83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 297: World War 3

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss all the happenings surrounding WCW World War 3 1998! Eric shares stories involving Goldberg's refusal to work with Chris Jericho, the potential of Billy Kidman, and the popularity of Diamond Dallas Page. All that plus, Eric discusses the AEW Full Gear PPV, Will Ospreay signing with the company and the value of Rhonda Rousey. CROWD HEALTH - CrowdHealth was created to get rid of the headaches of health insurance. Visit JoinCrowdHealth.com and use Code WRESTLE to get started today for just $99 per month for the first three months. EMBRACE PET INSURANCE - Don't wait for the unexpected to happen— join the massive community of pet owners who trust Embrace Pet Insurance to protect their pet. Make sure you go to EmbracePetInsurance.com/83WEEKS or else they won’t know I sent you! ZBIOTICS - Your first drink of the night for a better tomorrow - visit zbiotics.com/83WEEKS to get 15% off your first order of generically engineered probiotics when you use 83WEEKS at checkout. 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 MIIRACLE MADE - Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to TryMiracle.com/83WEEKS and use the code 83WEEKS to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. AG1 - 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. ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Godman Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks. We're there, Chris you off. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am just freaking outstanding, Mr. Thompson, just outstating. I love that. Well, it's a great time of year. The holidays are right around the corner.

Everybody starts to be in a little bit better mood. We're recording. early on a Sunday morning on the heels of a very critically acclaimed, although maybe somewhat controversial AEW pay-per-view, full gear last night. I think it was the most attended full gear in history. Tony Kahn said in the presser that they had over 13,000 fans in the building. And man,

it got a lot of critical acclaim, including a match, everybody's still talking about that death match between Hangman, Adam Page and Soar of Strickland, and they didn't get a chance. to see the paper of you, Eric, but they pulled out all the stops, including crazy stuff, glass, staple guns, barbed wire, barbed wire wrapped chairs, lots of blood and even dripping blood on each other on purpose. It was quite a spectacle, and some people were kind of turned

off by the violence. Other people said, hey, it's not really my thing, but that was a badass match. People are still a buzz about it. I know that you're not usually a big advocate for blood in wrestling. But if it's not on TV and it's on pay-per-view, does that make a difference to you? I think it used to make a difference. I don't think it does anymore. It's the brand. It's, you know, with social media, it's just not the same as it used to be where you could go to an extreme or do some things that you can get away with. Because of broadcast standards or cable standard.

You used to be able to do that and get away with it. And it really wouldn't have much downstream impact on you. But now with social media and people clipping videos and everything else, It's, you know, that type of thing is going to land on an advertiser or potential sponsors desk at some point. And it's going to slow you down. You know, we heard Lockland Murdoch a couple weeks ago talking about the reason why Fox didn't move forward to the Smackdown. It's because they couldn't sell the advertising as a network for a price that was really commensurate with the ratings and the demographics. Rating and wrestling still has that advertising.

community stigma attached to it and things like you know excessive violence and blood and dripping blood on each other i get it there's a certain very small percent of the audience to get the rocks off over that stuff but the larger audience probably is mildly turned off to it i would say and advertisers are just it's another reason why advertisers are going to be leery about advertising and wrestling whether it's on a pay-per-view or not it's the brand Well, I know you're big on story. I thought the match told a great story and the biggest story in AEW, I suppose. Who is the devil? The mystery still lingers. The next big pay-per-view is coming up at the end of December. Uh, and of course, there's a lot of talk at

the press conference about, um, the bidding war of 2024, where, uh, I guess the big story is going to be is MJF, you know, will he stay or will he go now? But he is the longest training at EW champion in history at this point, having success. fully defended against Jay White, but what most people were talking about over the weekend was not necessarily the MJF main event. By the way, shout out to Jay White,

man of inning Russell Kingdom over in Tokyo Dome and now main eventing and big AEW paper view in LA, big deal for him. But another big talent that we've seen from New Japan is now full time with AEW officially signed Will Osprey. now he's allowing his new japan opportunity to finish up all of his commitments and then he's going to come over full time but a lot of discussion over the last couple of weeks what would

osprey do would he go to triple h and w or would he stick with a w where he's made several appearances including a phenomenal match earlier this year against kenny omega i know that was probably your first time seeing him in a big way the forbidden door match against keny omega i know loved it. Are you surprised that he decided to stick with AW and not roll the dice with WWE? Oh, you know, I don't know. I certainly don't know Will Osprey. So, you know, the choice that he made had a lot to do with what his personal goals were. I'm sure there was a lot of money on the table from both companies. So when you have two companies that want your services and both of them are offering you a substantial about a money,

then it's about personal choice and what you want to do with your career. And I think, again, I'm not there, so I hesitate to say certain things. But the impression I get from many of the people that are in AEW, someone from I stay in touch with, is that there is a lot of freedom there. There's a lot of other things that they get frustrated about. But I think for a guy like Will Osprey to be able to come in, And I don't want to say dictate his future, but certainly have a lot of influence more so than he would probably have in WWE. Dave, Sylvan I, our producer here, we're just talking about the value of personal freedom, being able to do the things you want to do with the people you want to do them with, do those things with.

And it's hard to put a price tag on that. You know, if somebody came to me and said, here's a million dollars a year, but you've got to work in an office in New York City. know, five days a week, I couldn't do it. I would want to do it. But in reality, I couldn't do it because of the way I choose to live. And I think my impression from what I've heard and read about Will is he's a very independent person, clearly. And I think AEW was a better choice for someone who really wants to explore their creative processes and be able to do things that, you know, the more formal corporate structure within WWE, probably wouldn't, wouldn't allow or it wouldn't be as easy. Let's talk a little bit about back in your day when you were signing talent, because there's

been conversation online amongst fans, of course, where people were saying, well, hey, maybe he went to A.W because he's more likely to get a championship run. Or maybe Tony could promise him a title run, whereas he probably wouldn't be promised that in WWE. And we've seen a lot of talking heads in the wrestling space discuss that very idea that perhaps he could have went to wwee but maybe not been as quote unquote in control of his own destiny and be dictated to a little more whereas as you said with a w you can sort of color outside the lines a little bit did you ever have a discussion with a talent or did a talent ever bring it to you or did you ever use it as a negotiation tactic we've heard a lot about from fans again these promised

title runs that ever come up no never ever ever there certainly times when creative in direction in and and where talent talent wanted to know where they would be placed more or less in in the food chain you know they wanted assurances they weren't going to be stuck in the middle of the card and things like that's and in matches that don't mean as much and that's what that really means, right? Yes. Many of those types of conversations other than really brand

new talent, you know, or a really young talent, almost always had those conversations but never specifically about a title run. I mean, that's I don't know, maybe, maybe, you know, things have changed. People have changed. Maybe that's really important to a guy like

Will Osprey. I would hope that Will has, you know, great management or at least a mentor or somebody that can guide him that's been through this process and been around for a minute. It's all about the money. In the industry that Will is in, injuries can happen. And sometimes they can be career ending. You've really got to, I think you really should make the maximum amount of money that you can while you're in your peak. Because your peak, even if you're 25, 26, 28 years old, your peak may be dictated. by things that are out of your control.

So you want to make as much money as you can. But, you know, maybe there are some people out there that just, I just want to be a world champion. Hard for me to relate to that, but whatever. Will Osprey is 30 years old as I understand it. And he's built his entire career and reputation around having really long, spectacular matches. That style probably does fit AEW.

a little more than the sports entertainment approach that WWE does. But I also think that maybe there's something to that that he likes the idea of being a top guy, especially, you know, knowing that they're going to run this huge show all in again in Wembley. And if he could be at the near the main event for that, I could see how that would be important to him. Well, and the reason, I think, again, I'm not suggesting I know what he's thinking, but it would make sense, right?

you want to have you want to be at the top of the card because you know you're going to get more story you're going to get more television time you're going to get an opportunity to showcase your abilities not just in the ring but outside of the ring as well but i think you're right on the money and we're in a way saying the same things if if you're will osprey and you look at triple h and what he may be offering and wwee as a whole there's a lot of great talent at the top of that roster, really great talent. And Will Osprey would fit in very well, I think, based on what I've seen of him in terms of his performances. But would you rather go into an environment, assuming the money's the same, go into an environment where

you're the fifth or sixth, their eighth most popular performer on the card? Or would you rather go to a place like AEW where really other than, and I'm not diminishing anybody else, but the focus is on MJF, is by default, whatever, the face of that company right now. And while there's a lot of great talent on that roster, none of them have really emerged at the level of an MJF. So there's really one guy there that you're competing against in terms of being the face of that company or having the best opportunities. And the odds are better, I think, for Will and AEW, obviously, than they would be

WWE, where he'd be competing with, like you said, five, six, seven, eight performers who were hotter than he is. He'd have to work his way up with that food chain. Because other than, look, other than the appearance in AEW and some of the stuff he's done independently, the audience at large, take away the internet wrestling audience, internet wrestling community, take that out of the equation. How many people know who Will Osprey is? your average fan

you're a fan who is amongst that 90% of the audience that don't follow the internet wrestling community or don't live on Twitter and debating wrestling issues they don't know Will Osprey it's going to take a while

not WWE can get them there very very quickly faster than AEW can quite frankly just by size and scope of their audience but again I think Osprey's walking into an environment where he's going to be at the top of the roster very close to it immediately as opposed to be part of a machine that has a lot of really great talent you mentioned earlier you

hope that will had representation do you want to guess who his agent is well then i'm not too worried about the fact that he's making good money because barry bloom will get him the money he deserves i hate the prick i don't hate him let me take that back i don't hate him in fact i had someone at my house the other day. I can't say who or why, but someone that was here for a couple days and we were doing some dithness, if you will, dithness. And his phone rang and he turned it around and showed it to me. He was Barry Bloom. And I thought, and I said to him, I said, hey, give me the phone. Let me answer it because he wouldn't expect that. But I decided not to because they were trying to conduct business and i didn't want to interrupt but look i don't i very is uh i have no respect for him in

terms of his integrity but he will get you your money let's put it that way all righty then and that's his job honestly that's his job well i'll tell you what if you're looking to get that money stop sending money to big insurance companies that profit off of not paying your bills did you know that 48 million claims on Obamacare last year were denied, that's one-fifth of claims that are going to get rejected. Do you want to take that chance? Here's the deal. Health insurance sucks.

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That's join crowdhealth.com and use the code wrestle to get started today for just $99 per month for the first three months. So, Eric, our topic today is going to be World War III, 1998, but before we get into that, I wanted to ask you about two more things. The first of which is Rhonda Rousey. You were talking a little earlier about the growth and the opportunity for AW and how it might be affected by things like some of the violence that we saw in Swarf Strickland match.

