by the way you little bitch as a result of all that the NWO brand became so hot that it's still one of the leading sellers today in the WWE catalog we were branding the NWO now granted you're going to have other guys

are going to want to take a picture of Dennis Robin he was pretty freaking hot at the time a lot of people did it wasn't that these people were all trying to get the Dennis Rodman. Rob, of course, some of them were as fans, but the whole idea was to brand NWO and to use Dennis Rodman to do it. And who better, by the way, than Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Ash? Right. I mean, just people, listen to these types of things that you hear Dave writing about back then and then put them into context. Why would he write something like that? Because he's a little bitch. That's all. Little bitter bitch.

Oh, goodness. Well, listen, I mean, you see, this is what happens when my internet screws me up first thing in the morning. I told you it was going to make me hot. I'm still hot over that. It's carrying forward. I'm sorry. I'm going to try to settle down.

Add about three pots of coffee to that. And you've got a volatile situation. Well, let me give you some good news. I know, unfortunately, your nephew is going to leave and so are those culinary skills. But I make it easy for you and Mrs. B. We're talking about. Hello Fresh boys and girls they are America's number one meal kit and they are going to hook you up with farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and all the seasonal recipes you need delivered right to your door that's going to allow you to skip all the trips to the grocery store and you can count on Hello Fresh to make cooking easy fun and affordable once you try it you'll know why they're America's number one meal kit by the way they make it easy about 15 minutes that's all it takes and you'll have a whole homemade meal. It's going to be tasty. It's going to be satisfying. And you're making it in

your own kitchen. What you got to do is look for their quick and easy dinner options. They don't just have dinner. They got you hooked up for breakfast and lunch too. By the way, standing in line for checkout, no longer an issue. They just bring it to you, man, exactly what you need. And that's always been my trouble. When my wife would send me to the store and say, hey, can you pick up so and so and such and such on your way home? I'm never exactly sure what to get. I wind up buying too much. So not only are we wasting food, we're wasting money. And I have to admit, this got us out of our rut. We're cooking things that we wouldn't normally be cooking. And it's fantastic. But I want to tell you, when I heard what some of the items were,

I started to get a little intimidated. And I thought, I don't know that I can make that. Dude, it is so easy. It is a step-by-step recipe with pictures. I didn't have any guesses of what to do next. They made it fast. They made it easy. They saved me time. And the hassle. You can also hook up snacks, sides, and everything else with your weekly order. They've got over a hundred different add-ons. And I want to mention, when life gets busy, don't just call for delivery. You're going to wind up overpaying and it's not good for you. With Hello Fresh, not only is it better for you and it's fresh, and when we say it, we mean it, like it goes from farm to your door in seven days. It's also 25% less than takeout.

Man, it's less expensive than grocery shopping too, because again, you're getting pre-portioned ingredients to get exactly what you need you're not throwing these extra ingredients in the fridge and then they age out and you wind up throwing them away don't do that but maybe my favorite part of all this is it keeps us eating different stuff you've got 40 different chef-crafted recipes to select from everything you need family-friendly fit and wholesome and it's always the right portion why not try it and let me give you a little pro tip if you're doing this and cooking with your wife it's going to pay dividends usually i'm running the grill she's working the kitchen right but when this box comes in and i open it up and we start

i start pulling out pots and pans she looks at me in a way where i know we're cooking dinner but i already know what's for dessert roll tide so go right now to hellofresh dot com slash 5083 weeks that's use 5083 weeks as your code and you'll get 50% off plus free shipping now remember you're getting 50% off so that's the 50% off so that's the 5.0 and what's the name of the show the 83 weeks so go to hellofresh.com slash 5083 weeks use that code 5083 weeks for 5083 weeks for 50% off plus free shipping that's 5083 weeks use the code 50883 weeks at hellofresh.com try it one time cook with your wife one time and you'll do it again you know what i'm talking about it's america's number one meal kit it's hello fresh hey conrad you want to know how to really up

your game how do you do that wash the dishes oh shit that's a fucking game changer right you might get birthday treatment if you know what i'm talking about you i'm telling you i've watch dishes every night now. All right, boys and girls. Dennis Rodman is going to have a loose affiliation with the NWO through the end of the season. You were keeping him engaged. You and Hulk actually miss a nitro so you can go to Rodman's movie premiere. You're trying to support your friend and you got your priority straight. You know this is going to be big business.

And you're really leveraging other celebrities. Here in 97, you're even using Rodman on a WCW pay-per-view, but also Reggie White. So, and we know Kevin Green's going to be hanging around, man, you've really got this down pat. What you wind up putting together is the team of Hollywood Hogan teaming with Dennis Rodman to take on Lex Lugar and the Giant. What can you tell us about how that match would come to be? I mean, is Hogan saying, give me this guy, give me that guy?

Or what's that look like? No, I think it was, you know, Kevin Sullivan, myself, obviously, you know, Hulk had a tremendous amount of input for obvious reasons. Dennis Rodman was only there because of Hulk, oh, truth be known. So, yeah, I mean, Hulk was obviously very involved in it. Again, it wasn't a situation where we all sat in the room to put names up on the board and say, okay, who do we make a part of this team? A lot of it just came together based on what was already happening storyline-wise. So it's fairly easy to book. We, uh,

we should also talk about the build for the match at Bash of the Beach here in 97. You're going to run the United Center in Chicago. That's where the Bulls play. It goes down in June. And you're going to tease the tag team match. Giant's going to put Rodman up for a choke slam. And then the big NW beat down takes place, regardless of the fact of what he's doing in the ring, man, you're in Chicago and you got.

Dennis Rodman, he's getting a crazy pop. The NWO is being cheered wildly. You're going to be on ESPN, CNN. Hey, Dennis Rodman even goes on Jay Leno to promote the appearance. I mean, if you had to run like, and I guess these sort of things exist online now, you'll see something happening at a sporting event or something. And you'll see Darren Ravelle tweet out, boy, the market value or the advertising value of that moment is this if that existed back then this may have been one of your smartest investments in the history of your time at wcw now i think it was you know and jaron ravel i've had you know general rebella has joined uh john elbe and i on strictly business he's a really really uh he's smart guy very smart guy knows what he's talking

about and and looks hard at media and media value as it relates to sports but i think was right, you know, I mean, my gut said it was going to be successful, but I didn't really have anything to base it upon other than pure instinct. But by this point, it was pretty obvious. It was hugely successful. And I can't think of a deal, honestly. I mean, it's not the same thing, but I think in terms of kind of a staggering economic success, and it's hard to measure it. But I think, you know, getting Jimmy Hendricks voodoo child song for $100,000 and be able to use it worldwide for up to two to three minutes at a time, whether it was pay-per-view or TV, I think in terms of return on investment, that might have been an even bigger one, particularly by today's standards and licensing music. But in terms of an immediate return on an investment, just cash versus cash, no doubt Dennis Robin, one of the smartest deal. bills financially that I ever did.

