83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 309: SuperBrawl IV

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss the aftermath of a wild week in professional wrestling. From the buzz of the WrestleMania Kickoff, to the slap felt across the WWE Universe, the guys have it covered. Plus, Eric and Conrad react to the release of TNA president Scott D'Amore, Sting and Darby Allin's AEW tag title win, and the announcement of Big Business. All that plus, Eric and Conrad take a deep dive into the development and build up to SuperBrawl IV. NOTE: SuperBrawl discussion begins at 1:26:00 BABBEL - Here's a special, (limited time) deal for our listeners. Right now get 50% off a ONE-TIME PAYMENT FOR A LIFETIME Babbel subscription - but only for our listeners - at Babbel.com/WEEKS. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS 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 Fish Off, Eric. What's going on, man? How are you? Blessed. No better way to say it, man. Looking forward to the day. Looking forward to the Super Bowl tonight. Looking forward to doing this show.

I've been on a kind of a 83 weeks high ever since we did our. our YouTube show and still riding it, brother, still riding it. If you haven't already, go make it a point to not only hit the subscribe button, but turn on the notifications bell for 83 weeks on YouTube.com. You know, since the beginning of this show, way back when, Eric and I have always just sort of focused on the podcast feed, as we call it, the RSS, but we are going to make YouTube a bigger priority. We started that this past week for the WrestleMania kickoff press conference

We did like a pregame show. Actually, I guess, streamed during the entire press conference and ended a postgame show. We had a live correspondent there who could check in with us afterwards. We were taking lots of fan questions. So you get to be live with us and interact and ask Eric questions. And we're going to be jumping on anytime there is some major news or maybe a major pay-per-view. But it is going to become a more regular occurrence. So if you haven't already, check us out on YouTube.

That's 83 weeks on YouTube.com. Doesn't get any easier than that. Just type that in your browser, 83 weeks on YouTube.com. That'll take you right to our channel and you want to be sure to do two things. One, hit the subscribe button and two, turn on the notifications bell. That way you'll know when we're going live and you won't miss it. But man, there was a lot to miss this last week. Goodness gracious.

There's so many news and notes. We're going to try to get to some of that. And then we're going to try to do our regularly scheduled programming, you know, the original OG idea of this podcast. was to be a nostalgia podcast and be your fun escape. But lately, Eric, the news has just dictated that we had to cover what everyone was talking about. And then everybody was talking about the press conference this past week with the benefit of hindsight. What did you think about that now?

There's so much news going on. And I, you know, you and I and Dave were talking about this before we started recording this morning. This is a nostalgia podcast. We love going back and talking about the early 90s, the mid-90s, particularly the Monday Night War and all of the things, more importantly, I think, that went into creating that war on the changes in the industry that they were really responsible for helping to create such a heightened awareness of professional wrestling and really contributed to the growth that we see today. But there is so much news relating to the business of the wrestling business. And while we cover it, obviously I'm strictly business. I do it every Thursday with John Elba. There is so much going on that I think it serves our audience, really,

to kind of break down what's happening today and then look back to the Monday Night War era. Look back to pre-Mundonite War era and look at the situations that are relevant in some respects, what we're seeing today because there are parallels there and i really enjoy talking about those parallels so why we will touch on when we won't touch on we're going to take a deep dive we're going to be talking about super world back in 1993 and in situation with vader and flare and dusty roads we're going to be covering all that on this episode but i think we would be remiss and not serving our area audience those people that follow us and listen to us regularly and have for the last five and a half years because I think we can present a different perspective than what you're going to hear in the internet wrestling community or newsletters, dirt sheets with respect to Dave Meltzer.

We're going to cover all of that. So be patient with us. We're going to look for the positive aspects of what's going on, but we're not going to shy away from some of the news that could be considered more negative. we're not going to spend two hours talking about it. So strap in, take out your notepad, because we're going to do a deep dive. Before we talk about Superbrawl, I do want to ask, you know, you've had a few days to digest what happened at the Super Bowl or the Super Bowl week, I suppose, WrestleMania kickoff.

And it was a press conference that's unlike any other press conference I've ever seen. There was no podium or no tables. There weren't rows of constituents. it was a show. It was a spectacle. And I think what we saw was a great pivot. And I think all the evidence is there that it was a pivot. Dave Meltzer even wrote about this in the Observer.

And he says, we've been told, as have most insiders, many things that contradict each other. So the absolute truth is pretty much impossible to decipher. I don't know about that. But he does go on to say that Dwayne Johnson signed this deal with Ari Emanuel and Nick Kahn on January, 3rd, and not just be on the board of directors, but to go ahead and headline this year's WrestleMania.

And when that board announcement was made, man, he was doing all kinds of media with ESPN and other places talking about this being the biggest WrestleMania in history. It felt like that was the decision. And you even saw Cody say, not at WrestleMania. Looked like there was a fan backlash and they pivoted. and man, I thought they made some delicious lemonade with what we saw. You've had a few days to sort of process at all. We were reacting in real time over on YouTube.

Now that you've had a chance to sit with it for a minute and maybe you saw Triple H's promo to open up Smackdown this past Friday, what do you think about what we saw on Thursday in Las Vegas? You know, I've really got, I really have two perspectives. I agree with you. I think what we saw at that press conference, I have a hard time even calling it a press conference because it really wasn't one.

But at the event that we saw and covered live, without a question, a pivot. Because if you go back and you look at Cody's promo from SmackDown, you look at what happened on the following Monday, to me at least as a viewer and somebody who is outside of the, inner sanctum of creative and creative strategies, I firmly believe that they meeting rock and company were ready to move with Rock and Roman and perhaps look Cody for the rest of his story at a later PLE,

Tribune Live event, whether it be SummerSlam or whatever. I think that was the plan. and then to your point, and I think anybody that's paying any attention at all, we saw a massive backlash from the audience. And I think what we saw on the press conference was a reaction to that. And like you, I believe that they definitely made lemonade out of lemons.

It was a great move. It worked. There's so much controversy. There's so much investment. There's so much investment by the audience. into Cody Rhodes and his story. I'm going to talk a lot about story on this episode, even as it relates to AEW and we saw this past week,

Sting and Darby Allen and Bill and that. We're going to talk about that. But I think they made the right, I think they being WWE made the right move. Yeah. I think it's going, there's more for me at least. And perhaps it's because I'm much more involved as it relates to covering

what's going on and paying closer attention to what's going on that I normally would have. But to me, there just seems to be such a heightened interest and passion for WrestleMania and for Cody's story. And now with Rock involved, it only increases it. And I think the controversy, even though I believe creatively, strategically, they fumbled the ball with Rock and the announcement with Roman Raines and Cody giving up his opportunity. Because there's no reason for Cody to to do what he did that Friday night on SmackDown and give up, or whatever it was, Monday, to give up his opportunity to finish his story, something that he is personally in real life, which is why the audience is connecting to that story so much,

because this isn't just a well-crafted, scripted story. There is so much reality and authenticity in Cody Rhodes and his quest, his mission, his goal, the audience has become invested in it. I think their reaction to what we saw, fire to the press conference on SmackDown and Raw leading up to it, it became too obvious to those involved in creative, to ignore. It's kind of like the social media has finally reached that point

where there is a decentralization, if you will, a power. Wow. And, and, and, and, W.W.E, like so many other forms of entertainment, are beginning to react to it. Right. As I think under Vince McMan, we've seen this a million times.

And Vince was on top of all creative. It was, ah, damn the audience. They'll like what I want them to like. That's right. That attitude was pretty pervasive coming out of WWE for a long time. It's one of the reasons I think that, and you could argue that this was good and bad, I guess, but you can argue that Vince's, for lack of a better term, stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to the audience. It was one of the reasons that Roman reigns is closing in on a thousand, whatever it is, victories or a thousand days as champion or whatever.

Vince stuck with Roman when the audience didn't. And perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps not. But I think where we are today, you have a different, you have different leadership that has a different perspective. And I think the social media backlash and a decentralization of power, if you will, forced WWE to go in a different direction. Correct course, really. And I'm happy to see it, man. Happy to see it. Yeah, I think they're super serving their audience.

know, they are willing to listen to the audience. And, you know, as long as, you know, we've seen what Brian Gerwitz has done in WWE, I mean, he's hit home run after home run after home run. You've even said on this program that perhaps the most memorable piece of business you ever did in WWE was the Billy and Chuck Wedding and the big reveal that you were the minister and the three-minute warning thing. and that was all Brian's idea. And so, you know, Brian is back involved here.

Obviously, he's Rock's right-hand man. And I just thought, listen, they did about as good of a job as you could have imagined. And it left a lot of questions. As you and I pointed out on the live broadcast over on YouTube, there were 16 televisions between then and the pay-per-view, WrestleMania. So you've also got, oh, that other premium live event down in Perth. And let's not forget, WrestleMania, unlike many years ago, is a two-night affair.

So they've really got 17 opportunities. As you and I record that, one SmackDown is down, and we saw that Triple H came out and was pretty pointed towards the Rock, and that makes me think, man, they can tell a hell of a story here because a lot of people are ready to see, you know, Rock have some interaction with Triple H.

That was teased several years ago in WrestleMania out in California. and it didn't really go anywhere. But it looked like maybe, possibly at the time, it might be Rock and Rhonda against Triple H and Stephanie. We never saw that match. And I'm not saying given Triple H's recent health stuff, that we will see a match.

But the idea that, you know, he is standing across from the Rock, not necessarily, you know, physical altercation, but that sort of keys into wrestling history, and that's what fans like and they want to see. And they also really, really like the idea of, hey, let's not forget that on some level, Cody and Hunter have some history too on the first AEW show. Cody took a sledgehammer to a giant throne on

the set of AEW. And a lot of people are wondering, where does this leave us? And I think that not knowing and not being able to call it is what has got people buzzing. I mean, over the last week, I have heard from more people who I didn't even think still watched wrestling or, you know, I haven't been in regular contact with. They're talking about this. I think not being able to call it and not being predictable and the Rock's involvement, man, they're going to have more buzz going into this than they have in a long, long time. And I don't think that's debatable, Eric.

Absolutely not. I mean, I can't remember. And perhaps you can or our listeners can, viewers on YouTube. I just can't remember in recent history a WrestleMania that has so much story and passion. Yes. To me, at least, WrestleMania has always been this fantastic attraction, an event that whether, even if you're just a passive wrestling thing. And I think the audience that buys WrestleMania, I would really be interested to dive into the research if it even exists. that could perhaps shed some light on how many of the people that actually buy

WrestleMania watch WWE on a regular basis, let's say three times a month, whether it be Raw or Smackdown or a combination of Raw and Smackdown. It's just a wildest guess, but I would imagine about 25 or 35% of the WrestleMania audience typically don't watch wrestling on a regular basis because it's become that much of a cultural phenomenon, much like the Super Bowl. It has that sense of...