We saw Rhonda Rousey appear on Friday night. they had a live collision and then a live rampage and then they did a ring of honor taping and at that ring of honor taping a little surprise appearance by ronda rousey ronda apparently had a great time tony con said at the presser that she had not signed a deal with a ew but i got to think hypothetically if he really is trying to get a television deal for ring of honor having a talent and a name to the mainstream like ronda rousey attached probably a pretty good strategy let's say you and i think she's i don't want to say overrated but i think in terms of the professional wrestling industry she's overrated obviously very accomplished martial

artist mixed martial artists very accomplished in judo phenomenal athlete, but I never really, she never clicked for me in WWE, despite a push from the gods. She got an amazing push, but there was something lacking with her, and she never clicked with me. I don't think she really clicked with the audience. Not long after she first arrived, I think the shine kind of wore off the star pretty quickly. And I never got the feeling that she was really. really serious about the industry. Now, don't get me wrong. Not in terms of her, her performances or what she put in. That's suggesting she didn't put in a full effort. But it takes more than that,

and I never really felt like she embraced the business. I don't think, look, after Holly Holm knocked her out decidedly, she left there, kind of whined about it a little bit. not a not someone who handled the loss well in the media and then she segued into WWE and I don't know man I just don't think she's as big a name as people sometimes think she is I don't think she'd matter to a buyer I don't think if there's going to be a media buyer out there or a programming buyer out there or an executive school oh wait a minute you got ronda rousey I wasn't too sure about this deal but now I really want to do it I don't I don't see that.

By the way, before we go into World War III, I do, before I forget, have you seen a Vlad documentary? I have, yes. Man, oh man, Mike Johnson from PW Insider was a guest on Strictly Business week and a half ago. And, you know, I thought he was there, presumably to talk about the CW deal because he broke the news and very, very, very familiar with the nuance. of what was going on at CW in wrestling.

And I thought we were going to talk about that. My talk for 30 minutes straight about Vlad in the documentary, and I thought, wow, I should probably watch this. And I watched it the other night. What a great documentary that was. And I want to hug Vlad. I just felt love with him. I think it was one of those things.

And we talked about what's bad for business when advertisers are potential studio network heads and things see things that are kind of like this is the opposite of that the vlad documentary i think did such a great job of showcasing just how and why the professional wrestling business has become as popular and part of american culture as it has because there are other vlads out there maybe not as quite as much of a fan as vlad but it it's part of the audience's lives. And a lot of people come to get, look at ad-free shows, man. You've done, you and your team, Conrad, I've done such a great job of building up this community of people who love wrestling. And until you step into that world and you see the impact that it can

have on people, it's hard to understand it if you're just not a fan. But I think Vlad, to me, brought home how significant this form of entertainment can be and how it can positively impact people. So congratulations to everybody involved in that project. And Mike Johnson, thank you for showing up on Strictly Business and motivating me to check it out. Your passion turned into my passion. And yeah, just love that. If you haven't seen it, Tom Peacock, Glad the Superfan, go check it out. You can thank me after you watch it if you have until ready. I totally agree. An excellent documentary. I think Jeff Gerrett helped a little bit. you could tell that the mastermind behind that thing was John Carlo.

Just a really incredible job that they did on that. And I'm with you. Highly recommend check it out on Peacock. And a shout out to Mike for being the best friend a guy I could have. I mean, such a good friend of a lad. I'm going to disagree with you on the Rhonda Rousey thing. I think she is a name to the mainstream.

I don't think that a buyer necessarily is going to be more familiar with, you know, wrestling talent. This is somebody who was, you know, of ESP in the magazine type thing. I know it was a handful of years ago, but the point is,

I think she does have some main event mass market appeal from non- Wrestling fans. And I also think she didn't necessarily get the best shake in WWV. And I know you were saying, oh, she got a push for a lifetime, blah, blah,

but in the wrong role, I think Rhonda Rousey would have crushed as a heel. And I hope if she does more work with AEW and Ring of Honor, we see her as a heel. I felt the same. I agree with you on that, Conrad, that was a creative choice. And she is a heel. I think by nature, she's more of a heel than a baby face.

And that could have been the reason why it didn't resonate with the audience or me. She was miscast. So I hand you that one. Before we get going, and we are going to be talking about World War III, that was the November pay-per-view for WCW. But we all know the November pay-per-view for WW is, was, was, maybe. Forever will be Survivor Series. We are right around the corner from Survivor Series. It's happening this weekend in Chicago.

They're going to set all kinds of records. They've sold this thing out a few times. They keep, you know, creating some more production kills and creating some new seats. It's going to be a white, hot crowd. And there's lots of speculation about, you know, is this guy coming in and is this guy returning? Lots of whispers about seeing punk in Chicago, lots of whispers about Randy Orton. But what we know for sure is this is going to be Cody Rhodes' first ever war games match. Perhaps the match made most famous in the NWA and WCW and of course created by his father,

one of the most beloved quote unquote gimmick matches of all time. And now Cody Rhodes finds himself in the middle of his first war games. I'm pretty excited about that, just knowing the history of that match and the relationship that, you know, the Rhodes have with it. What do you think? Cody Rhodes in war games that just kind of fits doesn't it it's a story within a story yeah right I mean you've got the the wrestling story the entering story as we're really heading into

russomani it's not too early to say that in another 60 days we're going to be hearing about people being inducted into the 2024 Hall of Fame it's not that far away folks so I think that you know you've got you got Cody Rhodes wrestling story and then you've got that life, the story of life. And the story of life is that Dusty Rhodes was a visionary behind war games. And I think for Cody to have an opportunity to participate, not just participate, but participate as a featured talent, it's full circle shit, brother, and I love it. I love that kind of thing.

And I'm partial, obviously, to Cody and the entire road. road's family um but even beyond that this is like this is cool shit this is the kind of story that makes sports so interesting any sport it is cool shit i'm excited about the card um the other thing i want to ask about is they made a decision that looks like we're going to see a Drew McIntyre heel run he sided with the judgment day at the end of Smackdown and it certainly feels as if we're going to see a different Drew McIntyre what do you think about Drew maybe switching columns no more baby face now we're going to be on the heel side do you think that's going to be as Bruce would call it a new

paint of coat for Drew I do I do have always been a fan of Drew his initial run with WWE and then he was let go and I was on a couple of independent shows with him over in the UK, just a classy guy and a great performer, but perhaps like Ronda Rousey, previously in WWE, he may not have been cast in the best role as a baby face. And I'm anxious to see what he's capable of as a heel. And let's be honest, as much as I respect and like, I, you know, I, I, I like him. He never really, never really connected as that baby face champion. Now, he had some things against him.

I don't know, it was COVID era or the crowd reaction to kind of help put you up over the top and give you the credibility that a champion should have. And that, you know, that's bad timing. But I'm looking forward to seeing him in that he'll roll because he's a phenomenal performance. performing. And he's got the right look. He's got the voice. He's physical. He can perform in the ring. So maybe a fresh paint of coat will do them justice. I, for one, I'm excited about the idea if we could fast forward to the summer. Can you imagine like Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre? That could be great. I mean, just I can see the poster in my head just as you said that. Yes.

And that's awesome. Awesome. And by the way, you mentioned Randy Orton's. I hope we see Randy back soon, man. He is, to this day, somebody said, who is your favorite current performer? It'd have to be, it'd have to be Randy Orton. He is so fluid. It's so believable in everything that he does. I just love watching him work in the ring.

He is phenomenal. And probably the last, you know, one of the last vestiges of that act, attitude era and that part of what was the name of the fashion flair was in it patista was in evolution yeah evolution now that was a very cool time for randy orton so i'm i'm looking forward to seeing him come back i hope he's got a good hope we can get another year or two years out of randy because he's a phenomenal performer what are you doing the night what am i doing tonight yeah i mean as folks are listening to this on a monday what are

doing tonight. Oh, on Monday night, I am kicking back after having prepared an early Thanksgiving dinner for my sister and brother-in-law and my nephew, because we won't be here for Thanksgiving with them. So we're going to have an early Thanksgiving on Monday and then getting up early in the morning and Tuesday and driving to Minneapolis. Well, a DVR Monday night, Ralph. How were you then? Just saying. Yeah. Yeah. Hypothetically. Hey, let's talk about why we're here. We're here because it's November. And it's time to talk about WCW in 1998.

We've had a lot of fun breaking down things from 1998 because, of course, it's the 25-year anniversary. And this is going to be a fun show because World War III always seemed like just absolute chaos to me. What do you remember being the overall idea and concept? I mean, a lot of people would think, well, this was WCW's version of a Royal Rumble. of course you couldn't just do a direct copy of that battle royals are as old as the day as long we've mentioned war games earlier and and we had a two ring opportunity there now we've got three rings

hey what's better than two rings it's a third one talk me through the thinking of world war three and and who you remember first bringing the idea up and were you a fan of just the concept I don't know who came up with the idea initially. It could have been me because I was looking for a way to all the paper views. I wanted each one of them to have something about them that was unique that you didn't see any other time of the year. Halloween Habick was obviously themed around Halloween and from Vegas. we didn't i don't think we did any other shows from vegas clash of the championship we did

that uh sturgis another example n wos sold out hate to bring it up but another example every we tried to give each one of the paper views of personality and i think for world war three it was wait a minute why not have three cages and let's make the cage a part of the show let's make it a star on show not just a prop not just something that's dangerous because other people have made you know the cage a part of the show as well there's no cage in a world war three match here oh oh oh i'm sorry i'm sorry you're thinking of war games yeah i'm thinking of war games uh world war three was just about creating a spectacle yeah doing something that had never been done before and giving that pay-per-view its own personality well and we're doing it a couple of months

before the royal rumble of course we get started uh this is is the monthly pay-per-view era so as soon as you finish a pay-per-view the next day you've got to start new stories that are going to pay off a month later and the pay-per-view that we're following up Halloween havoc 1998 and you've described Halloween havoc on this program before as being sort of the WCW equivalent of WrestleMania of course there is no equivalent based on name yeah it was an attempt to make it out of wrestling yeah there you go I think a lot of wrestling fans assumed, well, no, it's, it's Starcade. Starcades of the big show. That's your WrestleMania. And you said, well, internally, we kind of felt like it was Halloween

havoc. And what a big one it was in 98. We got the rematch between the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan and, well, the less said about that, the better. Thank you. But the real main event is DDP and Goldberg. And what an incredible pairing that was. I think it's one of Goldberg's best matches in WCW for that matter it's one of uh dallas's as well he manages to get knocked out in the middle of the show but keeps going and not everybody got to see it because the show went long and I guess the word was not out the way it should have been to all the pay-per-view systems that they needed some more satellite time so a lot of folks who plop down their 30 or 35 bucks did not get to see the finish of that there's going to be a flood of

complaints and you guys make the decision to just show the match on nitro the next day and of course the critics of wcW at the time would say oh it's a ratings ploy that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard you'd never just give away the man i mean that's silly but it feels like you're trying to make the best of it make a little chicken salad if you will is that the way you remember that going down yeah there was no choice well there were two choices a horrible choice and a choice that was worse than horrible. And that's, there was no way to win in that scenario. Had we not at least covered our ass to the extent that we showed it so that everybody

that did spend their money and didn't get the match, we're able to see it. And it's a pissant chicken shit, make good. But the alternative was to say, whoops, sorry. I mean, talk about a rock and a hard place. I'd probably make the same decision today. In fact, I know I would, given the same exact circumstances. But it was ugly. No way to win.

