83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 299: Austin On A "Symbol" Monday Night RAW 12.07.98 Watch Along

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric sits back and watches the December 7th edition of Monday Night RAW from 25 years ago for the very first time! Eric shares his thoughts on the WWE using a "symbol" to hang Stone Cold Steve Austin on, how the NWO was way cooler than DX in 1998, and his true feelings about a buried alive match. All that plus, Eric has a great idea on how he should get his head shaved, once again after losing a bet to Conrad. GAMETIME - Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKS for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. FACTOR - Head to FACTORMEALS.com/83weeks50 and use code 83weeks50 to get 50% off.  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. MIRACLE 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. 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 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 Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks. Of course, we couldn't do it. Without the Hall of Famer, Eric Bischoff, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am doing, you know what I started today? What did you start today? Five-day water fast. Wow.

I'm going to do it. Good. And then when I'm done with my five-day water fast, I'm going to take about a three-day window and I'm going to transition back into solid food again very carefully as I did my research. And then I'm going into a 30-day carnivore diet where I eat nothing but Riverbend ranch products. Wow. Okay. You can find out more at getriverbend.com. Some of the greatest meat you'll ever find anywhere delivered to your door. but I am going to go on a 30-day carnivore diet. But I wanted to clean out my system completely. So I really want to know how that feels,

what that journey feels like. I've read some great things about a water fast, but I'm really looking forward to trying the carnivore diet too. Take a look at the calendar. Take a look at the calendar for me, Eric. If you're looking at the calendar, when do you think your carnivore diet will end? probably at the end of the first week in January okay all right I was wondering what you were going

to be doing or what your diet would be like on the 27th because that is the day of the royal rumble and I have it on good authority that you may or may not need a little liquid courage because it's been a while since we recorded we had the holiday travel and you you were going to do this I just do it I can see it come and I knew this last night before I close my eyes and I'm going to see fine rad's going to drill me. Oh yeah. It's happening. And, uh, it's happening because once again, for the second time this year, you and I made a bet about seeing punk, whether or not he would be back at the pay per view and debut on collision, the new show and most recently, whether or not he would be at Survivor Series or the Royal

Rumble. And we went so far as to not only bet your hair, but my hair, it was a hair versus his hair matchup and I am now two and oh and hair matches Dorian if you're listening I'm available but I do know yob I went over and Eric you're going to look like Lex Luthor again at our top guy party down at the Royal Rumble no it's not top guy weekend but we are doing a little get together you're going to be in the area I've got family who may or may not be in the area so we're going to have a great time and we're going to shave your head again but we got to figure out what the fun angle is like are we going to do some sort of charity thing or do I just get the satisfaction of making you bald well I like the charity angle but

I also have to do something differently like we all know what I look like bald I mean it's not that big a deal besides you know oh I look freaking good no matter what so would you like to nominate Mrs. B to take your place yeah that ain't happening what if Garrett grew his out and I shaved you both to look like road warriors or okay maybe all right you shave my head or someone else does if we go the charity route and we shave it into a mohawk similar to my son garris well that's what I was going to say he rocks a road warrior haircut anyway so he if he's got the mohawk that's more like animal but you're going to be hawk you're going to have the double mohawk. Do you think he would still look cool in a double mohawk?

Fuck yeah. Well, okay then. How about that? Well, boys and girls. Let's do that. Well, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a nod to the road warriors. Yep. My son will be there. Garrett will be there with us. And, uh, we can, we can do the road warrior tribute haircut. How about that? So he's going to look like road warrior hawk. It's happening in Tampa, Royal Rumble weekend. Eric, I know you've touched on the business aspect of this a little bit with our pal john alba over on strictly business which you can drop or which you can listen to on this same feed each and every week but i do want to get your quick take for those a handful of listeners who listen to this show but not that show what's your take on uh the big news that cm punk is now with uh wb you know

obviously i was surprised and not surprised if you go back and listen to some of our discussions both you and I and with Elba and Strictly Business. It's not that I didn't think WWE would ever bring punk back. It's that I was really unconvinced that they would bring them back for Survivor Series. I thought if they were going to bring them back, the more likely opportunity would be Royal Rumble simply because of the nature of the format. And it would have fit so nicely. And I also felt like WWE has so much momentum right now.

And there's no weakness in their roster. There's just no shame in their game. They've got, I think, one of the best rosters that we've seen in any company or any two companies combined for the last 25 years or more. So I didn't see the need. And you had a different point of view. And I think if I remember correctly, you were mostly focused on raw renewal rights. or selling, licensing the program to another network. And perhaps that would have been the reason to bring in punk

for even more of a pop than they've already gotten, even more momentum than they already have. I discounted that. I thought if it was going to happen, it happened to Rumble, still not convinced it would happen, but it did. One thing I do want to say about the way they brought punk in was masterful.

Absolutely surprise Happened towards the tail end of the show When anybody that came to that arena Thinking maybe he's going to show up Maybe then maybe tonight Because it's Chicago And by the time the show was almost over I'm sure most people forgot all about punk

Until he showed up And I thought that was That was a work of art Keeping that secret and surprising the audience that way. And I feel good about it because taking punk aside and some of the things that he's done over the last 18 months, set off, set all that off to the side because there may have been some, there may have been more to the story than what we know.

That aside, punk has got an amazing history. There's backstory. In other words, their story to build upon, there's the anticipation, which started long before punk showed up. The minute punk got let go from AEW, the speculation and the anticipation about punk coming back to WWE had already begun, despite the fact that everybody, you know, came out and said, no, we're not talking, we're not interested, blah, blah, blah, blah. The chatter was still there.

There was still anticipation there. So what do we have now? We've got great story. Not anticipation. Reality. This is the Sarsa formula as documented in controversy creates cash. Now you've got the reality. What's the reality in this situation?

The reality is the last 18 months. The reality is the last 10 years. This is a guy who walked out with the infamous pipe bomb promo, which by the way, I had been told by people involved that that was scripted for it. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Whether it was or it wasn't. I'm sorry?

It was absolutely scripted. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of, I've said that before, you know, people jumped all over me for saying it. But it's true. Most people are people. I have a reason to believe it's true. Let's put it that way. But despite that, you've got story, you've got anticipation. You've got the reality of the situation, which is part of the story, but it's authentic. It's authentic. It's real. It's not contrived. It's not out of the mind of a writer or or Triple H or Vince McMahon or Bruce Pritcher. This is this is authentic, real story. story that we're building upon. So you've got a story, you've got a suspicion, you've got reality. Wow, we've already had the surprise. We're four out of five, and we haven't even put the boots on yet. And now all that's left is action.

And is there anybody going to question whether or not there's going to be some great action in the matches coming up with Punk in WWE, given the story, the back story, the history, and look at Seth Rollins' reaction when Punk showed up. Boy, you know where this one's going to go pretty quick. So it just has all five of the most important elements that it takes for anything to work in any business, really, the Sarsa formula applies to almost any business. And it certainly applies to wrestling. And we've got all five boxes checked and ready to go. So I think this is going to be a really successful run for Punk, which I'm happy for him, even though I don't know him.

It would sure be nice to end your career on a high note as opposed to the direct that he was going through over the last 18. months so good for him good for wwe i'm sorry i'm going to have to get my head shaved again but we're going to have the we're going to make this much fun out of as we can and uh here we go here we go indeed i am pumped that punk is back i think it's great for business uh the rumor and innuendo is that he is setting merchandise records over there yet again uh we knew that he did that for pro wrestling teas but i hear that uh whew had a banner day over there so it's great for w w w business and of course the entire world is now focusing on what do those raw rights look like since you and I recorded there was lots of speculation and rumor and innuendo that

Warner Brothers discovery was in the hunt for that opportunity and that's intriguing because it makes you think okay we know they have an appetite for wrestling because they have AEW on respectfully the AW ratings have not been headed in the similar direction of WWE's. Momentum is a real thing. I'm sure there were a lot of people who were nervous. But behind the scenes, there's been speculation for quite a while that perhaps Warner Brothers Discovery has an ownership stake in AEW. You got to assume if there was smoke to that fire, or fire to that smoke, as the expression goes, that, uh, WWE would not want AEW airing on the same network. But I don't know that I necessarily can get behind the fact that,

AEW is going to be thrown off the air if Warner Bros. Discovery owns a piece of it. But if that's true that they do own part of it, Eric, does that affect the leverage that may exist when you're negotiating a new television rights deal? Like there's a lot of moving parts here, lots of speculation. What do you think's real and not real? Here's what I know or believe to be true. Let's be careful. I bust everybody else's balls when people come out and state something as fact when it's merely an opinion, so I don't want to make that same mistake. I have it on credible authority from a source who would absolutely know that Discovery Time Warner was interested in the acquisition back when the acquisition was

up for grabs. That Discovery Warner was one of the people who was a part of the initial process in terms of bidding, putting in a bit. So there's interest there, I believe. I don't know if it's 100% true, but I believe it to be true based on credible information. But here's, I don't know, man, here's, this is going to sound negative. And I don't mean it's just a version of, it's just a perspective. Right now, Discovery Warner has 30% of 9% of,

nothing. And by the way, 30% is the number that I've been told. Everybody hears that number. Yeah. Yep. So right now they've, assuming it's true, just for sake of discussion, basically they've got 30% of nothing. There's, I don't see the potential in AEW to grow beyond where it is right this moment. There's nothing going on there that would lead anyone to believe that there, that there's going to be a different path or growth or something new, something to distinguish AEW from WW except for the blood and the gore and the rest of it.

It's just it is what it is. And right now, having 30% of what it is is akin to having 30% of nothing from a revenue opportunity. That being said, if Warner Discovery is looking to grow the network and needs or wants is desirous of that 1.8 to 2.5 million people that come with a WWE brand, I could see them looking at their 30% and going, okay, well, that's getting us nowhere. It's not growing. We've had it for four or five years by that time. It's not growing.

There's no indications it's going to grow. It's not serving our needs. So let's make another move. I could see it. Here's where I think it gets even more complicated. From an optics point of view and a legal point of view, given some of the MLW issues that occurred a year or two ago and still ongoing to the best of my knowledge. It is. Yeah.

Those optics look bad. So it's complicated. And I don't know. I just I don't have a feel and it's it's fun to sit back and take guesses but honestly whether it's me or you or or dirt sheet writers or anybody else it's fun to speculate because there's just so many different things that could happen right and that's enjoyable that's a fun discussion to have but if you're not sitting in a boardroom or you're not sitting with an executive, a very high-level executive,

and you don't really understand the strategy of these individual networks or streaming platforms, whoever they may be that may be interested in Monday Night Raw. If you don't know their goals, it's just guessing, because you don't have enough knowledge to make an accurate prediction. I don't. And neither is anybody else that's discussing it right now, at least in the wrestling.

or a wrestling-adjacent media. I don't know. It's complicated to fail. Either way, it's going to be good. Either way, it's going to turn out positive for WWE because they're on a role and they make good moves. And Nick Con is apparently making great moves on a regular basis with what we've seen on a last week or two with WWE

and some of their positioning with college football and things like that. So I don't know, man. I just don't know. It's just going to be fun to be along for the ride. it is going to be fun along for the ride and we hope that you will join us when we are attending some of these big shows because WWE's got a handful of big shows coming up. We know they're going to WrestleMania. We know they're going to Perth. We know they're going to the Royal Rumble. And AEW still has their big pay-per-view at the end of the year in Long Island. And

man, before you know it, it'll be Sting's last match. And oh yeah, tickets are on sale now for Wembley. And that is going to be a true indicator. What are the tickets? doing. WWE is having record sellout after record sellout, but it's never too late with our friends at game time. We've been talking about game time for a while here on the show, and I've told the story before, but man, I was able to get front row tickets to a sold out show the fastest sellout in the arena's history for my daughter, just a few hours before the show

when it felt like all hope was lost. Now, we found literal tickets on the last. row. I'm talking about the actual last row of the venue. And for just a couple bucks more, my daughter sat front row center and I give all the credit to game time. I actually kind of didn't remember game time right away. I was like, oh man, what do I do? Like, I don't want to stick her on the last row. And then it was like a cartoon when I was growing up as a kid, the light bulb went off. Oh yeah, game time. I pulled out my app. It's right on my phone. And I couldn't believe my eyes. I did a double take. I thought that can't be true.