The Chicago Sun Times runs an article that I've always wanted to ask you about, but it's never come up. But they would write that, you know, Lugar, Giant, Hogan, and Rodman were all huddled together going over their plan. And Giant apparently is heard in this conversation by the news media here at Chicago Sun Times is saying that Dennis did a great job because he didn't feel a thing. now obviously we know the way wrestling happens and the way it's put together and that it's a performance and all that stuff but in 1997 was there any concern as silly as this sounds

we might be exposing the business brother no it had been exposed for a long time prior to that you know you don't it doesn't mean you want to see it yes and you want it out there especially in a big paper like Chicago because it's in in a way it's even rubbing it in the nose of fans who are already aware I hate to use the word smart because it's such an inside wrestling term that usually geeks use um but you know you still don't want to see it you know right I know it's similar to you know a reporter who happened to you know oversee something or hear something backstage at a David Blaine show you know explaining how the magic is performed everybody knows it's freaking magic it's an illusion but you

don't want to know how and why you know let us have our illusion don't fuck it up don't take it away from us don't spoil it for anybody and when you see that that's that's my reaction it's like okay genius yes we all know everybody knows but why do you have to rub it in everybody's nose or in everybody's face it's just yeah let's talk a little bit about uh bashes the beach that's the first of several paper views that we're going to see here uh dennis would or you wrote in your book dennis appeared at the batch of the beach pay per view that july the first of several pay per views he did with us over the next few years he was a pain in the ass to work with dennis is his own guy and pretty much operates in his own little world most of the time that's

inconsistent with the world around him he doesn't like to conform to rules and regulations and structure and schedule all the things that make the world go around getting him to train was problematic and that limited what we could do with him but he could also be a lot of fun and in the end we were all surprised how well he did as a wrestler what was the biggest pain in the ass of working with him in 1997 getting him to a facility to train like on time especially if there were camera crews because a lot of times we would try to do two things like i remember once we were in newport beach uh we went to dennis uh as opposed to trying to get dennis to fly to us because for whatever the reason was we went to dennis got a ring

set up you know that was an expense took a lot of time and people energy to get it done and okay let's start at noon knowing i think it was a saturday too so knowing you know Dennis was probably out Friday night we'll start at noon 2 o'clock we're looking at our watches you know calling Dwight manly or whoever was his agent at the time because it's changed a couple times and by the way who did who did you book Dennis through is does he get an agent or a manager yeah there's a promoter who does a appearance that handles all of his appearances and we reached out to see if there was any interest and they said Dennis Robin in Chicago we're in wasn't Dwight or anybody wasn't a manager was a

promoter. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, we called Dennis's agent or manager at the time trying to find him. And finally, Dennis would show up and it was like, whoa. And a couple of vodkas last night, D, man. But he'd show up. And of course, he just wasn't into it. And it looked like, oh, this is such a pain in a ass. And we were all kind of disappointed. He wasn't more enthusiastic because we're all crazy jacked up excited about this, you know, because we knew the potential. that it had. And Dennis was going to come strolling in, obviously slightly hungover or maybe still had a bit of a buzz. And we're showing them things in a right. No, I wasn't. I was there watching. But, you know, whoever was working with him trying to teach him how to do an arm drag or

how to hit the ropes, whatever we were trying to teach him to the basic fundamentals when trying to get him to do anything crazy. And Dennis would look and he's just like, he's not really paying attention and then it would be okay Dennis you want to give it a try sure and then he'd go in and almost hit everything he he was shown perfectly it's like he wasn't paid he was weird that way it was like people that have photographic memories right you know it's like how did they do that Dennis stood there it looked like he wasn't even paying attention to what was people were trying to teach him or show him and then once you finally got got him in the ring to try it, you're thinking, let's just walk through this, you know,

half speed, third speed, just get the footwork down. Let's get the timing a little bit, get a sense of the feel of something. No, you just go in there and do it, and almost flawlessly. He was a freak that way. So while it was a pain in the ass getting him to wherever we needed to get him to, or even in communication with him sometimes, you just got the sense that he really didn't give a shit. but he did and he does and he's paying very close attention and because he was such and probably

still is such a phenomenal athlete he could take what you showed him and put it together and just do it in a way that I've never seen anybody else you know Kevin green was really really good that way too Kevin was a much better athlete than you would suspect he would be you know as a whatever his position was I don't remember I think he was a lineman linebacker yeah linebacker you know linebackers are big, fast, strong, powerful, but you don't expect to see a lot of great footwork and timing out of the linebacker. Kevin was great. Show him something once.

He could do it. Dennis, even more so. It was, it was kind of freaky, actually, in a good way. You know, it's funny because Meltzer agreed with you. Can you believe it? You had Meltzer agreed on something. He wrote of the Batch at the Beach 97 match.

So Dennis Rodman is now a bona fide pro wrestler. And the scary part was he wasn't all that bad. after doing a couple of angles his first appearance as a participant in a pro wrestling match was bashed the beach and it saw him tear the house down by doing a simple arm drag on Lex Lugar and uh it's kind of funny because he says when he hit Lugar with the arm drag and then came back and took an arm drag from Lugar the funny part is Lugar probably had to be taught that move the same week as well which made me laugh because you can tell Dave has his biases He did say that Terry Taylor had a lot of hand in the training here.

Rodman, as a reminder, is 36. And Meltzer would say, not only was he not an embarrassment in the ring, he actually showed far more aptitude than most trained pro wrestlers after months of training. And this was in his very first match. His offense, while limited, looked decent. His athletic ability, which is world class. he was able to translate better into prayer wrestling than expected he's naturally got a strong point here he's got well-timed leapfrog spots his selling is pretty good certainly for

someone in their first match and his ability to work the crowd is very good because he's a natural ham and his psychology is was there many people joked he may have actually been the best of the four participants in the tag match, which isn't much of an exaggeration. But in reality, he's already better in his first match than a main eventer like Sid or Warrior would have been after years in the ring. So you're right, man, his athletic ability, it carried him to a pretty good performance. And think about this, folks. His first match is on pay-per-view in the main event.

