83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 307: VINCE

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

On this week's episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss the sexual assault lawsuit against Vince McMahon and the impact it's having on WWE and the professional wrestling world. They also cover the move of RAW to Netflix, Dwayne Johnson joining the board of TKO and owning the rights to "The Rock". Plus, Royal Rumble results, AD Free Shows Top Guy Royal Rumble weekend and so much more. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit HENSONSHAVING.com/BISCHOFF to pick the razor for you and use code BISCHOFF and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. GREEN CHEF - Go to greenchef.com/60WEEKS and use code 60WEEKS to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months. MAGIC SPOON - Start the New Year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at MagicSpoon.com/83WEEKS dot com and use the code 83WEEKS to save $5 off. FANATICS - An easy way to support your favorite podcasts! Shop official WWE gear and apparel by using our special URL: ShopWrestlingMerch.com STARRCAST - Be part of the very first international STARRCAST in Australia! Get tickets and information at STARRCAST.com SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great, man. Still in beautiful Tampa, Florida, visiting with Garrett and his wife, MJ, and our grandson, Mrs. B is here. But they're all out of the house. We tried to record this yesterday, and it was challenging with the screaming two-year-old warning loose in the house. We're going to take another shout at it today. I appreciate everybody from every show's joining us again. Absolutely, greatly appreciate it. We are recording a little later than we normally do.

We usually try to record on a Sunday morning. I was traveling headed back from Tampa and yesterday afternoon just didn't work out. But today, even though it's a little later, you're still getting your fix of 83 weeks. And we're going to try to as best we can break down what the hell happened since we recorded last because goodness gracious, a lot has happened. And, of course, we had a big Royal Rumble over the weekend as well. We now know who has punched their ticket to WrestleMania. Seemingly, it's going to be Bailey and Cody Rhodes, who have won the Rumble and now earn the right to challenge for the world title.

I think it's pretty clear who Cody Rhodes wants at the end of that show. He's pointing to the box where Roman Raines is watching, saying, you know, he's coming for you. So he wants a rematch for WrestleMania. It looks like he's earned it. and now we know Bailey as the ball in her court. Is she going to challenge E.O. Sky in her own group for her strap or will it be Ria Ripley? And man, there's a lot of questions about WrestleMania all of a sudden.

What did you think of Bailey and Cody being our winners? Excited for Cody. And it was great to see Bailey back in and think of things. She's a great person. Got to know her just a little bit, my time in WWE. very, very happy for it. It's an exciting time for her, and I'm sure many ways. It's really exciting if you're an old school WWE fan because, man, it feels like she was, she's sort of the last of the four horsewomen to get this opportunity. I mean,

we've seen Sasha in big matches at WrestleMania and certainly Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, but now it's Bailey's turn. I'm really excited that Bailey's getting her opportunity. And I'm excited to see if Cody truly can finish the story. But the story from last week, boy, is it a big one? We started the week with the reveal that Cody is on the cover of the new game. And they're celebrating 40 years of WrestleMania and use a little bit of AI from Stone Cold Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan. You've been talking about the use of AI and now WWE, by God, they used it in a commercial.

How about that? It's kind of amazing. It's an exciting time. You know, technology is simultaneously frightening and exciting because it changed. changes everything so quickly. And I think technology changes much quicker than our ability to absorb it and comprehend it. It makes it a little nerve-wracking sometimes. But I'm excited to see what AI, what that impact is going to be on professional wrestling.

I was reading an article today about a new medical treatment that is a result of artificial intelligence. So there's obviously a lot of great things that can come of it and how it's going to affect professional wrestling. remains to be unseen, but it's going to get exciting around here. Man, it was exciting. You know, we, uh, we watched the Rumble together as a part of Top Guy weekend and, um, I think it's going to become a staple event for us. I want us to relive that. It was one of the most fun things we ever did at a Top Guy event.

Ephron brought a fabulous game where, uh, we actually pulled numbers and somebody walked away with a huge price pack, $1,000 cash, a lifetime. membership to the T&T Hall of Fame, plaques from both Ria and Cody at last year's Royal Rumble, on and on and on. Shout out to Dave McLeigh for the big win there.

But we also had surprise run-ins. Ron Garvin was there with the actual big gold, his first photo op with that belt since 1987. Wow. And we had Brutus the Barber Beefcake, your favorite.

Glacier was there. Haku was there. And we even stopped by Hogan's Hangout for a bit of Hogan trivia. I don't have to give a spoiler as to who won, but the Hulkster showed up. Man, look at you pulling some strings, getting Mr. Belaya to come hang out with the top guys.

That was awesome, man. Yeah, it was kind of fun. I was excited for everybody. And I was excited for you to meet Hulk. I don't know, you've mentioned before that Hulk is one of the reasons you became a wrestling fan initially and you've met a lot of people and cross paths with some of the biggest names in the industry.

But I think Hulk Hogan was one of the last boxes you had you had left to check so glad we got it done it was awesome to see hulk hogan there and if you see you in the background right there uh you're sporting a really cool head of hair but they're wearing a hat do anything interesting happened over the weekend oh look at there it's just another top guy weekend right i give my head shave that's what we do twice a year sure enough man i'm getting my head shaved because i make some stupid ass bet with this guy named Conrad Thompson and next thing I know

I've got pictures of myself plastered all over the internet getting my head shaved looking like an idiot but hey it's all in fun and everybody got a kick out of it so I was glad to participate and contribute.

It was a lot of fun and it was all around making another CM Punk bet and as we're recording on Monday afternoon a lot of rumor in innuendo that CM Punk and his first televised

WW matchback on the exact 10 year anniversary of when he walked out of the company, January 27th, 2014. He competed in the Royal Rumble and managed to injure, depending on who you believe, either his bicep or tricep. Now things are in question again. Do you want to make another bet as to whether or not seeing punk will be at

WrestleMania? Be as like he is off, Breazzo. No more punk bets for Eric Michelle. No more punk bets. First of all, I'm not making any bets. I just suck at betting.

is not doing it. I get all emotional. I vote with my, or I bet with my emotions. And that's where you always have the upper hand because you're such a logical, methodical, analytical some bitch. You, you really think through a bet. I just react emotionally. And so far, that's what I'm working out. Well, I'll tell you what. It'll work out over at fanatics. We are so excited to have this partnership with them. And if you're ready for the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania season, man, there's no better place to start than shop wrestlingmerch.com. You can hook up all your favorites. And I mean, you want an NWO spray painted big gold belt, they got it. You need the latest and greatest Cody Rhodes and Bailey Royal Rumble shirts.

They got it. And how about some old school classic NWO merch? They got that too. It's all at shop wrestlingmerch.com. They're celebrating 40 years of WrestleMania. That's WrestleMania season. So if you're watching along with us on YouTube, hit that QR code that's up on the screen right now or be sure to check out the description for today's episode or just type it right in shop wrestlingmerch.com. You can shop with confidence for all your favorite WW Superstar T-shirts and hoodies and caps and belts. It's shop wrestlingmerch.com. That costs anything extra, but a great way to support the show.

The show. John Hickson out of AdFrey Shows is joining us here on the AdFrey Show's network and he wants to know, who am I taking in the Super Bowl so he can make the opposite bet? That's probably a good strategy. Well, so there you go, Eric. Do you have an idea? I mean, we know now Taylor Swift single-handedly won the AFC championship by herself. So she is bringing her Kansas City Chiefs all the way to Las Vegas,

or they will take on the San Francisco 49ers. It's a rematch from four years ago. What do you think? I'm just, I'm hoping so much that San Francisco. Go wins. I'm not placing any bets. I'm going to stop doing it. I'm not doing it. Ain't going to do it. Not going to happen. Not going to place a bet. But if I have to see one more story about Taylor Swift, I'm going to gag up my toenails. I just don't want to hear anymore. Nothing against the woman. She's probably a lovely human being. And she's gorgeous. She's got just so much talent that's not even fair. I don't care about her anymore. I just don't want to hear about it. So I'm hoping, hoping San Francisco for no other reason. I just don't want to hear any more about Taylor Swift.

Now they wanted to run for vice president. What the hell? Well, I don't know about that. But if you think for a second that the chiefs aren't winning the Super. The NFL is faker than WWW. This is so script. It's going down. Taylor Swift with the confetti and the Lombardi trophy.

that's happening I look I said I think it was on strictly business with Alba I believe that this whole thing is I think it's a work I think this is a business strategy I predict that Travis will end up marrying

Taylor Swift he's going to take her last name he's going to become Travis Swift and together those two are going to buy an expansion team when one becomes available and they're going to name it insert city here, Swifties. It's going to happen. Merchandise will be crazy.

I know we're going to talk about all the crazy business stuff from the last week, but while we're being lighthearted and fun, not that injuries are lighthearted and fun. The WrestleMania card is changing. As we're recording right now, Mike Johnson has just reported that punk has indeed torn his tricep. I had heard bicep, I'd heard tricep,

but Mike Johnson says tricep, I believe Mike, Mike also says punk's going to be out four to six months. He's going to need surgery. So they were trying to hold together the Seth Rollins, see him punk match. I think Seth Rollins was thinking he could maybe be in limited action. We didn't see him do anything at Royal Rumble. I probably thought we'll take it easy.