No way to come up with a good idea. Because it wasn't like we could even reach out just the nature of pay-per-view and the billing systems. You know, you live in a little town in the middle of nowhere, Iowa, or where I live in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming. You've got a local cable system, and that's who you purchase your pay-per-view from. right that was back then and there's thousands of those little companies all over the country

and if you can imagine trying to manage the refund process in that environment it was just impossible we couldn't even offer people their money back realistically we've been too hard to administer and execute so it was like okay do we want to get kicked in a balls or do we want to get kicked in the teeth. Which one do you prefer? It's like the Rob Van Damme story. You know, whenever you get pissed off at somebody put his two hands out and say, which one? Because you're going to get knocked out by one of them. It's kind of what that was like. Well, the result is, and I don't think this gets talked about enough, because I know that people like to dock on WCW as a whole because while the pay-per-view went long. And allegedly at the time, there was fears that

maybe 25% of people who ordered the pay-per-view would have missed that match, which would mean that you're probably going to be getting refunds, or refund requests, rather, in a seven-figure range. But the result of showing it on TV the next night is incredible. A 7.18 rating, that is the all-time record. You'd have to go back 10 years to find a match that could have beaten it, which was Flare and Sting at the first clash of the champions back in 88. That did a 7.8.

But still, a 7.18, Eric, that's crazy like a fox, huh? No. No, like I said, there was no celebration. Nobody was high-fiving over that rating, I can assure you. It was a bad situation. Yeah, got a great rating and the people that didn't buy the pay-per-view got a chance to see it. Good for them. But, yeah, it was ugly.

internally it was ugly little trivia note that show winds up being the last time wcw wins the monday night war about that wow what and what was that date uh we're talking uh on the heels of hallowing havoc 1998 yeah yeah a couple months later things we're going to start going downhill real fast of course behind the scenes uh titan sports is telling viewers choice that this was intentional trying to fracture the relationship between Turner and the pay-per-view provider. So you actually have Tony Chivani go out and address this. And it's also reported that you had planned that night to spoil the taped episode of Monday Night Raw, where it had Steve Austin and Ken Shamrock as the main event.

Now, you did this a lot in the early days of Nitro. You decide against doing it here. Do you remember why you would have made that decision? no I don't remember making the decision to do it so I certainly don't remember the decision not to and I'm not even sure that that's real okay who reported it maybe it was I just have absolutely zero recall of that do you recall Horace Hogan being introduced as the newest member of the NWO yeah I do what was that about what did you say it like that bad choice bad casting Horace

wasn't ready for that. It was a lot of pressure on him. It just wasn't what it was. It was, look, putting people, we just talked about, you know, Ronda Rousey being cast in the wrong role in it, basically tainting the rest of her career in WWE, at least. We talked about Drew McIntyre.

Maybe he's going to be better as a heel that he was at a baby face. It's all casting and making sure that the talent that you're putting a spotlight on is ready for that spotlight in every way, mentally, physically, emotionally, professionally, and also able to live up to the expectations. Now, when you bring in Hulk Hogan's nephew, guess what? Yeah.

You got heat before you step into the ring, people, and not money heat. You just got disgusted heat before you even start. Eric Watts ended up with the same problem, right? It doesn't matter how good you are. the fact that you're getting that position because of nepotism or perceived nepotism. In this case, it was nepotism. It wasn't perceived. It was real.

Put Horace in a bad spot. He just wasn't going to be successful as a result of that. It's not that he didn't have the ability. It's not that he couldn't have grown into that. It's not that he couldn't have become a bigger star. Had he not been cast into that role as Hulk Hogan's nephew. But once he was, man, you're shackled with that. And overcoming that is way harder than becoming good in the first place.

And it's hard. It's hard to make it in any form of entertainment, whether you're a ballet dancer or musician or whatever. It's hard to make it to the top, even harder when you're saddled with that nepotism stigma. Well, we want to keep you guys from making some hard decisions. and that's why we recommend Embrace pet insurance. This is something that Eric and I feel really strongly about.

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World Order is alive and well, even today in 2023. But hey, it was new. And Eddie Guerrero's here in 1998 with the LWO. And we've also got Judy Bagwell getting some interview time. And I think whenever people think about Judy Bagwell as a television character, they always think about Vince Rousseau. But this is happening before Vince is even. air. So what did you think of, hey, let's put a live mic on Judy. She was quite the character. She was a character, you know, and I don't know that I was really super excited about it, but it made sense for Buff. It made sense in the story. He was kind of positioned as a mama's boy and giving her some camera time to enhance his character. I wasn't against it.

I know you were against the ultimate warrior, though. We got to talk about him. He's going to make one last final appearance in WCW. Kind of crazy to think about. He gets a huge pop, and he says that he beat the hell out of Hulk Hogan, and the bullshit pinfall doesn't change it. And you, Horace Hogan,

and Hulk and the giant come out. Warrior bumps everyone, gets a huge ovation. This is his hometown, I suppose. And the observer is saying that Warrior agreed to lose to Hogan, as long as he got a new contract, which would pick up when the original deal expired, but I don't know if I believe that. Talk to me about this warrior situation and circumstance finally coming to an end. I mean, look, his contract was coming to an end. There was no conversation about renewing him.

And once again, Dave Meltzer, the publisher of bullshit and lies. um documented by the way um i don't know where where that came from just a figment of dave's imagination or he had to figure out a way to fill up that 10,000 word dirt sheet of his but not true nothing remotely true not a hint of it not even that grain of salt that is sometimes used to build a foundation of lies and misinformation that didn't even exist it's just really weird that he would come up with that one. But yeah, wasn't true at all.

Let's talk about what DDP's doing the night after he was unsuccessful in his quest for the WCW title at Halloween Havoc. He winds up winning the U.S. title from Brett Hart with the diamond cutter. What's the thinking here? Are you trying to keep some momentum on DDP and think, hey, well, if he couldn't win the world title and be Goldberg, we'll just use Brett. was the strategy at the time

we want to transition Brett to the main event or was there more too? I'll be honestly to Conrad, I think you know, so often we do these shows and I sometimes get sucked into this pattern like all of those creative decisions were my decisions, good or bad. And they weren't. A lot of it is Kevin Sullivan.

A lot of the great stuff that happened that sometimes we talk about here started with Kevin Sullivan. Some of it was mine. A lot of it was Kevin's. A lot of it was other people that were working with Kevin on the creative team. So it's really hard for me to tell you what the thinking was because I wasn't the guy with the pencil.

I was the guy that approved it and was made aware of it. But I couldn't tell you what the logic was or what the strategy was. That would be a Kevin Sullivan question. There's a lot of talk in this era of people. perhaps being let go and for a while it has been just party time here in wcw whether it was 95 with the creation and success of nitro the incredible success that started in may of 96 with the nw o you rode that wave all the way through 97 and had a glorious summer in 1998 but there starts to be talk of some folks being let go is this budgeting from the time warner stuff

or something else? I would imagine if we're talking about the end of 98, by that point in time, my budget was getting manipulated, even though it had been proved the previous year, even though I was over-delivering on every aspect of our budget, over-delivering on revenue, managing expenses very well

based on the budget that was approved by Turner Finance but right around that time again all these things it started really in July that was like the first indication that things were going to become different to WCW as a result of the merger and it only got worse as time went on we stern I don't think we were in full reconstruction mode demolition and reconstruction. That didn't really happen until after the first of the year, 99.

But by 1998, we were getting mandates that we start reconfiguring our budget, even though we were in the middle of it. And it had been approved. It was a frustrating time. But I think if there was talk and discussion about budget cuts, more than likely it was, or talent cuts, more than likely it was related to the budget cuts that were imposed upon us as a result of the ending murders well there's a handful of names here um but even it's even written here that davy boy walked out on a tv taping now we know that davy in this era well he's not doing well he's struggling with some of his personal demons and we know he took that bump on the the now infamous trap door that the warrior would use and that injured his back and he was hurting for certain what do you

remember about Davey boy here in WCW the second go around because in the early to mid 90s man you you guys did some really cool things together he goes to the WWF and now after the screw job he's back but it's a different Davey no definitely and I think his personal demons and the challenges he had with him kind of overshadowed just about every aspect of baby's career at that point we also would see that jim knightheart ultimo dragon and the public enemy are going to be leaving the company um you know roster changes horace is out our horace is in knighthart and davy and ultimo dragon and public enemy you know it's just part of the business something nobody was really a ultimate dragon of that list i wasn't sorry to see because of the

circumstances and the lack of momentum and the personal demons and challenges that went along with some of those folks. I wasn't disappointed at the thought of losing any of them except for Ultimate Dragon. What an amazing talent and a classy guy, such a pro. But with Dragon, man, he could work Japan, he could work Mexico, he could work anywhere he wanted to. And I didn't feel as bad for him professionally because I knew he was going to be just fine. And I think he still is.

actually but um yeah losing altima was that was a tough choice what do you think of the news that jesse ventura is the governor of minnesota i mean this is a guy that you had a less than ideal relationship with and wcw and i think ultimately you wound up showing him the door and now he's the governor of minnesota didn't have that on my bingo card yeah no you don't know Minnesota politics. So that's number one. And number two, and let me make a correction. I get along with Jesse great for 99% or 95% of his time in WCW. I like Jesse. I admired his work. I respected him. But when I brought Hulk Hogan in, Jesse was, Jesse led his personal feelings overshadow his professionalism. And it got to the point where it was just too difficult to work.

It's just not good for business. But I didn't enjoy firing Jesse Ventura. It bothered me personally to have to do it, but I had to. I like Jesse. I liked his work. I like just talking to Jesse. I listen to his interviews now. He's a very controversial guy, but I find him to be quite fascinating.

And I have a lot of respect for Jesse. But at that point in time, he put me in a spot that I didn't want to be in and I had to do what I had to do. As far as him becoming governor, honestly, my first thought is, wow, this guy should be really thankful to the world of professional wrestling because it's because of wrestling that Jesse is the governor. And I still believe that to this day. Had Jesse not been a professional wrestler, he had not been a part of the, you know, the wrestling scene in the AWA as much as he was at the time he was. And if it wasn't for the success that professional wrestling was having at the time, not only W. W, even in the summer of 98, fall of 98, but certainly WWE was rocking and rolling at that

time and really beginning to rock. I think all of that helped Jesse, name recognition, certainly. And look, Jesse had a lot of ideas that were embraced by citizens in Minnesota. So it wasn't just because he was a wrestling guy. It was a combination, but certainly wrestling was probably the reason. If there was one reason that Jesse got elected, it's because of professional wrestling. Let's talk about the result of him winning the governor's race there in Minnesota. You touched on it. We know that there's been some hard feelings between Jesse and Hogan for years and years.