It goes 22 and a half minutes. his first match star and a half is the rating of course whatever did we expect a mat classic here it's a celebrity match but 22 minutes man that's a tall ask was that a function of thinking it's the main event we gotta have more time Hogan's gonna slow it down brother I mean you would think or I would think as a novice here I don't know eight minutes 10 minutes 12 minutes 22 minutes goodness Not for a tag match. I had 22 minutes for a tag match.

Steve's about right. And Hogan in particular, you know, you can argue this, I guess, or have a different opinion. That's fine. But one of the most common things you'd hear out of Hogan after somebody else had a match or if he was watching and giving notes

would be slow it down. Yes. Let the audience feel it. enjoy it, anticipate it. Hogan liked a slower pace. He just felt like that's how characters get over. Most of the time he was right. Some of the times he was wrong.

Nobody's right 100% of the time. But Hogan liked, he liked to control the pace. He didn't like things happening so fast that the audience didn't really get with it. They didn't have time to get with it or register it or feel it. So I think between that and the fact that, you know, One of the mistakes, especially somebody who's brand new who's never wrestled before, especially a celebrity, right, particularly if they're good at another sport, is there, even though they're, you know, professional athletes and they have all the other, a lot of the gifts that come with being an athlete, the nerves still get to them. And anytime people get nervous, whether you're public speaking or wrestling or doing anything is you rush. you rush everything.

Dennis, I don't think, gets excited about anything. I mean, to the point where he rushes, where his nerves get to him. He gets excited, obviously, but not to the point where his nerves get the better of him and subconsciously forces him to rush things. He is literally so chill and so relaxed

that even when he steps into the ring for his first match, he's just doing what he was told to do and and stays within his, he stays in his head and he gets it done. He didn't, he didn't have that same, you know, first match jitters that causes people to rush like most people do. And I think that had a lot to do with it too. And in Terry Taylor,

who was obviously involved in training, Dennis and certainly Hulk had, was right there with Terry, Terry Taylor, had a hand in it. But most of it was because Dennis was just so relaxed. the crowd didn't get to them that usually takes decades i mean right okay so it usually takes three four five years before you really have so much confidence in yourself that you could go

out there and do what you know needs to be done and connect with the audience and if you have any sense of psychology it becomes wiped out if your nerves get the better of you and like i said with dennis he had a natural he had a natural ability to entertain he loved the camera He could read the audience, and his nerves didn't get to him. So a 22-minute match with a guy like that was pretty easy, especially when it's, you know, four people. A lot of camouflage, too. Dr. Sarah Kinsman from the Health Resources and Services Administration, tells us about one of the biggest drug overdose poisoning threats we face. In the last several years, almost 70,000 people a year have died from fentanyl poisonings.

If a person's alert and active and breathing, you would call Poison Helpline, and they would help you right away. Get ahead of a poison emergency. Call the Poison Helpline, 1-800-222-2-2-2. Let's be honest. Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming. But with For Imprint, it's easy. Four Imprint makes it stress-free, straightforward and backed by real peace of mind. That's four-imprint certainty.

Not sure what promo products to order? You can get free samples, expert advice, even free help with your logo, so everything turns out even better than you expected. Need options? They've got thousands, including summer-ready gear, like branded apparel, drinkware, outdoor, and all the trade show essentials. And when your order arrives, it's packed with care and backed by their 360-degree guarantee, which means it shows up looking great and right on time. In a rush, 4-imprint has quick turnaround options too,

so you can hit your deadline without breaking a sweat. Whether you're prepping for a summer event or just refreshing your promo lineup, Four Imprint helps you get it done confidently and with simplicity and ease. Head to foreimprint.com to find out more. You wrote in your book, some people criticize me for spending any money on Rodman.

They don't understand why crazy basketball player or any other non-wrestling athlete, for that matter, belonged in the wrestling ring. but they completely missed the point. And while the buy rate was pretty good, the event drew a port 7-8 buy rate, which was better than Slambury before it and started just afterwards, getting more people to tune in wasn't my real goal either.

It's hard to measure any one element of a pay-per-view, but the thing I was focusing on in hiring Rodman was the press attention would get. I knew hiring Rodman would create controversy, and controversy creates cash. In those terms, this pay-per-view was a runaway success. If I had to buy the amount of money, press and coverage that Dennis Rodman got us.

It would have cost me much, much, much more than what we paid him. There was one added bonus, although it didn't appear on any balance sheet or business plan, he drank Hogan under the table. Rodman should get another ring just for that. I got to hear about this, that he get the Hulkster sideways, brother. Tell me about it. Yeah, I mean, Hulk tapped out that night in New York prior to the, to the Howard Stern appearance.

I mean, I wasn't going to leave them both there. You know, I kind of felt some, I don't know what they needed me for. It sounded like I was going to protect anybody. But, you know, you just, you know, you don't leave. You don't be the first got to leave in that situation. Just didn't work for me, brother. I felt obligated to hang in there as long as I could. And it really, I was just hanging on for dear life.

And it was, and I was going to hang here as long as I had to, but it was Hulk that actually went, brother i'm done i went oh thank the lord it was that bad it was yeah it was that bad is it beers is it vodka what we're doing you know i was thinking about that because i was waiting for you that asked that question and i or anticipated it i think it was kamikazis that night oh wow okay it was either comic and maybe not because I think it was or something similar to but it was like 90% pure alcohol or not pure alcohol but whether it was vodka or whatever it was it might have a splash of seven or a splash of soda in it or something like that but it was flammable we should mention this match even gets shown over in new japan uh dennis rodman wrestling and he comes back makes sporadic appearances through the rest of the year, including the following month. He's at Road Wild when you guys are going to have the NWO members come out and celebrate the Huggins won the world title back.

I'm sure he had fun in Sturgis. I had a funny, quick, funny story at that Sturgis event, I was, I was riding around with Dennis that night. He had a bite, he had a, Tony Carlini. Tony Carlini was an amazing, he was actually an automotive designer. Remember the PT Cruiser? Yeah. Dennis Tony Carlini designed that oh wow cool and Tony had a custom motorcycle manufacturing shop in in Newport Beach so Tony Tony Colini was very very successful and a super guy got to know him quite well got to visit him in Arizona right before he died he's no longer with us but um Denny Carlini had built Dennis just this long stretched out chopper

really, really high horsepower engine. I think it was a, might have been an 112 inch engine. I had a 96 inch chopper at the time. Anyway, Dennis and I are coming. It was late at night. It was like midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning. And we were in Sturgis partying,

but our hotel was in Rapid City. So Dennis and I jump on our, and I had a chopper at the time. But chopper, by the way, is just a kind of raked out or stretched out motorcycle with a long fork, you know, kind of an easy rider-looking thing. But the unique thing about my choppers, it didn't have any shock absorbers. It was what they call a hard tail.