Well, hang on now, Eric. Let me make sure I'm following you here. Are you suggesting that there's two and a half million people who watch... We've never talked about this. But are you suggesting there's two and a half million people who watch Smackdown, say? And you think that four times that will watch WrestleMania?

No. If I implied that, then I'm not being clear. I think there is a percentage of the audience, 25 or 35% or or WrestleMania alone that typically don't watch the show. So if 100 people buy WrestleMania, I'm suggesting that perhaps 75% of them watch to WWE on a week on a regular basis, say three times a month, four times a month. I think that there is a percentage of the people that buy WrestleMania, buy it because why they consider themselves wrestling fans in general, are not typically invested in the

characters of the stories. I may be wrong. I've never done the analysis. I haven't seen the data. But I do believe that because WrestleMania is so much like the Super Bowl, I think there's a lot of people that watch that will be watching the Super Bowl tonight, as we're reporting this on Sunday, that typically don't watch a lot of football. I'm one of them. I'm going to tune in to the Super Bowl. I'm going to bet on San Francisco, even though I know that's cursed. I shouldn't be

betting with anybody on anything. But there's so much story. I listen to CBS Sports Radio almost all afternoon as I'm driving around and I do that because it it helps me kind of it helps me enjoy Super Bowl it will help me enjoy Super Bowl even more because I'll have more backstory I have a better understanding of the teams and the players and how they got to where they are and it's that story you know Brock Purdy Mr. Irrelevant I love that story and it's one of the reasons why emotionally because I bet with my emotions not with my brain obviously But that story is so interesting to me that I'm become a fan of Brock Purdy. Now, I couldn't pick Brock Purdy out of the lineup if there was a million dollars

where the cash sitting on the table. That's how unfamiliar I am with Brock Purdy and actually the San Francisco 49ers. I haven't been following them. But the story that is setting up the Super Bowl and obviously the Kansas City Chiefs, there's a great story there. with the two quarterbacks. Has there been another quarterback that has gone from college into the pros that has had as much success and has been as consistent as Patrick Mahomes?

He's a special cat. So is Brock Purdy. And the story between those two quarterbacks is so interesting to me that I can't wait for the Super Bowl. And I think there are a lot of fans like this. The Super Bowl and WrestleMania. has become one of those events that brings people together, whether they're passionate football fans or passive like I am.

Same is true with WrestleMania. But I think this WrestleMania, because of the story, not unlike Brock Purdy and Patrick Bahams, and that backstory is what's creating so much interest. So I do think, and I don't know the percentage, if it's 10%, 20%, whatever it is, but I'm pretty certain there'll be a lot of viewers for

WrestleMania that typically don't watch WWU basis. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I do think that you'll bring in a lot of casuals, but, you know, I think that the world has changed a little bit. I mean, people aren't quote unquote buying WrestleMania. It's all on Peacock now.

And I think you've sort of got to go find it now. I mean, I know that this is a way to grow peacock, et cetera, et cetera. I understand that. I think next year when WrestleMania seemingly is going to be on Netflix perhaps it'll be an even bigger audience than what we would normally get.

I just feel like Netflix, as I understand it, is still the only streaming service to ever turn a profit. So their subscriber base and their ability to market, it seems like it's just levels above peacock. But either way, man, fans are talking. Fans are excited. People have got to be happy. inside of WWE.

And what's interesting is, you know, and I'm not saying that we're going to spend any time talking about politics on this show. Lord knows that's not my thing. And I know nobody listening wants to hear that. But the Rock actually came out and responded to some criticism that was misplaced where they, I guess someone's accused him of being booed

at this public event over some backlash over a political matter. When in reality, he had to quote tweet it and correct it and say, actually in wrestling we call this turning heel and the idea that the rock this beloved superstar that everyone loved and they're actually going to lean into that that heel persona for a little while I really like and I think that it was the right call and I'm anxious to see where the story goes I caught a little bit of shrapnel on Twitter over the weekend because when they when they showed the whole bloodline organization the family tree if you will they had their real names and they

had their titles, and they showed on the graphic that the rock was known as high chief. And someone asked, when the hell did the rock become high chief? And I quote tweeted it and said, yesterday afternoon. And people just jumped on me saying, oh no, Dwayne Johnson became this in 04. Dwayne Johnson became this in 11. Not arguing any of that. That wasn't the question. The question was, when did the rock?

You see, the rock boys and girls is a fictional wrestling character. Dwayne Johnson has a driver's license. The Rock does not. I hope that makes sense. But this is the first time on WWE program that I can recall, and I have yet to see anybody correct this, where he was referred to as high chief. And I just think that's interesting

because forever and ever, we've heard Roman Raines during this bloodline story be referred to as our tribal chief and the head of the table. So since we've made that designation now that the Rock is high chief, which I don't think has ever been used before. It makes me think, Eric, if I was a betting man,

we still get Rock and Roman at WrestleMania. That's my call. What's say you? I see it. Yeah. I see it. That's a fascinating thing about where we are right now in the arc leading into WrestleMania.

And while we have 17 episodes, I'm going to refer to them as chapter. there you go because if we're writing a book we have 17 chapters to evolve and develop the story a lot of time and I agree with you I think there's something more at play behind the scenes that will be revealed in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania and I can't call it I'm not even wasting a lot of my time trying to think about the different options or combinations Right. I'm just not because there's so many of them.

You just you get lost. Yeah. You screw yourself into a rabbit hole you can't unscrew yourself out of. So I'm just sitting back and enjoying it and trying to pay attention to some of the smaller details that I see, like the one that you just pointed out, to try to anticipate where it's going and to appreciate. I know I sound like I'm betting over backwards to put over creative. but I'm really interested to see what creative has in store for us. Because let's be honest, this happened, this situation, you know,

let's assume Dave Meltzer's reporting is accurate. This goes back to January 3rd. All of the things that have happened in WWE that we all know about, we spend a lot of time talking about, we all know it. This is all, all of those issues where WWE was blindsided by a lot of it. They may have anticipated some of what unfolded with regard to Vince McMahon and the civil complaint

and we have a federal situation looming. I'm sure WWE, I'm not saying I'm sure, I would imagine WWE was well aware that something could happen. The fact that so much happened so fast. timing of it, had to leave WWE creative kind of on her back foot and on her heels of speak.

They had to react. They did. Now let's see knowing what's on the table having experienced the fan backlash that I do believe they underestimated. I really do. And now that they know,

let's see what creative is all about. And there's so much to work that I can't help excited about. Same, man. I'm looking forward to it. I am excited for

WrestleMania. I mean, I've got people who are in the business who never talked to me about current wrestling stuff who just out of the blue texted me and said, man,

I'm so excited for all this WrestleMania stuff. People are invested in the story. And I am too. I can't wait to see where it shakes out. I want to remind everybody

that even though they did announce the match between Cody and Roman. And they said that, you know, that was what Cody selected. And that was the world title. And that was the main event. There are two main events. They have been careful not to say that that is the night two main event.

They just said it's a main event. And, and I apologize for interrupting you. You mentioned, you know, you stated, I think we're going to see rock and Roman. I agree with you. Yeah. And I don't know if I said it on the podcast. or if we touched on it during our live coverage of the quote-unquote press conference.

But if we want to get Cody, if WWE wants to get Cody over, if they want him to be the face of the company to be that aspirational slash inspirational character that he, Cody can absolutely carry that role and be the face of WWE. What better way to satisfy the audience and put Cody in a position where he is unquestionably based of the company without any controversy or bullshit? What if Rock beats Roman and then Knight 2? Excuse me. Take that back. What if Roman beats Rock?

Because Rock doesn't need the win to be with the rock. Right. That's right. Rock can be just as. In fact, I'll argue passionately, rock would be more powerful if somehow Roman is able to defeat him as a heel and really turn up the heat, real heat. Somehow, I don't know how they would do that. But let Roman beat Rock and let Cody beat Roman. I mean, that's a king of the mountain game that I don't. I mean, it would be. put Cody in such an undeniable position as as it relates to finishing his story and also being the face of the and it sets up so many stories going forward that's what I hope happens I am not making a prediction because I said there's so many great combinations of of options story anything can happen isn't that what makes wrestling so much fun at the yes yes the sense that

you don't know what's going to happen and the reason you don't know is because there's so many variables on the table that all makes sense and I think once Brian because let's face it I don't think Brian worse and I've worked with Brian a lot I've gotten to know Brian and we're not it's not like we hang out have dinner and all that but I think once Brian settles into the position he's in gets caught up. It's been said. I doubt that Brian sat around and watched a lot of Raw or a lot of Smackdown leading into this situation.

But he's going to get up to speed. And Brian is not only a super, he's a creative animal. Yes. Very, very creative. But he understands story structure, understands arcs. And he's a very level-headed dude.

He's unflappable. under pressure. I'm really anxious to see what Brian's influence is going to have and an already amazing creative team. When all this comes together, Triple H is proven, Polovec has proven for the last six months, 12 months,

he's got a handle on creative. I think the creative team is responding much better in so many ways under Triple, under Paul of X leadership and Bruce's by the way that once Brian settles in they have a chance to gel a little bit and develop a rhythm and a pattern in terms of how they approach creative

I think we're in store for some really exciting creative I do too I just want to go ahead and say I heard what you said earlier about the Rock Roman thing I think Cody and Roman are night one Cody wins the championship, finishes his story. There's a little post-match circumstance.

We got Rock and Roman the next night. That makes more sense, actually. I agree. That does make more sense. I don't know what's going to happen. And I don't think maybe at this point even WWE does because, you know, nothing's set in stone. I mean, who thought just a few months ago

would have a WrestleMania without Charlotte Flair, without Brock Lesner, without C and Punk? You know, we couldn't have predicted any of that. I did see some comparisons from a lot of people saying that this feels a little WCW 2000, that maybe there's, it's a little overbooked and a little overthought and a little convoluted. I disagree. I mean, I understand that, you know, we had a mess and we're trying to fix it, but there's

so much time left. I hope that people give this a chance and stick with it because I am optimistic about what's possible. and let me just tell you anything's possible with our friends at Babel. You and I have decided that we are going to try to learn Spanish. And the best way to learn a new language is immersion. Living where the language is spoken and using it every day. But if that's not into cards this year, you can still learn a language the second best way.