We'll rehab it. He'll be back in time. I can put the belt on punk. And then if Seth needs to go get surgery, he can. instead punk is going to cut the line for surgery my goodness you just lost charlotte flare that ralins was a question mark now seeing punk is going down i know they got a loaded roster and we've talked about how loaded this roster is so i'm sure they'll be fine but boy this has to sting i mean one of the reasons we know punk wanted to come back if there were any boxes left

to check he never closed the night at a russomania and most people felt like he was was going to at night one my goodness mr punk has a lot of bad news today what do you expect well this is obviously the first i'm hearing it and i know this is probably going to shock a lot of people but i feel bad for seeing pump yeah you have to i mean look i was not a huge fan on the way he conducted himself in a ew that's no secret and i stand by every single word i said based on the way he conducted himself. But he got a fresh, man, he had a fresh start in WWE. He was coming back, the stories that could have been told,

the opportunities that were there for him. And going through whatever, you know, again, I don't know him. I've never had a syllable of conversation with the man. I don't know what he's made of or what he's like. But to go through this emotional roller coaster that he's been on for the last however long it's been, eight months, 10 months

between the craziness at AEW and coming back to WWE and now this man, I feel bad for him. I really do.

I don't know how you couldn't feel bad. It's terrible. Just awful luck. And you got to think, I mean, this was his first televised match with WWE.

He came back in November. Here he is two months later. Having his first match, it's on pay-per-view. And now he's sidelined, again. So back to the drawing board creative goes. Allegedly. Can we dig into that? Can we dig into this a little bit? Now, I've never had tricep surgery. I don't know what it's like. Certainly

know people that have, but it seems like that's one of those surgeries that takes a long time to come back from. Four to six. Is that your understanding, Conrad? Quick Google search says four to six. that's four to six to come back to be able to go to work and do what the average person does for a living. I wonder if it's the same amount of time for somebody that is an entering performer, professional wrestler. I don't know. And how old is punk right now? He's a couple of years older than me, I think.

I would say that's 44. Let me take a look. Yeah, he's 45 years old. He just turned 45 in October. Yeah, and that makes it even harder, man. Once you hit 35, 38 years old, the average person, the average male, things just don't heal as quickly. So I hope the best form I really do to be out of the picture for four to six months means he's going to come back with another clean slate. And the good news, if there is any good news for CM Punk is he's got a strong fan base.

There is that loyal contingent of CM Punk fans that will still be there when he comes back. Let's just hope that when he comes back, he's physically ready and can end his career on a high note. That's all you can hope for with a talent. Now there's a lot of question marks. You know, it felt like they were definitely going with Seth Rollins and see him punk. But if punk is off the table, they teased Gunther, but we were also under the impression that Gunther was going to be wrestling Brock Lesner at WrestleMania.

Well, we'll talk about why later, but you probably know why after listening to this show. Brock Lesnar will not be at WrestleMania. So that leaves Gunther and Seth Rollins without an opponent. Is that the answer? You just put them together? Well, they've got eight weeks, you know, or so, eight or ten weeks. So there's definitely enough time to create an act one, if you will, and get to WrestleMania storyline-wise.

They're going to have to scramble. it's going to become somewhat obvious, but as long as it's set up properly, and that'll be the hardest part. The hardest part will be setting that story up if indeed that's the way they're going to go and making it feel organic and believable and not feeling like, oh my God, we need a Band-Aid. Who's got a Band-Aid? Band-Aids over here. Bring a Band-Aid, you know? That's going to be the hard part. So if they can, if they can put their heads together creatively and figure out something that feels remotely organic, 10 weeks is plenty of time to build up to a match link if they could get out of the shoot strong.

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You are brutal. You are just brutal. Well, what do you want me to say, man? have she's been in there working on graphics all day it's a little swampy what do you I mean it happens it's just part of life hey uh listen we're having a lot of fun talking about some positive stuff

from from WWE and we want to keep that going and we also are going to talk about a little positive stuff for AEW uh it looks like best I can tell tickets keep going on and off sale for AEW and Sting's last match what I mean is they add a few new seats sell them immediately add a few new seats sell them immediately it really is fascinating to me at a time when we see a eW sometimes struggling to get 2,000 people for a TV taping and some certain markets and then

we announced something like greensboro and it's promoted a sting's last match and we do it way in advance and they just hit a home run i mean i heard somebody say they might pass 19,000 tickets for this that would be the biggest show of the year i would guess for eW besides Wembley and really at this point we only know the headline Sting's last match that's a testament to Sting and how well they've handled him in AEW and I know some people are going to say oh they haven't done anything all that special with him well I'd like to remind you that he was never in this opportunity in this spot with w.E he had that one match with Seth Rollins for the world title at night of champions and that ended very poorly it was a bad night for the Stinger but they

never got close to this in impact either how do you reconcile greensboro revolution stings last match and these massive pre-sale tickets it's uh it's a it's a it's a lot to process for me eric i i you know i don't feel that way at all i think it's a testament to sting yeah i think it's a testament to a guy who has spent what 30 plus years in the industry at a very very high level level. Sting has been a beloved character from day one. It's a testament and a testimony to Sting more so than AEW or anything they're doing or not doing with them. Granted, they've showcased Sting in the right way for someone at this stage of his career. Sting, in my opinion, Sting has gone out and done some pretty crazy shit that I would

have rather him not do at this stage of his career. But he's a, he's a, he's a, performer. And performers live to perform. And sometimes they take risks they shouldn't take. That being said, this is all about Sting. This isn't about AEW or WWE or what they did right or what they did wrong. This is about hopefully 19,000, hopefully 20,000 wrestling fans who've been a fan of Sting for decades coming out to pay homage to a guy who definitely deserves it and who's earned the respect from his peers, from his fans, from people associated with him. And I hope he goes out and just absorbs every second of it. And I hope it ends exactly the way that he wants it to add. You hear me talk all the time about having the ability to write the last chapter in your own

book and put the period at the end of your own sentence in that chapter. And this is an opportunity for Sting to do that, and I don't think I can think of anybody that deserves that opportunity more than Steve Borden. I'm glad he's getting it. Tickets are on sale now at EWTIX.com. I hope everyone goes to see Sting one last time, even if you can't get down to Revolution, go see him before. He's going to be here in Huntsville. They're doing a joint taping for both dynamite and collision as Sting's Go Home TV,

right down the street from my house here in Huntsville. I'm going to be there. and I hope you will be to AEWTIX.com. Let's give Sting as flowers while we still can. The ticket circumstance continues with AEW.

I saw a report over the weekend that said that there were going to be less than 2,000 people or 2,000 tickets distributed for collision on Saturday night. And as we're recording this, the most recent report from Wessel Ticks says that there's about 1,600 tickets out

for TV in New Orleans this Wednesday, 1,642 tickets for New Orleans. And then I see the rating from collision. And you and I talked about this on Saturday in advance to the Royal Rumble. I said, man, given all the news this week about WWE, good and bad, and all the buzz and hype and anticipation around this Royal Rumble match, where so many people are saying, I can't call it. you and I were kind of curious in debating

where do you think the rating winds up? How many people wind up watching collision instead? And I won't say who else was involved in the conversation. But you guessed 275,000. It was 272,000. Goodness, precious. You nailed it. I nail a lot of shit.

As long as it doesn't have anything to do with my hair. I mean, could A.W. have expected anything different? I mean, to go heads up with with the Royal Rumble like this. I mean, that's going to be the result, right? You're going to have a down week. Yeah. I mean, it's, look, it's a little bit like, you know, having the schedule turn out that, you know, your primetime show is on Christmas night. You know, it is, it is what it is. And, you know, I wouldn't have been surprised or critical, frankly, if they wouldn't have put together some kind of a, I don't want to say a tribute show,

but some kind of a special, a best of, a highlight reel of some kind, along with some updates, what's happening, Stings Last Match, maybe some special interviews. That's a perfect night to do something like that because you're not going to really advance a story. I mean, you are, but no one's going to watch it, or very few people, I should say. So I would not have been surprised or disappointed or critical had they done some kind of a special on that night because you know, you just know, it's like picking a fight with Mike Tyson.

You know how that's going to end up. Well, I'm pulling for them. I'm hoping that some of these new changes that we've been hearing about, like one of the things I've heard and we read over the weekend was that their new chief operating officer is going to mandate fewer of these. smaller towns, like the Savannah Georgia's, if you will, and more in major metros, maybe more in New York, in Chicago, and Philly, and L.A.

That's kind of hard to argue with right now, but, you know, you've seen this from a studio wrestling standpoint with TNA, and you've seen it from a booming, thriving house show business model with the NWO era of WCW,

but you've also seen not so great numbers in WCW when you first took over and realized hey we gotta stop doing house shows and just go to Disney do you think this is fixable or will it change

I mean can we fix it by simply going to different towns or do we need to have a new approach? No I'm going to go on a record here and this is silly it's the kindest thing I can say this is silly to me now that being said

I'm wrong occasionally, 17, 18% of the time, I'm wrong, according to recent statistics. But that strategy is exactly the opposite of everything that I learned and experienced in 30 years in the industry, both as the guy running the show and as the announcer who showed up when and where I was told. To think that... To suggest that, well, we're not able to draw a crowd in these smaller markets where there's not a lot of competition and we're not getting tours and we don't have a sports team and there's not, there's no rock and roll bands coming through town, really. Let's go to places where there is competition like that because we'll do better that way. I understand the math, right? More people, more opportunity to put them in a building. But in this case, it's not going to work.