It's just you sitting on a seat on the frame and the road. That's all you get for suspension. And I had a 96 cubic inch motor. So at that time, there weren't a lot of 96-inch motors out there on bikes, and it was super fast. Dennis was even faster. So we're driving side by side, one, two o'clock, well, I'm probably midnight or one o'clock in the morning. And we decided we're going to drag race. Oh, no.

So it's really not smart, but fun as hell. So we're out there. And it's a long stretch of highway and looked at each other. And I kind of punched mine and he punches his and the next thing, I don't know how fast we got. I don't think I even had a spedometer. No, in fact, I know I didn't have a spedometer on that bike. kind of illegal actually but crazy but fun i'm glad i did it but i'd never do it again yeah i would hope not when did you around here um so listen when the nba season is over rodman's

looking to again appear in 1998 but on the way you know there's this pesky thing called the playoffs and he's actually going to miss a practice in order to show up and hang out at a nitro and they're looking for their third world title here and Dennis Rodman's just wanting to hang out and Hogan tells the WWE network that he recalls getting a phone call from Phil Jackson saying where's my guy at where's my guy at Hogan says Rodman I got Phil Jackson blowing up my phone you gotta go back he says the Rodman told him I don't want to go back Hogan would say he wouldn't show up on time when we'd have ring time set up for us to all work out we all have very busy schedules and

he'd come in an hour and a half maybe two hours late you could smell booze all over his breath but when the red light was on we were live in front of the camera he was a genius of course he does make it back to the NBA court despite saying otherwise and a game four of the finals just two days after that nitro in Detroit he comes off the bench to pull down a team high 14 rebounds get a win. Of course, along the way here, we should mention these finals aren't just against anybody. They're going to be wrestling the Utah Jazz with Carl Malone. And these guys are going to get in some entanglements on the court. Bob Costas can't help but reference the idea that these guys are going to participate in phony wrestling matches. And I guess Dennis Rodman has

decided he wants to become a wrestler. So Bob Costas is just just being an asshole, but tell us about Carl Malone and how that was added to the concept. As I understand it, or as DDP has said the story, I believe, Dallas attended a game. And when he's attending a game, Carl Malone sees him, throws up the diamond cutter, and it just snowballs from there. Is that right? Yeah, it's absolutely right. I don't think that Dallas went to that game with any intention of,

developing a relationship with caramel he just was at the game made the made the connection and i don't know man i don't know how much time you spend around ddp but once he gets his mind fixed on something it's going to happen yes and you know much like hogan you know and this is this is not a negative thing this is how people become stars along the way but you know dallas certainly recognize wow what a cool opportunity this could be if i could get dennis involved we've already got rodman oh my god this could be great ddp put that whole thing together he established the relationship with carl probably floated it well i know he did because shortly after that game i'm on a plane flying myself out to salt lake city and i'm just in and before i knew it i'm having

breakfast with carl malone his wife and dallas page and we're working out the details of his deal and again one of the easiest ones i've ever done car was already in you know i had set up a precedent with with dennis and financially so it was just like here's how this works car no no issue no agent well i was dwight manly was also his agent at the time so that made it so easy it was just god it was the easiest thing i've ever done contractually uh of course you guys are going to put together a deal here for that match to happen but along the way ESPN and everybody else covers that Dennis Rodman went MIA on the Bulls for a bit.

They show clips of Nitro of him hanging in the back with all the chicks that we saw on the caps there, ladies, apologies. And then at the same time, we see the angle of him bashing DDP with a chair. And Rodman winds up getting fined $10,000 by the league and an undisclosed sum by the Bulls for missing practice. And before you know it, we find out that there was a report that Rodman got $250,000 for appearing on that nitro now that is not a report from the observer it's reported by the New York Times

doesn't mean that's true by the way yes still though you guys are making your money back tenfold just for having all the press coverage that you've got and before you know it man the plans are set we're on our way to having a tag match here but along the way we get even more press opportunity on the tonight show what can you tell us about how that came to be gary considine was the executive producer of the tonight show still a good friend of mine i don't stay in touch as much as we probably should but um good good guy we just hit it off uh long before that and just i don't know if gary called me or or I called Gary.

By that point, I probably called Gary and said, hey, here's what we got. What do you think? And Leno was in, Gary was in and off we went. It was again, so easy. They took no work. Didn't have to have my PR team work on it. Didn't have to go through the typical process.

Simple, easy and effective. Meltzer would say that Jay Leno was probably doing this no favors. I mean, I'm sure he appreciates having big celebrities on the show, but, you know, Leno is sort of poking fun at this. Nobody's taking it seriously. Meltzer would say DDP is overacting. That makes it seem even more staged. But still, we've got big stars here, setting up Hogan and Rodman taking on DDP

and Malone. And it's on the freaking tonight show. And it's reported that he no-showed the nitro at the Georgia Dome and no one could get a whole of him. Of course, we're talking about July of 1998. This is the biggest nitro in history. This is where Goldberg beats Hulk Hogan. Do you remember there being a plan for Dennis Rodman to be there and he was just MIA? No. I'm not saying that wasn't true by the way, but you know, Dennis wasn't a part of a plan that we had no involvement in the match. Maybe we wanted Dennis there, but I have no, no recollection

of if that's even true and if it was true why he didn't show probably had other commitments of course we mentioned how carl malone got involved in all this ddp was just at a basketball game attending as a fan but of course ddp stands out i mean he's a big fellow he's not a small human being and carl malone sees him throws up the diamond cutter we get on the fast track so it does seem natural that it's carl malone and uh and ddp but the rumor and innuendo and the observer is that Hogan actually pushed for Carl Malone's tag team partner to be Randy Savage. Do you remember that ever being discussed or the hulks are like that idea? It may have come up in a conversation, but that wasn't going to happen. It was a short conversation

if it ever existed. Just because of the natural relationship with Dallas and his involvement and making it happen. Carl would not have been in the ring had it not been for Dallas. There you go. That whole deal wasn't going to happen if it hadn't been for Dallas. And there was a way to involve Randy if that absolutely had to happen without necessarily saying, hey, Dallas, thanks for putting this all together. I know it wouldn't have happened, you know, if it weren't for you. But we're going to put somebody else in that spot instead that wasn't ever going to happen. Again, not to say that Hulk didn't try to get Randy involved, but yeah, not to the exclusion of DDP. I, uh, I just can't

think of better possible timing. I mean, of all the ways to promote a match, they're going to be on the court in the finals against each other. And oh, by the way, they both play forward. Like it's the same position they're playing in a team, but they're lined up against each other. And now they're going to be wrestling. I mean, this is like out of a movie, you couldn't have had better timing for this angle and situation,

could you? Yeah, you're right, man. Two of the biggest stars in the NBA, arguably at that time, certainly in terms of headline and press. Hall of Famers, you know, it just could not have been more perfect. And to have them facing each other in the playoffs and the opportunities that that provided, well, from the natural kind of organic references that, you know, a douchebag like Bob Costas is going to throw in here.