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That's spelled B-A-B-B-B-E-L.com slash weeks. Rules and restrictions may apply. So listen, we talked a little bit about WWE and what's going on there. I think we're all excited about elimination chamber. At this point, we've started to see some folks who are qualifying for that pay-per-view.

We now know for sure that the winner of that elimination chamber will go on to face Seth Roll. for the World Heavyweight title. Logan Paul's got a qualifying match coming up against the Mizz. We just saw Drew McIntyre qualify. We saw Randy Orton qualify. It's an exciting time for WWE.

As I understand it, they've got like 40,000 tickets out. They're expecting closer to 50,000 for that pay-per-view. WWE's business is a booming and I, for one, am looking forward to it. Let's do some questions about WW stuff before we talk about some AEW stuff. I want to mention that when you join us over at ad-freeshows.com, you get to be a part of our little community

that gets to be a part of our live studio audience. One of the OGs over there is Coach Rosie. And he says, now that Cody has his matchback, who do you think will be fighting Seth? And do they beat him for the strap? If you had to call it, who do you think Seth Rollins winds up wrestling at WrestleMania, Eric? Feels like Drew is really heating up. Yeah, I agree. again. And it's what I like about is it's not so obvious. He's heating up. He's getting warmer and warmer and warmer every week. He's not hot yet. But they're heating him up slowly. If I had to place a bet, that's where I'd place my money. And it's not that there aren't other great options. There are. You could talk me out of, out of, you talk me into Logan as well. Just purely from a business perspective, even his father.

and just his social media presence, you could talk the end to Logan as well. But it just seems like they're making an effort to reheat Drew McIntyre. And that's right. PJ Taints wants to know. Do you think this was always the plan or do you think the backlash was heard? I feel like we sort of addressed that.

But you know, you've got to be able to be nimble in times like the ease of creative. I mean, every now and again, a guy shows up. not tan. You got to call an audible, right? Absolutely. And we're going to talk about tans here as it relates to AEW and Sting. Yeah, no, I agree. It was a stutter step for all the reasons we'd already discussed, but adaptability is key because, you know, you mentioned Charlotte Flair and Brock and all the other, you know, see and punks injury. So many things happen to you that if you're booking

in a straight line and you're not considering alternative. alternatives along the way and options along the way, you're running the risk of hitting a brick wall. I'm excited for it. I don't know how many different ways I can say I'm excited, but I really am genuinely interested in so many different perspectives on where this goes. So is John Westbrooks. He's watching along with us over from ad-freeshows.com. He says, I haven't watched WWE in quite a while. And these events have really gotten me interested to watch WrestleMania.

Man, they're doing their job. I'll tell you that. Coach Rosie has a great follow-up question. You know I've talked about this before off-air. I'm not sure if we talked about this on-air. In your opinion, do you prefer the major shows in a stadium or an arena? Great, great question, coach. I prefer an arena because the energy is contained.

I think the audio is different in arena. You can feel the audience's reaction or in a different way. I love the spectacle, the big, beautiful wide shots and all that. And I understand why they're important. But in terms of my enjoyment of the event as a viewer, or if you're there, maybe even more so if you're live in the venue, I much prefer an arena because that energy is contained and it's catching people. it just elevates everybody's level of excitement and enthusiasm

or heat when it's appropriate when you have a chance to confine 10 or 15 or 20,000 people in a venue. The energy is just different. Shane Ryan O'Neill says with the WWE network closing at the end of the year, is there a chance that a lot of the archive material disappears forever? I have a horrible feeling that the old stuff

is not a huge priority for Netflix, but I hope I'm wrong. A lot of people have been asking this question, Eric, like, you know, we know the WWE network is going to see at sunset and Netflix is going to be the new home for WWE, but it is hard for me to imagine Netflix having an interest in archiving all of the old stuff. I don't know, maybe I can see it. What do you think becomes of that if you had to guess?

It feels like a licensing opportunity for someone. I mean, there's money in them there hills somewhere, right? But there's also, yeah, there's money and perhaps going into this deal. None of us know this, have any real insight. Perhaps Netflix is looking at the legacy footage, if you will, legacy content, and minimizing its value. But they could just as easily find out that there's a lot of value there and find new ways of taking advantage of it. time will tell it's an easy cop out but if there is value Netflix has invested five billion dollars in WWE and the content I would imagine if there's value there

Netflix will be first to see it and exploit it so I don't think there's any foregone conclusions to the it is interesting to think about what they're going to do it because we've heard over and over and over that nobody really watches the old stuff comparatively to the new stuff so it feels like if you're netflix you just want the good stuff but then i'll be honest i scroll through netflix there's a lot of stuff on there that i would never in a million watch so to each is own uh let's do a few more questions about wb and then we'll move on our old pal super dave wants to know do you see the rock doing the oppressive authority figure gimmick, making Cody's life a living hell after

WrestleMania. I don't. I see Rock turning baby face before that. What say you? I agree with you. I don't think Rock is a Vince, a Mr. McMahon character or even an Eric Bischoff character in WWE. General Manager. I just, that's such a tired, tired character role. I just can't imagine it. Last one, we are here in WrestleMania season, and for a lot of fans, that means it's time to talk about the Hall of Fame.

Kevin Crowley has a great question. He says, Eric, if you were put in charge of picking four entrants into the WWB Hall of Fame, who would you pick? And he offers his selections being Bray Wyatt, Lex Lugar, Demolition, and Paul Heyman. What say you? Has anyone stand out to you as being long overdue or well-deserving? Could you put those back up again, Dave? Bray Wyatt, Lex Lugar, demolition, Paul Heyman.

I agree with all four of them not to take the easy way out. I don't see Paul going in yet. He's active. So I don't think Paul would go in just yet. I think Paul would say that. I don't think he will. I don't unless there's a plan perhaps for Paul to retire, you know, in the near future. that may be an issue, maybe in a situation.

If that indeed is the case, I think this could be not the best time, because I think the best time to induct someone is after their career is over. Yes. Their active career on a weekly basis. Paul, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Yes. Paul will be in there. Bray Wyatt, I think for obvious reasons.

Yes. Bray Wyatt was a character that, changed the industry. Bray's character brought another layer of character creative and kind of what's possible to the entire industry.

Without question, Ray Wyatt. Lex Lugar would be number one on my list. Same. Number one on my list. I admire Lex. Aspires me. I aspire to be as good of a human being as Lex has become.

Yes. He is a good human. He's an amazing guy. He's overcome so much. So I, Lex Luger's number one on my list. I can't disagree with any of those choices. And I can't think of anybody that I think deserves it more. And so many people, you know, deserve.

What does that mean? It means different things to different people. And it's subjective. But. I see demolition as a long shot for a lot of other reasons. Perhaps those reasons aren't in its backstory, it's legal issues and things like that. Perhaps those issues aren't as prevalent now with new leadership. In fact, Vince McMahon is no longer part of the company, in which case I think demolition would be a great choice.

That one, I think, is up for grabs. The other three absolutely agree with it. I can't think of anybody better. Yeah, I'd love to see demolition. I'd love to see Rick Martell. love to see Miss Elizabeth. There's a handful of others I'd love to see, but I'm with you. Lex Lugar is my number one. Let's talk about some more news and notes before we jump into our old school nostalgia topic today. We got to talk about some big news that happened this

past week, and then we'll talk a little story. The big news, of course, is that the long-time face of T&A slash Impact Wrestling, Scott DeMore, is no longer running the show with T&A. name. And there was lots of rumor and innuendo about what led to his departure. I've heard through the grapevine that there were, he was sort of drawing a line in the sand about the direction he thought the company needed to go in. And maybe that was a question allegedly, according to the rumor and innuendo about investment. Something that a lot of people who are listening to this may not know. Scott DeMore, uh, wrestling is his part-time gig.

He is a very successful, a tremendously successful real estate developer. And I heard once upon a time, I don't know if this is true, but that he ran the promotion out of his back pocket and then got reimbursed. I don't know what's real and what's not. But I know that he has the capacity to do that. And there was even a rumor that when I guess it came to an impasse with him and Anthem Management, he wanted to just buy the thing. I haven't talked to Scott.

I don't have any inside information, but that is the rumor going around. But I know he was a beloved story, isn't it? I know he was a beloved figure in that locker room. I know that a lot of their top talent signed and stayed and didn't take bigger money offers perhaps from AEW or WWB because they had such a great relationship with Scott. And now he's seemingly out.

This feels like this is going to have a major ripple effect for that organization that it felt like, damn it, just got some momentum over there with the name change and high fives all around on the most recent pay-per-view and A.J. Francis and Dolf Sigler and Will Osprey and Holy Cow, Okada, all on the most recent show. And now Scott's out. I didn't see this coming. What did you make of the news? I was surprised. Look, I don't watch T&A. It's not a point in television for me. I don't follow it on a regular basis. But I have been aware, like a lot of people, of the progress they're making. I don't know if their progress is revenue generated progress, meaning I don't know if it's paying dividends yet.

But it just seems like TNA was, no, I disagree with bringing the TNA brand back. I think it was a bad idea to begin with, and it only gets worse with age. But that aside, because I could be wrong about that. That's my personal opinion. It doesn't mean a fucking thing, to be honest. Right. Just my opinion. But everything else that seems that has been happening over the last six weeks,

eight weeks, 12 weeks, just seems like everything was going in the right direction. And they were, TNA was poised for growth, putting the right pieces in place and making the right decisions to progress and to evolve into a stronger property. And I don't know, Scott DeMore. I've never, I've met him, obviously, but I've never worked with it. I don't know what his capabilities are creatively or otherwise. But I do know a lot of people that have worked with Scott and people that I do know that I respect who have a lot of respect for Scott.

So by default, it's shocking to me. that's somebody who has been making the right moves, who does have the relationship with talent. Because that is important. It seems like it shouldn't be, right? They're just, they're there to do a job. They've got a boss.

The bus tells them what to do. But this is art. This isn't, you know, building manufacturing cars or building widgets. This is art. And the relationship between the head of creative is much like the relationship with a great director in a and stars in a movie you have to have a relationship a level of trust and and support from your talent in order to make the best art possible or the best movie possible

it seems like scott had that so unless there's something going on that none of us who are aware of this makes absolutely no sense to me i i i i I don't get it. If anything feels like WCW 2000, it would be this one. It doesn't, it has a very familiar ring to it. So it'll, I don't know. I'd be surprised if Anthem is positioning the sell off T&A, perhaps. To who?