be a single ticket. Nope. Two front row tickets for her and her friend. Dad was a superhero that day. And you can get this same opportunity. I'm talking killer last minute deals. You view the all-in prices. There's no like crazy ticket master fees. I mean, I saw something the other day that actually showed specifically what those ticketing fees are. It's outrageous. And I've fallen for that with another ticket advertising company. I won't talk about it, but it's another reseller. and they show you one price and then you put it in your deal and it's like a totally different thing you don't have any surprises with game time not only that they give you the real peace of mind with what they call the lowest price guarantee i've never heard of anybody doing this

but the idea is with this game time guarantee you always get the best price you see if you find tickets in the same section in the same row for less money game time won't just credit you the difference they'll credit you 110 of the difference you're going to get the best deal by 10 percent. Not only that, you don't have to guess on a seat map. They give you the perspective of what it's going to look like from your seats. I love this app. It has been a game changer for me. I look for it first now. Instead of me having to remember, game time is my go-to. I want you to try it. I think you'll see what I'm talking about. And it's not just for concerts, guys. They do it for wrestling. They do it for sports. They do it for music. They do it for comedy. They do it for theater.

if there's a ticket game time's probably got it and man the idea that you can do it even after it starts like i didn't even know that was a thing but once the event actually starts you still have an hour to go to game time and let me just tell you if it's not critical like if it's a big concert you know you want to see the headliner they're always going to have some other warm outbacks man the people who are selling tickets on game time buddy they will they will discount it once the show starts. That's the way of the world. And you can get some incredible deals. Game time is the only place that does that that I know of. Everybody else takes them down the day of the event. It's too late. It's never too late with game time for football or basketball or baseball or concerts,

whatever. Check it out. I'm telling you, you're going to love it. All you got to do is download the Game Time app. It really is that simple. You'll create an account and then you'll use the code weeks for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account. and redeem the code W-E-E-E-K-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. Eric, it's one of my favorite stories to tell, especially right here around the holidays.

Like if there's somebody in your life that's kind of hard to buy for, maybe don't get them a sweater. Maybe get them an experience game time can help. Absolutely. And, you know, your story is similar, I'm sure, to a lot of, lot of people's story who use game time i use mine to um hook lorry and i up with an eagles concert um awesome awesome and you know for me honestly even though there are concerts and events that i may want to go to the ticket buying process even online the last time i did it without game time

when i just used i think ticket master was to go see a uh a fleetwood mac concert it was miserable the entire process was a pain in the ass it was miserable dealing with game time is a breeze love the process and the opportunities it provides go without saying because you just did well let's do something we haven't done in a long long time we're going to do a watch along but we're going to do something that i don't think you've ever done before we're going to watch an episode of monday night raw we want you to watch along with us uh it's a controversial episode it's the one we're and winds up on the symbol it's Monday night raw season six episode 49 so pull your peacock out and go to season six episode 49 but before we get going Eric I do feel like we should talk

a little bit about somebody else who came back and I know it's kind of lost in the shuffle a little bit but I was moved to tweet about it after the Survivor series I'm really excited Randy Orton's back I think Randy Orton, I don't even realize, I didn't even realize how much I missed Randy Orton on the program because he'd been gone for so long. But him coming back and not only having a great performance with a very memorable RKO in the Survivor series, but the way they had him do a little promo battle, if you will, with Ria Ripley and just simply saying, Daddy's back, after all the mommy stuff, was just like a Hall of Fame line.

I think his career has been criminally underrated. I think maybe because Sina was always the number one guy. We never really thought of Randy as being the number one guy. But he has that opportunity now and to have the opportunity with all these different matchups with the Roman Raines and the C.M. Puck and the Cody Rhodes and the history with Cody. And there's just a lot of fun opportunity for Randy Orton. And I think a lot of people assume, you know,

he's probably starting to wind it down. I really wish in hindsight his return wouldn't have felt like it was maybe lost in the shuffle. And I felt this way when AEW had four different debuts on pay-per-view a couple of years ago, Ruby Soho and then Minora Suzuki and then Adam Cole and then Brian Danielson. And I'm 100% with you. They handled the surprise of CM Punk wonderfully. But I couldn't help but wonder, rather than making Randy's return being a member of the war games,

and certainly he's worthy, couldn't we have slid Kevin Owens or L.A. Knight or someone else into that spot and then maybe saved Randy's return to get that edge-like response that Edge got when he came back at the Rumble a few years ago? I guess the story is they probably thought they could have did that with punk,

but it felt like maybe the news would leak, which makes sense. We love that surprise, but with the benefit of hindsight, in your opinion, do you think it would have made more sense to have L.A. Knight or Kevin Owens take that spot and save Randy for a surprise down the road? Yeah, I mean, I think it would have been, because we've been speculating about Randy coming back now for some time,

but before I get into, well, what could have happened, perhaps. I agree with you. I think, and we talked about this out strictly business the other day. I think Randy Orton is the purest sports entertainer, professional wrestler, whatever you choose in the business in the last 30 years. I mean, other than Sean Michaels, is there anybody smoother? No. Do you're going to watch any of his matches.

Go back to 2003 or 2005, whatever it was he debuted in WWE. I was there. I think it was 2003, but it could have been five. Whatever it was. Doesn't matter. Fuck. He, watch him closely in his matches. His positioning is flawless.

Yeah. His timing is flawless. His execution is flawless. Watch the way, watch closely. Forget about everything else that's going on in the ring and focus on nothing but his facials. What is he doing with his face? What is he doing with his eyes?

When he's selling, when he's on top, when he's aggressive. he is the purest form professional wrestler that I think I've seen in the last 30 years. He's flawless. He is the wrestling definition of smooth. And I'm so happy to see him back. I hope Randy rides us out for as long as Randy chooses to write it out. I don't think he needs a bread. No.

I think he's doing it out of passion. Yes. I think he's doing it to end his career on a high note, the way he wants to end it, and on an injury, which I have tons of respect for, for anybody that puts himself in a position to end their careers the way they want to end them.

Yes. Admirable quality, my book. But I'm just hoping for the best for Randy. I hope he gets through whatever, however long this run is, whether it's a month, two months,

six months a year, or five years, whatever it is. I hope it adds exactly the way Randy wants it to end. and I hope people recognize Randy for the amazing talent that he is. I think one day in the not so distant future, the narrative and the way people talk about that era of WWE will change. I remember when the whole ruthless aggression era was first starting.

People were pining for the attitude era. And then over the last 10 years or so, you've started to see more appreciation for that ruthless aggression era of WWE. And I think that in time, the way we all view John Sina and Randy Orton will continue to evolve and change because these were big time players and Randy Orton is probably one of your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestler. And that really tells the story. I mean, you were saying the way so smooth and the timing. And I don't know. I just wish I imagined I was so excited. I was on a high because Alabama had just beat Auburn on fourth and goal from the

31 odds were way, way against that. It was like 99% that Auburn was going to win. And Alabama won. And then immediately, in my household, we switched it over to the Survivor Series. I wanted to see Charlotte in the War Games. I wanted to see Cody in the War Games. And I wanted to see Randy come back. And I was really excited at the end of the night and thought, man, that was a great show. And they do the false finish with a little copyright.

And then here comes the punk music. I'm with you. Total surprise. Nailed it. One of the great moments in WW history. But as I'm saying that, I'm thinking, okay, now if I'm Randy, after the show on my bus, am I a little disappointed that people were excited about my return for 20 minutes and then nobody talked about it? I would have liked to have seen

the conversation amongst internet wrestling fans and on social media that evening been about the RKO off the cage and Randy Orton being back. And it was almost not discussed at all because all the attention was on punk. And I'm not saying, oh, it's a competitive business and blah, blah, I'm just saying maybe we didn't have to do both that night. Now I also understand that if punk really was a last minute signing, then you kind of can't help that. Like we're in Chicago. This is the time to do it.

It's going to leak if we don't. I get it. So I don't think Randy's too tore up about it. But still, I would have liked to have seen if this really is his last run. I don't know if you remember. But do you remember when Triple H came back in 2002 after he had that awful injury? He comes back at Madison Square Guard.

garden. They had been playing these YouTube videos of him, you know, recovery and in rehab and all that. And he comes out in a leather jacket that's got some denim on it. And man, the, the crowd was just deafening. They just wanted to see and hear from their guy who was back. And he left as a heel, but just a hero's welcome when he comes back. He wins the Royal Rumble. It was a special moment in Triple H's career. And I know that that isn't necessary for Randy at this point because he's had so many special moments. I just would have liked one last one if this is really going to be the last run because this is probably his last quote unquote return. We hope he doesn't get injured again at least. And I don't know. I couldn't help but think about Randy in the bus

that night thinking, well, they were excited for me for about 12 minutes. And now it's on to the next thing. Yeah, I agree with you. And I got myself distracted. But I do, and you touched on it. And I hadn't thought about it before, but perhaps one of the reasons they brought. punk in is for fear that it would leak and yeah is unfortunate is that is uh it's also a reality yes so that i hadn't considered that before i heard you say it that actually makes a lot of sense to me yeah but what where i was going before i went off into the weeds was we've been hearing about randy making his comeback and perhaps making a comeback we didn't know when but we knew he was on his way yes that could have been held off till royal rumble couldn't

it and perhaps even built upon over the next few months. I'm not saying replicate the AAAs thing when he came back in 2002 and show him working out and getting ready. That's kind of old school. Yeah. Ben there are done that. Not as effective. But there are other things that could have been done over the course of the next three

months that could have helped build anticipation. Since it wasn't going to be a surprise, let's build anticipation for it. And whether or not it actually happens. and haven't happened to Royal Rumble. I think that probably could have been better for Randy individually. But I don't think anybody's sad. No. I think Randy,

you know, I don't know Randy really well. I've gotten to know him a little bit over the years. I don't think he was sitting at home going, wow, they were excited about me for 20 minutes. No, no,

not so much. That's not Randy at all. I think, I think Randy, the Randy that I think I know is going cool. Talk about seeing punk all you want. when you see what happens next week because Randy will bring it into the ring not that CM Punk Cantor won't but there's something special about Randy and I think at the end of it

all they'll be talking about Randy well there's no doubt about that and I think the world knows that you and I are big Cody Rhodes fans and maybe I would have felt differently if instead of just having Cody just announced that he was their partner you know there was some sort of beat down circumstance or situation and it looks like the heels have the upper hand and you know now that drew mackintyre's on that team who's our guy and they just hit randy's music and he comes back as a surprise i don't know i just really would have liked the surprise return and maybe that's because i've hung out with you long enough that i i know sarsa now like the back of my hand i'll tell you this though this looks like a totally different randy orton

randy orton looks bigger and more jacked than ever and you got to think he worked really really hard to get himself in that shape and that also meant he probably had to be really really on his diet. And I'm not saying you can look like Randy Orton, but I am saying step one is eating better and Factor can help, especially right here during the holiday season. If you're looking for nutritious, flavorful meals and some of your jam-packed days, look no further than Factor. America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. They can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it's all with chef-prepared, dietitian-approved, ready-to-eat meals that are delivered straight to your door. You can go ahead and get rid of all the planning.

and the grocery shopping and the chopping and the prepping and the cleaning up too. You don't need any of that for factors fresh, never frozen meals that are delivered to your door. They're ready in just two minutes, so all you have to do is heat and enjoy. They've got 35 different chef-crafted meals every week that helps support a healthy lifestyle, and they've got something for everybody, trying to drop some LBs. How about calories smart or 550 calories per serving or less? How about protein plus? If you're trying to bulk up like Randy was,

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just been delivered from Factor. We were hungry. It was late in the evening and I thought, well, there's not a better time to try this. Now, I had ordered because we were going to sample the product before we agreed to promote it. And I had ordered a keto diet from Factor. So I was skeptical, but I was freaking hungry and I didn't feel like making anything or cleaning it up afterwards so I thought what a better time popped it in the oven unbelievable quality great great product great delivery it's an excellent service can't pull factor meals.com slash 83 weeks 50 use our promo code 83 weeks 50 and for what it's worth Eric's fancy I just poke holes in my plastic and slide it in the microwave and in two minutes I'm eating good in the neighborhood you will

be too that's factor meals.com slash 83 weeks 50 the promo code is 83 weeks 50 Eric, enough talking about it. Let's be about it. Let's go to season 6, episode 49. This one went down on December 7th, 1998. And Eric, as I understand it, you've never seen this episode of Monday Night Raw, right? No, I never have. Now, before we get going, am I watching your feeder?