And it feels like almost immediately when Jesse wins the governor seat for Minnesota, Hulk Hogan's whole presentation in WCW changes. We're going to announce that he's going to be running for presidency. Yeah, he wants to be president of the United States. And, come on. Now, do you say that like it's a shock?

Just all last week, all we're hearing about is Rock becoming a president. Can I mean, come on. Do you think that's really going to happen? I hope not for Rock's sake, because it's such a shitty business and it just seems like it's just like stepping into the fire.

And I can't imagine it. But I think anytime you've, got over the top celebrities there are going to be some that want to put their toe into water and at least get the publicity and that's all it was with Hulk it was just a publicity stunt yeah i don't uh i don't think we have to worry about the rock being president but let's talk about that i mean was that best for business the hogan's going to run for president like i'm not pretending i know anything about wrestling i'm the first listener on this show I'm still just trying to learn.

But where's the money? Well, what's the payoff? Where do we go? Can't answer that. I don't think it was the greatest idea in the world. Yeah. And I think it started out as just kind of an inside joke.

Let's have a little fun in this promo. And it probably got to be a little bit too much fun for Hulk at the time. And he kind of ran with it. But it was, you know, it wasn't like we didn't sit down and have a big, uh, creative discussion about it.

And when it would, start and when it would end and what would happen and how it plays into what's going on in wcw it was just one of those kind of spontaneous moments that took on a little bit too much life it's interesting to see how hot wrestling is here because if you're just in the bubble you're taking a look at what's happening creatively you're taking a look at buys and ticket sales and when one is is beating another I think a lot of people just automatically assume well whoever sold the least boy their business really sucks and that's not the case like the business is still on fire that pay-per-view Halloween havoc does 310,000 buys but it's written about in the

newsletters at the time like it only did 310,000 buys in our judgment day which is not WrestleMania or summer slam or the Royal Rumble does 350,000 buys so it's written like oh well they got 40,000 more buys so their business must be much hotter 310,000 buys a solid in any era so solid that when you guys put tickets on sale at the end of October and you're doing this for a December 14th Astrodome show I want to be clear that's a nitro regular television show not a pay-per-view not a once-a-year annual tradition just a regular old fucking Monday that's a big deal to run the damn Astrodome in Houston. And a week later, you're going to run the TWA dome in St. Louis, back-to-back

dome shows. St. Louis sells 18,000 tickets the day the tickets go on sale. $600,000 at the gate, the very first day tickets are on sale. It's really remarkable. I mean, when you look back earlier this same year in early July, I think it was July 6th, you guys just dominated the Georgia Dome show. You sold, five hundred and seven thousand dollars the day tickets went on sale and people thought that was like the high watermark for wcw no wait till we put these tickets on sale at the end of october for st louis and houston dome shows for a regular monday night this has never happened before eric no and i think that record in st louis held up until maybe the last

couple of years for a wrestling show um it it it was fantastic and again Again, it's just, when we do these shows and we look back at different periods and time and talk about what was going on in those periods, it's just still, I guess I still have a little bit of residual PTSD over it because it boggles my mind to think that anybody in Turner or Time Warner would look at WCW at that time and say, oh, man, that's broken. We've got to fix it. Right. Like just leaving the fuck alone.

Yes. And things will be just fine. Yes. But they had to mess with it. And I am even more convinced after reading Guy Evans book and talking to people like Dick Cheatham, who I know has been on, on the ad free shows and you've gotten to know Dick. Dick Cheatham was in Turner Finance. He oversaw the Braves, the Hawks and WCW and knows where all of the bodies are buried. And I'm even more convinced after all of these years that this was pre-perienced.

meditated murder, really, of WCW. Once it became apparent that Ted was no longer going to be the only obstacle left and pulling the plug in WCW and opening up that beachfront real estate property in primetime on Mondays and Thursdays, there was an active participation among senior Turner executives to whether it was death by a thousand cuts and allocating a lot of our revenue over into other divisions that needed that revenue and they could get away. with it with this generally acceptable accounting process or whatever it's called gap principles there was a lot of money that was being moved around a lot of debt came over to

wcw and a lot of revenue went into other areas and i think it was it wasn't just coincidence it wasn't just sloppiness i really do think it was premeditated because otherwise why would you look at the statement that you just said you know july Georgia Dome, right in everybody's backyard. And by the way, a lot of those executives wanted tickets for their families for that event. And then you look at St. Louis. You look at the revenues that were being generated well in throughout 1998. Forget about the fact that WWE was gaining strength at that point in time.

If you just do a snapshot of WCW and you look at the revenues, you look at the ratings, you look at the success, you look at the licensing, for example, you know, EA sports, came around about that point of time got a five or ten million dollar advance on on royalties with that deal i can't remember what it was i think it was five um unprecedented success but somebody made up their mind to start hacking and slash it death by a thousand cuts is really what it amounted to i want to ask you about the house shows uh but before i do i got to know Like when you are putting shows like this on sale for a Georgia Dome or a TWA dome or an Astrodome or whatever, are you like, are, are you celebrating the wins like these first day on sales or at this point, is it just old hat? It's not it's neither really.

It's just I described this the other day. maybe there's enough people out there that can relate to this but every once in while I try to get myself in shape or I should say every once in while I do something to kind of keep myself in moderate condition and I've got a treadmill up in my bonus room up above the garage and I'll get up there and I'll get on that treadmill and I start out at about three miles an hour four miles an hour just a risk walk and I gradually speeded up, increase my incline. And I try to get up to a lot about, I don't know, four and a half, five miles an hour. You know, it's a pretty good pace for me for what I'm trying to do and just

get my heart rate up and burn some calories. But, you know, you finally get going on that treadmill and you feel pretty comfortable with it. And you start increasing the speed and increasing the speed and you get to a point where the minute you step off that treadmill, you're going to crash. You know, you're going to be careful how you jump off that treadmill if it's going fast. enough right and we were on such a treadmill really starting in 95 but by 96 now in 97 we're up to about 10 or 11 miles an hour by 98 i'm a 12 or 13 miles an hour there's no time to step off and go hey everybody boy did we do a good job this is awesome because you you don't have the time right you're worried about tomorrow you're worried about the next show you're worried about the next

tv you're worried about this we're worried about the pay-per-view you there's so much going to going on that personally, I didn't have time to even pay attention to it. I'd acknowledge it. I'd be grateful for it, but then it's just on to the next thing. It's one of the things that I talked about, and I've talked about it in the book, Grateful, which I'll be signing, by the way, at Russell Kate coming up. It, I wish I would have taken more time to appreciate some of those milestones along the way but unfortunately it just went by so fast and it was such a blur that sometimes i don't even remember them until you and i are doing a show like this hey i want to mention real quick eric is going to be at wrestlecade this weekend so if you're

making plans to be in winson salem to see the who's who of professional wrestling well make plans to see eric bischoff tickets are on sale right now you'll be able to see eric on saturday november 25th he's going to be there from 10 a m 10 in the morning and until 2.30 in the afternoon. You can do pictures and autographs and he's going to have some books. Meetbischoff.com. That's where you can pick that up. That's Meetbischoff.com and get to see EasyE this weekend in Winston, Salem,

North Carolina, or Russellcade, come in your way. Be sure to see him at Meetbischoff.com. And I'll tell you what, if I was packing your bag for you, I know what I would pack. I'd get an 83 weeks polo. I'd get some jeans. I'd get some comfy shoes, knowing you probably some hey dudes. And then maybe, hypothetically, somewhere in the corner of that bag, I'm going to have more than one bottle of zbiotics.

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weeks and use the code 83 weeks at checkout you'll get 15% off we want to thank zibiotics for sponsoring today's episode and a good time in winston salem at wrestlecade so let's talk about house shows here eric we uh we know that you guys are just crushing monday night ticket sales we just talked about all the domes one of the criticisms that existed in this era was that the w f would roll out all the big stars whether it was stone cold or the undertaker they're on the house shows. So if you're, you know, be bopping through town on your ride to work and you hear a commercial that the WWF is coming to town, you're going to see the same stars that you see on Monday night

at your house show, your local arena, that's Saturday night. That is not the case with WCW. WCW is not sending all their big stars out to TV. And people were pretty critical of that in the newsletters and the like. But that's sort of common these days. Not everybody works every show, even when it's TV on a split roster like we see on programming today in hindsight do you think that was a misstep or was it just the evolution of the business it had to change he was a little bit of both um the reality is a lot of that top talent that was driving television for example Hulk Hogan 96 97 98 he wasn't working house shows right part of

his deal. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, yes, they worked some house shows, but there was a limit at that point in time as to how many of those house shows they could work. You know, I think I don't remember what we had in their agreement. I think it was 150 dates a year, perhaps. Kevin Nash could correct me on that, but I think it was 150 dates a year, max, maybe 180. But then you take out 50 of those for television. You take out another 12 of those for pay-per-view. And that was Kevin and Scott, who did have 150 or 180 days in our agreement. Some of the other talents, Roddy Piper, for example, Andy Savage, didn't have that many

dates in their agreements. So even if we wanted to put them on house shows, we had to be very careful about it. We had to manage it. Yes, they were driving television. No, we didn't, a lot of that top talent, we didn't always include in house shows. And I think it did hurt our house show business. but you also have to remember that the reason I was able to attract some of that talent at Hulk Coggins, Scott Halls, of Kevin Nash's, who came in and almost immediately

told me that the reason they were leaving wasn't because of money necessarily, it was because they couldn't keep up the schedule and didn't want to. So we were a more comfortable place to work lifestyle-wise, but that did put a lot of pressure on us in terms of what we could and couldn't do in live events. I don't know that it was a mistake. I just think it was the state of the. business that WCW was in. We should talk about maybe this is a larger discussion because I totally agree with what

you said that a lot of those talents like Scott Holland and Kevin Nash, yes, it's a money issue, but it's it's a quality of life issue. You know, they need that time at home. They want to reduce some of that wear and tear on their body. They don't want to work 300 dates and not really be sure how much they're going to make. It makes a lot of sense to go to WCW. I get that. But I can't help but wonder the way the live events are being promoted.

Like we've talked a little bit on this show before about Zane Bresloff and how critical he was to WCW success as a promoter, getting buildings and promoting events and things like that, just at a grassroots level. But the thing I really struggle with is we have advertised main events that we don't deliver. So like there's a series of shows that are all but sold out in Texas in this era. but none of them deliver the main event that was advertised. Like it was supposed to be Kevin Nash versus Stevie Ray. That was advertised on TV and radio.

We would also see DDP versus Brett Hart. Neither one of those take place. It winds up being Conan and Kevin Nash taking on Stevie Ray and LaParka. And then DDP and Brett aren't even on the house shows. And instead, we're treated to Booker T and Rath. both of super talented performers, but if you had a little DDP fan in your household or you had a little hitman fan in your household

and they come down to the arena and they got the T-shirts and they got the glasses and they're ready to go and well, he's not here. They're less likely to come buy these tickets again. Like you're losing consumer confidence by not delivering what was advertised. And this feels like in this era that happened a lot

in WCW with live events. So I'm not trying to, wag the finger at Zane Bresloff, but I am curious. It wasn't Zane's fault. That's number one. I'm trying to understand how does this happen where maybe the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing? Is WCW getting, as we say in the South too big for their britches?