Exactly. And as John Alba pointed out, T&A, Anthem already has a streaming deal in place for their library. So anybody that would buy T&A isn't going to have access to the library, which means it's really worth nothing at that point. So I just don't know. Or perhaps, I don't know. And I don't even want to guess because there's so many things going on that none of us

know about that it's silly to spend much time trying to figure it out. Well, I can tell you that my experience in working with Scott DeMore was 10 out of 10. one of the best guys I've worked with in wrestling and obviously I wasn't in TNA but whenever I was at a TNA show he could not have made me and my dad feel more welcome and just a dream to deal with behind the scenes I mean he saved my ass on the Rick Flares last match show and just a heck of a guy who loves wrestling and doesn't have to I want to say again this is not his real gig he's here because he wants to be and he loves it and I'm excited to see what he does next, whether that's what...

Do you think he ends up in AEW? I mean, respectfully, I don't know. I'm sure he could get a gig there. I'm sure he could get a gig with WW. I don't know that he would bring about any change in AEW. I agree. I think AEW is AW.

And what we see is what we get. And if you like it, you're loving it. But I don't think he's going to bring about massive change in AEW, but that doesn't have anything to do with him. I hope that makes sense. Oh, it makes perfect sense. I do think he could get a gig with WWE, but I also would be interested to see,

is he going to do something on his own, something somewhere else? And I would be interested to see what happens from TNA from here. I don't have any inside information. I sent one nice text of support to Scott DeMore and got a brief response back saying, you know, how blessed he felt with the overwhelming support

from his friends in the industry or something like that, something to that effect. Just we exchange pleasantries is the right way to say it. But that was it. I just want to say now, as we're recording this, at 10 a.m. on February 11th, 2024, I don't know when, I don't know how. But when T&A is sold,

Scott DeMore is the new owner. That's my prediction. I don't think that the Asper family or the Anthem organization, eventually they're going to say, hey, you know what, we've thrown enough good money after bad, we're done. And I think, I hope, Scott gets his arms around the library. And I imagine Scott being the businessman he is. He'd relaunch a new company with a new brand, but some of the same faces.

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that Rick Flair was going to insert himself into Sting's first chance at AEW Gold and he and Darby Allen took on Ricky Starks and Big Bill for the tag straps. Turns out Rick Flair wasn't even there. And Rick Flair did not screw Sting out of the championship. In fact, as you and I are talking, just weeks before his retirement, Sting is an AEW World Tag Team champion. Can't believe that.

I love it. I'm so happy for him, and he has given the rub with a capital R to Darby Allen. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time to celebrate because after the match, here came the Young Bucks. And the Young Bucks didn't just go ahead and lay waste to Sting and Darby Allen, but Sting's sons, as I understand it, live out in that part of the country.

They were in Phoenix, I believe, and both of Sting's sons were front row. Sting hugged him before he got into the ring to start the match, and then after the match, they came into the ring to celebrate with their dad. It was a family affair. By the way, Sting's a grandfather now. What a fun sentence that is. So we really got to see the family side of Sting for the first time in his career. I don't think we've ever seen

Sting with a big acknowledgement of his family like this and it happened and it was an incredible angle I know you had a chance to look at it I really liked it the young bucks were here wearing the all white suit channeling their inner Jim Cornett I guess and man they were just covered in that blood

it was a beat down we wanted to establish these guys as heels baiting up the most beloved figure in AEW, leaving him laying a bloody mess. That checked all the boxes. What did you think, Eric? You didn't like it. I didn't dislike it. I didn't like it either.

I'm ambivalent about it. And part of that is because I haven't been following. So perhaps I'm not as invested in the story as I could be. Or perhaps it's because there's no story to begin with. Let me ask you, Conrad, and I know you probably aren't watching, I mean, you can't possibly watch all the wrestling that's going on and run a mortgage company like you have and do all the podcasts you do. There's just not enough hours in a day. That being said, why are the Bucks? What is their motivation?

What changed? Do you know? In storyline? Yeah. the backlash over the seeing punk stuff fucking weak that's

that is so weak that is an excuse for a match that is not a story well hang on now hang on now they turned their persona changed

because they said they wanted the credit for starting this place and creating all these jobs and bring a real revolution and blah blah but I do think there was a contingent of fans

who decided they didn't like the Young Bucks because of some backstage shenanigans, which, you know, whatever, that was like 100 years ago at this point. But I also know that respectfully, if Sting wants to work with the Young Bucks and you know it's going to be Sting's last match, you know the audience is going to want to cheer Sting in order to tell the type of story and have the type of tornado style tag team wrestling where we're brawling all over the place and jumping off shit and somebody's going through a table, you've got to have good guys and bad guys.

It can't just be good friends who are jumping off buildings on each other. These have got to be good guys and bad guys. So they've got, if Sting wants to wrestle them and he wants that to be his last match, you've got to find a way to make them a heel, right? Yeah, you do, but they didn't. That's my point. Okay. And we talked a little bit about the decentralized,

of control and power that social media has now, the influence social media has on professional wrestling and in the direction of characters and stories. So I understand to a degree that because of the silliness, the negativity, the seam punk, the politics and all that and how in the minds of some, not all, that the young bucks were using their influence and, help create that situation and that there was a backlash. But I think there's just no story there. It's an excuse for a story.

Everything that you just said supports my thesis, that there is no real creative or storytelling ability or discipline in AEW. It's simply creating situations that justify a match. And everything that you just said is an example of my, criticism. There was not an inciting incident. There was not a compelling. That's the key word. People say, oh, there's such great story in AEW. No, there's not. There are excuses for matches. There are angles that are used as as an inciting moment to create an excuse for matches going forward. But there's no beginning. There's no arc to any of these stories or the characters involved in them.

simply making, first of all, two guys that couldn't be heels if you, if you soaked them in gasoline and set them on fire, they could not get heat. They're just not heels. They're good guys, phenomenal athletes and performers that are playing the role of a heel because timing requires it. And oh, yeah, there's a little bit of this backstage political internet wrestling bullshit that we're feeling pressure from. So I got it. Let's just make them heels. it's not a compelling reason it's it's the exact opposite of why people are so invested in Cody Rhodes in his story right now because of the authenticity in it because people can relate to how Cody Rhodes heals deep down inside because something is being taken from him you've

you've got two guys like I said that'll never going to be heels no matter what they do and they're taking on this role to support the fact that Sting wants to have a match with them. It's interesting, and for those people that are interested in seeing the best match possible with Sting in his last match, I 100% agree that the Young Bucks are ideal candidates for that role. But it's incumbent upon creative to make that heel turn to make the fact that now the young bucks are heels, you have to make that believable.

There has to be a reason for it creatively that the audience can wrap their heads around and invest them and simply turning them heel because of some internet backstage nonsense and jealousy is not compelling. It's an excuse. Eric, what did you think of the fucking angle? when they just jumped in and got heat at the end of a match. The beat up and their family was involved. Gee, I don't know.

I've seen it about a thousand times. So nothing new there. Nothing different than. Well, you just have a heart on. You go, oh, wow, I never thought that would happen. It just was what it was. Was it executed? Well, I guess.

Now, I'm throwing a flag on the excessive blood. I think that again is an indication of lack of understanding. of what creates heat and creates emotion, but it was executed fine. I just didn't care. And the reason I didn't care is because there was no reason for me to care beyond the physicality that we saw. That's not compelling.

That's just action. I'm sure the Young Box will explain what they did in a promo this week. They still have a few weeks ago. I guess they're three weeks out. from the pay-per-view, but what would you have rather seen instead, Eric, since you're critical or creative, do you have a different idea that you would have preferred? First of all, let's go back to Rick Flair. Big deal out of Rick Flair. Where was

Rick Flair? Where was anybody else on that roster that just sat back and let that happen? And I know that's a criticism that we've all heard before. And I've heard it as well with regard to some of the things that I've done, which is probably why I'm bringing up because I've made that mistake. I've been in that situation. It just seemed like that's a giant hole in the story of everything that's presented up to this point.

Why wasn't Rick there? Now, maybe they're going to make a story out of that, perhaps. Blod them if they do because you've got, you have to fill that hole. That's a big hole in that story, only because they created it by bringing in Rick and making a big deal and getting people, including me, emotionally invested in the idea of what can happen. And then he's gone. I didn't hear any commentary.

I didn't hear one note in the commentary about the fact that Rick wasn't there. It's like Rick Flair didn't even exist. That's kind of a giant hole in that story. That if nothing else subconsciously takes me out of it, I'm invested because of Rick, because of the legacy between Rick and Sting and the potential that that provides. And then poof, he's gone. like he never existed. That's a type of, that's an example of why I can't get excited about the story aspect of,

will I be excited to see Sting perform? Absolutely. Do I think the young bucks will go out there and work their guts out to make Sting look like a million bucks for his last match? I absolutely believe that. But I'm just not invested in the story. Therefore, I kind of don't care. beyond my personal relationship connection to Sting.

I just don't care. The fact that his kids jumped in there, first of all, either one of those kids would beat the shit out of both those guys at one time. It's not a believable scenario for them just to come in

and just lay waste to Sting's kids. It's just nothing, nothing about it registered to me. And I wanted to because I like Sting. I want to be out here, I want to be sitting in this, in front of this microphone,

talking about what a great story and a great match ultimately that Sting is going to have for his last match. I want to celebrate that. But I'm not going to lie to myself in the process and say, well, that's a great angle. That's a great story. I get why the young bucks are heels.

I really hate those two bastards because they got heat on the internet because of the punk situation. I hate the young bucks because they beat up Sting and his family and left him laying a bloody mess. That's why I hate the young bucks. Like, all right. Well, then you're satisfied and happy and you feel differently about it than I do.

I just a storyline perspective. I think the holes in that story are so gaping between motivation. You haven't even been watching the show. And now you're saying the holes in the story are so gaping. Well, I'm, I ask you, what is the reason? The one thing that could make me interested in this matchup as it's laid out right now is why are they heels? And wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let's back up.

I thought you meant free. The reason they're heels now is because they want to run Sting out of AEW. The idea is they have created this opportunity for all these new wrestlers and here's Sting trying to hang on the last little minute of glory and blah, blah, blah. So they're going to exert their dominance in the tag team division and the AEW division and AEW corporate and use their role as executive vice presidents to beat up Sting, Darby, and Sting's kids, and take back what's rightfully theirs, the tag team gold and leave them laying a bloody mess.

Like, heels do bad shit. And we don't have to always know exactly what their motivation is before they do bad shit. They can tell us after the fact. I'm sure we're going to hear about that, but it's very heelish to beat up, quote, unquote the old man who's finally got his moment to shine here and steal his thunder and beat up his kids and now they're going to try to take his championship and send him packing and finish his career with a loss and yeah that that's pretty healish behavior Eric and for you to

be so hardcore against it this is like the first time because you get accused of this all the time but I always defend you. This is the first time it feels like you might actually be a damn at EW Hater. That was pretty fun stuff right there. I dug it. That's bullshit. It was a fun angle. It is not a great story.