Bob Costas is kind of like the, the Dave Meltzer of legitimate sports, except for that he's usually, you know, dealing with facts and that the, the imaginary facts that Dave Meltzer comes up with when he's jerking off in his apartment to wherever he lives. He's such a piece of shit. He's such a detriment to the business. I can't exist the opportunity to point that out. But it was perfect.

And I did, I did because by this point, the relationship between the NBA and T&T sports was now becoming a little bit bigger of an issue. Harvey Schiller was, because Harvey Schiller was a president of sports, T&T sports, and therefore was, you know, the guy talking to David Stern, right? Right. So Harvey was a little more concerned now because it wasn't just one time with Dennis Rodman.

Now it's a couple times with Dennis Robin. Now it's with Carl Malone. And oh, by the way, they're in the playoffs, which by the way is airing on T&T. So it became a little bit more sensitive. So I had to be really careful. And I don't recall if I did it on the phone or had the opportunity to do it in person. But I spoke to both Dennis and Carl. And I said, look, I'm not telling you, certainly not even suggested to you guys.

You guys are professional athletes, your professional basketball players, playoffs. But if there's an opportunity, you know, like when the clock is stopped, if there's an opportunity off the court, you know, on the sidelines, near the bench, whatever. Like, don't, don't go get in a fight. But let's just see how much. much you don't like each other. And of course, it happened. So to be able to stage that little skirmish when it existed during the playoffs, as small as it may have been, it was like, oh my God, this is perfect. It's the best promotion ever because you knew then the color and the play-by-play

guys and the sports writers a day after we're all going to cover it. I thought that was fun as hell. Man, you were walking around with a woodrow the next morning. I just know it. But that was 1998. That was 25 years ago. If you want a Dennis Rodman, Carl Malone-level Woodrow in 2023, you got to hook up with Blue Chew. It's like a hot tag for your wiener. It delivers you the same active ingredients as Viagra, Seattle, and Levitra, but in chewable form and at a fraction of the cost. Take them any time, day or night,

so you can plan ahead or be ready whenever an opportunity arises. And the process is simple, y'all. You just sign up at BluChu.com. You consult with one of their licensed medical providers. and once you're approved, you'll receive your prescription within days. And here's the best part. It's all done online. That means no visits to the doctor's office, no awkward conversation,

no waiting in line at the pharmacy. Let's use tablets are made in the USA, prepared and shipped directly to your door, all in a discrete package. Blue Chew wants to help you have better sex. To discover your options at bluechew.com, chew it, and do it. And Boy, do we have a special deal for our listeners. Try Blue Chew for free when you use our promo. code 83 weeks at checkout, just pay $5 shipping.

That's bluechew.com. The promo code is 83 weeks to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. Listen, I know that wrestling's wrestling, and I know a lot of times these guys in professional sports leagues, man, I know they're wearing different jerseys, but they're all, you know, it's sort of like if you wrestle for AW or WW, W, those guys are all friends but there is that competitive spirit do you think there was ever any personal animosity

at any point in real life between malone and rodman oh i don't think so car was pretty laid back guy and so is dennis um i think there was a lot of mutual respect there they may not that mean they're two completely opposite personalities you know car malone yeah car carl told me at the time that he he loves semi trucks tractor trailers and i think he had a a farm was it in an arkansas where he grew up i think it was in arkansas maybe alabama i can't remember where carl grew up but anyway he still had a farm back there and he loved being on his tractor he loved farming he loved driving his semis he had a couple of them like you collect cars you collect cars Conorrent, he collects semis.

Yeah. He loved this. He loved to hunt and fish. In fact, Carl, you know, one of the first times I met him, I walked into his, well, it was the first time I met him in Salt Lake City when I went to have breakfast with him and his wife and DDP. And I walked into his house and it was like walking. Have you ever been into like a bass pro shop where the really super mega ones where you walk

in and there's all this great taxidermy and waterfalls and all this outdoorish looking stuff? to put you in the mood to buy outdoor gear that was what i saw i'm walking to carl's house and i walk over this like wooden bridge and it's like you're walking over a pond and some fish in it and you know duck floating around i mean it was it was really cool dennis was he loved to hunt he loved to fish he loved to farm um and dennis of course was the opposite of that dennis loved to party and dress up like he was going to marry himself and do all this crazy over the top stop. So in that regard to two absolutely contrasting personalities, but I think a lot of mutual respect or what they've been achieved in the NBA. I think it would

be really hard to piss Dennis Rodman off. I mean, Dennis is so chill. It's, I'm guessing, like if we could find Dennis right now and we took his pulse, he's probably beaten at about 42 beats a minute right now even if he's on a treadmill he's just one of those guys is just so relaxed and so chill all the time um i think it would be really really hard to get dennis hot or angry at you it may be in a moment on a court whatever but it's one of the most chill people i know and i and i think car was the same way car was a very very pleasant person to be around I was just in Salt Lake City the other day, well, the other day, a couple weeks ago. And he's got a couple big car dealerships there.

I've lost touch with Carl. I talked to Carl a few years ago. There's a different opportunity that I wanted to present to him. But I haven't talked to him in several years. I'd like to follow up with him and see what he's up to. I don't think he lives in Salt Lake City anymore, but he's out there somewhere. Well, we should mention in June of 97, right around the time of you guys, a couple days different from your June paper view. It's the final game of the NBA Finals.

The Bulls are going to win, but that game winds up being the highest rated game in the NBA finals for a long time. I mean, people are really interested in this. Rodman winds up winning, but Carl Malone's looking for a little revenge, and we see some of that in the build to the big paper view, and here it finally comes. Of course, Dennis Rodman was, of course, not at the Georgia Dome, but Man, Carl Malone was in the big semi with DDP. They got chairs.