I've already got a pulled up. Should I just click on play on my own? We're going to do a countdown and we're all going to press play together. So you'll watch on your end. I'll watch on my end. And we hope at home, you're doing a little second screen experience. So fire up your peacock on your TV or your iPad and then just keep listening to us here on your podcast feed. Be sure to mute your television so you're not competing.

You can hear us talk over it and we'll track a little bit here and there and get Eric's response. But it's a special episode of Monday Night Raw. By the way, I just want to give some context. We're knee deep in the Monday Night Wars. The 83 week streak is over and there is real competition. you guys have maybe one of the more infamous Halloween Havix in your rearview mirror. Goldberg's still your champion

and we're headed towards Starcade where Goldberg is going to drop the fall and the world title to Kevin Nash. Meanwhile, Steve Austin has gotten hot, hot, hot, in his feud with Vince McMahon. But the Undertaker is now involved and, uh, well, chaos is here on Monday Night Raw. So season 6, episode 49,

We're all the triple zero. Eric, I'm going to give us a countdown and we'll get going here in three, two, one, play. Hand of the shovel! Out of the head of the shovel! But I get my hands on Paul Bear and the Undertaker. They both got Hill to paint. Can you believe that Austin just broke the end of that shovel right off on the Undertaker's face? They both got Hill to paint.

What is no cold? Steve off of fixing to do to Port Bear now. Paul Bear has stepped in the sewer. He went his car into the sewer. Give me a hell yeah. Times Park for Tyler gets on the line here. No disqualification. Only one way it can end. That's for someone to climb the ladder and grab that bell. And there's a corporate champion.

It is. Oh! Oh! Looks like he broke his leg. McFolley's fighting for everything in his being. The Rock and Mankind. The showdown coming. And Rock Fottling. And that's the same experience. We've got a new hardcore champion! Tell me somebody, how any of this can be right for poor McFolley. Tonight, six days from the match of his season.

But Stone Cold, Steve Austin will team with mankind to face the Rock and The Undertaker. What will happen when these four superstars collide tonight on Raw is war? So what do you think of the opening package there, Eric, to just sort of reset and let everybody know what the heck's going on? I think that's a great way to open up a show. I say often that, I mean, you can't look at any drama series on television today, any episodic drama. that air is on television today where they do not set up what happened last week where we're at sometimes they go back two or three weeks in the setup just to remind the audience of how to watch the show and what the important aspects of the show are going to be you're literally telling the

audience how to watch the show and we've gotten away from it yes i don't know why i think it's a mistake because it just makes the storyline more comprehensive and cohesive and people understand understand it and they know what to watch for by the way we got the mac daddies here with us today on 83 weeks members of the ad free shows family denovius mac and micmac what's he going by today micmac both of them are daddies therefore they are the mac daddies of adfrey shows dot com glad they're with us by the way uh you see that lady in the front row who was pretty excited to see dx she had a couple of glow sticks and her um upstairs yeah yeah that's impressive that's when you know you're getting over when when half

naked women show up at ringside and start trying to get your attention you know you're you know you're getting over i don't know that that's uh going to happen very often in modern day wrestling no things have changed haven't it and it's it's unfortunate because when more more more attractive women come out guess what happens more and more guys come out yeah it turns into basically a nightclub ladies night in the bar I mean, that's the reason they're there you go. Yeah. So DX, of course, is a different DX than what we've seen at the, uh,

inception of DX because Sean Michaels is no longer the leader is going to pop back up here and there as the commissioner, but DX in large part is what we're looking at here. Triple H and of course, uh, Xbox and China. Who could forget road dog and, uh, and Billy going. They were making all kinds of history earlier in 98, but at this point. we're trying them in different singles iterations here and there. We also saw the hardcore title. We saw that Mick Foley was given that title by Vince McMahon, the prior month.

And now he's lost it almost immediately. And let's take a listen and see what Triple H is talking about. Billy, Road Dog, we need to know where you stand. now if you've made a business decision that is fine with us but i'll tell you what have the balls to come out here and tell me to my face whoa whoa are we going to get an answer calling them out so this is the era where we're showing some some cracks in the foundation of dx and listen to what road dogs us here. Oh, somebody. This is going to be good.

Whoa! Hey! Whoa! What in the world! It suits? I think that may be your answer. Look at my little pinkies extended. The road dog and Billy drinking bottled water? That is corporate all the way. Put our music. What's your time code, Conrad?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages. Vincent K. McMahon proudly presents to you his WWF Tag Team Champion, Louer. Road Dog Esquire. Badass, Inc. the new corporate outlaws. So yeah, everybody's trying to join the corporation here. We see the DX in the top again. Just past six minutes and two seconds, three seconds, four seconds.

We see the new age outlaws coming down the ramp in suits. And I don't know that anybody would have ever imagined that road dog will be doing this. And Billy Gunn is eventually going to introduce Sean Michaels. And there's going to be some back and forth. Meltzer is going to be kind of critical of this, saying not a good segment considering who was involved. Meanwhile, on the other channel, you had wrath pending Renegade in three minutes and 21 seconds. Disco is going to come out, call out Conan. Conan comes out, and Disco tells him to reveal the big news, and Conan says, he doesn't know anything about an announcement. And Disco says that

Nash has accepted him into the wolf pack. Conan smirks and walks away, and eventually we see Stevie Ray and Horace beat Disco and Kaz Hayashi. Doesn't feel like it's a monster nitro, but I want to remind everybody what we're watching is actually a taped Monday Night Raw, and they're competing against a live nitro, not just any old live nitro, one in front of 31,000 fans at the Astrodome. Eric, I know that we've talked a ton about the importance of the Georgia Dome and what that meant to WCW and what a high water market was for the promotion, but when you're running just a regular ass Monday night, Nitro in the Astrodome, I mean, is that old hat for you by this

point, or was it still exciting? It was still exciting. You know, as I've mentioned here before, we didn't high-five each other all the way home based on the live attendance. It was part of our success. The focus on a Nitro was the television product. And of course, we appreciated it. And And those in the accounting department very much appreciated the 31,000 people in attendance. But for me, my focus was really the show itself. Now, you've talked about what was, you know, we're live on a Nitro against this tape show. That's really going to be interesting. Yeah.

But I'm curious, do you know what the ratings ultimately were for this show? Nitro lost every hour and every quarter hour to roll. The first hour of Nitro. What the fuck? Yeah. That was a trap. said, I guess. The first hour of Nitro earned a 4.8. But then, when Ross started, I went to a 3.8. In hindsight, I always loved when you would start Nitro a few minutes

earlier and earlier and earlier. So like not the top of the hour, but like three to five minutes before. So here in Huntsville or Guntersville at the time, where the show would start at 657, And that was awesome because I knew, hey, I can check out what's going on just a few minutes before everybody else, you know, starts on Monday Night Raw. But the third hour, man, that's got to bring back some stress in the, in the Nitro era. Does it not? It does because it's just, and now especially difficult to compete against Monday Night Raw when Monday Night Raw was going so far deep into that attitude era in doing the types of things that quite honestly, they couldn't get away with today. You just, you, you couldn't, you wouldn't even try because of the backlash.

But when WWE embraced the attitude era in the sexuality and all the over the top kind of nuanced and some not so nuanced stuff that they were doing, it was really hard to compete with, really hard to compete with. We should also mention that this is, as you heard at the top of the show in the pack, the go home before the WW pay-per-view. So the next pay-per-view is called In Your House Rock Bottom. This is going to be one of the last times that we get this sort of match. I mean, it only happened.

I think it should have happened a lot less frequently than it did. But the main event of that show is not the world title with the rock defending against mankind, having just screwed him at the prior paper review Survivor series. It's a buried alive match. I mean, you've never spent much time talking about that. There's been lots of silly gimmick matches in wrestling history. The 49ers match where there's just boxes hung from poles and one has a belt and one has a picture of Scott Hall and then there's the coal miners glove match

and Judy Bagwell on a pole and scaffold matches in hindsight, pretty bad ideas. But buried alive. What did you think of that when you first heard they're doing a. what a buried a live match i don't i don't remember what my thoughts were i to me it would have seen it would even now listening to it now and knowing what happened as a result of the things that they were doing in 98 99 uh it still sounds corny as hell to me i don't get it i don't get that kind of a match it just doesn't work for me personally i can't connect to it but clearly there's a large segment of the audience that could it did well i'll tell you this uh as

my friends over on the show in living color used to say hated it thought it was stupid didn't make any sense i mean if he's really going to be buried alive is he still going to be on monday night raw the next night yes then that's fucking that's about as stupid is throwing paul white off the top of the cobo hall that's my thing like why do you and i've done this why do we get to a heap so much shit your way about killing a giant who comes back later in the show when you can bury a motherfucker literally and then he's just on the show tomorrow what that doesn't make any sense that's wrestling i'm gonna stop giving you your flowers on the show it's bad for business hey uh i do want to ask a question here uh as we see uh sean michaels the new age outlaws

shaking the hands of Vince McMahon and the rest of the corporation. Let's track Triple H here. Does anybody have two words for the corporation? Yeah. You're at a loss for worse because you're in shock, aren't you, Triple H? Well, they're over, man. What can he say? DX is over.

But I want to ask you, like, this is a tape draw. We've established that. When you have the battle plan, so to speak, you know ahead of time, six days ahead of time. what they're doing you've got the full results do do you or does anyone on the team in wcw try to just counter program that and think let's make sure that we know what they're doing and when they're doing it let's put our best foot forward and try to put on a show that we feel like we'll beat that show or do you have the blinders on and you're just focused on your own

business it's so funny that you asked the question because for so long and i'm sure you've heard this, there was a narrative that everybody at Nitro, myself included, was sitting in the back, watching Monday Night Raw, paying attention to everything that they were doing, trying to counter program them. And I've always denied that. And I'm denying it again. And here it's pretty evident. Would I have put the match that you described that was on Nitro up against what we just saw if I was really concerned with counter-programming. Wouldn't have done that? You could argue that I should have been, and I'd accept that argument in criticism.

But I think this just blows up in the face of all the internet wrestling community in the dirt sheet universe that suggested and still suggests that, you know, all we ever did was, you know, focus on Monday night wrong, pay attention to what they were doing. It's not true. said it a million times and now we're seeing a show that proves the point. Here comes Jeff Jarrett walking down to the ring with Debra. He is fresh off a pay-per-view match. Uh, or maybe he's headed to a paper review match. I can't believe this is real.

Uh, yeah, they did the challenge the night before on Sunday night heat, but the stakes for his match. You're going to love this Eric. I know you probably haven't heard this before, but the gist is if Jeff Jarrett, beats gold dust at the pay-per-view

this Sunday, then gold-dust has to get naked. Let's listen. At rock bottom, if you win, I'll strip down to my birthday suit. If I win, little Debbie has to show us her tasty

cakes. You want it? You got it. And his opponent, big it. So you're big on stakes, Eric. Did you ever think that nudity would be one of the Stakes. Yeah, a naked gold dust or Debra's titties. I can go either way to build a television show, but it worked.

I mean, but you can't pay that off, right? I would hope not. No, of course they can't. You're not going to. I'm just saying like if you go into something and you have stakes in a match and you know, no matter what, we can't deliver it. I don't know. I could do without that sort of match.

Yeah, I mean, it is, yes. I mean, we could criticize, criticize it because it's not logical, right? You know, you can't do something, so why tease it? On the other hand, you're teasing flashing Deborah's tinnies on television. And for the audience that was really tuning in and they were trying to take from WCW, which was that 18 to 49 year old audience, and clearly the segment of that audience that skewed even a little younger, the mere fact that you teased it was enough. people probably forgot all about it.