And the idea that they're going to go to, instead of going to Savannah, Georgia in places like Charleston, where they're obviously having a great turnout, right? We're just talking about selling 20,000 tickets. Yeah. That's a small market. Right. The challenge isn't the market. The challenge is the content that's driving to people to the market or the content that's not driving people to the market. sting is he's an outlier because of who he is because of how long he's been in the industry

because of the respect that sting has from the audience he is an outlier i get that but to suggest that well we can't really draw any small markets where there's no competition so let's go to a big market where there is good luck with that well let's uh and and by the way not only is there more competition for the entertainment dollar, it's a lot more expensive. Those bigger markets charge higher prices for venues. Everything is more expensive. We've talked about it on this show. We've talked about it on strictly business. When you go to markets where there's unions and you've got to have, yeah, you can have your own cameraman as long as our cameraman or a union cameraman shadows. Yeah, you can have your own production staff ringing the lights

as long as there's one, one of our union members for every one of your direct employees overseeing that. Sure, you could do that. It gets so expensive. This, this, I hope I'm wrong. And like, I could be. I mean, things have changed since I was involved in a business. And I'm really hoping for ATW's sake that this is one of them.

But in the 30 plus years that I spend in this industry, this strategy is exactly the opposite of what I've seen work. I want to ask you about one other piece of business on the AEW side of things before we get knee deep in all the craziness of the last week. And if you're wondering, are we going to talk about Vince McMahon, we are, but we're going to do it at the end for a variety of reasons. But I do want to ask, I did want to ask you about a report that came out this morning. Maybe it came out yesterday, but there's a lot more conversation as you and I are recording this morning about the result of Saturday night's collision show. And I know you and I were watching the Rumble, but the main of the conversation. event of the collision show was an elimination cage match with FTR and Daniel Garcia taking

on the House of Black. And it was noted that the graphic changed. And the only reason people, I think, paid attention to the fact that the graphic changed is a report from Dave Meltzer, where he was talking, doing his Wrestling Observer Radio after the show, that these guys, talking about the House of Black, don't want to do jobs. and somebody who works on our side of things helping us behind the scenes has a lot of friends in AEW and that was repeated to me that there was some discussion about doing jobs of that main event in the cage match this would have been heads up with the Royal Rumble

and then Dave Meltzer goes on the Wrestling Observer Radio and says these guys just don't want to do jobs basically saying that Buddy Matthews who is in real life with Ria Ripley, and Malachi Black, who in real life is with Zelina Vega, meaning both of their wives work and are employed by WWE, same as Andrade, his wife, Charlotte, we saw Andrade come back in the Royal Rumble past weekend. Belzer is basically saying, why do you keep putting these guys on TV if they're not going to lose and you know they're leaving? And I wanted to ask you about that, because first of all, Buddy Matthews responded with his

own AEW avatar that shows he is one and one in trios, oh and one in tag team wrestling, and oh and one in singles this year. So he's one in three this year. And of course, Brody King says, funny how someone's opinion just becomes fact because they've been watching wrestling a long time. The format and stipulation of the cage was always what it was going to be. It's not our fault. The wording on the graphic got changed. And Will Washington, who works for A.W says, I usually don't comment on stuff like this, but before this idea spreads or gets out of hand, the wording change was just for clarity. It was absolutely escape rules when the first match graphic dropped. So I guess there's a lot of discussion about whether or not these

guys quote unquote will do jobs and whether or not they're going to WWE. You dealt with some of this because sometimes guys would not necessarily lose on their way out in WCW. Like, the way you handle Chris Jericho comes to mind, even, you know, Perry Saturn. I mean, there were a lot of people who left. They weren't necessarily leaving on the worst terms. Do you have a strong feeling one way or another about guys who don't want to do jobs, allegedly, I'm not saying that's the case here, guys who want to leave. I don't know if that's the case. More importantly, what do you make of Meltzer saying they didn't want to do jobs and even ATW's own employee, not the talent,

but Will Washington saying stipulation rules were there the whole time. Nothing changed. There's a lot to unpack here. I want your two cents on it. First of all, I've, yeah, I've been in situations

where talent resisted losing a match on their way out the door because they felt that they would. I mean, look at Brett Hartford. It's the most famous one. Yes. The Montreal screw job is because Brett did, Hart didn't want to do a job.

I mean, yeah, it happens. But as I told Brett, when Brett mentioned it to me and brought it to my attention that that's what he was being asked to do, and my exact words were to Brett, it doesn't matter. To hold on to the concept that doing a job is somehow going to affect the way the audience sees you going forward, to me is a representation of insecurity with the talent. If you're confident in yourself, I'll leave it at that. If you are confident in your abilities, then doing the job or losing a match on your way to another organization has absolutely no impact on the viewer.

Now, if you were going out and losing week after week after week after week and then they want you to lose one more time on your way out the door, yeah, I can see why you'd be a little upset. But that's not the case here. And I don't know. I mean, you listening to you read that to me, it's just more confusing as ever, but that's typical Dave Meltzer nonsense. Anytime Meltzer's involved with something, it's really hard to figure out. The guy who's a journalist and can't structure a fucking paragraph to save his life, never met a comma that he felt comfortable with. I mean, it's, it's, I don't know, man. I don't know what to make of it. If Dave Meltzer's involved my first instinct is to go, it's bullshit anyway, so I don't think about it too much.

But, you know, I've worked with both of those guys a little bit in WWE. I didn't see any indication that they had that kind of insecurity or issue. And based on their reaction, that wasn't the issue. And Will Washington's coming. It's just more clown-car bullshit. the whole escape the cage rather than take a pen anyway who cares nobody cares well it's a ewe nobody cares it doesn't matter you know again i'll just say this for talent that may be listening don't let that stuff get into your head don't let anybody convince you that that kind of thing

actually matters now again just to be clear for the dave mouser fans out there i'll try to do this I'll try to articulate this in a digital version of crayons and stick figures. Ready? Nobody believes any of it's real anyway. They come to be entertained. They come to see your performance. They come to live vicariously through you if you can establish a character that they care about one way or the other. They don't have to love you.

They can hate your guts. Yay, me. It doesn't matter as long as they feel strongly one way or the other. Learn that from Verganya, by the way. And the winning and losing part ultimately doesn't really matter. It's your character and what you do with it that does. So just, again, more, it's funny, Meltzer is exposing himself more and more. He's looking more unhinged every single day.

I mean, some of the stuff I see him posting is like, I used to have fun with it and react to it, make fun of him. I don't even, I don't even do that anymore. It's just, it's getting pathetic at this point. Well, something that is also pathetic is how we've been overcharged for razors for years. And thankfully, Henson is here to fix all that. They're going to give you that new school tech with that old school feel. But best of all, maybe the best price you've ever seen on a razor. Let me explain.

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Be sure to use that promo code Bischoff. Eric, we still got to talk about the Vince news. I want to save it for later. I do want to talk about the other stuff that happened because what a crazy week it was. You know, not only did we have Top Guy Rumble, not only was there some really fun AEW shows and a really fun Smackdown, but there was some huge news since we recorded last week. We started last Monday with the news that Monday Night Raw is going to Netflix.

And boy, we have talked about this as a potential possibility on this show for years about when, not if, but when a pro wrestling show would be on a streaming service. And now we know, it's not just a pro wrestling show. It's the pro wrestling show. Monday Night Raw going to Netflix. A lot to unpack here too. It's going to start in January of 2025 before we talk about the terms of the deal,

which I'm fascinated by. I want to see what you think about that sort of lame duck period. Because as I understand it, the contract with USA, the Air Raw is going to end in October. They're not actually jumping over to Netflix until January. So that does represent an opportunity for somebody somewhere in the meantime. What do you expect to happen to Monday Night Raw in November and December? Best guess? Yes.

Peacock. I can see that. What else is there? I mean, you know, I mean, there may be other options and alternatives that, you know, we're just not aware of because we're not in the day-to-day business and talking to folks. But from where I'm sitting right now, that just seems to be the most obvious choice by default, if nothing else. I mean, Peacock could be happy, right? Why not? It's good for them.

It would serve WWE's interim challenge. And it sets people up to get used to. watching Ron streaming, I guess. Who knows? But that's, to me, the only obvious choice. The other thing I wanted to ask about. Either that, or they go dark and kind of take the approach that Brian Bedal and I had for WCW when we were in the process of trying to acquire it and just take that, because that's a tough time anyway, right? You got the Christmas holidays in there, and ratings are typically soft leading into Christmas or they're challenging. Maybe they would opt to go dark and just build anticipation.