Grew too fast, perhaps? Yeah. You know, um, not an excuse, just a condition. There is no excuse, you know, if you're advertising particular stars of that nature at that level who are driving your TV and not delivering it. is no excuse for that occasionally a reason travel issue injury sure that's forgivable and the fans will forgive that but when you've established a pattern of not delivering it's a problem and we had a problem as to why honestly conrad i can't i couldn't tell you why um i just can't imagine it

other than poor communication because most problems of this nature start with bad communication and progress from there but I as I sit here today talking to you I wish I had an answer that I could whether I have to throw myself out in front of a moving truck as a part of that answer or not happy to do that but I really don't understand what happened or why it happened other than bad communication I've heard old timers like respectfully R. Anderson and Rick Flair say that one of the things that they thought really killed WCW and I've heard Crockett say this too or the quote unquote no shows where a match is advertised like this and then it doesn't deliver and I think in this era people started to say

things like all the inmates must be running the asylum is that a fair categorization of what was happening or is it something different no I don't think it was the inmates running the asylum that's a that's a really cool generalization it's easy one to make people that don't know what was really going on. I think talent management was a big issue. I think the frustration amongst some of the talent that was beginning to kind of manifest around this period of time made it easy for talent to say, oh, my back hurts. I can't work. Oh, I twisted my knee last night. I can't work. There were a lot of excuses amongst talent. And a lot of that, again, it manifests as a result of morale, creative choices, talent, sometimes working together to try to achieve an outcome,

that kind of should happen. Happened in WCW, it probably has happened in WWE, and I dare say it's probably happening to this day in AEW. You're dealing with talent, and any time you're dealing with talent, you're dealing with egos, and you're dealing with human beings that are fatigued, they're tired, they've got things going on in the personal lives. There's all kinds of reasons why things can occur that create a great opportunity for no-shows. It's unfortunate that it happened. But I don't think it was the inmates running the asylum as much as it was the result of a lot of frustration.

that had been building up really towards the end of 1998. That I think is a fair statement. Some of the frustration exists with talent like Paul White, where it's being written in the newsletters. It's pretty much a lock. He's going to the WWF, and we've talked about that in the past.

Something we haven't spent a lot of time with is Steve Mungo-McMichael. It's in the Observer at the top, but he won't be signing a new contract unless he's given a guarantee you're not taking him out of the horseman. Is that real? That doesn't sound right.

Not at all. Not at all. We can move on. Sting is going to be headed home, according to the observer. He's going to handle some family issues. As a reminder, we are less than a year removed

from the biggest match in WCW history. Sting and Holcogen's Tarkade 97. By November of 98, he's going to go home, take a couple of months off. he's expected back in 1999 he's been one of your most loyal soldiers he's been there since really honestly the beginning of wcw this is probably a no-brainer for you to give him the time he needs to go take care of whatever he's got going on at home do you think it was a bad

timing for wcd i mean obviously his family comes first but at this point we've mentioned this before you're so loaded at the top it's okay for you to go away and come back It freshenes you up a little bit, right? Absence makes the heart grow fonder factor. You know, look, you never want to lose somebody like staying for any reason, for any length of time. But once you acknowledge that you don't really have a choice, it's pretty easy to see that the anticipation you can create to bring sting back,

you're given a fresh palette and fresh colors to paint with, as opposed to, you know, continuing on in a story. that perhaps wasn't that great of a story. Maybe there wasn't as much focus on seeing as there could have been. There's a lot of things going on. But once you get over the initial, oh, crap, things are going to be out for two months or three months or whatever it was. I don't remember.

But once you get over that initial reaction, at least my reaction was, eh, maybe not so bad. Because now it forces us to come up with a great way to bring them back. sometimes that great way to bring somebody back is a much bigger and more powerful and effective tool creatively than just having them doing what they're doing as kind of creative maintenance if that makes sense no it does make sense um i want to ask you about something creatively and i have a feeling this might be a kevin sullivan idea but maybe you recall some of this the observer would say bischoff has strongly entertained the idea of creating his own

for horsemen the feud with Flair's group. Barry Windham, Tully Blanchard, and Ole Anderson would be three of the members. All have been talked with. It appears Wyndham is already in, and the other two are being strongly considered, if not already in. Perhaps Bigelow could be the fourth. I never heard, I don't remember hearing about, and we know you're going to have a feud on camera with Rick Flair. So I get that. But your own version of the horseman, do you remember even discussing this?

Zero. Okay. Zero. And this one I would remember. A lot of these details and the timing of it is something that, you know, seems like a big point and important point. But in the course of day-to-day business back in the 90s, didn't really register on my Richter scale. But this is one that had I had a conversation with Kevin or anybody else about it or Rick, I'd remember that. And it never, it was never a syllable of conversation with as far as I was concerned about this idea. This is the first I've heard. of it. What do you remember about Bam Bam Bigelow coming in the WCW? Did you handle that or what somebody else would handle that? I only bring it up because I know at least the perception from a fan is he had problems with Hall and Nash from the WWF time.

He talked about that a little bit when he was in ECW. But we know he's going to wind up being a part of the WCW locker room. Was there anything you needed to work on or patch up or discuss about him coming with regards to Hall of Nash? Didn't register on my Richter scale. If there was, I wasn't aware of it.

Let's see if you remember this. There's been a longstanding rumor and it was reported and lots of people have said, oh yeah, that's the way it went down. That one of the ideas considered in this era was to have Yoko Zuna do a run in during the Scott Hall and Kevin Nash match at Halloween Havoc.

Supposedly, you guys made the call, even offered him $10,000 to do the shot. He wound up not. doing it. Do you remember there being at least a passing casual interest in having Yoko be a part of WCW? Not for me. Okay. And again, I'd remember that one. I, because I remember Yoko Zuna from before he became Yoko Zuna. He worked in AWA as Kokina Maximus. And one of the one of the first ringside interviews that I did when I worked in AWA. So I, you know,

I would remember that one. And again, so the audience understand, I know you understand Conrad, but so the audience understands, we've got a hundred or more people under contract, probably by 1998 talent. There were always talent coming and going. There were talent that were interested in coming in that we would discuss at different levels. Sometimes it would end up on my desk. Sometimes it wouldn't. You know, Kevin Sullivan, Terry Taylor, were really front and.

center in terms of bringing in talent, whether it's for a one-off, as you're talking about here, or perhaps bringing them under an agreement. They would negotiate. They would kind of set the table. If it was something that made sense, it would end up on my desk. And sometimes I would get involved in those negotiations. Other times I would just sign off on it because that's what, I didn't micromanage the talent acquisition process. So if Kevin or Terry or Kevin and Terry combined, Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan, if they had somebody, that they felt really strongly about and it was within the budget and they had worked out those budget details prior to the deal landing on my desk.

More than not, I would sign off on it again, if it fit in the budget. But there were also a lot of conversations, which I assume this one might have been where it never got to me for whatever reason. Well, we know that T&T is going to get with you because the NBA is going on strike. and so now there's some holes in the lineup and the decision is made hey we'll just tape something called nitro extra and we'll have an extra hour of content on tuesdays boy for all the criticism you got over the years as being a part of wcw just internally inside that organization sort of the red-headed stepchild i think is the way you've described it before hey we need a show for thursday called wcd

Hey, the NBA's on strike. We need something on Tuesday called WCW. I mean, you're their fail safe here, right? We were hot. Yeah. And again, I hate to keep harping on this because it makes me sound bitter and I'm really not. My life is wonderful.

I wouldn't want to change the thing. Well, I'd change a couple things. But for the most part, I'm really grateful for exactly where I sit. And part of where I sit today is because of my experience in WCW, all the good and all the bad. But again, because I don't think the audience really understands unless you read Guy Evans' book or you really understood the business of WCW's business at the time within Turner, you couldn't comprehend what I went through when I got that phone call from NBC because MBA was going on strike and they needed programming. and I got a call from a senior executive there who said, hey, can you come up with an idea?

Think about that. Get a call from one of the biggest networks at the time asking me to come up with an idea to help them fill a programming hole. And I did over the phone. Got it. St. Valentine's Day Masker, whatever the idea was the first time. and get everybody at NBC excited about it, pretty much green-lit it over the phone,

but I've got to get it approved because it's NBC. It's a different deal, right? We're providing content for a network other than a Turner-owned network. I thought that was a formality. I was excited brought up to Harvey Schiller. It was kind of a feather in our cap. It was feather of my cap to develop that strong-over relationship with a major network where they're-

calling me looking for help my god is a as an independent producer it's like a dream come true that's the you know 300 million dollar lottery ticket i run it up upstairs to harvey and harvey couldn't approve it because it was mbc and i got it shut down by joe yuva head of turner ad sales joe yuvra just didn't want a turner property on a major network tell me tell me and convince me of all these circumstances that there were not executives in Turner who were hoping to see WCW go away. Why else would you turn down that opportunity? Nothing else makes sense. But it was just another one of those things that just was driving me bat-shit crazy. the fights, the struggles that we had internally

were far more challenging than the struggles that we have because of competition from WWE. Far more. There's a much more grueling battle internally than it was externally. I could do business with people as this example. It was easier for me to do business outside of the Turner family than it was inside. It's crazy.

It really is interesting when you look back and you see how you were just fighting against all odds. And it almost feels like at times you're right. People inside the organization had a hard on for wrestling. And if you're looking for a hard on, can we recommend Blue Chew? It gets Eric so hard. Even a cat couldn't scratch it. I don't know what that means, but that's what he says.

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the November 9th episode of Raw is going to defeat Nitro by the largest margin in history at that point. Raw has 5.3 million viewers. Nitro has 4 million. So over a million more people watching, but still 4 million viewers. My goodness. And they're going to be tuning in to see

Hulk Hogan in the Nassau Coliseum. That of course is Vince McMahon's backyard. Here we are in New York, where he had that incredible run for what felt like forever. and we're using this as an opportunity to get some mainstream publicity buzz by teasing an appearance from the Clintons and announcing Hulk Hogan is running for president. It's been teased all over mainstream media,

way more traction than we would have imagined. So even though we were sort of saying, hey, where's the payoff in this? If you're just looking to garner attention, well, we got that. But again, I still wonder like, where were we going with this? when you're trying something big like this and you're going to get some

opportunities on other platforms you know and you're going to be talked about at the mainstream is that something you have to run up the ladder anywhere in turner because it is sort of out of the sand box or no no okay no that wasn't something that required any conversations I made a guy I might have gotten a phone call from Harvey afterwards just wondering what the hell's what's going on is he really going to do this? It was so often that people, the executives in Turner broadcasting, they didn't know what was real and what wasn't real, famously firing Randy Anderson on live television front of his kids. Next day, I got called to the office

because human resources got wind of it and was wondering, what the hell is he doing? He's firing people on television in front of their children. And I had to remind everybody that this is all make believe, folks. Everybody's in on it. everybody was in on it but the executives they were part of the company um and this is one of those cases but i don't even think harvey gave me a call about this one to be honest we've got uh more judy bagwell here mouser's going to be pretty critical let's see they've got a shot right here for the tag title against a 55 year old woman who went into the ring in street clothes and wearing earrings and they walked out he's pretty critical he says judy cut a

terrible promo. She really got over big in her first TV appearance and hasn't since. It's one thing if you do a gimmick that's dumb, but the people buy it or entertain, but this crap isn't over. So Rick Steiner is now a tag team champion with Judy Bagwell. I love Judy Bagwell. God rest of soul. She was doing exactly what she was asked to do. But somebody in the back was having a lot of fun with this. And I think when people, I mentioned this earlier. People talk about Judy Bagwell on a poll and sort of wag their finger of Vince Russo. This is pre Vince Russo. Kevin Sullivan found a lot of humor in Judy Bagwell too, no? Apparently. Yeah. And I must have as well because I didn't kick it out. So there you go.