I got to tell you, it's, uh, it's fun to think about, you know, that match. I recently watched that match because we covered it with Jeff Chirrett and every false finish. The crowd was so hot. So we can be super critical of it, but the fans were invested in that match. Uh, you know, there is a, uh, a slogan, I guess a catchphrase, a, a cliche that a lot of our listeners have heard before about the advertising. business sex sales but goodness gracious we're leaning into here so delo brown is going to be wrestling

jeff charret and during the course of this match we actually hear michael cole send along some condolences to jim ross of course michael cole is not normally calling this show this would be jr's seat but unfortunately jr's mother had passed away um you never hope to hear that news And it's kind of weird the timing. I mean, I guess you want to acknowledge it at some point, but here you are in the middle of a, a match that's promoting nudity. I don't know. It's just such a far out concept to me. Yeah, this is like frat house TV is a little bit. This era was, you know, that's, that's who they were writing for and how the show was being produced and clearly it worked. You're even going to see Deborah work as a distraction for

Delo, like she's teasing that she's going to flash or something like that. And of course, that's pretty old in wrestling. I mean, we saw that back with. Mr. Elizabeth and Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man at Somerslam, the very first one in 88, 10 years prior. So it's not necessarily a new concept, I suppose, but it does really show you the difference between the WWE product and the WCW product. And I know eventually we would have bikini contests and things like that on Nitro, but that would be when Vince Russo started joining the show.

Yeah, this was at a time, mind you, this was 1998. I was under the I think we were into standards and practices and Terry Tingle and wanting scripts in advance and staying away from wrestlers calling each other derisive names that could offend the audience like calling someone stupid you know I mean we were

we were weaving our way through that morass at the same time Deborah's teasing flashing her tities when we have a I'll get naked or you get naked stakes in our match. So it was, it was an interesting time. An interesting time just in this match. I mean, in this match,

we see the recap from Sunday night heat with the naked stipulation. We're going to tease that Deborah's going to flash. We're going to send condolences to Jim Ross about losing his mom. And we end the segment with clips of Vince speaking at Oxford. What? I mean, it's just, how did all of that happen in the same segment?

By the way, over on Nitro, what you guys have done so far in the first hour is you would announce that Goldberg is going to be taking on Bam Bam Bigelow in the main event, but it's a non-title match. We would also have a four-minute package about Hollywood Hogan's supposed retirement because, well, since the governor of Minnesota is now Jesse Ventura, why not make Hogan the president? Scott Steiner's going to cut a promo that says, and I can't believe this is real, but he did. he's trying to get heat in the Astrodome in Houston and he said and this is real quote only steers and something else that rhymes with steers come out of Texas how does something like that slip through I mean clearly that's not scripted I know you guys weren't really exactly scripting promos like they are here on Monday Night Raw you're giving bullet points but goodness gracious knowing what you've got to tiptoe around with standards and practices

to have him come out and cut that promo everybody's got to be nervous right oh by the way let's not miss this gold dust is flashing this is real he brought a trench coat to ringside and flashed deborah showing his gimmick this would have been a great spot for a bluechew commercial but you'll have to stay tuned for that clearly i i i you know Dustin's a good friend stay in touch hope to do some hunting together someday soon. But clearly he didn't make much of an impression on Deborah. Gotta say. That whole, you know, things are bigger in Texas

is a bunch of bullshit, evidently. We're hearing Stone Cole talking to Tony Garia backstage. He's off my side. He didn't help me in a way he shouldn't film because he might be my partner, but he and my friend. You know what I'm saying? I know. So either way I go on and it's a bad deal for everybody.

Because I'm a little pissed on about everything that's going on. And, uh, when we, oh my goodness, listen to this. Watch this package. Let's see what you think. Attitude. You take a poundful of pain at a touch of disdain, then throw in some taker and cane. Do you smell what the rock is wearing as to man with no sense of smell?

WWF Cologne for men and Odette for women. Send pure attitude in a bottle. To order call 815-7-33-4-11. Come on, man. ...werews to the website, or send 1999-plus shipping and handling to the address on your screen. I smell what you're wearing, Daddy-o. Last Thursday evening, Mr. McMahon, owner of the WWF, spoke to Oxford University students about America's greatest in most love sports entertainment institution.

So it is the greatest pleasure that I welcome the evil chairman, and I know. It's Vince Poblo. Thank you, I would expect a reception, such as that for a prime minister, or some particular technology. But surely for Vince McMahon, you can do better. Mr. McMahon called his engagement at Oxford University and lightning in Britain's intellectually elite cherished the night as well. Wow, that is really something. I mean, Mr. Mitch McMahon. All right, Eric, we got to stop it down right now. I'm at 2242. I'm going to stop it when I get to 2250 because we got to talk about that.

But before we do, as we're pausing here at 2250, we're going to take this time out to say, just remind people that. that the company is is doing a lot of business in England. They're doing UK special pay-per-views. But now we've got Vince McMahon speaking at Oxford. I don't know how that happens. And I don't know why it would happen. But I know that if we've heard anything about those trips in Europe, people were having a little bit of fun in the wrestling business.

And I only wish we had a time machine to go back and give some of our friends over there like Sean Waltman, who maybe had a little too much fun. once upon a time over there and pulled the scissors out. Maybe he needed some Z-Bionics. I know you and I love our Z-Bionics, and right here during the holidays, if you think you're going to be doing some celebrating, whether you've got Christmas or Hanukkah

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Eric pulled some out for us at Podcast Movement. I was so excited to celebrate our big day, meeting with all the different agencies. And we celebrated with a few cold ones. But thankfully, Eric knew, let's start with Zibiotics, because we've got to get a up early. We've got to be on stage. We're going to do a presentation first thing in the morning. Man, the next morning we were good as new. I couldn't believe it. And now I don't travel without zibiotics. My wife actually remembers to carry it everywhere we go just in case. Think of it as like your travel insurance. But it's also great around those holiday parties. If you're going to

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83 weeks at checkout for 15% off. Thank you Zibiotics for sponsoring today's episode. Let's get back to it, Eric. We're at 2250. We've got the headbangers coming out. I'm going to count us in here in three, two, one, play. So Eric, that Scott Steiner line

where he clearly goes into business for himself about the only thing that comes out of Texas. I mean, come on. How does that happen? just one of those things where we didn't have a script and it got by standards and practices and I probably shook my head and when Scotty came back, I said, Scottie, what the hell are you trying to get us taken off the air? And Scottie probably played stupid. And oh, I didn't know we couldn't say that or something to that effect. Right. We got back to the office and I didn't get a phone call on Tuesday. That's how that happened. Yeah. It's, um, it's not the

inmates running the asylum but I know at some point you did you had to feel like hey this is starting to get away for me I've got to send a message and I know that unfortunately sometimes in business you have to do that you know you have to make an example out of someone and it's been said over the years that perhaps that's what happened with Sean Waltman did you find yourself having to make similar calls like that quote unquote make an example out of someone on more than one occasion It didn't happen with Sean. We've talked about the reason I fired Sean Waltman before, and that was not me wanting to make an example or sending a message.

That was me feeling like I wasn't dealing with somebody that I could trust in Barry Bloom. And as a result of that, and once I lose trust in someone, I just don't want to have anything to do with them anymore. And my reaction probably overreacted. In fact, I really overreacted because I think firing Sean and Walman came back to bite me in the ass in more ways than I ever would have imagined. I think Sean Waltman, leaving under the circumstances he did, me firing him and joining DX probably gave DX more credibility

that it would otherwise have, and perhaps would have had the impact competitively than it did. Nonetheless, that wasn't the reason why I fired Sean. I probably made an example or two out of people by finding them and then probably bonusing them the next month to cover it. things like that I don't think it happened more than once or twice we should mention what we've got now is the headbangers in there and they're wrestling gang grill and edge Christian is their third I guess on the other channel Kevin Nash is coming to the ring

and saying Goldberg may think he's running the show but he's not and he wants a three way match with Goldberg and Bigelow later in the show because it's his right to get it Goldberg first. He says that because, as you may recall, he won World War III. Then we have Glacier beat Saturn. Ernest Miller is going to cause some interference here. Today is going to bring up some bad officiating in the NFL and say that it's made its way over here to WCW. So I like the timely reference there about real sports controversies. During this match that we're speaking, can I interrupt? Yeah, yeah, please do. Speaking of, speaking. about real sports controversies. Oh, goodness. What, what the hell is going on with Florida, man?

Florida State. Yeah. Why, why aren't they in, why aren't they in the playoffs? Uh, well, unfortunately, the committee decided that their little team wasn't good enough. They had the 55th, uh, strongest strength of schedule, 55th. And they did go undefeated, but Dan went their starting quarterback and then their second quarterback and their true freshman quarterback got 55 passing yards against number 16 Louisville who just lost to Kentucky. So I guess they assumed if we put Florida State in having won the ACC over Alabama who won the SEC and just beat number one wouldn't be bad. I mean, it would be bad for business because they did that last year. They tried TCU and TCU got dog walked by Georgia in the championship game, 65, 7. But thank

Thankfully, Eric, the controversy will end next year because they're going to expand it from a 14 playoff to a 12 team playoff. So about half of those teams will be SEC. The result will be the same. The SEC will be in the championship game forever and ever. Amen. And playoff games don't really matter. Well, a playoff game's matter in the NFL and they have more than that. Yeah, but if you're expanding from 4 to 12 does it really matter? I think playoff games will matter more. I think regular season will matter less. That's what you meant to say. Um, but at the same time, Florida, of state respectfully did not have a quarterback like had their true freshman and boy we were talking about what a crazy circumstance that is here he is coming out with a smoke and pyro entrance

in a championship game his very first game i mean it is a major opportunity where the panthers play of all places a major stadium in a championship game and they won but he only passed for 55 yards had he come out and lit it up and they dominated and they won by 30 and he threw four touchdowns and 400 yards I would think they'd be in but I would even go so far as to go the other way Eric and say hypothetically if george beat alabama would they have put florida state in over texas i don't know about that because texas won their division too so unfortunately what we've got is five power conferences and four spots and i think ultimately the committee he said the ACC with a true freshman quarterback probably not as likely to have a deep run in

the playoffs. We'll see if they wind up playing Georgia. I would think if that is the bowl game, Georgia would be a heavy favorite over Florida State, but we'll see. That's why we play the games, I suppose. So back, thank you for the edification of the current state of collegiate sports because it's clearly lighting up every sports talk show I've heard over the last 48 hours. But what about this mess that we've been watching in the ring? I mean, I, you know, I, every once in a while, well, not even once in a while on a regular basis here, I get embarrassed going back and looking at some of the silly things that WCW did under my watch. But we just saw some pretty nasty looking, what was it, a six band, eight man. Those were the oddities.

You saw Tiger Ali sing Babu and the oddities run in and it was a brief little free for all. That was ugly. Me and we saw mankind next to a stack of chairs backstage and he's saying, I love I love you. You've been used by so many men, but I'll never leave your side. We go to, we go to commercial and on the other side of commercial, we see Vince, Shane and the Rock all talking to Paul Bear. Paul Bear is trying to reassure them that the undertaker could be trusted. Owen Hart had retired, wink, wink, and saying that he's only going to return unless he wrestles Dan Severin or Ken Shamrock

because he's going to come out of retirement to meet Steve Blackman at the pay-per-view. Meanwhile, over on the other channel, you have Lex Lugar beating Emery Hale with a submission in four minutes and 11 seconds, of course, just the torture rack. Eric, what's your favorite Emery Hale match? This one with Lex Lugar.

That was a great match. Great match. A lot of chatter about Emery Hale. people were really looking for big things out of emery and i think he was from australia which was another reason why we were really looking for some big things out of memory because if we could have that one superstar that was based in australia might help open a boy am i full of shit none of the above brother i barely remember emery hall although i do think he was from australia six foot nine

born in st petersburg florida um but where the hell did i get it australia from I think you're probably thinking Nathan Jones. Ah, there we go. I knew it was a big bastard. I mean, listen. One of those two big bastards. You had big bastard down pat.