You know, the absence makes the heart grow fonder factor kicks in and they get even more tune in than they might otherwise. So that's also an option. Let's talk about the term $500 million. is the annual number for Monday Night Raw. And they're not just going to get that domestically. They're going to get it globally. And I know you were there, or shortly after you were there,

for the big debut of SmackDown on Fox. And people were losing their minds at the idea that this was a $200 million a year gig. 500 million, Eric. At first, I thought, man, that's an astronomical amount of money. Good for them. I never thought they'd be able to more than 2x what they were getting, but somehow they did. And by somehow, I mean, Nick Conn, Nick Con has. Yeah, I was going to say, the answer to that's pretty clear, right?

Yeah, we got to talk about Nick here in a moment. But 500 million. I mean, you and I were laughing about it, but Top Guy weekend. That's over $3 million an hour, Eric. And again, the numbers I'm about to throw out are dated. but I think they're pretty close because I'm adjusting for inflation. But I would imagine a Monday night raw

the actual cost of production. Now I'm going to take talent out of it. I'm just talking about physical cost of production. $750,000, maybe a little more. Not much. Not much. So their cost of goods is around 750 grand, if I'm right, if I'm even close, against three million. There's a margin in there, folks.

That's awesome. That's awesome. It's incredible. I mean, movies, you know, 15, 20 years ago, they were producing movies with a three or four million dollar budget. Movies that you'd see in a theater, not just, you know, some. B movie that went straight to video, that is a massive. I remember the first time I heard about a scripted series breaking a million dollars an hour. And I went, oh, my God, that's not sustainable.

How do they keep doing it? It's impossible to make money doing that. And here we are. $3,33,33,33 an hour for non-scripted wrestling. When I say non-scripted, you know what I mean. Yeah. Not scripted in the traditional sense of a script. But that to me, because you don't have, I mean, you don't have so many of the costs associated with traditional scripted drama when it comes to an unscripted live action show like wrestling.

It's, I still can't come. There's so much has happened in the last seven days that I am still having a hard time. comprehending it. I mean, it blew my freaking mind when the Netflix announcement came out. Yes. And things have only gotten more intense since them. $500 million. That's roughly $10 million a week for Monday Night Raw.

I do want to talk about what that means for the network. And I want to talk about Nick Kahn. But before we come back to those, I want to ask you about the other term. So when people say word of the terms and a deal like this, they normally mean, how long is the contract and how much is it for? Let's talk about how long the contract is for. A lot of people just saw the original headline, $500 million for 10 years. It's a $5 billion deal.

It turns out that Netflix can actually get out of the deal after year five. But Netflix can also renew the deal so it could wind up being a 20-year deal. I don't know if the financials were released for what would happen for those years. But $500 million seems like a crazy amount of money right now. Just like $200 million seem like a crazy amount of money five years from now. But I'm wondering, well, $500 million seem like a crazy number 10 years from now. And I'm pretty positive it won't be in 20 years. What do you make of this term?

It feels like, I mean, first of all, I think we all agree. High five's all around for Nick Con. Excellent job. securing the bag here for WWE. But long term, is that a good deal for WWE? I think the answer probably is dependent upon where cable goes. Part of me thinks that this deal was structured the way it was structured

by some really, really smart people that know where streaming is going. and know where cable is going, they may have those people involved in helping to craft this deal, may believe that cable television is going to be blockbuster video in the next 18 months or two years. And in that case, being able to have a solid performer like WWE that has traditionally, not just year after year,

but decade after decade after decade after decade proven to be on the leading edge of whatever form and evolution of distribution is hot. I don't want to go through the whole timeline again. We've done it before, but you go back to the 50s, syndication. Go back to the 70s, cable. Go back to late 70s, early 80s, pay-per-view, whenever it was. Go from pay-per-view to now digital. and at every one of those inflection points,

professional wrestling has been leading the way in terms of any other form of entertainment. Combined that reality, and it's a fact, it's not an opinion, it's a fact, no brag, just fact. We just tell the truth here, folks. Whether you like it or you don't like it, irrelevant to me, just laying out the facts. But you combine that fact with another fact,

that being that the wrestling audience has proven to be one of the most loyal audiences for just about any form of entertainment out there, including sports. I'm not going to suggest that wrestling fans are more loyal than NASCAR fans, but they're freaking close. I was in the NASCAR business for a minute. We sponsored a car for a while, got to know Kyle Petty, got to work with some people inside the inside of NASCAR,

and learn about their audience. and that loyalty. And it's passed down from generation to generation. It's cultural, much like wrestling. And other sports are as well. I'm not suggesting that wrestling is different than any other form of entertainment or sports in that regard.

But the wrestling audience cannot get enough. The reason that we're talking right now on this show is because wrestling fans can't get enough. They know what's going on in the ring. They're not going to want to hear from Eric Bischoff or Conrad Thompson. necessarily when it comes to what's happening week to week on television. What people want to know about is what's happening behind the scenes. What's going on in the business of the wrestling business?

What's going on in the business of the NFL? What's going on in the business of baseball and basketball? That's where wrestling fans have proven that they're just so loyal and they will follow you and they stick with you. And it is generational and cultural, much like baseball and NASCAR, and the NFL, it's a safe bet if you're betting on the evolution of the industry. If you think the industry is going to be the same, meaning streaming is as big as it's going to get and cable's always going to be there, that's a big leap. It's a big risk. But if you

believe, as I do, the cable television will be the blockbuster of entertainment at some point within, certainly within my lifetime, I think within the next three to five years, the content that you, cable will always be around. I'm not suggesting it's going to disappear, but the content that you'll find on cable, it's going to be like old fishing shows and a lot of weather channels. You know, weather channels do really well, right? You predict it in the weather. She changes every day, nobody bitches about it.

It's the weather, right? You got your forecast, it's the weather. Come on. Kind of like Dave Bouser, current subject to change. Things change. Yeah, that's his deal. But you're not going to find the high quality entertainment that people have become so accustomed to in cable over the years. It's going away.

And that audience, and yes, the audience is spread all over the map right now on cable, but that audience is going to drastically be reduced and that audience is going to go somewhere. why not bet on something that is proven for generations now that it works and relatively inexpensive compared descriptive content well used to be i don't know i'd have to get i'd have to get out a calculator and do some research but traditional wrestling has been pretty affordable in terms of entertainment something else that's been incredible and affordable is green chef now i know what you're thinking hey wait a minute I thought you guys were Hello Fresh men.

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green chef the number one meal kit for eating well so listen man there's a lot to unpack about this last week we're talking about the netflix deal and and i want to be clear in saying we're giving the flowers to nick con i mean he clearly deserves a lot of credit he has been the deal maker and and maybe the needle mover behind the scenes i want to just add some context here he joined the crew in 2020 and inside of four years the dude has taken over WWE I'm not saying that in a negative way

I'm saying I just want to give some props when he came along George and Michelle had just seen the door prior leadership to WWE disagreed with the way Vince saw the vision for the network and about a decade ago Vince decided as an innovator and maybe the

uncrowned king of pay-per-view he was getting out of that business the rumor in innuendo is that George and Michelle wanted him to continue on with the network plans but don't include things like WrestleMania, perhaps Royal Rumble, perhaps the SummerSlam event, make those traditional pay-per-views. Vince felt damn the torpedoes, we can grow this thing, but it never quite grew as much as he hoped.

And I think along the way, they probably learned a lot of lessons. As I understand it, they had to spend a small fortune getting things ready by removing things they didn't have licenses to or didn't own trademarks to, which is music and blurring logos and just the back end of uploading all of that database. And then they quickly realized nobody's really watching the old stuff. They're just watching the new stuff. And that department continued to change and evolve.

So Nick Conn comes along and basically sunsets the thing and says, let's do a licensing deal and get guaranteed money from NBC for Peacock. so the network here domestically moves over to peacock we all groaned about it because we had gotten used to the way the network interface worked but they were out of the app game eric and that was once upon a time a big deal because in that pay-per-view era as you recall you get roughly 50% of your pay-per-view dollar so if you as the promoter create this paper-view event you've got your stars and you've got your building and you've got your promotional budget and you got your staff all the costs that it takes to produce this show

if you go out and you successfully find a customer on your television program to give us $40 for that pay-per-view we'll give you $20 of it back. That was the deal Vince was tired of making. He wanted to keep more of that and he thought if we include all the pay-per-views and bring the cost down,

fans would come in droves. It never really happened. But I couldn't help but realize this network deal with Netflix now for Raw that effectively ends the network completely because it doesn't just affect raw domestically but raw internationally and internationally that's where they'll receive all of their pay-per-view

their premium live event content as well this is the end of the network experiment it feels like and that almost feels like a paradigm shift Eric and I want you to give me your two cents on that once upon a time Vince was really building his own thing and he was going to own it I don't only have the content but I have the distribution platform. I keep all the money.

Nick Con has come in and said, hey, let's get out of the merch business and let's get Fanatics to pay us more than we were making on it. Let's get out of the network business and let's get Peacock to pay us more than we were making on it. And now he's done it with Netflix. Let's get rid of Raw on TV and let's get Netflix to pay us more than we were making on it.

The stock market is going to love these decisions. The stock price, the shareholders, have to love. love this decision, but do you think they gave up on the experiment too early with the network, or was it time to put it out of its misery? I think it's one of those half glass full, half glass empty perspectives. I absolutely agree with everything you said. It was 100% accurate. But I'll just add a little bit to that.