They're clearing out the heels. And now it's time for the pay-per-view to six days later. Hogan and Rodman going to wrestle Paige and Carl Malone. They go 23 minutes and 47 seconds. Tony Chavani and I just watched this last week on what happened when. It's not a great match. It looks like Rodman had been partying quite a bit. But man, he was still bumping and he wrestled the whole match in his t-shirt.

his Dennis Rodman Rodzilla NWO shirt but Carl Malone looks in phenomenal shape and after the match Rodman's trying to get all that sweaty shirt off of him dude these guys are next level athletes but it doesn't translate in the ring not a great match negative star in a quarter according to Meltzer who cares but believe it or not Hogan wins and the way it's going to happen is there's going to be a diamond cutter it looks like that's going to be it but Rodman goes ahead and distracts the referee. And when that happens, Ed Leslie's able to sneak in,

hit a stone cold stunner on DDP. Hogan steals a win, but just for good measure, everybody gets around to diamond cutters from Carl Malone afterwards, including the referee Charles Robinson. But it's reported in the observer that Rodman fell asleep on the turnbuckle during the match.

Do you remember that? No. But I can understand why someone would think they saw that. When I say Dennis is chill and you cannot get him overly excited about anything, I really mean it. And I doubt that he was asleep, but I could certainly just talking to Dennis. You know, it's funny, we're talking a lot about WCW and, you know, paper views and nitros and NBA playoffs.

I got to know Dennis Best when we used him on Jason Hervey and I produced a reality show for CMT called Hulk Hogan Celebrity Championship Wrestling. It was a reality show. We shot for 30 days, you know, straight. So it's, it was a grind. It was in L.A. It was in a summertime in a dirty, filthy warehouse, you know, in a crappy part of Los Angeles. But it was a perfect setting for what we were. were doing because we wanted to have that gritty just kind of wrestling school feel we didn't want it

to be shiny and pretty air conditioned right it had to have some grit to it so we shot there and when you shoot a show like that there's so much downtime you know because we had a bunch of other celebrities that were you know going through their things that they had to go through every single day for 30 days so dennis was pretty much on location for 30 days and he was at the top of his game and he showed up on time every single time and it was a grind it was not fun because it was so hot and dirty and there's all this downtime and a guy like dennis robin usually doesn't play well in that kind of environment but he did he showed up every single day on time he never missed a scene he didn't show up hungover he was a pro's but still very you know distant to himself he's he's he's he's he's

introvert in many respects and because I had a relationship with with Dennis and Hulk was not usually around at that time he had some severe severe back issues and he would usually lay in bed all day taking whatever medication he was prescribed and then adding a little on top of it that he picked up at a liquor store and it was Hulk was down so he would only show up in the evenings when we had to film his exact scenes Dennis would show up he'd be there all day and I got a chance because of the downtime to really spend time talking to Dennis and getting to know Dennis much more than I did in the wrestling environment because in the wrestling environment

it was he comes in you know he's doing what he's doing Terry Taylor's working with him Hulk's working with him Kevin Salon's working with him I necessarily wasn't involved in that aspect of the process so I didn't really have a lot of one-on-one alone time with Dennis I spent time with him as a group, but not alone. And, man, I was even more impressed getting to know Dennis years later, after having worked with him in WCW, because I really got to know him and got to understand or realize just how smart he really is. It's easy to underestimate a guy like Dennis who's, you know, outward, crazy, over the top.

Pressing, women, drinks, parties. You hear about all the TMZ bullshit. and some of it's not bullshit. I mean, Dennis has done some stupid shit like we all have. It doesn't mean he's a stupid person and that's where people fuck up because you read about all the crazy stuff Dennis does and you think, oh my God, he's an idiot. He is not an idiot. He's a very smart guy.

He's a very smart guy that does stupid shit. And there's a lot of people we both know that fall into that category. I've done some pretty stupid shit. I'm reasonably intelligent. But it's easy to underestimate Dennis until you sit down and really talk to him. And then you go, man, this guy has it together. He's got a worldview that is admirable. He really has his head on straight in many respects.

Not in every respect, but in many respects. We, um, we got to talk about the, the match itself and, and just Rodman's play in it. Meltzer would say that, you know, he's been blowing off practices and he hasn't handled this right and WCW's invested a lot of money in him. But Meltzer also say that this sort of thing, his behavior now in this era makes it cool, you know, that they don't care and blah, blah, because he can still turn it on. I mean, it makes him a hero in this generation that he can do what he wants. If anybody knows what's cool, it's Steve Meltzer. he's the uncoolest motherfucker he wouldn't know cool if cool came up and kicked him in the face

but yeah whatever well we know that um the real turning point this is of course his name doesn't come up in wcd until 99 and you wrote in your book the real turning point for wcw came in august of 98 when i lost control of my company in its future but even by the end of the year you could see it in the ratings you couldn't see it in the financial books you couldn't tell about the number of people coming to events, but our fate had been sealed. I didn't want to accept that, but the NBC fiasco that took place during the end of 98

and the beginning of 99 left no room for doubt. Do you want to briefly remind everybody about the NBC thing since we just mentioned it in passing here? Yeah, I believe the NBA was on strike, right? Are right about that? Because I get my

timelines mixed up, but I think the NBA was not sure if they were on strike, but they had, you had an opportunity to do a show there, right? Within with NBC? No, because NBC was carrying, oh gosh, I wish I remember the details and I should of this situation. There was a hole in the NBC schedule. I think it was relative to the NBA. Can't remember. But there was, regardless, there was a hole in the NBC schedule. And Gary Consonine, who I mentioned many times on the show, gave me a shot and said, hey, I got an idea, you know, if I, if I bring this to the head of NBC, I don't remember who that was at the time, do you guys think you could put together a special for us?

I said, well, hell yeah, I didn't know what it was going to be. The call came in from out of nowhere. I certainly didn't think I'd get an opportunity to do a two-hour special on NBC, so I wasn't planned for it, but I said, absolutely, Gary, we will put something very special together. And I went to work on it. And I think at that time, Dennis was married to Carmen Electra, but they announced they were getting a divorce. And they were, I mean, don't put my feet to the fire in the details of this because it was a minute ago. And it ultimately didn't happen. So a lot of the details I didn't really pay attention to after the fact.