So. So Goldust is out here now with, uh, with Owen Hart. If nothing else, we've got, we got a crazy cast of characters. I mean, you know, people have talked about ECW being the land of the misfit toys. But when you've got presentations like the headbangers, the vampires of the vampires of the brood, you know, uh, gold dust, mankind, boy, the, the undertaker, we've got a crazy cast of characters here in the WWF. Do we know it? We really do.

It's so bizarre watching this. Yeah. I mean, you look at the presentation today and how much different it is than it was back, what, 25 years ago now. Yeah. You see gold dust licking the ropes salaciously, seductively, he's such a weird character. But it helped get him to the dance. It's what the audience was looking for,

an alternative to the alternative to the alternative. This segment we're watching with Gold Dust and Owen Hart gets a 4.9. And if you pay attention, you'll see Debra's going to come out in a trench coat of her own. And then we're going to see some footage from the company's trip over to Europe, which explains how Vince was able to speak at Oxford. When you were on your incredible. run with WCW, do you remember ever being invited or did, did Turner's organization try to

arrange some speaking engagements for you, just for PR purposes like that? No, that never happened. Maybe if they would have, things would have turned out different, right? No. Come on. No, they wouldn't have. No, no, that never happened. It just felt like, you know, with all of the different tentacles that the Turner organization had,

I could have seen them trying to champion that a little bit, but. Maybe that's not it. By 1998, there was nobody looking for any way to champion WCW with Turner Broadcasting. Isn't that crazy? I am convinced. I am absolutely convinced after reading Guy Evans' book and some of the amazing interviews that were in that book that WCW's fate was sealed long before December 7th,

1998 as we're watching this show. It's a fun time to be a wrestling fan here in the WCWs. WF, but I was really enjoying the WCW product at the time, too. I know so far it hasn't sounded like an excellent nitro, but, man, Goldberg was still super high. The NWO was still working. You still had the badass luchadors. We saw Ray Mysterio wrestle in the first hour.

There's lots of really fun stuff that's happening. But you know what, Conrad, by this time, that stuff was getting old. We'd been seeing that stuff in WCW for a couple of years. And while it has had been working, especially in 1998, aside from this show, ratings-wise, we were still on top. If you look at the entire year of 1998, we were still on top, I believe.

Revenue-wise, we're over-delivering, substantially over-delivering. Business was still very up, as you pointed out, the night of this show, December 7, 1998, while we were in Houston in front of 31,000 people at the Astrodome, for God's sake. So business was still up, but I think the WCW product, as it had been presented now, since about 1996 was getting a little bit tiresome. And now you've got an entirely new WWE that has gone from teen and preteen type characters and presentation to Deborah out there threatening to flash your tits. I mean, that was all new and fresh.

That's a new, fresh look at WWE, whereas WCW were doing the same things that had gotten us to the dance. for the last two or three years. So I understand it. I understand why it was so effective. Still hate it. I understand it. We should also ask about,

you know, when you're taking a look in this era at some of the crazy stuff they're doing on Raw, how would you compare it? Because one of the more fun elements I saw in Nitro in this era, a real bright spot was what Jericho was doing. Because in the next segment, he's going to come to the ring with Ralphus.

And they're going to show fans in the crowd that were dressed up like Ralfus. And Jericho's going to cut a cowboy in Houston talking about how he hates cowboys. And I don't know, like, I really enjoyed his meltdown and his recreating the character and cutting silly promos, mispronouncing people's name like Ron Mysterio and listing that he had more holes than Dean Malenko and thousand and one holes. Ralph is the security guard like this none of this stuff was planned by the office like like Ralphus there was no Ralphus merch you just saw WWE selling shitty cologne like it feels like there was a we sold nitro cologne eventually and then

your your bit to get it over was to have Bobby Hean and talk about how bad it stinks and he's going to throw up yeah that was bad yeah I don't really understand how that makes anybody money but I don't know I guess I'm just saying like do you think at the time you had all the right elements to to compete with the WWE but we just didn't have our eye on the ball we were just fatigue you know people were stretched too thin there were too much politics there do we need to switch it up I don't know I just I see really cool stuff on the other channel but it does feel like I mean in a show like this a taped show wins every quarter hour That's crazy to me.

I don't think it was fatigue. I don't think it wasn't fatigue at this point. I don't believe it may have been creative fatigue. I think creatively we were getting tired and probably more inclined to do some of the same old things that had worked previously and not been as close to the edge of creating content as we had been back in 95 and 96, 97. We got too comfortable. You know, comfort is a thief. And we were comfortable in 1998. Started to get uncomfortable towards the end, obviously.

But throughout the majority of 1998, we're very comfortable. When I say comfort is a thief, it takes away that hunger and that drive and that desire to better your position. And I think to a certain point, we got too comfortable. And by the time we started waking up to the fact that we needed to get uncomfortable and start getting aggressive, now we've got a whole new set of circumstances and parameters that we have to work with them. And I think that period of time between, wow, we're getting way too comfortable here, folks. These guys are breathing down our backs. Let's turn up the volume. Oh, wait, we've got to abide by a different set of roles.

So we've got to target a different audience. It was the combination of those two things, not making an excuse, it's just kind of what happened. But I think it was really a combination of those two things. We're seeing some recaps from the night prior, Capital Carnage, the WW-specific pay-per-view for the UK. We didn't see a ton of that from WCW. We know occasionally you guys would do like that tour of down in Australia, but it wasn't very often you went over. And I don't remember there ever being a UK-specific pay-per-view. I also understand the difference in the business models, you know, in that Turner is an American television organization, although certainly they,

have opportunities to broadcast worldwide, but talk me through. Why don't you think we ever got a WCW specific pay-per-view for the UK? It's a really good question. And I think the answer lies fundamentally with the fact that WWE had been doing business in the UK much longer, had a tremendous amount of success in the UK and throw Europe. And as a result have the best in the business of promoters locally. It's not like, you know, Gary Jester, Gary Jester could have, you know, gone over to Europe and done a great job promoting an event. And even if we had somebody that was a top quality promoter and really knew his stuff,

you can't do it remotely, meaning you have to have a local promoter. one that's really good. It has connections with all of the media outlets and has a relationship with the venue. It has a relationship with all of the other partners that one needs to successfully promote a live event in another country. And WCW, even in 1998, 1997, there were some big promoters over in Europe who were looking at us, but they had been in business with WWE for so long and didn't want to upset that apple cart, didn't want to risk a relationship with WWE. So we had secondary promoters.

And secondary, in some cases, was being very kind. And we just didn't have the confidence in our ability to put on a live event that would be substantial enough to justify the added expense of going over there and producing a pay-per-view. We're watching The Godfather here do his thing. Let's listen. He would know.

I think that's a compliment. Now, listen up, Val. You know that the holiday seasons are upon us. And the pippin business has been very good to me. So I'm going to do something that I have never, ever done before. Uh-oh. Get ready. Get ready.

I am going to offer one of my. fine hose to somebody in this audience king sit down why everybody else is standing up I'm officially in the audience look at this guy oh oh oh he got money in his hand so he's got my attention hey mr security man would you please help this young brother out over the rail and bringing on my in this ring. Eric, y'all ever consider giving hose away on Nitral? I don't think anybody brought that up.

I don't think I've ever heard that idea. Throw it up and said, hey, I got an idea. Eric, Eric, Eric, over here. I got an idea. Let's bring some hose to the ring. We'll offer them to the audience. Let's take a listen. Bob, hey, Bob, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever been with a, hole. Wow. Kind of a personal question. You do know what the hole is, don't you? I tell you what. I tell you what. Since I am in a good mood, I'm going to give you both of these hoes for free.

The whole night. That's you. Put your money up. Is that all right with you? Go on and get your prize, man. He doesn't have to have any money. The Godfather's giving the hose to Bob. It is the season.

Hey, business must be good. it's the season all right okay can you imagine what kind of business the salvation army be doing if uh it was working with the godfather oh yeah man can you see a hole in the street corner ringing that bell give you put all your money in that little bucket wouldn't you every man look at this santa claus has got nothing on the godfather oh oh oh oh tell you what king christmas has come early for boss let's go ahead and uh take a time out feels like a good time we'll do it at uh 43 20 uh so 43 minutes 20 seconds you want to hit pause and so old Bob is headed to the back he started out in the stands but now he's going

up the ramp with a hoe in each arm and i can only hope you think either one of those women called home and said hey mom hey dad watch watch watch monday night rotson i'm going to be on tv both did i'm sure i'm sure i'm sure of it i can only hope that old bob packed his own miracle sheets because we need something that uh well we need sheets that aren't going to be grossed right like we don't need we don't need all the bacteria on those sheets maybe thinking about possibly here's what we're talking about miracle made is going to be the perfect christmas gift for you this year and here's why first of all they're inspired by nassah so you know pretty smart more importantly, here's how they're smart. They infuse their sheets with silver. Now, silver

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years in a row, three years in a row, it's all high fives. People love that they stay cleaner longer and it thermoregulates. They're at the perfect temperature. This will be a gift they will actually use. Got to go try it. We're at 43 minutes and 20 seconds. Bob's fixed to go handle a couple of business with some hose. That's a real sentence. We're watching a wrestling show boys and girls. Let's count us back in here in three, two, one play. so we just talked about this crazy cast of characters we've got a porn star and a pimp and they're about to tag up with what i think we're supposed to be positioned as satanic henchmen for the undertaker it's the acolytes that's the jackal in the back with a suit you know him these days

as don callus doing some great work over in a ew of course john bradshaw layfield just celebrated a birthday and i have it on good authority that when the hose walked past Ron Simmons at the curtain, he said to himself, self. Damn. I mean, think about all the great wrestling action that Ron Simmons has been a part of with, you know, with doom and then the WCW World Heavyweight Champion and then is, you know, Farooke, the gladiator, and then the nation of domination. And now he's a henchman passing hose and gorilla.

wrestling business changing a little bit here in 1998 not digging it I didn't dig the acolytes I don't know I was just uncomfortable with the whole presentation we'll get to that more towards the end

I'm sure but the God I don't want to say blasphemy but to use religion as a premise in professional wrestling was just too uncomfortable for me to get behind, regardless of how well it was done.

I get it, understand it, and it was very consistent with what WWE was doing to kind of break the mold of WWE that had been so ingrained in the audience for so long when all other programming was kitty programming, teens and preteens, and now they're going after an 18 to 49-year-old demo, so they're going to extremes to get that attention, much like Howard Stern did as a shock jock in radio.

I get it. I understand it. Doesn't make it comfortable for me. Didn't then, doesn't now. I think it's a mistake. We've seen it recently with MJF introducing a religious, particularly at a very, very, very inopportune time. But it backfired.

I don't think that storyline is even alive today, is it? Did we just forget about it? Yeah. I can't argue with you. This is a controversial episode for a reason. By the way, we're watching and they're still promoting the JVC Kaboom box. Yeah, it's a boom box being promoted here in 1998. We've talked about this a few times, but man,

what incredible added value. Who could have ever predicted the future that sponsoring and having an end show sponsorship like that would seemingly last forever? Stone Cold Stomp into the ring. see, we are starting hour two. That means it's the crossover hour. How important was the crossover hour, Eric, and the Monday Night Wars?

It is. And, you know, for people that, you know, don't read a lot of the wrestling websites and aren't familiar with the chatter and some of the verbiage as it relates to television, you know, what is a crossover?

The crossover is that period of time. In this case, it was 9 o'clock. For example, I think it was 9 o'clock at this point, where Nitro had been on for an hour when we had a three-hour schedule. This is an example. Nitro would be on for an hour, all by ourselves.

And then at 9 o'clock, you would have Monday Night Raw came on. Now, obviously, that was an important crossover period at the beginning of their show. But the real crossover happened in the third hour in this case. because what the crossover means is that people are conditioned to go from whatever they're watching, whatever they were predisposed to watching, and at a certain time, that shows off the air, and they're flipping through channels, they're surfing, they're looking for the next thing to catch their attention. That is a window of opportunity, that crossover period.