I think McMahon going guns blazing. which is his style, right? Just no compromise. We're going to go after it. We're going to have our own network. It may not have lived up to his vision or the vision of others who are involved in it, but it, without a doubt, paved the way for last Monday's announcement. Absolutely paved the way for last Monday's announcement.

And look, things change. Technology evolves. When technologies evolve, opportunities evolve with them, everything changes. And in entertainment, it changes fairly rapidly. So what was true back when Vince McMahon decided to go guns ablazing into his own OTT over the top network, when he decided to throw all eggs in that basket and dispensed with George and Michelle, he may not have been right. in 2024, but he was right when he made that decision

because it has led to what we read about last Monday at this time. It's really crazy to think about, you know, all the things that have changed in WWE, but it seems like Monday Night Raw is changing and maybe the way they approach business is changing too with the new streaming deal. Because I couldn't help but notice in my experience, a lot of wrestling sort of plays follow the leader with WWW.

I mean, you see the game being played at its highest level for the most stakes and the biggest financial rewards there. And everybody follows suit, meaning like Impact rolled out an app after there was a WWE network. It was that's sort of the natural order of things. Do you think AEW or Impact wind up on a streaming service or will they continue to play the television game? I don't know if you remember this. I do for whatever reason but back when

before AEW was announced that it was going to be on TNT originally there was a rumor there was speculation and you and I were doing a show it's been that long now five and a half years

or whatever it was you and I were doing a show and you asked me about AEWNTNT or Turner Networks and my comment at the time I'm paraphrasing myself here because I don't have it memorized,

but it was basically if I were Tony Kahn, this before I ever met Tony or even had an opinion about him and whatever, I said, if I was Tony Kahn and I had his resources, I would be building my own streaming platform. I would put my resources where the business is going. I would now put my resources where the business is dying in television, even five years ago. The handwriting was on the wall.

Streaming is going to become a bigger thing. And bigger it gets, the smaller cable is going to. get. So I hope so. You know, Tony certainly has the resources. I'm not sure where impact is financially or what their goals are. And I don't know where Tony is or what his goals are, but I do know the man has a lot of money. Yeah, he does. And I just for the life of me, can't figure out why his resources and what he has available at his fingertips aren't being used in a way to go where the business is going, not where it's been. It boggles my mind.

I mean, I think ultimately, yeah, like I said, three to five years from, I think almost everything we watch other than a weather channel will be on a streaming platform of one shape or form. I do want to see, you know, as we're talking about this last week, we've talked about the Netflix thing. The other thing hasn't been discussed yet because wrestling, fans oftentimes want to talk about what happens in front of the camera.

The Rock being a board member now with TKO. That board for TKO changed a lot last week because we found out on Monday the Rock was joining the board. We found out on Friday that Vince was out.

Johnson did a whole bunch of media around this and you see I mean even last week this feels like 100 years ago at this point where it's a week go. And there's Vince McMahon standing right by Shapiro and Nick Con and right in front and center. There's the Rock. What'd you make of the Rock's announcement that he was now an official board member, TKO? I guess I wasn't surprised because it just felt it felt authentic and organic. By authentic, I mean, it seemed like the natural course of evolution. Rock has become

in the entertainment industry, one of the biggest names, if not the biggest, in terms of his success in films, television. And when you're putting together a board, you want kind of a best of breed, right? You want the best you can find in various categories that apply to your business model. And for someone like Rock who has had so much success outside of wrestling, but it all started with his success inside of wrestling, his feel. And this is the part that I'm going to, I had a conversation earlier today, and I can't go into it too deep.

And if I sound like I'm dancing around certain things, it's because I am out of respect for conversation of the people in it. But this, everything that we've been talking about up until this moment, solving in WWE, how's this going to affect WWE, how's it going to affect the wrestling business? The decision to bring for Netflix to acquire the rights for Rob, the astronomical number that we've been discussing, not only affects WWE,

it also affects Netflix's other business units. Think about this, five years, 10 years. There was a certain amount of money probably projected that Netflix is going to spend on original movies, original content, right? Five billion of that was taken off the table. Yes. That affects their original content.

There are people that are believing Netflix at some point this year. Their jobs were all about creating original content. Yes. So this deal is so big, and when you think about it from that context, having someone like Rock who is now the face of the company, who has a gigantic footprint in film, less so in television outside of wrestling, but really in film, I think WWE is going to need that next step into mainstream entertainment. And I think having Rock on your board, given his experience, he certainly doesn't have Nick Con experience, he certainly doesn't have Ari Emanuel experience, but Rock brings wrestling experience to the table because Ari Emanuel and Nick Con are brand new at this game. They don't understand the audience.

They can read the research. They can make decisions and have judgment. and opinions based on what others tell them, but they have not been in the trenches. Rock has, as well as having been in the trenches outside of wrestling. So I think Rock is far more valuable than what meets the eye as it relates to that board.

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with a delicious bowl of high protein cereal at magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks. And use the code 83 weeks to save $5 off. We want to thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring the day's episode and putting so much darn protein in our favorite cereals. And you know what, I've kind of gone down this nutritional rabbit hole starting last November right after Thanksgiving. I was always interested in nutrition, have been most of my life, really. Sometimes I was more interested in it than others. But if you look at the nutritional analysis of what's on the back of any box of cereal you're going to pick off the shelf for the grocery store and you spend more more than 10 minutes kind of looking at a little bit of research and how that affects your health,

not only your physical health, but your mental health, emotional health. Sugar wreaks havoc, absolute havoc on your metabolic system. And if I was like, Way J, Waylon here, I mean, I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that that kind of food, that you buy in a grocery store that's nothing but garbage. and processed, I mean, sugar under seven different names so they can hide how much sugar is in this stuff. It is horrible. If you have kids, or in my case, a grandson or a granddaughter, man, encourage them and encourage your kids to encourage them to eat something healthy before you ship them out the door to go to school with a with a sugar rush that they're going to

crash from 45 minutes after they get to school. It's really, really important for the healthy your kids when they're developing, especially at that young age, when they're developing to get the proper nutrition. And I get it, man, we're all busy. We're scrambling. You're going to get to the door. You're going to get to work. Wait for the babysitter who's late. Got to take the dog on to the shit all over the carpet, whatever the case may be. Everybody's in a hurry. Everybody's under pressure. But when it comes to nutrition, man, take the time. Not only for yourself, do it for yourself, but if you've got kids or grandkids like I do, encourage them. You'll be glad you did. You're doing a good thing for them.

all that protein can be yours be sure to check out magic spoon you're going to absolutely love it magic spoon.com be sure to use our promo code okay let's talk about um we know the rock is now a board member and now we need to start figuring out the who what win where why of the last week because as rock comes on the board just a couple of days later the lawsuit goes public I know that names are out there now, but I'm still going to just leave that out. But we know that a victim has come forward, and I believe this is the very first tip off

the Wall Street Journal had during the summer of 2022 where all of this first started to come to light. But now we have much more specific, way, way more specific information than any of us ever expected or imagined. Or wanted. I have to be honest with you, Eric. I've been in a bit of a head funk since Thursday.

You actually sent me a screen grab of something on social media when I was at the airport, boarding my plane to Tampa. I quickly found the court document, downloaded it to my phone, and read it on the flight to Tampa. And every page I read, it seemingly got worse and worse. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that. And I've really had a hard time sort of wrapping my head around it and reconciling my fandom and everything this affects in the entire space. I'm really struggling to find the words, Eric.

I am too. And it's one of the reasons why, just to be honest with our audience, I had a difficult time yesterday. We sat down to record this podcast and I just, I felt like a blithering idiot because I couldn't find the words to articulate or express how I was truly feeling because I didn't know how I was feeling. It was nauseous, not physically, but I felt like I should be nauseous.

Let's put it that way. It's still difficult. And I think for me and I've been able to kind of think through it knowing we were going to do this show again, today it's like, all right, you've got to be able to share how you feel about this. And I think here's the best I can come up with, man. at the core of this story the very core of the story

and it was included in some of the information that I sent you which was the court documents in the complaint it wasn't anything you know anybody else didn't have no it's evil and even that word doesn't really do it justice but it's just sick

and I mean mentally emotionally sick and evil and the victim because I know all the haters are going to oh but he didn't he didn't say enough about her I can't imagine what she's going to go through for the rest of her life I'll pray for her that she finds the right spiritual guidance and mental health guidance because this is never going to leave her. She will be carrying this memory around for the rest of her life.

And I can't imagine that. I can't even try to imagine it because self-preservation kicks in and I force myself to stop thinking about it. And I feel so bad for the people that are innocent because this is just such a dark cloud over everything that's at WWE right now. Yeah.

Now, I do believe that that's going to change, not sooner than later, it's going to change, but it's going to take time. But there are so many innocent people that are affected by this. and at the epicenter, obviously friends and family members, like close friends, close family members of the victims as well as the McMan's. I mean, I'm friends with Shane. I think of Stephanie in a very high regard right now. And Linda McMahon.