But there was a situation where I think Carmen and Dennis, and it was public, we're going to get divorced or they were splitting and we were going to put together this big and it was over Valentine's Day it was in February I believe and we were going to call it the same Valentine's Day massacre that was the title of it was very obvious it was easy and the idea would have been we would have this whole wrestling event built around but we were going to have the first because you know professional wrestling weddings have always well for a long time have been a thing of course I'm going to do the opposite of what everybody else does. And I was going to have the first ever professional wrestling divorce.

I love it. And Dennis and Carmen were going to get divorced on national television on NBC. And I brought the opportunity, not so much the Dennis getting divorced opportunity, but I brought the opportunity to do. Now, this one I knew I had to get permission for. By 98, I had all these people so far up my ass. it was ridiculous. People I'd never even heard of telling me how I should produce my shows

and how I should change the demographics of my shows and all of the things that nobody else could see on television that was beginning to really, really affect me personally, but WCW, more importantly. And I thought, well, I better not step outside my lane on this one because now it's, again, NBA, Turner Sports, Harvey Schiller. there was a limit to what I was willing to risk at that point under those circumstances. So I went to Harvey Schiller, who's my boss, said, Harvey, here's the opportunity that I have.

And maybe it was a writer's strike. I don't remember. Now I'm going to have to Google the shit. It was a labor dispute with the NBA. All right. So it was the NBA. Thank God. Otherwise, I was going to have to Google the Internet when I was done here and figure it out.

But, okay, so we had an MBA situation, created a whole. had a good creative plan, got Dennis, you know, he was excited about it, to whatever he said he could get excited. Everybody's on board. I take it to Harvey Schiller and Harvey go, I don't know about this one. I don't know how management, his level and above was going to feel about a Turner property on another network. Tell me how fucked up that is.

Yeah. That's just a mess, right? So Harvey took it, I know if he took it to Ted or if he took it to Terry McGirk or whoever was in charge at the time, whoever was the president of TNT and TBS and they said, no. I had to turn down a two hour special in prime time on NBC when Nitro and WCW was still at that point, By all outward computations still on fire, producing the largest, the most revenue of the company had ever produced at that time. Now I have an opportunity to up our game even more in terms of branding and exposure

and all. And I'm told, no, Turner doesn't want to, doesn't want one of their properties on a competing network. I literally had to go out Gary, Gary Conson, I'm back and said, Gary, I can't thank you enough for the opportunity. But the management of the company that I work for is so fucked up that they won't let me. That moment was the moment that I knew WCW as a property was destined to go away. There was no rational reason why anybody would turn down that kind of an opportunity unless they didn't want the company to grow.

None. There was no ad sales conflicts. There were no contract. There was no reason other than, no, we don't want any more attention on this wrestling property. Why would we do that? They're getting too big. It's becoming too successful.

So one of the really was the tip of the iceberg. Well, fast forward into 1999 on June 9th, you re-signed Dennis Rodman, Meltzer would say it's a two-way million-dollar contract. And while critics are slamming the move, saying it's the latest example of Turner's quote-unquote open checkbook. Jeff Rischoff is vigorously rejecting such a notion. And he would say for anybody to suggest that there was this unlimited budget and that Eric would spend whatever he wanted on anything he wanted to spend, it's so fucking.

totally nonsensical anybody that worked in the turner organization that was remotely honest would call bullshit on that nobody got to do that including ted turner himself and for his part venus showed little appreciation for being paid a million dollars telling tv god it's money that's all i have to say i just don't know why i have to do that damn wrestling shit was the top was the relationship becoming a little toxic do you think no not at all i don't think it was a reflection of how Dennis necessarily felt. I think it was a reflection of how he felt about doing interviews. It wasn't the case.

Dennis still loved what he was doing and loved the opportunity. He enjoyed working with Hulk Hogan and everybody else. I'm not sure why he said that other than he just didn't want to do the interview and wanted to get it over with and give the whoever is doing the interview whatever they wanted to hear so he could get the fuck out. He's got a little trouble in this. time it feels like the wheels are coming off he's got a couple of lawsuits coming in you're still grasping of straws for some of that mainstream attention we talked about over at 83 weeks on

youtube.com the whole master pee experiment and um did i just have i told you that i just saw some master pea potato chips and i think it was a gas station that man he's everywhere snacks baby yeah you catch up baby what's it called rap snacks i was i went up to pay for something i got a couple of bottles of water or something that was on a road somewhere and I walked in there's like MasterP potato chips, a whole counter full of it. I was like, damn, you go. He's a smart dude too, by the way. Let me say this too, though. If you're going to eat some MasterP potato chips, maybe you need to start your day the right way, and that's with one delicious scoop of AG1. Eric and I have been a big fan of AG1 for a long, long time. It's a micro habit with macro

results, man. Make it your one simple drinkable habit to replace your multivitamin, your probiotic, and everything else. And when I say everything else, I mean it. It's 75 different high-quality ingredients that give you the key daily nutrients you need to support your energy. My wife uses it every morning on her way to the gym. And I like it for focus and clarity. My wife even feels like it affects her strength.

She feels she's more powerful in the gym after using this than if she accidentally misses a day. Why not look for a foundational nutritional platform? that helps your gut health and your energy and your immune system and oh by the way it tastes good if you hate taking pills or vitamins this is for you if you're looking for a supplement that actually tastes good this is for you it's going to cover all of your nutritional bases and supports your entire body with one delicious scoop every morning that's it and don't just take our word for it man just look up their reviews you're going to see thousands and thousands of five-star reviews

and if a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go right now to drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. That's drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. Check it out. You'll be glad you did. All right, let's talk about the end of Dennis Rodman here in WCW. It happens at Road Wild 1999, and the worm is going to be,

taking on the macho man Randy Savage. I can't believe this is real, but they go over 11 minutes and believe it or not, there's a freaking porta potty used. A porta potty in a match with Dennis Rodman and the macho man Randy Savage. So the rumor and innuendo was Hogan wanted Savage to be in there standing across from Dennis Rodman, tagging up with Carl Malone. That doesn't happen in 1998. But a year later, we get our chance.

What do you remember as you watched this, I don't know, spectacle of the macho man and Dennis Rodman? I thought it was fun. You know, Randy was so, you know, Randy was a very, very intense guy. So for me, it was kind of fun watching Randy having to deal with Dennis in terms of, you know, laying out the match and, you know, you just don't get in the ring and have a match with somebody. you've got to kind of work some things out and develop a relationship. And Randy had already spent a lot of time around Dennis. They got along fine.