When the two hours were together, you know, head to head, that crossover period became even more important. That's when we would be aware of what WWE was doing and wanted to be an action when they were in a commercial break, and I'm sure they were doing the same thing. So the crossover represents kind of a transition time with the audience. When people are watching what they had been watching and moving over to watch something else, that's an opportunity to capture or hold your audience. Let's listen to what Stone Call is talking about. For Stone Cold Steve Austin. Undertaker, you come out here.

talk about sacrificing me, about wanting my soul. You hit me in the head with a shovel. You tried to bury me. You tried to embalm me. And none of that worked. I got something to say to you about that. In the ministry of Stone Cold Steve Austin, at Rock Bottom, you can bet your ass that you can expect.

no mercy from Stonecoast Steve Austin and that's all I got to say about that So here's one of the big revelations here Eric Let's see what you think The bad is going to happen I'm starting to get that feeling too What is that? What is Austin looking at?

Whoa! What in the world? What the hell is that? Austin, we've traveled down the highway to hell, and our journey has enlightened us on a few matters. One, you're helpless against my ministry, and the other is I can take your rotting soul anytime I wish. Tonight, our journey stops in your own.

purgatory where you will remain until rock bottom and on that night boy I will sacrifice you to the ministry of darkness and let the entire world watch you get buried alive and burn in hell oh look at that so there you go the symbol was in front of the titan trine and we do goofy as shit voices and then lightning strikes the symbol and it's on fire and there's a hell of a visual on television can't argue that belzer would say that inside the arena this was a real problem took several men to get fire extinguers out there to get this out because little balls of fire or falling on the rampway, which, you know, let's not forget, it's a sold out crowd.

A lot of people here were running a fire inside the building. I'd like to hear what Pritchard has to say about the fire marshals and the building managers. They took a walk, is the word I've heard. They took a walk. Listen, I love and respect what the Undertaker character did, but this version is my least favorite version. I just don't like the Ministry of Darkness. version at all. I much preferred what's coming in just a couple of years with the American

badass version. But man, this to me just, this ain't it. I don't like that he summons lightning and uses the silly voice. And we're talking, I mean, a couple of weeks prior to this, Eric, they really did. I mean, Austin mentioned a casualty, casually, listen to me. They tried to embalm Steve Austin. Yeah. Embalm him. And we see mankind still stomping around the back. of course he's in a tag team situation tonight in the main event but more importantly in six days he gets a chance to have some revenge on the rock uh at the paper view what'd you think of the austin promo and the and the lightning and the fire eric awesome promo felt real yeah i mean it just felt authentic if it allowed me to kind of get sucked into the steve austin character

and and it was so authentic and so real and so believable and we switched gears into kidney cult and I just I'm with you man I just don't get it you know and I know you know it's not like a a bad take on Christianity I'm not suggesting that but there's that cult-ish and references to purgatory in hell and souls and there's enough connective tissue there that I think it just makes the audience uncomfortable and it's just not compelling to me and again it's me I maybe the rest of the audience dug it but it was just an awkward uncomfortable feeling for me. We see one of those other awkward talents at the time.

Tiger Ali Singh came in with a ton of fanfare. People thought he would be a big international hit for the WWE when he started, I don't know, a year and a half, maybe two years prior to this. It never really hit, never really connected. And maybe we see why. The crowd is just not with this at all. I mean, look at you, you're introducing the attitude era. You've got reality in your storylines.

You've got the sexuality, nuanced, and not so much. You got all this adult-themed presentation going on, and then you bring out a character and his manager that looks like it's right out of 1986. It just is a clash of presentation. And the same thing happened on Nitro, by the way, not suggesting it didn't. Yes. But it's just the audience was transitioning, and the product hadn't totally transitioned yet.

I mean, a little pointy shoes on the manager. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You got heat with pointy shoes. Well, at that time, yeah. In 1998, when they're trying to make a transition, by the way, Steve Blackman is just pretty awesome. And he was legit. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

You like Steve Blackman better than you like pointy shoes. Yeah. You're not even a real wrestling fan. Pointy shoes are fucking awesome. Blackman's looking real as shit here. This other character looks. like something out of wwee 1986 and the crowd goes mild nobody give a shit dead they go comatose well because respectfully blackman although he was a badass in real life i don't know that they

had the presentation right for him like fans are just he never really got over with the audience the way i think he could have he's one of those great what ifs and wrestling but the presentation left a lot to be desired tiger all he's saying lord bless him uh he just can't get right here in the WWE and this match is really just a backdrop as you see him watching himself on the Titan Tron. It's really just a lot looks legit though. Doesn't he? He does. I mean, he looks like he's the second coming against Shamrock. He's a bounty hunter from what I've heard. Yeah. If you see him coming for you, it's bad news. Just give it up. Give him the keys to your car. Put your hands behind your own back. Cuff yourself if you're capable of it. Yeah. You don't want any assist from

blackman have you heard the time where jb l was picking on him and he had enough have you heard that story no so they were uh apparently at the airport everybody's frustrated you know the schedule could be brutal and i guess he had been messing with blackman for quite a bit and he finally had enough and uh got the better of jb l very very quickly and when as as the legend goes when bruce and i watch this so the blue blazer stumbles down the ramp, coming down his way, making his way down the ramp. This is while we're here with Steve Blackman. He wants to unmask and prove this is actually Owen Hart. That's what he's been desperate to do. Anyway, as the story goes, JBL is quickly dispensed by, uh, by Steve Blackman.

And when the office sits them down to figure out what happened, apparently JBL said something to Bruce along the lines of, Mr. Pritchard, he hit me so fast. the idea being that blackman nailed him three or four times before he knew he had he was even in a fight and it was over uh but you see owen heart here trying to sell the pay per view they're going to wrestle each other uh at the pay per view six days from now referee jack don't trying to get everything under control so a lot of people were wondering hey who the heck is in that blue blazer outfit uh jeff charrett tells us that it was tom pritchard sometimes and other times of course it was Jeff Jared. I think Jeff was revealed to be the Blazer once, but

when they weren't revealing it, it was usually Dr. Tom. Meanwhile, you guys are starting your new hour, the third hour of Nitro with the giant beating Scott Putzky. The whole match was a choke slam. And then afterwards, a promo where the giant is calling out DDP. You see Conan talking to Scott Steiner's referee. And then we see canyon chewing out raven you know there's some interesting stuff happening on the other channel but nothing like this we see mankind going in and talks to stone cold steve austin was there any doubt in your mind that is over as you guys were you're still setting record business in 98 in your mind was steve austin the top star in the business at this point

no doubt yeah no doubt and and still ascending It's a huge article they're highlighting on Stone Cold Steve Austin. Jewel was on the cover. You got to think at this point, WW may have been hot enough to warrant Austin being on the cover, but still, any sort of press and PR, they're highlighting.

You saw all of that happen during the little clips of their UK trip as well. With that man, Delo Brown, who showed a ton of personality coming to the ring, wearing the chest protector, which, as I understand it, was a Jim Ross idea, teaming with Mark Henry,

who's still trying to figure it out. We know eventually Mark would become one of the top performers in the country. But at this point, he's still learning his craft, man. Got signed to a big money deal two years prior, still trying to prove his worth here in the company. And last week we saw him trying to woo China. Let's take a listen. She was getting with it.

Look at a smile on her face. She would really fix to start busting a move to do herself. Little smile. That's what it took for me. get invested in Mark Henry when he was just the big strong Olympian that's kind of eh when he's the big strong guy in the back of the nation of domination that's kind of eh but when we start to see him a sexual chocolate he started to break out a little bit and we know it would be a few more years before he was a main eventor but still it's it's fun to see them progress and

speaking of progressing we see draws who unfortunately is no longer with us and he is dressed like a member of the Legion of Doom here coming out with the oh what a rush look and gear and shoulder pads and presentation and his manager in his corner will be animal of course the story here is dries is trying to take hawk's spot in the LOD man I can't help me get sad when I think about dries and just all of LOD I mean it's so crazy to me to think that none of those guys are with us now hawk animal or draws it is you know when you go back and you watch these shows it's it it's sometimes hard to remember how many people that we you know we're watching them and

until you bring it up and you start talking about it you forget that some of these guys are just no longer around and it is shocking isn't it's only 25 years ago and these guys were young back then they were in her 30s obviously mark henry still with us and enjoy listening to him over on busted open yes great great great listen and enjoy seeing him on and road occasionally is a good good guy but uh yeah it's it's one of the downsides of watching these shows is it reminds you just how many people that we used to work with that are no longer here dealo mark henry and cordaris are still with us of course but unfortunately it draws an animal are gone um was mark henry or i mean we know that the w f had scouts guys like

gerald briscoe and jim ross and i'm sure others uh they were all always looking for that talent. And we know on the WCW side of things, we had guys like Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan, but we know that the WWE specifically were looking at amateur athletics and football, like draws came from football. And we know that, you know, Mark Henry was an amateur wrestler, but he was a power lifter and, you know, in the conversation for the Olympics. And did you guys have anybody who really monitored those type of things for talent for WCW? No, we didn't. And that's, that was a mistake. Looking back at it now. And there was a time when I felt like dealing with athletes who had a lot of previous athletic training in whatever

their sport was, football, basketball, martial arts, whatever, it didn't matter. You had to untrain so many characteristics, physical characteristics, and tendencies that it was easier to train somebody sometimes without much of an athletic background. A little bit was great. A little bit of an amateur wrestling background, great, a little bit of football, great, because you learn timing, you learn footwork, you learn balance, all those things are important to wrestling. But I think I underestimated how important it can be to have elite athletes like Mark Henry was. because their training, their discipline was at a different level than a casual athlete that just wrestled in high school or maybe a little college

or played a little college football here and there. Guys like, again, Mark Henry, Kurt Angle, that had elite athletic backgrounds, brought a lot more to the table that I probably gave them credit for at the time. And good on WWE, good on guys like Gerald Brisco. for looking for amateur wrestlers who were elite amateur wrestlers, not just somebody who made a team somewhere. I think it paid off big dividends. And obviously look at Kurt Angle being probably the biggest example of that. We were watching a show here with China, another performer gone way too soon. Do you think in hindsight, WCW would have benefited from having a talent positioned like

China. I mean, certainly at different times, women had important roles, whether it was Sherry Martel or Medusa, but it doesn't feel like WCW ever got close to having a China-like performer. In hindsight, was that a missed opportunity or would you think that could have ever worked with Turner? Would they have ever allowed some of the things that WWB had China do to happen on their programming? You know, in fairness to China, I think what made China was the fact that she could get in there and work with anybody. She was an outstanding performer and a versatile one at that. Yes, she did a lot of things outside of the ring, you know, in ring action, so to speak,

that was provocative, insolacious and all that and helped build her character. But at the core, she had, she could get in there and work with anybody and do very, very well. She was a very physical, very adept professional wrestler. Not to take anything away from Sherry or anything away from Medusa, but both of them were kind of like sometimes their eye candy, sometimes their managers, sometimes they're athletics, sometimes are Medusa probably more than Sherry during Sherry's time with WCW. But neither one of them had the technical expertise of China of China.

I mean, they're not even close. And I think with WCW, you know, what would we have done with her? You know, there just wasn't enough women for a woman's division. And Turner, I think to answer your question, at least partially, Turner would, especially at this point in time, I guarantee you at this point in time, Turner would not have been comfortable with any kind of regular woman versus man presentation. That I'm sure of.

so we're seeing triple h and the rest of dx come down to the crowd here uh we need to take a time out we'll do it at uh 104 105 rather 10 so we get to one hour five minutes and 10 seconds we'll take a pause before we watch this next big segment here as they're celebrating dx being in the ring we're taking a time out to talk to you about our friends over at ag one you know i got to tell you my wife has been on the ag one train for a long long time his cats have actually been around since 2010. They've continually tried to improve the formula. What they want to do is they want you to set yourself up for success every single day. And my wife convinced me to start using AG1 at the start of the pandemic because she knew it was good for our immune system. She also knew she felt

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and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Just go right now to drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. That's drinkag1.com slash 83 weeks. Check it out. You'll be glad you did. So we're watching here, season 6, episode 49, December 7th, 1998. where one hour, five minutes and 10 seconds in. DX is in the ring.