What I'm saying, and this is where you and I are going to take different paths or approaches to this, everything that you just laid out to me on a piece of paper kind of makes sense. But in its execution is non-compelling. It is not a compelling story. It's just not. It's an angle. And it's worked a thousand times. We've seen it a thousand times.

It's, it's, and by the way, that in itself is not a criticism. There's seven basic stories that have ever been told since the beginning of time. And all we do is continue to put variations on that story to create a story. So I'm not suggesting that they have to come up with something that's never been done before because that's really difficult wrestling. It's difficult than anything. but the story as it's being told as you just laid it out makes perfect sense on paper but it's not compelling how many people watch the show there's a name i don't have the rating

in front of me it's a wednesday i do they they actually dropped from the week before with this match in the focus that's on it in stings retirement stings first shot at AEW gold 805,000, which is about a 2 or 3% drop from this week, watch that show. I'm not the only one that doesn't find this story compelling. It hasn't moved the needle. Whatever they have done, whether I've watched it or not, is not reflected by the interest in the audience. Eric, my enjoyment on something has, I don't care how many people watch the

Sopranos. If I like it, I like it. So I don't care how many people were watching it. I thought it was good. You didn't enjoy it. And maybe that's because I'm just a fan of Sting and you still wish he was tan. I don't know. No, because you asked me specifically, what about this?

What was my reaction to it? How do I feel about it? And I'm explaining to you that while the action was good, I understand it. I'm not invested. I don't believe in the Young Bucks's heels because they haven't done anything other than their attack on Sting and some of their backstage antics. They haven't done anything to make me really believe their heels. They're just playing a role.

And it's not believable to me. You asked me the question. I don't really give a fuck how many people watch the show or don't. But as it relates to, is it a compelling story? I think it's a fair argument to look at the audience and the trends of the audience. They didn't know the young bucks were going to attack them and leave them laying? Like, we should judge that based on next week's rating, right? okay I'll give you that I'll give you that let's see I mean I just say like you got to start

a story somewhere and there was a rumor that it was going to be the young bucks now we know for sure it's going to be the young bucks like we've only just seen the match become official but let me say this the idea that you're going to say it's not compelling stick it up yes they sold 16,000 tickets Greensboro keeps selling out AEWT I X if you're a sting fan like I am go to AEWTiX.com. See if there's a few left. There's still a handful of production kills. I've had people come out of the woodwork asking,

can you get me tickets to Greensboro? No, I cannot. There are no comps, not even within the company. That's where they are. No comps for Greensboro. It is a compelling story. It might not be exactly what you wanted to see,

but people are invested in seeing. So those 16,000 people bought those tickets because of the story or because it stings last match? Well, respectfully, the story that has been told with Sting over and over and over again in TNA and WVE, a lot of those sucked. And his last match in WWE was a whimper, and his last match in TNA was right down the road here for me in Huntsville. It was sparse and it was a whimper.

They had EC3 and Magnus beat him in back-to-back tapings. not good I think this is a I hope we get a proper send off of Sting and yeah I think fans are turning out because they want to see

this AEW version of Sting paired with Darby Allen doing a tornado tag jumping off shit going through tables yeah I think I think AEW is done a good job with it I mean I think the proofs in the pudding

with the ticket sales okay by the way if the rumors are true Okada is now officially finished with New Japan Will Osprey is about to join the company but the big news the big announcement that Tony Kahn had been teasing

was the tickets were on sale for their debut in the TD Gardens so they're going to Boston they're not the first time they've been there I suppose but this time they gave themselves a one month runway a lot of times these big arenas, they want you to have an eight month, a six month,

a four month runway. We got like 30 days and they sold like 6,000 tickets almost immediately. They were originally scaled for only 7,000 and almost all of those are gone because people are excited about the debut of Mercedes Monet. They're calling the show big business and even in the announced graphic

where they put the little arena up. They made sure to point out that it was boss and $2 signs and 2 S's in the background. So they're telling us without telling us, sort of like the CN Punk debut back in 2021 in Chicago. Hey man, Sasha, she's here. I got to tell you, I had some talks with people who were in the business and they thought there ain't no freaking way with a month runway. Sasha is going to sell that many tickets. They were wrong. She sold a bunch of tickets quickly.

They've announced nothing else. Just AEW in Boston one month from now. Put a couple of dollar signs in there. Put a couple of an extra S in Boston. And people are excited. I know you didn't think it would move the needle. It at least is for Boston. What do you expect from this Boston debut?

And are you surprised she sold like 6,000 tickets the day they went on sale? No. I mean... Mercedes-Molet has a tremendous fan base and equity built in, that being a WWE audience and fan base at this point. Boston is a strong WWE market, perhaps in terms of markets, one of the top five, historically. So the fact that AEW has sold 6,000 tickets in a strong WW market,

character who was at the very top of the WWE poster, has been for such a long time. Am I surprised? Not at all. Am I optimistic that something long-term performance, not in-ring performance, but a business performance? Am I optimistic that this is going to be a needle mover? Not really hopeful, but you have to look at history, recent history. Mercedes-Money is just one of many.

big talents that have come over from WWE that made a splash and then faded into the obscurity of the W or excuse me, AEW roster when I say obscurity, meaning that doesn't really have any impact on the performance of the product. Hopefully I'm wrong. Dude, I don't want to come off as negative, but you're asking me questions I have to be honest about. Is there any former WWE talent, despite how big a deal that everybody made of them coming over, it's going to be a game changer, it's going to be a needle mover, this is going to change it, have any of them, other than CM Punk for a period of about three weeks, had any long-term positive impact on the product?

No, I don't know. They did 805,000 viewers this past Thursday night. I don't know. seat well something we don't have to wait and see any longer steve mongo mcichael is finally taking his rightful place in the NFL Hall of Fame i'm so excited that uh this is happening i know uh how tough mongo is and he's been kicking out at two for what feels like three years now is continuing his battle against a ls and i'm so glad that he at least got to hear the news, I don't know what attending a ceremony like that, if that's even possible or how

anything like that could even be facilitated. But just to know that while he's still with us, he knows that he, uh, quote unquote, finished his story and he got his spot amongst all the other greats in the NFL Hall of Fame. Pretty badass news, man. Made me feel good this week. What did you think? Same here. It brought it true to my eye, actually. I'm not close to Steve at this point, haven't been for the time. Last time I talked to Steve was a couple of years ago when Rick Flair, I was at a convention or something and we were all backstage, grabbing lunch, taking a quick break. And as you know, Rick Flair typically loves to put people on the phone and he did.

And there was a bunch of us around that could all say hi to Steve and wish him well and laugh. I mean, Steve was laughing. He was cracking jokes. He was literally telling jokes. Yes. and laughing along with us and having fun. And that Steve McMichael, man, is, is tough is what he is going. It, it amazes me that every time I see a picture of him, he's smiling.

And you see the person, Steve McMichael, you see that person, you don't see the physical condition that he's in. You notice it, obviously, but if you know Steve and you see that gleaming of his eye and that smile on his face, that's real. That's Steve McMichael. The person inside is still very much alive, despite what his body is having to go through. And how do you not admire someone? I just, I'm so happy for him. I really am.

He's a good guy. And for those who have had the opportunity to play with Steve, so I was never in that group. whether it be in high school or college or the NFL for those of us who had the privilege and the opportunity to work with Steve in WCW. I have so many fond memories of him because of that smile that we continue to see in his face and I'm sure is on his face right now

as or was as he was hearing that. We all remember that moment where Rick was passing the phone around. Believe it or not, we were in the green room for ad-free show's Top Guy Weekend where we did a fundraiser for Mongo in Chicago a couple of years ago and he wasn't able to attend of course but

we donated all the proceeds our little domain was money for Mongo dot com and we built a little community there and we get together with those folks a few times a year you and I just did a couple of weeks ago down in Tampa and I did an ask Conrad anything on ad-free shows.com

last week. I was sort of overwhelmed when I heard from somebody who told us what ad-free shows meant to him. I want to play that clip for everybody right now. This is our buddy Matthew. Matt, you're up, brother. Come on Ed, sir. How are you? I'm good, buddy.

How are you? I'm good. I can't be better. Man, I just wanted to tell you, man, the ad-free shows and everybody here is like a giant family. me and my kids have been pretty much homeless and out of campground for two years and the group here has talked me through so much and today for the first time in two years

we have moved into our new house oh it's an awesome day and I'll tell you honestly it wasn't for your shows it wasn't for you and Bruce that original show that I've found in 2017 when I first started with me but yeah I'm women and they did it go so and that's the truth.

Man, that's so awesome. Thank you. So I owe that to you. I really appreciate you saying that. I don't deserve that, but thank you very much. But it's, I know you deserve it. Look, I probably ain't the only person at this. But like, there was a time when I couldn't control my thought.

I couldn't keep a thought. Everything was falling around me. And just by, just my luck, I come across you and Bruce. And I don't remember what show it was. I think it was like the fifth episode. It was like the mega powers explode or something. And buddy, you got me to laugh for the first time and ever, and I just sit there and listen to that whole show

and it just become a every week thing. And ever since then, you've been my dude. I appreciate you saying that, but you did this all on your own, and I'm so proud for you, and I'm glad that we were here to help be your backstop for you. But that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to support each other and lift each other up,

unless you're Cassio, and then we talk shit about him when he leaves the room. Oh, man, you definitely did. I might have did most of them, but I couldn't have done it without. A lot of the guys that are on here. If you all them are in this and right now, so, I mean, they really pulled me through a lot.

And they didn't know me from anything, Conrad. That's the point you were saying earlier here about, you know, if you don't know, you should just give ad free to a shot. I mean, a top guy has been probably one of the best choices that I've made because it's just, it's more than just the show. It's like a fellowship. It's a family. It's people that don't know me from nothing,

but took me in and gave me advice that changed my life. How about that, Eric? We often refer to ad-free shows as family, and that's what family does. I was moved with Matthew Story, and, you know, we started ad-free shows.com four years ago next month. And I just thought, hey, man, this will be a way to sort of answer the critics who think, you know, hey, I wish I could listen to the show without any commercials. And you guys have too many commercials. So we wanted to deliver that and some bonus content.

And it just so happened that the pandemic was just days away. And we didn't know that. And the result was this big group chat, this big community. Like I have a wrestling friends group chat. And these are people from all over the world who are now supporting each other and getting each other through tough times. And there's a lot of happy endings. There's a lot of happy stories as a result of that little community.