Dennis obviously looked up to Randy, maybe not to the same extent. He looked up to Hulk Hogan, but very, very close. So, you know, there was a lot of mutual respect and all that. But Dennis approached, you know, you talk about an absolutely 180 degree opposite approach to things. Dennis didn't like to rehearse. He didn't like to practice. He didn't like to talk about it more than he absolutely had to. Randy Savage was kind of along the same lines as DDP

where they would sit down and write down every aspect of a match and go over it together and rehearse it together. So that was kind of fun to watch. I got to kick out of that dynamic. But again, it was relatively easy in the big scheme of things. And it was fun. It was fun for Randy. I think Randy had a great time.

Definitely fun for Dennis. And, like, as far as the match, it was at Sturgis, you know, 500,000 motorcyclists in Sturgis at the time, you're going to have a match that appeals to the audience you have. And we weren't looking for five-star, you know, Ray Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero kind of matches. We were looking to entertain the crowd that we had, not the crowd we wished we had, or a crowd that existed in another part of the country to another venue at another time. It's the crowd we had. you had to go a little over the top and we did and it was fun we should mention and me and you've said this on this program if we've said it once boy we've said it a million times uh momentum is a real thing timing is everything and when we have these guys wrestle in

1998 dennis rodman and carl malone and all that there's over a hundred photographers there from publications all over the world you guys have to cut it off when he wrestles dennis rodman when he wrestles Randy Savage here, it's WCW's own Ross Foreman. That's it. But let's, you're right. No question.

I'm not arguing that point. But there's a big difference between being able to get sports journalists and coverage and photographers in a major city in a major established venue inside. Fair. Getting anybody to Sturgis, South Dakota,

that during the Harley rally is next to impossible. It's very, hey, Lori, I'll be done here in just a few minutes. It was really hard. Just getting to Sturgis physically, getting from point A to point Sturgis was mathematically almost impossible during that rally. It's in the middle of nowhere. There's not a lot of flights. It's hard to get a car to drive to it because all the cars are, everything is rented up.

There's no hotels available. So that had a lot to do with the lock of coverage, too, just because of where it wasn't the venue that we're in. Gorgeous George is involved in the finish. There was rumor in innuendo that Carmen Electro was supposed to be involved. That doesn't happen. But that's the, that's it for Dennis Rodman and WCW. He does wind up wrestling against Kurt Henning for the I generation superstars of wrestling a few years later. Of course, that was not a success.

I don't even know it happened until we did our research. we'd see Rodman work with Hogan again in the pro wrestling space when he appears on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling and of course in years past we've seen him have quite an experience he went to North Korea and of all the things I'm surprised that Dennis Rodman hasn't done I'm surprised they didn't put him in the WWE Hall of Fame I mean he wrestled on the second biggest by rate of WCW pay-review history are you surprised they didn't try to put him in the celebrity ring I mean Drew Carey's in. How the heck is Dennis Rodman not?

Yeah, and maybe it'll happen. You know, it's not over yet. Dennis is still relatively young man and Hall of Fame comes around every year. So who knows? Let's put a word in for him. Let's do put a word in for him and let's remind everybody. He is going to be at Starcast. That's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T dot com. Next week we're going to do something pretty fun. We're going to watch the highest rated nitro ever. Not the highest rated nitro up to that point, but the highest rate of Nitro ever. It went down August 31st, 1998.

Raw will be preempted because of the U.S. Open. So we've got Brett Hart and Hulk Hogan teaming up to take on Sting and Lex Lugar of the Wolfpack. You get all these shows early and ad-free over at ad-freeshows.com. You also get tons of bonus content and can't find anywhere else. Like Tuesdays with the Taskmaster, or of course we've got the one and only David Crockett sitting down to go by what we call the book,

day by day, week by week, gate, episodically through 1985, talking all things about Jim Crockett promotions. We've got the insiders where we recently sat down with Dan Bynum. We got the false finish where I recently caught up was Zach Gowan. We've got Monday mailbags that alternate between Mike Keota and Nick Patrick, the third man in the ring for both WCW and the WWF. It's all available now at adfreeshows.com and it starts at just $9 a month. By the way, if your business targets men, 25 to 54 years old,

No better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 weeks. You can find out more about that at advertise with eric.com. Love to have your social interactions. If you've got a question, man, we'd love to answer it or discuss it here on the program on social. We're at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The easiest and best way to support the show is our YouTube. Just check us out at 83 weeks on YouTube.com and tons of new swag available for your

enjoyment at box of gimmicks.com or 83 weeks. search.com. Eric, I never know what to expect when we sit down and click record, but I'm really excited about what we're doing next week. Of course, we're going to talk about that highly rated nitro in two weeks. Next week, we called an audible, of course. We're going to be breaking down and discussing the biggest wrestling show of the year, certainly the most important. It's all in. And they're going all in over in Wembley Stadium. Over 80,000 fans will be there. We'll be doing that on Monday morning. So if you normally wake up and listen to our pods and RSS feed on Monday morning.

It's going to drop a little later in that same day. But if you join us over at ad-freeshows.com, you can be a part of that discussion. We'll have right here next Monday morning, exclusively on 83 weeks. Eric, I had fun today, man, and I'm looking forward to catching up next week to talk about all in.

Me as well. Thanks to you for this show. Thanks to everybody that's listening. And Dave Silva, who's producing it. Had a great time. I look forward to the next one. And we'll see you guys next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

Hey guys, Double J. Jeff Jarrett. Need to call a timeout real quick here. I wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling my world listeners for a while now. It's about all the incredible things happening over on at-freeshows.com. Conrad sits down with a pioneer of wrestling television production, director Dan Bynum, who discusses his journey through WCW, R-O-H, MLW, and where it all began for him, world-class. What really was the thing that catapulted it was, one, working with Rick Flair, he came to the territory and wrestled with the Von Erick boys and gave us so much gravitas and two, the greatest feud in the history of wrestling, the Freebird Von Erick feud. So we were there at the hottest time with the hottest show and we took over the world.

The Yetay, Ron Reese, sits down with ad-free shows members to talk about his infamous night at Halloween Havoc and how it was received by the boys in the back. Oh, no, I remember, like, Arne Anderson told me that that was the drizzling shit and Dusty Rose was like, that was the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm just like, hey, thanks. Hey, that's just a small taste of what ad-free shows has waiting for you, including a brand-new perk, getting to join in on the live recordings of the shows with four levels of choosing. from see for yourself while ad free shows is the best value in wrestling today sign up now at at free shows.com that's right sign up today at ad free shows.com