I mean, these are people that I've met and have worked with. and I've seen how they've treated others. And this is, they're having to bear this as well. I just, and the people that work there, there are so many people that we know, both of us know, they're there that are working hard every day, that are good family people, honest people, contribute to society, help others,

being really good people that I know there personally and they're affected by this. I think into your point a little earlier, you've had a hard time reconciling your fandom and how you feel about the company and how do you feel about being a wrestling fan at this point? I feel the same way. I mean, I've had thoughts cross my mind

of like maybe it's just time for me to walk away from all this. Maybe it's gotten to the point where I just don't want to be associated with it anymore. Now, fortunately, I know myself well enough to know that that's a fleeting moment. It's just kind of like the state of shock, I guess, so that I'm in and wondering about some of the people that I know and love that work there and wondering how they're dealing with it. I don't want to call them and ask them. I haven't talked to Bruce.

I want to. We should change a few texts. But they're processing right now. they're hopefully they're with the people that are closest to them and they'll get through this too we're all going to get through this when i say we all i mean wrestling fans and you and i and trying to reconcile how we feel about all this we're all going to get through it just fine w wb is big enough and strong enough it will survive this not easily not without incurring some pain not without some serious issues that look let's be honest this is not this is not

the end of this story. This story will continue to evolve. We don't know how much. We don't know if there'll be other people coming out of the woodwork as a result of this. There's just a lot we don't know. We can't predict. The only thing I would say is I doubt

that it's going to go away soon. And hopefully, once again, I'm wrong. I'd love for it to just go away. I'd love for the victim to take a big check and pursue what's best for her and her mental and emotional and spiritual health. That's what I would hope would happen, but I don't believe it will, unfortunately.

And if it goes so far, if there isn't a settlement, because this is at this point a civil case, which means there's a chance that there will be a settlement long before there's a trial. But if it goes to trial, or even if it goes into the deposition phase before a trial, it's just going to be brutal and when it's all over we're all going to get through it

and we'll be talking about next year's WrestleMania and the WrestleMania after that all that good stuff and I think people will will get past it but damn unbelievable it is unbelievable I um I think uh I think it's important that we say now If you're listening to this and this is something that you are dealing with or struggling with or you have had similar circumstances in your life, I want you to know that there is help out there. Our friend Mick Foley has done a lot of volunteer work and raised a lot of awareness for a great organization called rain. So if you're a victim of sexual abuse or dealing with some of that trauma, you have someone to talk to. the number is 1-800-656-5-6-5-6-4-6-7-3 or check out online at r-a-in-n-n-n-n-r.org.

This young woman had a really rough go of it, man, and, you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't say that there had been rumors and whispers for years and years. But I have to be honest, I always just sort of chalked that up to like you would hear a professional athlete who maybe was unfaithful on the road sort of thing. And I know there's been a lot of talk about that in the wrestling business, but I reconciled it in my mind at the time, hey, well, cheating's not a crime, but goodness gracious, what we read, not only criminal, but vile and horrific and beyond the scope of anything that I think most of us could have ever imagined.

I mean, if you read Vince's Playboy interview, you know his attitude. towards some of this, that was revealed 20 years ago. And he's had that other lawsuit hanging around for like 40 years ago that I guess settled last year. And we know that there was over $12 million where he made settlement. So it would be silly for us to say that this is the only issue. Where did the rest of this money go? She only got a million.

And I guess she's suing because she didn't get the rest of her three. million as and now you got to think that she's going to receive some punitive damages if this goes to a jury or whatever but she's probably going to be getting a lot more than two more million at this point uh but more importantly i think you hit on something there it's all the other people that are being that have been affected not necessarily just other victims in the traditional sense of the word not diminishing what their experience was at all i'm glad that this victim i'm not going to say their name, but she brought it forward. It was very brave for her to not only have this filed publicly and not withhold her

name, but also go ahead and share all the details. And it set a precedent because a lot of times when a lawsuit like this comes out, they don't, they don't issue so many, quite so many details. But we saw that happen with P. Diddy a few months ago, and that thing was settled very quickly. I don't know if that's what this will wind up being. There are a lot of other people that were affected in a negative way. I can't imagine having my grandkids read that about me.

But Vincent Mann's a grandfather. You know, both Stephanie and Shane have children. And they're going to read that. And his wife's going to read that. And his daughter's going to read that. And this is a guy who was a billionaire. And at some point, you have enough money where you don't have to worry about running out. You can do what you want every day until you die sort of thing.

Vince has been there for a long time. I got to think part of the reason he stayed in the game so long as he liked the action and he liked working, but he was trying to build some sort of a legacy. And I think we both know how he feels about his dad and his grandfather. And man, I don't know a way that the McMahon name can't sort of be whitewashed as much as you can from WWE history now because that's what should happen. But this is just an ending I don't think any of us could have ever predicted. no no and you're right that's that when i you know i was talking earlier about the innocent people i was speaking specifically immediate family stephanie shane the grandkids who i think i've met them but very very briefly uh paul and stephanie's kids

but i mean they're going to go to school what is Shane's son is a freshman i think in college? Yeah, he's in college, yeah. He's going to show up at, he's, he had to show up to school knowing that everybody has read, or most have read about his grandfather. How do he react to that? How does a young man, how does a young man react to that? And the daughters or the granddaughters, it's like the name McMahon, I think, you know, he's going to be right there with Chris Benoit in the minds of a lot of people. It'll be a name not to be mentioned the way things look at this point. And look, I was, I fought with Vest. I battled with him. I did everything I could to undermine him. But at the end of it all, I respected the guy that

beat my ass, because that's what fighters do. If somebody, he's good enough to beat me at something, you've got to respect their abilities. And even for me, this is difficult. I can't even imagine what it's like for the kids and grandkids. It's just disgusting. And the name, you talked about it, man, you go into Vince's office and he's got a picture of his dad and his grandfather and newspaper articles from, you know, things that his father accomplished, his grandfather accomplished, gone, dark closet, sticking in a box and hide

it. Nobody wants to be reminded anymore. I mean, was it just today? They wiped him off. They wiped Vince McMahon off the WWE and TKO corporate website. He's, he didn't exist starting today. And that's not going to change. Nobody's going to change your mind. Harvey Weinstein's not going to get an award for anything. You know what I mean? He's done. I mean, nobody wants to be seen having dinner with Harvey Weinstein, whenever that happens,

if it ever happens. And that's the same fate. But it was self-inflicted. It was self-inflicted. Nobody did it to him. Brett, remember Brett screwed Brett? Well, Vince, screwed Brett, Vince.

Just, whew. it's unbelievable i don't even want to say that that's how bad it is it's all uncomfortable and awkward and i guess we should just be honest we uh you and i are out of our comfort zone talking about sexual abuse we're used to getting on here and making fun of brutus the barber beefcake and honky talk man this is not yeah let's get back to that come on please but i feel like you know we need to have the conversation because it is going to have a lot of implications I mean, I'm not, I'm not borrowing trouble here or wishing for the worst, but I am trying to be realistic. Never have I ever seen the word traffic used in a civil lawsuit.

Never have I ever heard about the feds raiding someone's house for a civil lawsuit. I'm saying all that to say, that's all been acknowledged that the feds went to Vince's house looking for stuff. And the word traffic being used here and the details within make me wonder if this is the first of multiple shoes to drop. Along the way, there's a lot of collateral damage with real people, with real families. Unfortunately, Johnny Laurinitis is detailed as doing some awful things. He got the hatchet immediately when this rumor first popped up back in the summer of 2022. The details were withheld, but Vince was still brought back.

Johnny was shown the door. And all of that is now going to be investigated. As a reminder, Charlie Lorinitis's wife has had some health challenges and now she's reading this. And when you think about how tied in he and his family are to pro wrestling, whether it's by marriage or by blood, it's just not good for wrestling and awful for the Laurenitis family, specifically his wife. well this is and again i want to kind of get off how horrible this is because it's just the more we talk about it the worse i feel but on the business side of things where are we going to get a good look at what r a manuel is all about and nick con it's one thing to go out and do deals massive deals

it's another thing to take over a company in the worst crisis of probably any crisis management team in Los Angeles or New York has ever had to deal with this is right up there this is this is worse

than Harvey Weinstein's in many respects I don't even know how you can judge it I guess that was a stupid thing for me to say so I wish I could take it back but I won't or I can't But two years ago or three years ago, whatever it was, Ari Emanuel would have probably chuckled at the idea

that he was going to be in a wrestling business someday. No doubt. Nick Kahn probably didn't have any idea six or seven or eight years ago when he was rocking and rolling in Hollywood that he would be who he is today in the wrestling business. These people are new to the game. Yes. And oh, by the way,

look what we just inherited. So we're going to find out what they're all about. I suspected things. Like I said earlier, I think we're going to get through it all. Oh, there's no doubt. WWE will be fine. But the question is, where do the ramifications in? I mean, first of all, I hope that if there are other stories that need to be told

and other bad actors that need to be shown the door, that they're all shown the door. Like, we know for sure Johnny Ace is never doing anything in wrestling ever again. And it feels, I feel pretty good about saying that Brock Lesnar probably won't be back in WWE ever again either. And for years and years, unfortunately, Brock Lesner was able to have sort of something in his back pocket. He could always tease that he's going to leave Vince and go back to the UFC or even rumors about that a few months ago that he was going to be a part of UFC 300. Turns out they're both owned by the same company now, TKO. So this is probably the end for Brock Lesnar as being a public person if I had to guess. And we know he didn't really

like being a public person anyway so he's probably okay with that but the idea that hey oh by the way he's married too and there's a lot of collateral damage here and has a daughter and has a daughter who's young in college yes starting to get attention for herself because she's an extraordinary athlete yes and you have to think about these if you're a parent you that's the first thing that comes to your mind it's not what's going to happen to me is what's going to happen to them yes and i'm sure brocky's no different so yeah it's the other thing that we should

talk about honky talk man instead I do want to talk about honky talk man but I do want to ask your opinion about this CNN article this has been published since you and I were getting ready to record today but the headline is the WVE new Vince McMahon was a liability

so why did it bring him back after a scandalous departure and this is on CNN there's going to be a lot of discussion here Eric, and a lot of people are going to want to know who knew what, when, where, and why. And they're probably going to have to explain why if this is the same story and Johnny Ace was shown the door in the summer of 2022, while Vince wasn't, I don't, I'm, this makes you think there might be more beneath the surface than what we've actually seen.