Here we go in three, two, one, play. Let's do a few questions while we're letting some of this develop here. Instagram, a wrestling historian over on Twitter wants to know. During your leadership, what did you think was WCW's most controversial storyline? Thanks in advance. Well, I'd have to think about that. you know, I don't think anything we did was really that controversial. Some of it was really creative.

Some of it was silly. Some of it was powerful. But I don't think I can think of anything that was really controversial. Well, we had Canyon get thrown off the cage in the same building where, unfortunately, Owen passed away the year prior. Matt might qualify. We had the T's, or I guess that was the original idea, but we didn't see it play out on camera that Elizabeth was going to accuse Goldberg of rape.

That word was never used and it was stalking instead. Thankfully, that one didn't air. And the only other crazy one, you know, I mean, I guess there were some in the WCW era that were pretty risque. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the late Vince Russo WCW era, there was probably more than a few that I could think of. Yes, and I don't, you know, you don't identify with that. The question was under my tenure, and I just don't think that we did, you know, I think one of the things that we did that was pretty controversial at the time, but just not in a sexual way, a provocative way, was when Rick Flair faked his heart attack in the ring. Oh, there you go.

Yeah. That got a lot of the wrong attention. But that's about as close as I can come to something, thinking of something controversial that happened under my watch. uh jack stiles wants to know what's eric's thought on people like bruce pritchard and vince McMahon insisting that this angle we're about to see was not a crucifixion and that instead it was a symbol um um i appreciate their position technically i you know there's merit to what they're saying because that wasn't a cross

it was a symbol much like prince the artist formerly known as prince used for a while it was a symbol but i think there was enough connective tissue there in enough nuanced comparison to religion that it's it's a great answer in court yes you know it's a great answer in court that's the best way i can put it do i believe that they honestly believe that there wasn't strong religious intonations in this angle? I don't believe that. I wouldn't believe it if they said it to my face. I believe that they would have been doing what they should have done, which is defending their product in their company. But I don't think it's an honest answer. I, uh, my issue is never necessarily with the symbol, but the way they

had Austin posed on the symbol you can't act like that wasn't some imagery that you're using to try to evoke some emotion especially when they talk about we're going to sacrifice you and bury you alive i mean come on yep that was that that was too far and that's what i mean yes the symbol itself i get it you've done a good job of giving yourself a defensible position but the intonations and the connections to religion kind of don't do a it doesn't allow you to blur the lines very effectively or honestly Scott Norris wants to know looking at how WCW presented their products from a production standpoint is there anything you would take from raw that would have enhanced the nitro presentation no I think in many ways we have better production

than they did particularly through 96 97 98 early 98 by this point in time it's pretty similar, but I don't think our production values were really lacking once we hit about 1996, mid to late 1996. John Hayes would say, would Eric have insisted it be called a symbol or would he have admitted it was a crucifix? I wouldn't have done it. Yeah. Period.

Would have never put myself in that position. Um, Jeff Lockhart says, I remember hearing other kids couldn't watch the WWF anymore after this. Was this a big concern or no big deal for Vince and creative in your opinion? I don't think they cared because it probably wasn't true to any great extent. You know, people react. I'm never going to let my kids watch that again until next time. Or until next week, but I'm not paying attention to what my kids watch anyway. Uh, I, you know, no, I doubt that Vince or anybody else. We pay close attention to that.

And if they did, I don't think they cared. Frank wants to know, could you have seen the Dungeon of Doom doing something like this in WCW? I could have seen them, especially Kevin Sullivan, because this was his nature. He had a very dark, very cult-like approach to a lot of the things that he did.

Not just at WCW, but before he ever came to WCW. That was kind of his gimmick. I could certainly see Kevin Sullivan wanting to do it, but it wouldn't have made air. Scott Norris, uh, we already did that one. Dan Borrello wants to know, common question, probably, but if you could book a higher power angle, would I have to be Vince? It seemed like Russo's booking was predictable and much like the TV show Dallas had too many

ridiculous angles and cliffhangers just seems low brow in my opinion. So the idea here, just to catch you up here, Eric, is the Undertaker is doing all of this because he's trying to answer to his higher power. And there was lots of rumor and innuendo that one of the ideas considered was that higher power was going to be Christopher Daniels in a way to introduce a new character. We know that didn't wind up happening. And it wound up being Vince McMahon, which in hindsight, Vince wanting to be allies with Austin so he could help rescue Stephanie who was kidnapped.

Maybe some of that gets a little hard to follow. Yeah. But the big reveal, you know, that is something that we're seeing AW do right now. As fans are listening to this, a lot of people are wondering, how's this devil storyline going to play out?

And lots of people have different theories, but most wrestling fans are under the impression that it's Jack Perry in a way to introduce the Jack Perry character. Oh, my God. Not really. right? No, really, really. Yeah. A lot of people are. Oh, that is so bad. Oh, God. I mean, we remember WCW did this whole angle with sting and the black scorpion and it wound up being Rick Flair. It was awfully disappointing. And the higher power angle sort of the same thing.

Like, are there any lessons to be learned from that? Because if you go back to the black scorpion, I think we would say, well, the original idea was Al Perez. We teased like it was the ultimate warrior, but it was Al Perez. He didn't do it. So it was Rick Flair either way. Womp, Womp, Womp. The higher power, it could be this new character or it's this guy or it's that guy. No, it's Vince McMahon. Womp, Womp, Womp, Womp. And now we've got a similar angle, a similar story. Who is this masked man pulling all the strings? And fans think it might as be jungle jack. Well, that hasn't happened yet. They could pivot. It could be someone else. But it just feels like this angle almost never.

ever, I don't know, checks the box. Would you disagree? Yeah, it was a bad idea that's getting worse by the day because the longer it goes, the more anticlimactic it's going to be. Like, I think once Punk showed up at Survivor Series, who's ever behind the mask is going to be a popcorn fart. It's not going to matter.

It's going to be something that people are going to hopefully forget very quickly. It's already going on too long. I'm shocked, it's still going. And again, if it's jungle, Jack Perry, I'm sorry. By the way, I want to throw you a life raft there. Because I know when you say, when Eric Bischoff says, this has gone on too long, keyboards light up all over the world. Oh, the NW lasted way too long too.

But that's why I know what I'm talking about. Correct. That's what I wanted you to say. That's it. If anybody's uniquely qualified to know what something's going to on too long. By God, it's Eric Bischoff. We are watching a tag match here that's got a double down. So you know Pat Patterson was the agent on this. It's triple H and Xbox taken on Ken Shamrock and big boss man. It's an anything goes match, uh, which is why you see so many people around the outside. Ultimately, this anything goes match goes to a no contest. I know. It doesn't make any

sense. Don't worry about it. Meanwhile, on the other channel, We've got Mean Gene Okreland talking to Flair with Benoit, Malenko, Mongo, and Anderson. He's giving a big promo talking about how he's going to take Bischoff's dignity, job, and life, and take back WCW. Quote, WCW is bigger than Bischoff will ever be. And then they're going to show Conan's music video and Conan is going to wrestle Booker T for about four and a half minutes until Stevie Ray interferes. Scott Hall is going to come out and beat Scott Steiner in a minute and 10 seconds. before it's a DQ and Hall's going to say I'm too stupid to quit so bring it don't sing it um yeah it's a little I don't think anything you just described is any is is less than

what we're seeing right now no that's what I'm saying like in theory I'd rather be watching that show than this show but this one won the ratings I can't put my finger I think momentum's a funny thing like that momentum's a very funny thing isn't it yeah Once you get it, it's hard to stop initially, and then it's really hard to maintain. But this is where, really, WWE was going from kiddie wrestling to adult wrestling, and it captivated the audience at Nitro. Up until this point, Nitro owned this demo. We owned 18 to 49 until right about now, this era of 1998.

Probably started before. Obviously, it started before. and you see the new age outlaws ripping off their suits they're not corporate they're with dx the money train is still here for the new age outlaws and sean michael's the former leader of this group and the commissioner he's flipping out betrayal yes just the best kind of foundation to build a great story on is betrayal the only thing better than betrayal to build a story on is greed you saw things always work boy how many unprotected share shots to the damn face and head to ken shamrock taking his career yet another one there from billy gun it's crazy to think too

when you watch what we just saw you know billy gunn's still in the ring you know sean michael's helping lead the charge of nxti shamrock comfortably retired boss man no longer with us china no longer with us. I guess there's a tease that Waltman may come back and do something, but road dock, super comfortable working behind the scenes for WWE. And yet somehow, some way, Billy Gunn still looks great and still wrestles on TV with his shirt off 25 years later. It's unbelievable. Billy Gunn is just a freak of nature. I mean, the guy is as hard as an oak tree. I mean, I've probably told this story before. I worked an independent shot in Detroit a couple years back and Billy Gunn was on it and I was my son was in the ring with Billy

and it was a tag team match of some sort and I had a spot outside of the ring where Billy got whipped into the ropes and I was supposed to reach in and grab his leg and I reached it to grab his leg but like an idiot I let my head go through the ropes and of course Billy hit my head with his ass and damn near knocked me out I mean I guys he's like a truck he's as hard as a rock and phenomenal shape, great athlete, wealth of knowledge. I'm glad to see he's still active. How about the celebration in the back here with the ass? Look at these guys.

How about that? How about MacMan just going in the back going, Oh, they're laughing. They think this is a big joke. They pulled the wall over the eyes of the corporation. I think he did all. I know they weren't nearly as cool as the NW. to me and my fandom.

Not even close. These guys were so far away from being as cool as the NWO. It's not even funny. The only thing cool about them was Xbox. Everybody else was along for the ride. That'll get some heat. Stone Cole just runs into his locker room, sees the trash bag that Mick Foley left,

and there's a handwritten note there that says something like, uh, Steve, have a cold on me. I went to find Rocky. Mankind signed it, grabs the beer, calls mankind a stupid bastard and starts drinking the beer. And now we're going to tell the story of this match and this feud. We're really trying to hard sell this pay-per-view and using the shovel a lot because we know the shovel is going to be a big part of what we're doing with the main event. It's the buried alive match, of course. The announcers on the other channel are saying,

we've yet to hear from Bam Ben Bigelow, who remember is supposed to be facing Goldberg in a non-title match. Oakland is going to be interviewing Brett Hart and Brett's going to put his arm around Mean Gene and Gene says something like, don't get too friendly with me here, pal. And then all of a sudden Brett gets nailed with a piece of garbage. But Brett says, hey, these fans are throwing things at Gene, not me. And he talks about how Page is probably better off trying to slay a giant than meet him in a rematch for the U.S. title.

Mean Gene's going to drop the name wrestling. with shadows. Of course, the documentary either. Doesn't show Vince in the best light from the year prior. And during the ring intros, Michael Buffer says Bigelow was granted a WCW wrestling license for only one match at the request of his opponent. Bigelow runs to the ring. Nash runs to the ring. Bigelow swings at Nash. Nash gives him a boot to the face. Nash beats Bigelow into the corner. Goldberg runs to the ring. Goldberg punches away at Nash. Now a three-way brawl is going to break out the bell's ringing security stops in everybody's being pulled apart fans are throwing garbage at the ring they're booing because they're not getting the match that was

advertised melzer would call it a total letdown ending i know that that became a staple of wcw nitro we got to go you know uh the big chaos and the pier six brawl but not delivering on what was advertised man that's uh that's something that became a problem for WCW in this era. Did it not? I don't think it happened that consistently at this point in time in 98. How about on house shows? Sure, it did on house shows.

We've talked about that. And we talked about all the reasons why, some of the reasons why. But on television more often than not, Nitro became famous for cliffhangers. And sometimes they were great cliffhangers and sometimes they weren't. and delivering, you know, positioning one thing, and for whatever reason, even if you think it's creative, not delivering on the advertised main event, can be problematic. It's not like if you do it once, everything, the bottom is going to fall out.