You know, it's like you try something once. And I think what we did with Judy probably worked additionally with Mark, especially right after his accidents and all that. There was a lot of good Judy Bagwell moments within WCW in small, very small doses, but I think everybody went, wow, that works. So let's try this. And they should have left it alone. I should have left it alone. Kevin should have left it alone.

Some things are better just left to the imagination. Well, we're going to have to imagine that there was a different way to promote this pay-per-view. I mean, we're not really teasing much with Goldberg or Hulk Hogan. And I know that, you know, we've got a crowded roster. You can't really feature every. everybody every month, but it does feel like you'd want to, especially in a format like this, with all that talent there, load it up with some of the bigger names.

Speaking of Goldberg, Chris Jericho is going to start doing interviews on TV, just running down Goldberg. I loved this era of Chris Jericho. His 1998 is my favorite year of his career. They show Goldberg arriving at the building and watching Jericho run him down from the dressing or monitor. And he's just going to throw some furniture around. And eventually, he comes out and tackles him on the floor.

and Meltzer would say the original plan was for these two to wrestle in a singles match on the show. The problem with their feud is that as entertaining as Jericho is, Goldberg, for some reason, doesn't want to work with him because he considers him a cruiserweight and also doesn't like how Jericho is working the feud. We've touched on this a little bit before, but I think this is probably the straw that broke the camel's back with, with Jericho and WCW because he felt like, hey, I went out and I got this thing over.

People are behind it. It's entertaining. They're with it. And we're not going to pay it off. And I think that perhaps is where some of the narrative that all the inmates are running the asylum. In hindsight, if you had to do over again, would you have twisted Goldberg's arm and made this a reality? No, because it would have been a train wreck, to be honest. Like, I respect Bill.

I like Bill. but he was a pin and he asked to work with back then and part of that is not because he's a dick, not because he's got a bad personality, not because he's selfish, but because he didn't have the tools to get into the ring

and have a match with Chris Cherko. He was insecure in his own abilities. Now, he may not even admit that to himself, but I think one of the reasons he resisted is because he knew if he got in there with Chris, he'd have to really step up his game. And Bill was still relatively new to the business at that point in time. He didn't have all the experience that Chris had. He didn't have the tools in his toolbox to be able to go out there and have a 12 or 15 or 18 minute match with a guy like Chris Jericho and look good doing it.

Bill was only capable of looking like Bill Goldberg within a limited framework of offense, right? He just didn't have it. And I think that's what bothered him more than anything. And I think you're absolutely right, by the way. You know, I think Chris probably it was that situation that made Chris realize that there was nowhere for him to go. I don't blame him for feeling that way, by the way.

He was right at that point in time. he was absolutely right and he should have gone to WWE he did and he was justified in doing it but I think it's unfortunate you know because had Bill had a couple more years of experience under his belt and would have been able to go out there and have some great matches with Chris it could have been a phenomenal story to tell a little bit of David and Goliath Chris is a fighter by nature his instinct it's just who he really is and I think he would have played well into that character and would have forced the kind of serious side out of Chris Jericho that up until that point because Chris was having fun Chris was doing crazy over the top shit you know and this would

have forced Chris to take a more serious approach to that match and that could have been outstanding but it just wasn't in the cards and forcing a guy like Bill Goldberg to do something that he's unwilling or doesn't want to do it's only going to be bad yeah you might I might have been able to force the issue contractually it would have been fucking horrible well something else that's uh i'm not going to say it's horrible but we're just a handful of weeks after rick flair's big return to tv in greenville south carolina just a huge night in wrestling and now here we are and he's not even on the show and neither are the horseman here in nassau coliseum uh it is a crowded show though you've got

way more people here than you would normally have as far as a media presence because of the hogan announcement i know that sounds silly with the benefit of hindsight but extra hard copy maxim forbes cigar aficionado time people playboy uh pro football weekly there's lots of press here so we can be critical of the the hogan presidency thing but it was getting some attention but maybe we are losing track at times of what we're doing because that feud with you and flair man that was television magic and to not be able to maneuver screen time to keep that story going in hindsight that has to be a mistake no i don't know i'd have to really go back and look at the rest of the show and the rest of the car and where we were going at

that particular time you know um i don't know perhaps it would have been perhaps i didn't really appreciate or maybe kevin selvin didn't really really appreciate how hot that feud with rick and i was going to be. So maybe it was just set aside for a week because we were in Nassau, because we wanted to put our best foot forward. And, you know, maybe there just wasn't confidence in myself and Rick at that point in time. I wasn't really a legitimate opponent for Rick or adversary for Rick. It was more of a stunt, really, stunt story more than anything. And perhaps it got marginalized on that particular night as a result. I don't know. You'd really have to go back and look at the whole context and I don't remember what it was sitting here today well

about this for context Eric we're we're a few days away from the pay per view here and we've announced two matches so the go home episode of nitro we've got at the big battle royal of course this world war three so you got a 60 man battle royal it's twice as big as the royal rumble 60 guys and we've got a rematch for scott hall and kevin nash and that's it that's all we've announced It does feel like, you know, we've sort of lost our way maybe a little bit. Meanwhile, Oliver on the other channel, they told an incredible one show story, an incredible thread. There was a tournament to crown a new champion.

And mankind is positioned to be Vince McMahon's sort of number one stooge, if you will. He's trying to be the corporate version of mankind that he thinks Vince McMahon wants him to be. But it's a swerve, bro. The rock turns heel. no longer the people's champ he's the actual champ the corporate champ for vince mcman were you keeping up with the rock i mean i know that sounds silly with the benefit of hindsight we know he's going to become a big star but at this point i mean he's only been in the company two years he debuted at survivor series 96 and now here at survivor series 98 he wins the world

title for the first time and you've been pretty out front about saying the mike tyson thing was a big deal for WCW when you saw that Austin was brushing up against Mike Tyson but I'm curious if Rock was on your radar here and you perceive that as a threat or is this too soon and you didn't quite see it just yet? I didn't see it at this point and this was early in Rock's ascension to the throne

but no I didn't see it and I wasn't I mean I was aware of it but I wasn't really paying close attention to it at all. Well, the result of that angle gets Monday Night Raw its best viewership in the history of the show against Nitro 5.76 million viewers. Meanwhile, Nitro does 4.5. And again, I know when people write about this era, they talk about, boy, WWE was just destroying WCW. And I think every wrestling company in the world would love to be destroyed if that meant they got 4.5 million viewers themselves. And I just want everybody to really wrap their head around that. I know we as fans. Because I'm included in this we get caught up in the Monday night war. Well, in a war, there's a winner and there's a loser in reality. That's not always the case in business. Yeah, you might be number two. But the bottom line is what really matters. And if you've got 4.5 million eyeballs, it's hard to categorize that as anything other than a win. It's also a win for Barry Windham. He's going to be introduced back into WCW. Also on this show, we would see Sonny Ono, beat Kaz Hayashi, dressed as El Gringo. Sonny is really good at this. Ray is going to lose to Eddie Guerrero. He's forced to join the LWO, a story they're still making money off of 25 years later.

Can I jump in there? Just I hate to interrupt you. But how odd is it down on? How cool is it that two of the probably top 10 merchandise sellers in WWE right now is NWO for sure. I think they're number six and LWO. At least it's prominent on television. 25 years later?

Is that awesome or what? It is amazing. It just makes me laugh. I love it. We do have to talk about Hogan. He's got a skit here. It's a parody, of course. But he's got,

I can't believe this is even a sentence. A Monica Lewinsky impersonator. I mean, this feels like you're trying to do, well, respectfully, it doesn't feel. feel like WCW. It feels like something that's happening in the attitude era.

Like if this was happening with Vince McMahon, he's running for president and he's got a Monica Lewinsky impersonator. I think everybody listening to this is like, oh yeah, I could see that. But the idea that, wait, no, this is the NWO show. This is the cruiserweight show. This is the wrestling show.

Monica Lewinsky impersonators, that ain't it. I disagree. I think it was cool. I'll listen to you. No, I do. I think it was funny. Look, it's, you know, Dusty Rose, you know, wrestling is a buffet. You've got to have a little bit of something for everybody. Not everybody has to be the wrestling show, the cruiser way, doesn't have to always be serious.

It's okay to have fun. I don't feel bad about this one. I kind of dig it. I'm going to go back and watch it. That's how much I dig it because I think it was fun. It was topical. It was relevant in the time. It just made sense.

to me still does let's talk a little bit about the show we're finally here it's not a great show 88.8% of the wrestling observer readers gave it a thumbs down that was just one vote for a thumbs up but the show is actually up in 1997 world war three did 205,000 buys but here you're going to do 250,000 buys so it's hot as you were in 97 still making more money here in 1998 uh and by the way i just want to mention if you're looking to uh to go ahead and watch a match from this show maybe don't not a lot of great matches on this show and normally i can find something that is fantastic on here somewhere but i think it might be we're going to run through the matches but billy kidman and hoovintoo garera they get

plenty of time randomly here on this pay-per-view 15 minutes it's not even really advertised beforehand like you made the treadmill analogy and i just think about the promotion of this where you're asking people to plunk down their hard-earned dollars to watch more wrestling content and there's a ton of it but you're asking them to do it every month and 250,000 people with really only two matches announced do it like I can't imagine if we had a more focused and I get you know you can't do that 365 you're going to have some ups you're going to have some downs you're going to have some stinkers but this is just one of those pay-per-views where it feels lost after such a big Halloween havoc this feels like a lame duck pay-per-view huge October show you know Starcage right around

the corner next month and then you got this one kind of in the middle eh it was hard for me to get excited about it as a fan. Was it hard for you to get excited about it as a promoter? I think I was excited about the World War III format. Yeah. Doing something different and how that would turn out. But I, you know, I think you really summarize it. You're building up to this big Halloween havoc. Oh, I mean, there's anticipation. There's pressure. All of you above and then you got one 28 days later or 30 days later and I think there was a letdown creatively clearly it does happen and it certainly happened here and there may have been other reasons I don't I don't know what they are I don't want to make excuses when I can't

remember or detail what was really going on at the time but it would have been unusual for us not to have at least three or four matches that we were focused on on advertising. I don't know if there were injury issues, if there were contract issues, or if it was just sloppiness in any of any of the above could have been the reason. But yeah, to only have two matches built and advertised, pretty, pretty rare even for WCW in a bad day.