Because I, being a delusional optimist, is what Jeff Jarrett calls me, when I first read this lawsuit all 67 pages. I wanted to think and believe, thank goodness that this story is out there and he can't do it to anybody else. And hopefully this was the only time. And then it's like, wait, that was just one million of the more than a dozen million that were paid out that we know about. So I hope that that WWE and Ari Emanuel and because I don't think that's a secret. Ari Emanuel's daughter was an executive assistant for the WWE. And And I want you to process this because I know there's a lot of really smart wrestling fans who started to connect the dots and have opinions on social media.

But do you think for a minute, Eric, that Ari Emanuel knew this was going on and would send his daughter in there? There's no fucking chance. There's no chance of that. I don't know, Ari, but no dad knows this is going down and says, got you a sweet gig. You start Monday. There's no way, right? Do you know who she worked for?

I was under the impression that she was what's called an executive assistant for Bruce Pritchard. Well, we do know that I think in one of their SEC filings back in November, it was acknowledged that towards the end of any, I guess, publication about your quarterly or wherever you're at, financial, any kind of public information regarding a public company's financial statement. You make a list of the risks that you know are out there that could materially affect the company's performance. And the ongoing investigation by the SEC and probably the feds as well was acknowledged. So there's no question that they knew. It's just what did they know? That's going to be what everybody's going to be talking about. Who knew what? Who knew? Who knew?

what and when that's going to be the game do you think that the rock is going to be um the sheikhiel o'neal to their papa johns here yeah you brought that up yesterday in our failed attempt to get this show done that was i think a good a good analysis that's part of it i i there's part of it obviously we're not on the board we weren't involved in the discussions or decisions or the rationale behind doing it. But if it wasn't a consideration, it should have been. And boy, did they get lucky. But I'm pretty sure it was a part of this overall.

Because I think they, look, they knew something was going to, they had to publicly acknowledge it back in November and quarterly filing. So we know that they knew something could happen. But knowing something could happen and then seeing the details in front of your face, that's a whole different matter, a whole different matter. Russell Ops tweeted something out from, it was a quote from our pal Mike Johnson.

He says, as one source noted, if anyone believes for a second that Endeavor owner Ari Emanuel wanted to discover the type of allegations brought forth in the lawsuit, not just about a company he purchased, but a company that has been employing

his own daughter at WWH for several years, they quote unquote, don't know Emmanuel, and they don't understand how ferociously he will eradicate anything that needs to be taken care of to protect his businesses. The same source noted that if Emmanuel was willing to walk away from Saudi Arabia investments years ago, without blinking an eye, he'll have no problem removing anything and anyone still remaining that could potentially hurt

or impact WWE's business going forward. So pretty strong. That's pretty strong statement there. There was another report from Sportico that we should throw up here on our YouTube as well. If the lawsuit advances, pre-trial discovery could expose W.W.E. leaders and former leaders to damaging revelations via testimony and publication of old emails and such. As you see, we've redacted a name there. I just don't really want to do that. I want to explain that if that's all right. And then I would love to have you speak on those two posts. But the reason I've been cautious about saying the victim's name is I don't want that name to become,

a punch line or something that's thrown around. I know that we as a society and America, we're all trying to get better and evolve and do better. But 25 years ago, people were really comfortable making Monica Lewinsky jokes. It wasn't cool then and it's not cool now. And I want to make sure that we don't try to get into that as an internet wrestling community where that just becomes a word we use.

Anyway, I would love to hear what you think about both of those reports about Ari and maybe there might be a further investigation. Well, I certainly, I've never met Ari Emanuel. I don't know anything about him other than what I've read about him and what I've been told about him from people who have worked with him and are somewhat close to him. Frightening. Frightening, I think if there's, yeah, frightening is the word.

He's very aggressive. I mean, you go back and look at some of the stuff if you feel like you need to. Go back and look at some of the stuff that he wrote about Harvey Weinstein and the position he's taken on others who were somewhat associated, even remotely associated with Harvey Weinstein.

He's a beast. He's probably in some ways even more so than Vince McMahon was when it came to business. you know, the Tyrannosaurus rex, you know, skeleton head on his wall and all that shit. Yeah, he's a, he's a true carnivore when it comes to business. So I would assume that that is a true statement, probably from someone who is reasonably close to him or knows of him better than I do. The deposition thing, that's the part where, and that's why things settle, because everybody knows,

That is a bloodbath. I mean, I've been involved in a couple. During the trademark lawsuit between Turner and WWE, I sat right across the table from Jerry McDivitt for days, not all at once, but over the course of the trial, days, he's a beast, it's an animal, but a lot of that deposition was structured in a way to make me uncomfortable. to make Turner legal uncomfortable,

to create doubt in insecurity on the Turner side in order to get them to do what Jerry McDivitt ultimately did, which was to get him to settle. Because it was so uncomfortable and so ugly that nobody wanted to be a part of that. Ted Turner didn't want to be sitting in a deposition or God forbid if it went to trial sitting on a witness stand. Nobody did.

Not that they did anything wrong, but just nobody wants to deal with it. And in a case like this, we're not talking about a trademark lawsuit or copyright infringement. This is an entirely different animal. Nobody wants to be sitting in that deposition. And everybody knows what's coming if it gets to a deposition phase. I hope it doesn't just because I want to, and this is selfish, I guess. I just want this to be settled and go away and for the victim to find the help she needs

to get through the rest of your life as best she can and for people within WWE to get back to being proud of the company they work for and that's going to be a challenge. That's going to take time. But once all this dust settles and the chatter and the dirt sheet, they melts her bullshit, once it all kind of settles down

because we've gone on to some other big piece of news or some other star that has fallen, so to speak. Maybe then, people will start to get back to their normal course of life. But I just wanted to go away. And I would imagine there's a lot of people hoping that too on the WWE side, on the TKO side. Have we heard from Dana White yet?

No. Dana has not made a comment. That'll be interested. I'm sure he'll be asked after the day. next UFC. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be asked. But listen, I hope for one that we get rid of whatever bad actors they are and that we can write whatever wrongs there still are.

And more importantly, that families try to find a way to pull together and pull through this side, pull through this thing stronger on the other side. But these stories, you know, I mean, we know that there's millions of other dollars attached to other stories. We think one of those stories is Reader Chatterton's story, and J.J. Dillon wrote about that in his book way back in 2005. Around that same time, the WWF's first female referee, Reader Chatterton, came forward with a story about being raped by Vince

in the backseat of his limousine. The case was either dismissed or, for lack of evidence, or settled out of court. Everybody was trying to sort through all the allegations, the comments, and the rumors. What was the truth? What wasn't the truth? They all seemed to be pieces of a pie. When you put the pieces together as a whole,

the pie gave off a pretty bad stench. After a while, there were so many stories you began to think there has to be some degree of substance to these stories. That was in a book J.J. Dillon wrote in 2005. This is for better or worse,

the end of Vince McMahon as a public person. I mean, this has got to be the end of him in WWE and the wrestling business. I mean, he's the definition right now of toxic, fair to say. Radioactive, brother, he glows in the dark and will for a long time. I don't know that he'll ever stop glowing in the dark after he's dead and gone if that ever happens

because I do believe he's going to be like the cockroaches and he'll be around long after I am more than likely. Or maybe not. This could take a real toll on him too. I mean, his guys, he's got to be human. At some point, there's got to be that human being part of him that wakes up and realizes is what he's become. But right now,

do you think anybody in the television business wants to be a business with Vince McMahon? I don't think so. Do you think there are any advertisers out there? Look what happened with Slim Jim. Saturday night. We were sitting there in Tampa,

having a great time. Get a text. Oh, Slim Jim's withholding their sponsorship, no longer participating pending, you know, investigation or whatever. They were going to monitor the situation. That's what it was. We're going to monitor the situation.

this situation. Vince McMahon resigns Slim Jim's back in within moments. Do you think Slim Jim's unique? There's just, there's nowhere, there's nowhere for Vince to go inside of the television industry. Randy Savage's revenge. Uh, yeah, brother. Tell me I'm too old, wrestle. Uh, let's, let's, let's talk about, listen, we've talked about all the dark stuff that, that we need to talk about today. Uh, once again, we want to say that, you know, we're standing with the victim, we want her to be made whole as much as we can and her justice served and it finishes exactly how she wants, because goodness gracious, what a tale she has to tell.