Right. But if you do it over an extended period of time too frequently, then, yeah, it can become a real problem. But I think it would be overstating that that was a problem for WCW in 1998, at least on television. I'm not saying this to be funny. I'm legitimately asking. We're watching what it's going to wind up being a controversial show. And I would argue not the best Monday Night Raw. I mean, the only thing people really remember or talk about out of this show is the

angle that's going to close the show that was very, very polarizing. And we've also admitted that momentum is a funny thing. And for whatever reason, the WWF had it here and WCW did not. I mean, that's just the way it is. but was there something, anything that WCW could have done to turn this momentum around and get it going their way again? Or was that just not even possible at this point? Oh, I think it would have been possible, you know, especially given 2020 hindsight

and all the things that I've learned, we've all learned in the 25 years subsequent to what we're seeing now or that time period. Sure, there would have been things we could have done. to say that there wasn't would be ridiculous. Of course there would have been. Not sure what it would have been then, given the circumstances we were working within at this point in time because we didn't have the benefit of 2020 hindsight.

We were being limited. This is December of 1998. This is two months later after I've been told that I had to reposition. WCW programming and abandon the 1849-year-old audience and do more of a kid-friendly audience, family-friendly audience type of a program. So we were adjusting to some new realities that were forced upon us, not that we wanted.

And I think it would have been a little difficult to come up with something that would have been a counterpunch, for example, to what was going on at this point in time in WWE. I don't know what it would have been. But I think it would have been possible to at least try. And rather than trying, I think we were operating under. In fact, I know we were operating under because it was a subject to conversation at the executive level, not at my level. But don't worry, their approach to television won't last.

Advertisers will leave them by leaps and bounds. They're going to lose their advertising base. And USA Network will react accordingly. That was the justification or logic. was presented to me when I was told to quit going after teen and pre-teach, excuse me, quit going after 18 to 49 and target teen and pre-teen. Specifically, that's what I was told. And I was also told that don't worry about it.

We know you might take a hit in the short term, but advertisers will leave Monday Night Raw and they'll go back to doing what they were doing. That was the, I think that was the estimation amongst people that didn't know anything about the wrestling business. They knew a lot about the TV business. And the guy that was fronting that argument was a guy by name of Joe Yuba, who, when on to become and probably still is one of the biggest names in television advertising at least over the last 20 years so it's not like joe didn't know what he was talking about i just don't think

jo really understood the wrestling audience we're seeing a heck of a match here but we do need to take one last time out because we don't want to miss the big post match angle i'm at 12530 right now and i'm going to stop it down at 125 35 uh so there it is 125 35 this will be our last break. And we're going to talk about what your wife wants for Christmas, the ultimate stocking stuff for you. Thanks to our friends at bluechew.com. Everybody wants a blue Christmas. Everybody wants those presents to keep coming and coming and coming and they will. Thanks our friends at bluechew.com. You see, Bluechew has the unique opportunity to deliver to you the same active ingredients as Viagra, Seattle, and Lovitra, but in chewable

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And we're at 125, 35. I'll count us back in here in three, two, one play. Review, the Rock versus Mankind for the WWF championship. The Undertaker versus Stone Cold. And that buried alive. Buried alive, Matt. That's what I'm talking about. so we got lots of brawling going around the outside and uh melzer is going to uh describe it like this

they helped the undertaker talking about the druids tie austin to the undertaker symbol the symbol went up in the air leaving austin crucified and swearing an undertaker undertaker did a nice job of looking possessed as the show went off the air why did they waste a rock austin confrontation like this did they waste it to lure in viewers into watching their big shock angle? Unfortunately for them, the angle was completely overhyped. Some will be legitimately offended, and some will have made that decision before viewing the show.

It was hard to be offended as Austin wasn't really on a cross, nor did he strike the Jesus Christ pose with his head tilted. What was offensive is how the WWF is risking its popularity with these crazy angles. another problem is the match did nothing to hype rock versus mankind which is of course the world title it was also very ECW like and not just because ECW did a similar angle first it was just a terrible show that they all tried to just get over on shock value alone much like ECW is done in the past more interesting was that the angle was just how bad of a show this really was un intriguing matchups that led to terrible matches and no heat even the behind

the scenes comedy sketches were bad it's hard to think of anything redeeming about this show of all the factions diluting their potential matchups jim ross was missed badly by the show's end cole's voice was nearly gone when healthy cole is a solid number two announcer but isn't in ross's league then again neither are shivani or joey styles this was the worst raw in years so pretty critical from um from dave meltzer there and wade would say while it looked visually like austin was put on a cross and tied with his hands out stretched while being raised to the ceiling, the WBF played it down by never using the words cross or crucifixion. The cross was shaped with a T like a cross, but also with a U under the

tea. So it was him being tied to the undertaker symbol, as explained by a very hoarse Michael Cole. Nevertheless, earlier in the show, they burned it and there was no question what they were trying to do as a crucifixion without saying the words. And the burning is something that I think maybe it's looked over in hindsight when people try to explain this away and say it's a symbol because well we know that famously some heathens used to burn crosses

Bob Ryder who worked for WCW went on his website which was a big deal at the time one wrestling.com and just blasted raw for doing this angle and the WBF for booking it what do you remember the feedback being about the angle before it aired and then do you

think that perhaps that's the reason people watch this show more than nitro they knew a big controversial thing was coming and since people had talked about it they wanted to see what all the fuss was about controversy creates cash i've heard that's part of the controversy equation right yes it just works it always has it works in politics it it works in movies, it works in television, it works with books, it works with news, it works across the board, probably in every business you can think of. There is some application for the controversy equation, and this is an example of how it worked in wrestling. Just undeniable. And, you know, WWE did a, they anticipated it, they anticipated some of the

backlash and the criticism, and they did their best like any good politician would to dance around it, try to change the language just a little bit or modify the way it's being represented just a little bit, just enough to create a defense. And they did. But at the end of the day, this was what was working for them. This is how they went from getting their ass kicked for 83 straight weeks and over 104 weeks over the course of a little over two years they went from getting their ass kicked consistently to kicking ass by doing things that were controversial which the audience the wrestling audience in particular was ready to embrace it worked Dave hated it I may have hated it may have been a lot of fans that hated it or or maybe we were just slightly

uncomfortable with it but they too did next week yeah they did they sure did and they kept tuning it and they built upon this type of controversy. I mean, you got some of the biggest stars of the business here. We can't deny that. I mean, Stone Cold Steve Austin, hottest star here. The rocks, the world champ, arguably the next big thing. The guy who got over bigger than anybody ever expected and is about to be your next world champ, Mick Foley, mankind.

And you guys later this same month, or I guess it's a month after this, rather. you're going to sort of spoil Mick Foley's win the whole infamous butts and seats thing we're just a month away from that and oh by the way the other guy involved in this whole angle is the undertaker so we've got tons of star power here but yeah man I got to tell you as a fan I was not a fan of this I wouldn't go so far as to say that I wasn't ever going to watch again but I just knew when it happened this is not a good idea and I don't know how many tickets it sells and I just wonder it's like sometimes in business we've all heard this expression i know you have eric you don't talk about politics or religion and here in alabama we go a step further you don't talk about politics religion or alabama auburn um there's no upside or florida state evidently well i think i think georgia takes care of that debate but still this is um a no upside type situation i i get courting attention at all costs i really do And I get, you know, this is very much the shock jock era, but this feels like something you would do when you're in second place and trying to take the lead as opposed to we're winning. It almost feels like when you're doing something risky like this, it's like, are we trying to give away our spot? Yeah, but I'm going to take the other position on that. They hadn't been winning for that long. That's true. They had just started winning. They had been a distant number two for several years at this point.

that's really since about 1995 they were getting their ass kicked on a regular basis until we walked away with it for a couple of years beginning in 96 so i i i disagree on the this is what you do when you're in number two they had just eked into a number one position and i think they wanted to take it further they embraced the controversy they knew exactly what they were doing and they embraced it they shielded themselves as best they can with some of the nuanced explanations and modifying this symbol but they added enough of the elements that they knew were going to be controversial to create that controversy and it worked for them. But it's not because of any other reason than I think they wanted to continue to establish their growth

because it was fairly new to them at this point in time. Well, we're about to see the business happen here. Let's track it. Wait, wait a minute. What are they doing to it? Come on here.

How are you about this? Time about it. Listen, what is it? What are they doing? I wonder what Steve thought of this. Like, next time I see him over beer, when nobody else is around to hear what he has to say, I'm going to ask him what he really thought of this.

This doesn't seem very Steve-like. I would agree. tied into that symbol I'm going to get your ass you son of a bitch you know another they blast stonecold Steve Austin to that under I think clouded at all. Standing on a platform,

holding on with both of his arms. Of course, his arms are tied on, but he's gripping there hanging on. I don't know how you couldn't say we're trying to evoke some sort of Christ-like imagery here. I don't think that's debatable. Now, for me, it's not. It's a turn off.

I'm uncomfortable looking at it. Now, I knew it was coming. This is the shot that everybody remembers. The Undertaker rolling his eyes on the back of his head, sticking his tongue out. Domination, look at this. My goodness. This is so weird, bro. It is weird.

Austin, I've taken you, my body and soul. the only thing left is to bury you alive by the way if you're wondering there was no microphone in the undertaker's hand there so not only can he summon fire he does a ventriloquic act too uh it's all just silly and i didn't enjoy it and i can't believe you guys lost like to me i'm sure it was clearly the better show that night even though there was a maybe a non-finish, but maybe one of the better questions we got about this topic came from David, David Medina. Why couldn't they use the person that created this symbol to create the new WCW logo?

Couldn't have been any worse, right, Eric? That would have been better. Well, listen, we had a lot of fun with today's episode. I hope you'll check us out next week because we're celebrating a mile. Stone Eric. Something a lot of podcasts don't get to say they're doing. Episode 300 is coming your way next week here on 83 weeks. I can't believe that's a real thing. We've been having so much fun for so long and we greatly appreciate all of you guys and our condolences in advance to all those Florida State fans who are going to get their heartbroken twice this

year. If your business targets men 25 to 54 years old, man, there's no better place to look to advertise than right here with us. You hear some of those same sponsors weekend, week out for years and that's because it really works with our super targeted audience there's just very little waste so go right now to advertise with eric.com to find out more about advertising here on 83 weeks also great stocking stuff here for the wrestling fan in your life can be found over at bischoffbook.com eric's book is available now there or at amazon and of course you can also get a bunch of new swag over at box of gimmicks.com or 83 weeks merch.com there's something for everybody this time of year

and we'd love to have your question for Ask Eric That's what's coming up next week here for episode 300 We're throwing you guys the keys to the program If you've got a question you've always wanted to ask Eric Bischoff This is your chance Hit us up on Twitter at 83 weeks Over on Instagram or Facebook

You can also look for 83 weeks But the easiest, cheapest, best way to support the show is to check out 83 weeks on YouTube. com hit the subscribe button hit the like button you throw us a comment we're looking to hear from me we want your feedback check it out 83 weeks on youtube.com final word on the symbol eric i give it two thumbs down what say you no i wish i had three if i had three i'd give it three thumbs down so yeah two thumbs down but uh looking forward to next week we'll talk about something more positive i'm sure some great questions and i'm going to up

everybody on my five-day fast. Oh, yeah. I timed it. I timed it, but, you know, today's my first day, right? And I typically do a 16 or an 18-hour fast every day anyway. I usually, you know, I never eat breakfast. And I can usually go until three or four o'clock in the afternoon before I eat anything. So this first day I knew would be no big deal. I don't know what tonight's going to be like, but the first day I knew it would be all right. Tomorrow's going to suck. Tomorrow's going to be a tough day. What I've read is by the third day, you're kind of, your body's get used to it, you're not craving food as much, but on the fourth and fifth day, you reach an almost state of euphoric clarity. So I am looking forward to my fourth and fifth day

in the manifestation of mental and physical clarity, and I'll report on it. And then I'll keep everybody up to date on my riverbend ranch carnivore diet. Get riverbend.com. Find out how you can do it. But yeah, I'm going to update everybody, especially on the fast. A lot of people I posted this on social media. A lot of people are really curious about how it goes. So I may even blog daily or vlog daily about it. It's an interesting ride. Man, I didn't, I didn't think you're allowed to vlog in public, but I guess we'll see what happens. I mean, I've heard you're a crazy cat. And I know for sure you do have three thumbs, but the third one is never down, thanks to Blue Chew with our promo code 83 weeks. So you're a dog. We'll see you guys next week

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