We've got the Saturday night episode, the night before. and on wcw saturday night the night before world war three they announced 10 matches for the pay-per-view so we only had two coming into saturday night now we've got 10 only three of those actually take place on the show yes it's like it's forgotten about but something you don't want to forget about especially this time of year is that winter is here and for a lot of us that means trying to find the right temperature when we sleep but maybe we've got a little life hack for you what about silver infused bedding from miracle made it's all inspired by NASA did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality if you wake up

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it went a little too long for Rath's gimmick. Obviously, these are great guys. We think the world of them. And it gets a star or half a star here. wrath and glacier we don't spend a lot of time talking about wrath what do you remember about brian clark quiet super professional classy guy great look great attitude nothing but good things to say about them those are the first things that come to my mind when I hear his name our next match is stevie ray and conan they're going to go six minutes and 55 seconds

uh it gets a negative half a star it's a deque uh going to be some uh some cheating here damn it booker t's going to make the say for his brother conan's going to get out of there uh i don't know it doesn't feel like to me like i love stevie ray think he's a great character love the whole fruit booty stuff but i still prefer Stevie as a tag team wrestler as part of Harlem Heat, I feel like where Booker really found his voice as a singles performer, I don't know that Stevie ever

did. Would you agree with that? Yeah, unfortunately I would. Booker was just able to adapt and I think it had a lot to do with Booker's ability on the mic. Booker was much stronger on the mic than Stevie was. Stevie was an imposing dude.

I mean, he had all the attributes. He had all the tools with the exception of his ability. ability to cut a promo. I just think Stevie was more comfortable as a performer as a part of a team than he was solo as a result of

not having quite the my skills at Booker had. Next up, we've got Ernest Miller, teaming up with Sonny Ono to take on Kaz Hayashi and Perry Saturn. Milter would say match wasn't as bad as you'd think since Saturn was doing the job, and he was suplexing Miller around the ring beforehand.

Still, it's a mess since Ono has no real heat. Hayashi has been made out to be an impotent fool and Miller is hard to work with. Miller didn't want to sell anything for Hayashi because of the size difference because he felt if it was real, Hayashi would be too small for him. Except he forgot the key to pro wrestling. It isn't real. And the way the storyline had been played, it was time for Hayashi to at least have some fans have hope in him. There's no way they'd care about any of this. Oh no, mainly. runs away Miller gives Saturn a kick listen sunny gets the pen it's a half

a star I know he's your pal it's big on story I actually like sunny as an on screen performer and being used in this but this doesn't respectfully feel like a pay-per-view match this was like a TV match to me Eric not every pay-per-view is going to have powerhouse matches on it and this was an entertaining

fun not to be taken seriously match. I don't know what else to say about it. You know, I, when I do it over again, probably if, if, if the circumstances were right, you know, Sonny, you know, it's interesting, Dave said, Sunny had no heat. I remember somebody having a fair amount of heat. Yeah. So I don't know that Dave's recollection or reporting of this matches like everything else

that he reports on accurate. it. But I, you know, I'd have to go back and watch it, to be honest, to judge it, but I think the ingredients were all there. Maybe the chemistry didn't click. Maybe the size difference became an issue. I don't know. I'd have to go back and watch. But I don't think Dave's coverage of the match is probably accurate. Let's talk about the next match. I think it's probably the best match on the show. Billy Kidman and Hov and 2 Guerrera get plenty of time, 15 minutes and 27 seconds. Meltzer dug it. He gave it.

three and three quarter stars. Of course, uh, the backdrop here is Ray Mysterio. Uh, I really enjoy seeing this type, this type of wrestling and this style and. Billy Kidman getting a 15 minute match on paper review in 1998.

It's high fives all around. We've seen what who the two guerrera can do and, and he's been doing in WCW for at least a couple years at this point. But these are, these are big opportunities for Billy Kidman to be on a pay per view, be given this amount of time, and then win the cruiserweight title when it's all said and done. It's a big deal for Kidman. What did you think his upside was? Did he have a ceiling in WCW? I know eventually we would try him in a feud with Hogan, but like, what do you think

the, the possibilities were for Kidman? Kidman was so, Billy Kidman was so good in the ring. Again, had a long way to go on the mic in terms of being believable, but once the bell rang, He could over-deliver. I mean, almost every single time he was in the ring, he over-delivered on expectations, regardless of who he was working with. He was versatile as well. He could work with a Kassayashi.

He could work with a Ray Mysterio. He could also work with a green talent and really bring out the best in a green talent, much like, you know, Rick Flair became legendary forwards. You know, he could make a broomstick look good. You know, Billy wasn't at the Rick Flair level, but Billy was one of those people

that were capable of wrestling with almost anybody and have at the very least a good match and more often than not over-delivered on expectations regardless of who he was working with. That's rare. Had Billy had the, it wasn't a big family, especially, you know, I just saw the still shot if you're watching along with us.

I mean, for his shows are on YouTube. We saw the, you know, screenshot of Billy and his white beaters and his board shorts and that kind of grunge look. I think that did a disservice to Bill, you know, Billy Kidman. I think if Billy would have been presented. visually as more of a star and less like the guy that changes your oil at Jiffey Loub might

have had an impact on Billy as well but as far as you know what did I see I saw a guy that in the ring entertain the hell out of me every single time as Rick Steiner is supposed to wrestle Scott Steiner here it doesn't happen because Rick had just underwent a second shoulder operation just a couple of weeks prior to this so it starts out with the Giant, Stevie Ray, Vincent and Brian Adams. They're all attacking Rick backstage. Giant is going to drag Rick from the back, throw him in the ring. Scott and Buffer destroying Rick.

Finally, Goldberg shows up. Spears Scott Steiner. Place goes bananas. Goldberg goes for a jackhammer on Scott, but the NWO comes in and takes over, the NWA ref, rather. And Goldberg is going to press the ref. heave him from one end of the ring to the other so listen it's uh it's not a goldberg match we haven't necessarily promoted that goldberg's going to be in a match but we serve the audience here

they got their goldberg moment and a big pop and you're trying to make some chicken salad you know with uh with not being able to deliver the Steiner match nice use of goldberg here and you know just looking at that still shot you know crowd was on her feet crowd was happy was it a day milter five zero match no you know was it something that was booked in advance and built no as you pointed out made chicken salad out of chicken chip but at the end of the day it's how do the fans feel when that match was over regardless of what match was on the card and how it was promoted and how it was booked or how it wasn't promoted and how it wasn't booked in advance at the end of the day how did people feel leaving that venue on that particular night

did they feel like they got their money's worth? I would venture to say that this match, as much of a cluster chicken salad out of chicken shit matches it was, probably made a lot of people feel really good because Kevin Sullivan would have been the one that laid this out and booked it, did a great job of making the best out of an unfortunate situation as a result of an injury.

I think it's a great example of how good Kevin could be on any given day. When you're faced with circumstances you didn't anticipate. Scott Hall is going to come to the ring with the black and white crew. Eric Bischoff's going to come out and orders they all attack Scott Hall, which they do. Kevin Nash is going to clean house and Hall is going to throw up the Wolfpack sign to Nash.

The Nash walks away rather than accepted. And Meltzer would say this was a feud that never got over for a number of reasons. Perhaps the main one being the participants never really wanted to break up their team or work against each other in the first place. And when they give a little hype in that direction, the fans followed suit and not caring. I kind of agree with that. Like, I love those guys as a tag team. I don't want to see them fight.

Do you remember them being hesitant to actually work against each other? I don't think it was hesitant to work against each other. They were hesitant to work against each other in a story that didn't feel right. I think they would have loved to have worked against each other with a story that was compelling. that was clicking with the audience, that had layers to it, that was nuanced. I think they would have loved to work together.

It wasn't that they didn't want to work together because they were best friends. It's because they didn't want to split the team up for a story that didn't really make any sense or wasn't compelling. And they weren't wrong. They were right. Desperation doesn't breed great creative.

at this point in time we were starting to get desperate we were throwing shit up against the wall hoping something would stick and I don't blame him for being hesitant let's talk about the next match this is a pay-per-view match I can't believe it's real Chris Jericho is going to retain the TV title against Bobby Duncan Jr in 13 minutes and 19 seconds I appreciate Bobby Duncan and his work and he was was a hell of a performer, but man, he was not established to this WCW audience here. So to give him 13 minutes on pay-per-view,

it is an opportunity. But again, it feels like a television match. And I don't even know that it feels like a Nitro match. It feels like a Thunder or a Saturday night match. But Jericho gets the win. And it's still entertaining because Jericho's doing what he does. And then it's time for our,

you would think main event, but it's actually not what goes on last. It's time for World War III. Nash has got 59 competitors here then it's going to come down to one ring and 20 men so I guess the three ring battle royal goes about 11 minutes and then the single ring battle royal goes about 12 minutes so we've got like 23 minutes of a battle royal here and what's interesting about that is how different and how similar at the same time the Royal Rumble format feels like, okay, the Battle Royal has been around forever, but bringing in

entrances and the anticipation and the pop one at a time made the Royal Rumble a staple and a tent pole event and a real brand for the company that still lives to this day that people get excited about. And people discuss, hey, what's the number two show behind WrestleMania? Is it the Royal Rumble? Is it SummerSlam? But it's in the conversation. Nobody ever talked about World War III that way. And I think it's just based on the idea that you've got all the guys starting at the exact same time. First of all, it's hard to follow. Absolutely horrible to follow. But then secondly, you, you remove what makes the Royal Rumble so special. In my opinion, what made the Rumble so special

was not that they were 30 guys. It's that they were coming in one at a time, the anticipation of who's next. I think this concept is just a miss for me. And 20-something minutes of guys throwing elbows in the corner. I don't know, man. It feels like we had a better use of our time with some of this roster. I'm just not a fan of the World War III format. Sorry. Neither mind. It's, you know, not every idea you try is going to come out good, right? Yeah. You don't know. Perhaps you could argue that we should have known. And in retrospect, yeah, should have known, you know, anticipation as I've figured out along the way and certainly afterwards. Anticipation is everything.

And what you're talking about with Royal Rumble is the anticipation. Yes. And you carry that anticipation all the way through and you pay it off along the way. Sometimes you pay it off bigger than others. But it's the key to that success of that format is anticipation. And that's the one thing we didn't have. We didn't have it. I think we were hoping that the spectacle and the headline was going to be the thing that was going to drive that pay-per-view.