And man, that got all over me. And I wanted to share that with you today, Eric. I'm really glad you did because one of the things that I never want to take for granted again. is some of the people in my life and some of the people that I've met through ad-free shows who have become friends, not just acquaintances, but friends. And it's important to me. And even more important, I guess, or more valuable in some respects to me,

is having the privilege to be able to sit back and watch people, didn't know each other before who came up with this ad-free show's idea, who have bonded and who do support. It's a real thing and it happens across the board. I mean, you end up developing relationships with people that you never knew before because you have this one common bond, this communal experience that's kind of unique to any other form of entertainment, really, and that's professional wrestling. And people get together and they share their passion for discuss it, develop these relationships,

and then we see them because we go to our ad free show, Top Guy events and all the other things and we do. But you've seen these people hanging out and genuinely becoming best of friends as a result of the shared passion for professional wrestling, but more importantly, the platform that you've created that connects these people. That's a quality, quality human beings that I'm proud to call friends and family that are a part of ad-free shows. I never would have had the opportunity to me. Join us over at ad-freeshows.com. Be a part of the live community. be a part of our little family

and enjoy all the bonus content and all the archives. There's something for everybody and we appreciate all of the support. Hell, I'm even going to become a minister as a result of ad-free shows. Did you know that? What?

I'm going to become an ordained minister. Like not like one that Brian wrote and you rip the deal off. Like, you're really going to do this? No, not a Brian Gourkeweris minister. I'm talking about a shoot minister. Shoot minister. I'm going to be a shoot minister.

Shoot minister is probably a shirt. Because I'm going to officiate Lindsay's Cupcake Lindsay. Oh, there you go. She's getting married at the end of April. And I'm going to be there and I'm going to be the official at her wedding. All because of ad-free shows. Cupcake Lindsay blew me away the first time we did a live show in Baltimore and she gave me a tray of like custom homemade cupcakes. our logos and stuff on it and all these years later you're going to be the person to marry you're

all wow absolutely ad free shows.com there it is boys and girls all right let's talk about while we're here we're an hour and a half into the show and finally going to talk about her topic uh 30 years ago wcw was going through some tough times a lot going on here uh we're coming off starcade 1993 where we saw one of my favorite rick flare matches he overcame the unbeatable monster Vader. He won the world title in front of his mom and dad. I think that's the only time his mom and dad actually came to the matches and saw their son wrestle. Backstage afterwards, we saw Mean Gene with all of his wife and kids and everybody gathered together. He's the world champion once again. Now it's time to build the next paper view. Super Brawl 4. Jesse Ventura

goes on the 900 line and talks about he's starting to look more professional. because he's lining up a run at the Senate. He also reveals that he signed a contract extension as well, and we know you're about to sign Bobby Heenan. Did you ever know that Jesse was going to get into politics? Was that ever discussed

with you? Did you think he was serious? We never sat down and talked about it, but I would hear comments. Obviously, comments like the ones you're referred to. Never really took it seriously. it kind of makes sense. And Minnesota is a great place to run for political office

if you were outside of the typical paradigm of political candidates. It's a very, very liberal state has been for a long time. So it kind of makes sense in retrospect. But at the time, I didn't think I took it. I didn't take it seriously. It just kind of be after to do it like typical wrestling hype. just another thing to make well what

the guy wearing the Jimmy Hendricks t-shirt that kind of looks like star Billy Graham is going to run for Senate that don't make any sense but hey another question I have here but he did become governor

he did but you we know you're going to bring Bobby Heenan in I guess my question is why did you renew Ventura if you were bringing Bobby in or did you think I'll put Bobby and Ventura together? I say that with no disrespect to anyone, but it feels like they feel the same role.

They're the heel color commentator. Did you need two of them? Yes. Okay. Why not? Why over, why overexposed? If you've got a Jesse Ventura who is great,

I love Jesse's work. I loved it in WWF when he was there with Vince. I was a fan of Jesse Ventura when I was in AWA before I joined AWA, before I ever got in the wrestling business, I was a huge fan of Jesse Ventura. I loved his work, but you know, even back then, before Nitro,

he had a lot of television and you don't necessarily want one heel commentator on all of your shows. There's enough room for variety. I thought, Bob, given Bobby Heena's equity in relationship with the audience, and particularly with an opportunity to team him up with Gene O'Korland, how could you not want to take advantage of that?

Whether you had room for it or whether you needed it or not, find a way to make that work. We know for sure that J.R. is out here. As a reminder, this is the era where we would see, 1993 was where J.R. went and joined the World Wrestling Federation. But that all comes out in the observer here that maybe there's some underlying hard feelings.

Quote, there's apparently a major feud going on with Gene Oakerland and Jesse Ventura with Jim Ross. O'Kerland made some sarcastic remarks about Ross on the hotline, although nothing serious. But Ventura has gone a lot deeper, including on television this past weekend on Worldwide, asking whatever happened to the fat Oki and made a remark about him broadcasting shows

that have midgets dressed up as clowns. Like Ventura has never broadcasted on a show that had a midget dressed up like a shark trying to blow up a boat. Ross was on his WWF radio show and he called Ventura overrated and made comments about Dusty Road's weight, which was equally ironic.

A real pissing match here between these guys and J.R. has come out on his show and in his book and apologize to Jesse Ventura and said that he was rude to Jesse and didn't give Jesse a fair shake when they were in WCW because he was resentful

about the contract value that Jesse had. He was making more money than JR and he realizes now in hindsight having run talent relations. I kind of wasn't Jesse's fault. If JR had an issue, it was with the office, not with Jesse.

What did you make of their back and forth bickering and were you a fan of these sort of inside references taking a shot at an announcer on the other show. Wasn't a fan. I wasn't, like, upset about it. It was just kind of like I feel about Young Bucks. It was just, eh.

It didn't, it didn't. I was, I was ambivalent about it. It seemed like childish behavior in a way, but it's also wrestling. Now, these are over the top personalities and they're going to do and say things. that sometimes rub people the wrong way or each other. I just didn't really think about it too much to be. Well, I know that money can cause some hurt feelings. And maybe if your household is going through that,

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We know that Dusty is helping with some of the booking here. He's probably looking out for old Uncle Fred here. And listen, a battle of two big men. man, that always looks good on paper, right? Yeah, it does on paper. And I think, you know, Dusty was still operating from a perspective that was a little dated at that time. You know, 93 were still being influenced, WCW, and I wasn't involved in creative at that point in time. So I'm giving you a perspective that I had from the sidelines, even though I was in WCW.

WCW, including Dusty, was still operating kind of as a trying to operate much like trying to operate much like WWE creatively. It was still big characters. I don't mean physically. Over the top, kind of animated characters. The idea of the two big men,

which is kind of an older school perspective, a creative, was still very prevalent. in fact, and in fact, it, you know, Dussie did have a relationship. So or Shockmaster. So all of those things led to this, I think. Say Davey boy is going to be out here in WCW.

And it seems like he just stopped showing up for dates. And that's going to be it for him here in WCW. But I've heard from Davy's side. I think the Davy's story that was told at the time was he had an understanding. that he was going to get paid more on international dates. So when WCW would go to Europe and the UK and things like that, he was expected to make more money. And maybe that didn't happen.

What do you recall about why Davies' run came to an end here in 1994? Not much because I wasn't involved in it. I remember him leaving. I wasn't involved in his negotiations. his contract, I didn't have to deal with any of the fallout from the fact that if Davy's story was true, very well could have been, and he wasn't being paid according to his understanding, then it would make sense that he would leave in no show. But I wasn't involved. I can't tell you whether that's fiction or fact. I just remember it being an issue, and there was certain fallout for it. but in terms of the reasons why and the motivation behind it, I wasn't involved so I can't share any insight.

I don't think he showed up for the WWF until like August the 94, but he was finished with you after Thanksgiving of 93. So Heenan and Bockwinkle are going to be coming into WCW. Yeah, Heenan and Bockwinkle. I'm not talking about something that happened in the AWA. this is in WCW. Did you have a hand in bringing Bokwinkle in? I mean, I know that he would have been, you know,

a part of your AWA tenure. How does Bokwinkle get the nod to come in? Do you recall? I did bring him in because as, although I had nothing to do with wrestling storylines or creative, could hire or not hire or fire or not fire, wasn't involved in that at that time in 93. I was, however,

I did oversee the television product, which included announcers. So the addition of announcers and assignment of announcers was as executive producer. And I definitely wanted Dick Bockwinkle to be a part of the broadcast team and to be that authority figure because of my familiarity with Nick's character and performance in AWA. And just because I believed in the look so articulate, he understood psychology and how to apply it from an announcer's point of view or from a commissioner's perspective. The fact that Nick had so, such a vast, powerful grip on wrestling psychology, in my opinion, made him an ideal candidate for me. And yeah, that my fingerprint's role. something else your fingerprints were all over where the decision to start slashing house shows

WCW's house show business according to Dave Meltzer would be cut in half from the prior year but the decline has been even worse in recent months but the TV ratings are relatively the same you've talked about this a lot you know the emphasis

on running less house shows and finding a way to pull the nose up on those things since they were money losers and this is when WCW hires Zane Bresloff, who at the time was the WWF's leading independent house show promoter for the past nine years. Quote, many believe the signing of Bresloff would result in the fiercest war

between the WV and WCW in a few years because this deal pretty well guarantees a far more aggressive approach WCW will take to booking major arenas that it had been locked out of in many of the top markets. In addition, knowing egos involved with Okerlund, Heenan, and Bresloff all jumping in rapid fashion, one would think the WWF would be looking for a big coup of its own. It appears WCW getting into the Rosemont Horizon in suburban Chicago for the April 17th pay-per-view, which is being moved from Ashefield, North Carolina.

That's a building they'd been unable to book shows in for about seven or eight years, and that's a result of Bresloff's relationship with the building as being a long-time WWF local promoter. You know, I know how high Dave Meltzer was on Zane Bresloff. And I know that you know that he was a big part of WCW's success during the Monday Night War's era. But tell us how he came into the company. We've never really talked about that before.

I'm fascinated by this. It was really, that was Bob Dew. You know, we don't talk a lot about Bob due because Bob really was the executive vice president of WC. He was my boss when I was made executive producer. So I did have a little bit of a dotted line relationship with Bill Shaw. But Bob Dew was really calling a lot of the shots with everything related to WCW. In fact, he wasn't calling. He was in charge of everything in WCW with the exception of the television product, physical production of the point.