But we should follow up with a little bit of wrestling talk. We started the show talking about how punk was injured and he's going to be out and that brought in the question, what the heck do we do with Seth Rollins? A lot of people were saying, well, hey, let's put him with Gunther because Gunther was supposed to be with Brock, and clearly Brock is unavailable for WrestleMania now. So now that leads a lot of other people wondering, well, where does that leave everybody else?

And one of my questions I had coming out of the Rumble was, what are they going to do with Brian Breaker, the son of your old pal, Rick Steiner, making his main roster debut, having an excellent showing, seemingly, according to the rumor and innuendo, just sliding into Brock's spot. And it made me wonder, hey, if Brock was going to be the guy to take on Gunther at WrestleMania, could this be an opportunity for Braun Breaker to take on Gunther? Gunther is now the longest reigning intercontinental champion in history. It clearly feels like he's ready to level up.

He's been challenging CN Punk or Seth Rollins, rather, for that world title in promo battles and such on Raw. Do you think they could go with that? I mean, you want to talk about a star making appearance. Ron Breaker has a great showing at the Rumble. calls his shot or earns a shot against Gunther and then he's now the guy to end Gunther's Intercontinental Title streak, that'd be a heck of a way to go to make a big splash for Braun, no? And how long has how long has Bronn been in the in NXT now?

It's been about four years. He's been there a few years. Yeah. Yeah. And he's been patient. He's been working. He's been getting better at his craft. We've seen little glimpse of of him here and there. But you talk about a great way to show up on a scene and make a splash. It's saying, you know, every time one door closes, another one opens, well, the Brock Lesnar door may be slammed shut forever, but certainly another door opened up for Braun, and I wish him nothing but the best, nothing but the best, man.

So I say I'm proud of it. It's like I had anything to do with anything, and I didn't. You know, I just remember him when he was a little kid, and I remember the good times I've had with his father and going off to the Yukon hunting elk and moose in the middle of nowhere, half freezing to death. I remember all that

and to see his son, Ron, now getting this opportunity under whatever circumstances. Happy for him, man. I think next month will be his three year anniversary with WWE. So three years in, having a big showing at the Rumble,

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a big showing for him at WrestleMania. So proud of him, just 26 years old. We should also talk about Roman Reigns because it was clear after Cody won. He wants Roman reins. He was pointing to Roman.

Everybody's been saying it's going to be the night to WrestleMania main event. And here's a great quote from Michael Cole during the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. We'd love to hear the discussion from WWE fans about, well, Roman Raines doesn't defend every week. Roman Raines only defends the title every couple of months.

Well, here's what I say about that. Beat him. At the end of the day, say what you want, complain about it. It doesn't matter because Roman Raines record setting 1,245 days as WWE champion continues. I thought this was a great in character, N.K. Fabe, in storyline, explanation to answer those critics that he's not defending the title that often. They've built Roman Raines to be the high watermark. in wwe if you were a betting man would you think cody takes it on night two at russomania or will there be a three-way dance or some sort of twist involving the rock

i hope it's not a three-way dance and i hope cody ends the story and this is just me as a human being and not me as a former wrestling executive the human being of me that part of me I want it to be Cody's so bad because I need that breath of fresh air and that shot of sunlight. I need a great, I need a great ending to a great story, something that makes me feel good about being a wrestling fan. And Cody's story should make everybody feel good about being a wrestling fan if he's able to overcome Roman. And what Cody has gone through physically, emotionally, mentally, mentally, the roller coaster ride, the cup of coffee he had an AEW. It's longer than a cup of coffee.

It didn't mean that deriscibly. But the period of time that he spent in AEW, and I'm sure it had to be a disappointing situation when it came time for Cody to make the decision to do what's best for him and his family, that had to be a horribly, tough decision to make. Beyond just the money, forget about the money, just the change and course of direction and all the motions that went with it.

And then he comes back and he blows his peck out and goes to work and digs in, focused, never lost sight, never, never let anybody see him do anything but smile and represent WWE in the best possible way possible. I don't think anybody could have done a better job representing WWE as a talent than Cody Rose did. I want to feel that way for a while. And I don't think there's anybody. Look, rock is rock.

He's in a different world. Roman has done, Roman's done so much. If you go back and you look at his journey going back to whatever it was, 2016, 2017, and what Vince tried to do with him, and it didn't work, and we stuck it out. And now you look at where he's, and what he's overcome personally with leukemia. I mean, it's all the story is there. Let's end it on a bright note.

bask in the sun for a little bit and feel good about being a wrestling fan. I think Cody can do that. Let's feel good about being a wrestling fan. I knew we were going to be covering some less than awesome stuff and some dark stuff. So I wanted to push it to the end. But I want us to close on a high note because we are going to bring this episode to a close. We'll be back next week. I'm sure there will be more news to unfold between now and then.

Somehow I just know it. But let's end on a high note because Royal Royal Rumble was a big day. for a lot of people. It was a big day for Cody Rhodes. It was a big day for Bailey. It was a big day for Jake Cargill. Big day for Braun Breaker. But it was also a big deal for a young man

who was granted a very special wish by our tribal chief. Let's roll that footage, Eric. I don't think you've probably seen this. I can't wait for you, too, though. How great is that? Allowing the tribal, a make-a-wish young person to escort the tribal chief at the Royal Rumble.

And that's what WWE is supposed to be about. I mean, that's what it really is. And I know that I've had a hard time since Thursday getting my head around my fandom and wrapping my head around all the bad stuff. But I see something like that, and it's like, oh yeah that's what it's about right eric that is what it's about and there are so many great people at w we and roman raises one of them and the people that made that possible are great people

and thanks i needed that i did we needed it too we greatly appreciate you guys uh being there to support us we know we sounded a little different eric's on location uh we know we're a little later. This was a tough topic to talk about, and it was a scheduling nightmare with me traveling and him being out of town. But we really appreciate what you guys do for us and supporting us on this show. And I know with the benefit of hindsight, we'll look back and say, we should have did this a little differently on this show or could have did that a little differently on this show. But we are so out of our depth talking about things like this. We're used to silly grab-ass stuff. And I want to get back to that as soon as possible. But I felt like to not address it would not

be authentic and not, I mean, we're all sort of going through this together. So that's what we wanted to do today. And I hope we did as good of a job as we could, Eric. I do too. And thank you for your patience. I know, you know, we struggled through this yesterday and it was largely my fault. No, it was my fault too. We're both uncomfortable. I could not find my groove. I found myself repeating the same things over and over again because I just couldn't find the way to articulate. So I appreciate your patience and Dave Silva's patience. No, of course. And we hope you guys dug what we did and we'll be back next week hopefully talking a little more wrestling and a little less legal stuff uh get in on the action ask us a question we'd love to hear

from me right now it's at 83 weeks on twitter instagram or facebook or anywhere you enjoy social media we are at 83 weeks he's pretty active on twitter as well at e bischoff you can find him on ig over at the real eric bischoff if you'd like to advertise on our show that's easy too you can check us out at advertise with eric.com we've got a lot of new great swag and fun merch available for you as well. It's all over at 83 weeksmerch.com. You can pick up the brand new Cody is the guy t-shirt. I'm an Eric Bischoff guy.

I'm an Eric Bischoff gal. Lots of fun stuff. We want you to check it out 83 weeksmerch.com. And somehow, some way, we will endeavor to persevere, Eric. Yes, we will. And we will survive.

And we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bischoff. Ryan says, hi, Conrad. Am I too old at 49 to be a first-time home buyer? I'm so tired of being a renter, but I'm afraid I may not qualify for a home loan. Ryan, come on now, boy, you know me. You got a friend of the mortgage business. What are you talking about? Hit me up. 884250105, slide my DM, shoot me an email, Conrad at savewithconrad.com. Bring that shit on. Yes, you can buy a house. You're not too old at 49 or 59.

You know, the best time to buy a house was 29 years ago. The second best time is right now. Like, seriously, I know you can do this. I would say this to you, Ryan. Finish this sentence for me. I want my new house payment to be no more than blank. You tell me what you want your house payment to be. We'll work backwards.

We'll get you the payment you want for the house you want. That's how we do it. But the first step is to just figure out where you are right now. I had a conversation with somebody that told me that they didn't think they would qualify. And I said, hey, I got you. Here's what we need to do. Let's see where you are right now. And they were adamant.

Well, I've got poor credit. Hey, don't worry about that. Let's see where you are right now. And then you can tell me where you want to be. And I'll give you the steps to work backwards and make it happen. And that's what we did. And we can do it for you too. Seriously, it's that simple.

Savewithconrad.com. Or just email me directly. Conrad at savewithconrad. com let's do an application let's take a look at where you are right now tell us exactly what you're looking for and we'll give you a real plan i want to remind you i've been doing this since the invasion angle that's how long i've been doing this that horses started in july of o one i started doing mortgages in uh august of oh one so i've been doing this since the invasion angle and i will not I f*** it up more than Vince did that.

How's that? Save with conrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple Podcasts or your regular podcast app. How easy is that?

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