And perhaps it was. It outperformed the pay-perview the year before. So arguably, there was some validity to the idea of bigger and louder and faster and stronger for the sake of being bigger and louder and faster and stronger, but not necessarily being better quality. And I think that's what came back in business and yes. But I absolutely agree with you. it was an attempt we tried it really didn't work it didn't register probably knew that about 20 minutes in as we're sitting there watching it camera watching it unfold it's probably one of the reasons or part of the reasons why i just shy away from gimmick matches that don't make

sense um because this was a glaring example of that it's uh it's telling a story kevin nash is in the ring with 29 other guys and he's going to throw most of them out by himself in under three minutes and eventually it gets down to Hall and Nash attacking the giant which gets a big pop Lugar's going to throw out Stevie Ray and bodies are flying all over the place but in the end Lugar goes to rack Scott Hall near the ropes but before he can get him up Nash kicks both of them over the top for the win Kevin Nash is victorious half a star or star and a half rather in the observer. But this, of course, is determining somebody gets a title shot, just like they do at the Royal Rumble, by the way. So Kevin Nash is now due for a title shot, and we know it's

going to happen one month later at Starcade. When you're discussing what direction we're going next, you know, you've had all this great success, this incredible Goldberg run started in September of 97, so we're 14 months deep. He became the top guy that July, so we're only a handful of months removed from that we just had an incredible show at hallowing havoc and now we're setting up sarcade this is sort of that lame duck paper view we talked about why is kevin nash the right opponent in your opinion if you had it to do over again would you have done something a different opponent and at this point when you go with nash as the winner here did you already know we're going to have him beat goldberg next one no we didn't already know i didn't already know that

Perhaps it had been discussed with Kevin and Kevin Nash and Kevin Sullivan perhaps discussed it. I could have been a lot of conversations that I wasn't privy to, but I don't think I wasn't aware of it at that point. I wasn't on my radar in terms of what we were going to do. Why Kevin Nash, look, credibility, you know, who is other than Goldberg, who was more credible physically? Right. If the daybills who work, right, because that's only relevant to the internet wrestling community. If you're going to book for the internet, Tony Khan, if you're going to book for the internet, you're only going to satisfy a small fraction or small percentage of the overall audience.

The overall audience, especially at that time, we're still buying into that larger-than-life character. And Goldberg certainly had a lock on that in many respects, but he needed an opponent. he needed somebody to work with that had credibility and yeah sometimes you've got to go back and you got to start over from the ground up to create an opponent for bill and i think there was nobody with more credibility physical credibility than Kevin Nash well if you're looking up your physical ability can we recommend AG1 eric and i start every day with one delicious scoop and a cup of water that's it that's all you need to do to set yourself up for success with AG1 think of is like your foundational nutritional supplement that delivers comprehensive nutrients to support

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If a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, we want you to try AG1, and hey man, we'll get you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. All you've got to do is go to drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. That's drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. check it out you'll be glad you did let's talk about our main event it's a diamond dallas page and brett heart for the u.s title a very physical match uh a really nice showing

from diamond dallas page as you see as he's making his way to the ring he's got the belt upside down i kind of like that it's a fun match uh brett hart didn't have uh all that many highlights in wcw but this was a really good match um the n w o ref is going to do a run in and call for the bell without page submitting that's going to to deflate the crowd Mickey Jay runs in overrules the NWRF orders the match to continue and Paige hits the diamond cutter for the pen it gets three stars but man this whole heel referee bullshit I'm Lord I'd like to be done with that forever just just thinking about how you know we had that happen of course a year prior at

the Survivor Series so I get it but that's how we introduced Brett at Starcade and then even, you know, a week prior at the Survivor Series, we had a heel Shane McMahon referee thing. Wrestling tropes can sometimes just get worn out. And the heel referee feels like part of that in this era, no? No question. You know, it was a bad idea the first time and it doesn't get any better afterwards.

So I agree with you 100%. If I never see another heel referee, I don't mind a surprise. I don't mind. you know, a referee doing something out of character or controversial, but a flat out heel referee, like we saw here, not a fan at all. I hopefully no one else will ever follow in those footsteps

because it's bad, it's bad creative. Don't do it. Stay away from it. Don't do it. Sucks. I want to give DDP some props. He had, I mean, we often talk about 1997 that that was really his breakout year.

when he turns down the NWO opportunity in January, has that phenomenal feud with Randy Savage that won the feud of the year in Pro Wrestling Illustrated. But 98, man, he's in pay-per-view main events with everybody. Hulk Hogan, Dennis Rodman, Carl Malone, Jay Leno, Goldberg, and now Brett Hart. What an incredible year 1998 was for DDP. And I know people always talk about 98 with Goldberg.

But you can't deny the number of main events and big opportunities DDP got in 98. And I'm sure that wasn't without some criticism because of your off the field relationship, uh, with, with, uh, with Dallas, but dude, he earned every bit of that. Did he know it? He did and there wasn't as much reason. I think in the beginning, there was resistance to page getting opportunities that some people felt like he just, he hadn't paid his dues. You know what I mean?

Um, but. that went away pretty quickly because even though there were people that probably resented Paige, And look, yeah, I love the guy. We're very close friends to this day and always will be. But Paige could get on your nerves pretty quickly, right? He was just constantly, you know, going and promoting and working and thinking and talking. And he just was nonstop. So that combined with the fact that some people perceived that he was getting favored treatment

as a result of his relationship with, which, by the way, if you ever talk to Paige about that and he'll be right when he tells you this i was way harder on him than i would have been on just about anybody else scott holly right now early on that was going to be an issue so he he worked so hard that even people who resented him to a degree or maybe just didn't like him And there wasn't many people like that. Pager's a likable guy. But even those people, even his biggest critics after a while, they recognized that this guy worked his ass off.

He really worked his ass off and never let up. And he gained the respect of a lot of people that were otherwise or at least initially kind of resented him. He earned it. well something that we've all earned is a well-deserved a break and we hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope that you go see Eric at Russellcade but on the other side of Thanksgiving it's a big day for college football fans you got all these great rivalry games like Alabama and Auburn and

like Ohio State and Michigan there's just one great I'm talking about really great college football thing happening this weekend and then we've got the Survivor Series too and when I think about all those family gatherings and the big rivalry games and the pay-per-view. I think to myself, self, I might want to do a little grilling. And Eric, you've got a friend who knows a thing or two about grilling, and I'm not talking about Jim Rouse. I love me some grilled steak.

I love to grill just about anything. But when it comes to meat, I've become a little bit of a snob. And not so much like a rich snob, because I'm certainly not that. but I appreciate really good quality, especially at a price that the average person can afford. And I discovered not long ago River Bend Ranch. Now, there's a lot of box meat providers out there that, you know, ship me directly to your door. Some of them have been sponsors on this show. And they're all good to a certain degree.

Every one of them provides a service and the quality of the product is good. but there are those special companies out there that really take the game to the next level. And River Bend Ranch has been around for a long time. They raise their own meat, their own cattle, Black Angus, no hormones. And this is a big one for me, no antibiotics. So you know that over this country produces over 17,000 tons of antibiotics annually. and that 80% of those antibiotics end up in the meat that you eat. I'm not good with that for a lot of reasons.

And not only is River Bend Ranch an excellent quality product, I mean second to none, there's no hormones, no antibiotics ever. And not only that at River Bend Ranch, one of the reasons the meat is so flavorful and so tender is because unlike anything you're going to buy in the store anywhere, I don't care where you go, unless it's a custom butcher shop. And even these are hard to find. You're not going to get aged beef.

The only way you're going to get aged steaks, and aged beef is if you go to a top end, super expensive out of my league restaurant, I get it shipped at my door. And I'm not just hyping it. I discovered this. They didn't come, they're not, they didn't come to us and say,

would you consider sponsoring this? I discovered this opportunity through my nephew, actually, because he knew that I love really good quality cuts of meat. And I was blown away. I noticed it in the ground beef. I noticed the difference in the quality. The flavor's different. When it comes to the steaks,

absolutely can tell the difference between an age and a non-age steak. Not only in terms of flavor, I can detect it, but the tenderness is you can't compare it. You know, when you get a tough cut of meat or you go to the meat, even you spend a lot of money in a supermarket for it, and you bring it home, you know, and you want to tenderize it, so you put Adolf's meat tenderized. You know what that is?

That's a chemical that breaks down the enzymes in the meat that loosens up the meat fiber, but it's a chemical. Naturally, aged steak does the exact same thing, but it does it naturally. And the difference is night and day. It's absolutely night and day. go to getriverbend.com, fill out a little form there. You're going to get some information. There'll be somebody on the other end that will help you customize your order,

show you how you can save money. And when you compare Riverbend to some of the other services out there that send me to your home, and you can look at the difference when it comes to price, Riverbend is a great value, and it can become an even better value once you decide you want to save up and save as much money as possible. So go to getriverbend.com. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

You can thank me later and you'll be impressing your friends and family for holidays to come and football games. Well, and we're hoping we can impress you next week. We're going to be talking about Disney and how WCW worked at Disney, how the deal was made, why it was made, what everyone thought, how you classified it as a success and what, if anything, it changed about the way wrestling is produced. If you've got a question about Disney or any other topic, you want to ask us here on the show, It's easy to do. It's at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Of course, the easiest, cheapest, best way to support the show is supporting us on YouTube.

YouTube.com. Also love to have your interactions personally. You can talk to Eric on Twitter. He's pretty active at E. Bischoff. You can find him on Instagram at the real Eric Bischoff. And you can also pick up his book, grateful. This weekend at Russell Cade or over at Amazon or Bischoffbook.com. That's Bischoffbook.com.

by the way if your business targets men that are 25 to 54 years old man there's no better place to advertise than right here you hear some of the same sponsors week after week for years why is that well because it really works and find out how affordable it can be at advertise with eric.com uh eric i really enjoyed our conversation today it's interesting to take a look back at a sort of a lame duck pay per view for wcw things have been so hot with hallowing havoc and we know they're going to be super hot for starcade your live events are just off the charts you're running dome shows on on a regular basis just on a Monday night show and it almost feels like there was almost no planning going into this paper view but it was still successful when you're hot you're hot and that was the story of WCW in 1998 this was fun today man yeah it was a fun look back it's a paper view that I hadn't thought much about for obvious reasons but it's always fun to go back and look at it and try to analyze what was going on at that time and the reasons for some of the things we saw.

So I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you and thanks to Dave Silva. Hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving. I know you will because you're both going to be with your families. And I love to see that. So enjoy it. We hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving. It's, uh, it's,

it's fat guy Christmas, you know, you get the family together. There's a big meal. There's college football, but there's no pressure for the gifts and we've got to transport this and that and who got that and who got this. And do they get us a present? Because we got to get them a present.

You don't have any of that for Thanksgiving. So enjoy the reason for the season, a little fellowship with the friends and fam this week for Thanksgiving here in America. And we'll be back. We are going to be putting the show in the can a few days earlier than we normally would. Eric and I both have some holiday travel. So you'll still get a brand new episode next week talking about Disney. But get those questions in sooner rather than later at 83 weeks. And we'll see you next Monday right here talking about Disney on 83 weeks with Eric Pischel.

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