That was mine. But really, and I'm not sure if it was Don Sandifer is another name that we don't talk about often. But Don Sandifer was a live event promoter. and he was involved in the music side of promotion. And I think Bob Doe knew Don Sandifer because Bob Doe was originally in charge of the Omni. He booked a lot of the events that took place at the Omni. So Bob Doe's professional experience was tied directly to arenas, arena managers, promoters, that type of thing.

I wasn't involved in the process. So I didn't hear, I didn't know who Zane Breslov was until after he was hired. Take that back. I may have been involved in a meeting or two right before he was hired. Pretty sure I was. I think it was kind of a director's meeting. And we all met Zane before it became official. But that meeting was the first time that I'd ever heard Zane's name because I wasn't

involved in that side of the business. I wouldn't have come across his name. But, yeah, that was a Bob, that was a Bob Doe slash Don't Sanderford decision. Perhaps Gary Jester may have been able. I don't. Did you expect the WWF would be pissed off about this? No, because I didn't really,

I didn't understand the magnitude of it. I got you. I didn't know what Zay's role was. I learned subsequently after that meeting or during that meeting, perhaps, I learned more about him and I had learned subsequent to Zane coming on board exactly what his role was or was. But I didn't know it going in. So I didn't have any expectation of W.

What about the impact of Bresloff? How long do you think? I mean, was it an immediate impact or did it take a while before you realized, whoa, this guy's a force? It didn't happen overnight, you know, because he, look, Zane had fantastic relationships with a lot of the building managers and decision makers would evaluate opportunities. That was Zane's strength in addition to knowing the local market. So if Zane was able to get us in Chicago as a perfect example,

if because of Zane's relationships with the building managers and the people who make decisions and negotiate on behalf of the venue, have Zane obviously had relationships there, but he also had relationships with local media, which is equally as important. You want to get as much bang for your buck as you can. If you're going to make a media buy in the market, you want that buy to be as efficient slash effective as it possibly can.

By efficient, I mean as low cost as possible, especially with WCW at that time, because we had limited funds. The reason for, and I've talked about this before, it's not news, the reason I wanted to cut the house shows down or eliminate them was because they weren't generating a revenue and there was no plan in place to create more revenue. And we had a limited amount of resources.

So I wanted to put the resources we did have, i.e. the budget, I wanted to put those assets into something that could affect the arena business down the road in the future. Make the product better. Make it compelling. Sound familiar? Make it compelling. Don't just have excuses for matches and venues and events and venues,

but make it provide a compelling reason for it. And that took time. So when Zane came in, it wasn't like he was under pressure to turn the business around right away. Zane became part of the plan, which was to eliminate house shows that didn't make any sense, focus our resources on those markets that did make sense and take advantage of Zane's reputation and relationships in those markets.

To that extent, Zane was powerfully effective, but it wasn't overnight. It took time. A number of other things had to happen in order for Zane to have the ability to be successful in those markets. The observer would also say, with all the money, WCW spending on announcers, promoters, tour expansion,

booking more expensive arenas and expensive television production tricks that are more distracting than effective. They had better put some money into getting more performers who can perform and figuring out how to get those over to where people care about them. Despite all the emphasis on house shows

these moves indicate, it is still paper review revenue that's going to be the main revenue source in this country of presenting live events. Do you agree with that, that the of the business is pay-per-views in this era? Well, WCW's revenue was certainly driven by pay-per-view. There really, there was ad sales, which was there.

We weren't getting any license fees. Nobody was paying us for our show like we have today. We didn't have the advantage that obviously W-DW does or even that AEW has right now. Probably the closest thing that we could point to today, that's similar to the position WCW was in back three. these comments are coming from is currently T&A. TNA is not getting a license fee because they own the network. So there's no revenue there.

The only revenue is going to be from where pay per views, licensing, merchandising, which are almost not existent if you don't have a strong television program. Pay-per-view is it. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, from Dave's perspective, and look, Dave has never been in the wrestling business. doesn't really understand the business of the business. He only understands what he's learned from being an observer on the sidelines. But taking the revenue that was burned and wasted in live events, reallocating that to the core product, which is the television product,

which needed to be improved, by the way, his television tricks and gimmicks, as Dave puts it, it's a reflection of his knowledge of television. But the increased television production values were absolutely a necessary item on the checklist of how do we build a compelling story. How do we get people to come to the arenas? We produce a product that is compelling enough on television to drive attendance. We watch it on TV and we heard it's going to be in our town and we want to go be a part of that party. And increasing the television production values was a part of them. Because whether we liked it or not, whether it was fair or not, people were comparing WCW to WWF at the time.

WWF to Vince McMahon's credit early on in the 80s, WWF made a decision to increase the production value of the show. That's why advertisers became more comfortable with it. That's why the fans became bigger fans of it. That's why mainstream media started. That's why Hall Cogan ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated. There were a lot of reasons why wrestling became such a, enjoyed such a boom period in their early 80s,

and no small part of that was because of the increase in television production values. So, yes, wrestlers are talent is always going to be important, whether it's a movie, whether it's a band, whatever it is. Your performers drive it and you need to have great performers, but you also need to present those farmers in a way that's compelling and interesting from the audience,

and that's what we were trying to do. WCW is having an influx of talent here in this era too. Del Wilkes, the Patriot, he's going to come in, Barry Darsoe, who we knew was Crusher Crews Chef and later Demolition Smash. I guess the repo man, he's going to show up here. And the taskmaster Kevin Sullivan also debuts. Who was helping run and scout talent in this era? I know that wasn't really your role, but who was?

I think, you know, everybody on the booking committee at that time, and, again, Dusty Rhodes, I think at this point in time was driving it, seeing it. But, you know, Mike Graham was there. I think Greg Gagne was there. Chair Taylor, I believe, was a part of that process. There were a number of people that were part of the creative team. That would, you know, people would send in tapes, obviously. I think Kevin Sullivan is a perfect example.

You know, that was a Dusty Rhodes influenced decision. Dusty really believed because of his experience with Kevin Sullivan that if we needed one thing at that time, it was somebody who had a better feel for heat, somebody that could bring some ideas to the table that were different than the ideas that were generated by the existing teams. And Dusty firmly believed, I remember the conversations that we need more heat and there's nobody better than a guy like Kevin Sullivan to help create it. So, yeah, that answers the question. Let's talk a little bit about Missy Hyatt. She makes the observer here, quote,

Missy Hyatt had an offer to pose for Playboy, but the company made her turn it down, citing a morality clause in her contract. And of course, Meltzer says, imagine that. morals clause and a wrestler's contract. I think over the years it's been said that maybe she tried out in 1990 or she had an opportunity and didn't happen there. But I guess it pops back up here in 94 and it doesn't happen here.

Do you remember this conversation with missing? No, not at all. I don't even know if that's true, by the way. Could be. I just, this is news to me. Got it. Well, some big news is going to happen. at the end of January, directly from the observer, after a three-year run, the results of which

were rapidly declining house show business and overall declining television tapings. Dusty Rhodes' tenure as Booker for WCW came to a close last week. Dusty officially resigned earlier in the week. No reasons were given for the change, although Rhodes' ideas had been overruled several times of late, which had rendered him nearly powerless when it came to the booking of the top pay-per-view shows, which really was his most important job. The official word seems to be the booking will be handled by a committee composed out of but not limited to Bill Shaw, Eric Bischoff, Mike Graham, Greg Gagne, Colonel Robert Parker, and Rick Flair. WCW has frequently gone to committees in between bookers and the result has always been chaos to the point where the wrestlers themselves would ask three different committee members what the finish was and get three different answers.

You ultimately, a booker will be chosen. walk me through this I mean it's reported that Dusty's going to remain with the company as a senior consultant like an advisory role I suppose maybe what Crockett was supposed to be doing once upon a time what do you remember of Dusty resigning

and this new committee and all the moving and shaking here well as typical Dave Meltzer fashion his reporting is wrong Bill Shaw was never on a booking committee I don't know where the fuck that came from in typical Dave Meltzer fashion, not true, not even remotely close to true. But they're nonetheless because that's what we do is.

And let me just go step back from that actoid. We were in a transition. Yes. As a company, cutting down on a house shows, putting our resources into television. re-evaluating a way we took care of our live event business also reevaluating because we had to absolutely necessary our approach to creative there was so much transition at that point in time internally office management obviously my role in management amongst others it was it was a difficult time any anytime you go through a transition from the time hop down. It's stressful. And Dusty, being Dusty, didn't adapt all that well. Dusty was stubborn. Dusty had his way of doing things. And oftentimes it worked great. Sometimes it didn't. And Dusty's, I don't want to say inability, but his decision.

not to collaborate, if you will, and take other input. And he tried, man. I remember I brought in two writers from L.A. to try to help Dusty. Because Dusty's strength was vision. Dusty saw wrestling like a B. He never really articulated it this way. But Dusty was one of the people that made me believe, or at least the way Dusty approached it was an example to me of why wrestling did

great story. Dusty's downfall, or I shouldn't say downfall, is vulnerability for his weak spot was in discipline. Dusty would change directions pretty quickly within a story or not think through the story well enough to make sure that the ending justified or supported the beginning. And I brought, I remember one of the. writer's name. His name was Angelou Guerrillo. And these were two writers that had previous success in Hollywood. I found them through an agent, actually through an agent that represented me,

and interviewed and brought them in. And I didn't bring them in to drive the wrestling story. I brought them into support Dusty. So Dusty could come up with the big idea. and then my hope was that these two writers could take that big idea and distill it down into manageable segments or points along the arc, that would help make Dusty's vision, which I believed in, 1,000%

but provide the foundation for better execution of the vision, because that was Dusty's spot. Dusty tried really hard. I mean, he did. It wasn't paying lip service to it. He wasn't trying to convince me he was trying when he really wasn't. He wasn't trying to sabotage anybody politically. It just, the chemistry just didn't work.

And that's such an important part, I believe. I've learned the hard way. and by result of some success, that for our best opportunity for your creative to really resonate, it's collaboration. You have to be willing to collaborate. There's no one person on any quote-unquote committee

or creative team. And we call them booking committees back in the day. Now they're creative teams. The same thing, right? Just different approach. but it didn't work dusty now i brought the writers in hoping to find a way to make it work it is as dusty became more and more frustrated during that transition it became apparent that he no longer had the passion for that role as the head of creative or head booker

or dirt sheet reader um the passion was gone frustration took home and it was time for change but I didn't want to lose, Dusty. I really thought and hoped, I should say, I hope that as a result of this transition, once things settled down and we developed a better process that Dusty would have enough time away, because when you're in that spot, when you're that guy,

the pressure, especially at WCW at that time, there's so much just negative input coming from so many different directions. business-wise and other one it it can burn you out fast if you don't have a good support team around you and i really hope that we would be able to realign our approach to creative come up with a more efficient way of doing it and in a support mechanism in place that i could bring dusty back because i firmly believed in dusty's abilities and vision i just had an issue his ability to execute it because dusty liked to be left alone when when when When I first got to WCW, and I, Dusty took me, honestly took me under his wing,

but Dusty made it very easy for me. Dusty was very welcome to me beyond just professionally. Now, he liked a lot of the same things. He had a lot in common. And oftentimes, you know, I'd go up to see Dusty in the middle of the day. If I'm down, if I was downstairs in a production center doing wraparounds or doing voiceovers or whatever I did, if I had two, three hours to kill in between. Now, what I was doing, I'd go up and hang out with Dusty.

But there were times when I'd go up to hang out with Dusty and his door was closed. And Janie Angle was sitting outside his office. And if Dusty's door was closed, that means he was, he was creating, baby. And you didn't bother him. I want to share ideas. He didn't want to discuss what he was thinking until he was ready. And that worked for Dusty. It didn't work that well when it came to execution.

So my hope was to create, better process, let Dusty take some time away, come back. Well, I'm glad we're able to execute and refresh our affiliate partnership with our friends at Fanatics. If you're looking for WWE swag, look no further than shop at wrestlingmerch.com. We're excited to have this affiliate partnership with both WW and Fanatics. and now you can shop for all your officially licensed WWE Gear and Apparel at shopwrestlingmerch.com that's shop, SHOP wrestlingmerch.com or if you're watching along with us on YouTube

just hit that QR code that's up on the screen now or check out the description for today's episode for the link. That's where you can shop for confidence with all your favorite WWTs, hoodies, caps, belts, and more with the WW shop and be sure to use our special link shop wrestlingmerch.com to support the show and I want to remind everybody Starcast is coming down under

it's our very first international starcast and Eric Bischoff is coming with me I can't believe this is real but it's happening April 11th through April 14th Ballarat Victoria Australia I'm taking the 22 hour flight and I'm bringing along four

of my favorite WWWCW championships with me how about the actual big gold that Hulk Hogan played air guitar with on Nitro. Same one that Dusty Rhodes and Rick Flair held before him were also bringing the WrestleMania 17 world title held by both Stone Cold and the Rock, also Kurt Angle and Triple H, but everybody remembers WrestleMania 17, and who could forget the macho man Randy Savage's Intercontinental title?

I'll have that in my bag, along with the WCW title that Ron Simmons won, and Lex Lugar, and Big Van Vader, and so many others. But you want to talk about a lineup? How about Brett Hart on stage with me for the very first time? We're calling it Hitman, an evening with Brett Hart. I'm going to get into all the rumor and innuendo. And we're of course going to talk about the 30th anniversary of his WrestleMania 10 match with Owen Hart.

Not just that, but Brett's got an actual wrestling show. He's bringing what he's calling the Australian Stampede, a supercard of wrestlers from all over the world, and Mickey James has an all-women show. That's right. Brett Hart, Mickey James, Shelton Benjamin, Chris Masters, Eric Bischoff, so many others. Names are coming out left and right. Keep up with all the latest and greatest over at Starcast Events on Twitter.

That's at Starcast Events on Twitter. But what can you expect? You can expect meet and greets galore, all your favorites, see the matches, watch the shows, take a picture with the belts. It's going to be great. You don't want to miss anything. We've got four days of fun-filled events. Grab yourself a gold or platinum bracelet.

it'll get you all access to all the events and Starcast.com is where you can pick those up. That's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T dot com. It won't just be me. It'll be the old E-Z-E. That's right. 83 weeks coming down under

our first ever international starcast Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, April 11th through April 14th, Starcast.com. So, Eric, should we discuss, maybe we should just get a vote here? a lot of people listening from ad-free shows with this live.

Should we talk about maybe doing a live YouTube show from Australia? As long as we're breaking a lot of first, why don't we try that? Hey, man, let's figure out how to pull that off. I'm not opposed to it. You're going to be there. I'm going to be there.

I don't know what the freak time that's going to be here in America. But, man, let's do it. Because you know what? We'll be like a week after WrestleMania. If I had to bet some crazy news is going to be coming out. Like, as a reminder, the whole TKO announcement was done. the Monday after WrestleMania and Monday Night Raw after

WrestleMania one of the biggest shows of the every year. You never know when we're going to go live over at 83 weeks on YouTube.com. Hit that subscribe button and turn that notifications bell on so you don't miss it. So listen, the big news in this era, the rumor that Hulk Hogan is coming in. This is a rumor that was happening before Superbrawl. I guess when Hogan was at the

Naphty or however you say, N-A-T-P-E convention people were saying, hey, Hulkster, what's next? When are you going to get back in the ring? And he was pretty up front with reporters there saying, hey, after I finished filming 22 episodes of Thunder and Paradise, I'm going to get back in wrestling in May, and I'd love for Rick Flair to be my first opponent. And of course, that means WCW, not the WWF.

Now, a lot of people are telling Dave, they're skeptical that a deal would ever take place because Hogan is going to have an astronomical asking price, and he might even ask for a percentage of any increase in paper review sales and Meltzer would freestyle that if he's able to do that finally having Hogan and Flair on a match

and if Hogan gets a cut it could be the largest one day payoff in the history of the business but the rumors were out there I guess my question to you is how far deep into these conversations were you when the big power change happened with Dusty or are those two things

totally unrelated? No, they're not unrelated and I think there was some they were happening simultaneously. Again, restructuring creative, taking a different approach to it, cutting back on house shows, that was all part of one big initiative. The idea of bringing Hogan in probably did start around MAPD, but it didn't necessarily involve me directly or at least there wasn't much conversation

at that point. It probably was a result of Rick Flair reaching out to Hogan to at least begin those discussions. but apparently they must have had a number of conversations. And Hulk being Hulk, he's a consummate promoter. You know, Napdi, you know, you say you didn't even know how to pronounce it. Napdi back in the day was one of the biggest conventions in entertainment. It was a big deal. One of the last Napdi conventions I went to was in Miami.

And one of the distributors, syndicators, I don't know if it was King World. It might have been King World at that time. Brought in the Eagles for a party. And the Eagles performed live for, and I'm pretty sure it was King World at the time, as a part of a convention. So this was no little thing. It was huge.

And again, Holcogen being the consummate promoter and professional that he was, decided to tease this just a little bit. Listen, we've talked a little bit over the years about happy accidents, unintended consequences. Do you think perhaps

if Thunder and Paradise was not being filmed in Orlando at the same time you're doing all of your syndicated tapings for worldwide in Orlando, does this deal with Hogan still happen? Or did that just make it easier? Or did that coincidence actually help facilitate the signing.

The ladder. Yeah. The ladder is, you know, it's nice to be able to say that, oh, I saw this happening, or I planned for this, or this was my original plan or my original idea. So many times it's bullshit. I think the coincidence of WCW having moved their production, at least for the syndicated shows, to Disney, MGM Studios. and the coincidence of Hulk Hogan being there on location

was a happy accident. And I think it was, it was great timing. It wasn't part of a plan, but I think it was absolutely critical, at least as it relates to providing interest in WCW by Halkin. Meaning Hulk had finished up with WW. He wasn't a part, He didn't jump ship, as a lot of people like to think.

I didn't steal Hulk Hogan from WWE by breaking out Ted Turner's check. Which was, it probably still is in some regards, the narrative. Hulk, because of the steroid scandal, ultimate warrior issue, and a whole lot of other issues, including personal issues, meaning Hulk had two very, very young kids at the time and had been doing the 300 shots a year, schedule for a number of years, he was ready to

step away from that and enter into another lifestyle change as related to his professional career. I mean, he didn't want to be on the road someone. The fact that WCW was producing a show at Disney MGM Studios, I think was interesting enough with Hulk

that he was willing to have a conversation that he might not have been willing to have if we were just doing what we would always do, have been doing and basically trying to replicate the WWE model, WF model. So I think those two things do dovetail. It wasn't part of a plan. And I don't think we would have engaged with Hulk in a conversation

had it not been for the coincidence of being on set or on location, the same area as Hulk Hogan was for Thundberg Paradise. timing is everything timing is everything last of the champions 26 we see bobby heenan debut and you can go back and listen to our bobby heenan episode from the archives but it feels like a major coup a turning point for wcw and uh as bruce would always say sometimes you just need a fresh paint a coat i mean having mean jean and bobby the brain here i mean these are household names to a lot of wrestling fans uh pretty cool stuff coming off the clash The observer would say, overall, the first taping without Dusty Roads is Booker was said to be pretty disorganized.

I mean, that's probably expected. You know, whenever there's a change of leadership, you've got to establish the new normal. But speaking of the new normal, it'll be without Michael Hayes, according to the observer, he quit. He's not happy with the offer he received, a $75,000 a year deal for one year. he winds up coming back to the company just three weeks later it feels like at this point my man's been in wrestling forever because I guess he got started when he was like 16 but he's only 35 years old here do you remember what happened with this back and forth with

Michael Hayes was it just negotiation and we worked it out I don't recall why Michael decided to come back or what the conversation were leading up to Michael coming back after he had left. I do recall having an opinion. Again, I wasn't calling the shots at that point in time. I had voice in the room. And I regret, and I'm even hesitating to say this because amongst the many mistakes that I've made

or choices that I've made that I regret, this is one of them. I just didn't see it. Michael Hayes. I felt that his character had run its course and that it no longer fit and was kind of representative, two representative in some cases, of a presentation or style that existed in WCW that had to evolve and had to change. That's the kindest way I can say of saying, I didn't believe in Michael Hayes' characters, Michael T.S. Hayes, at that time, I was convinced it had played itself out. That's what led to eventually Michael leaving. And I say that because

even when I came back to WWE as a talent and whenever it was, or when I first arrived in WC, or WWE, it took a while for Michael Hayes to warm up to me. I think there was some resentment on Michael's part, because I just didn't see the value in his character back in WCW at the time. And I was part of the reason why Michael was no longer with WCW. It wasn't the only reason, but I was a big part of it. And it wasn't until about 2019 that Michael and I finally sat down and had a conversation about that. And it was a very good conversation, grateful for it. And I consider Michael Hay's a friend now.

But man, a lot of time went by when it wasn't the case. But I was a part of that. I just don't remember why he decided to come back after leaving. Do you remember Ted Turner and Jane Fonda showing up to center stage and sitting in the front row? It happened on February 12th. You're doing a TV taping here for WCW Saturday night. Obviously, the wrestlers are putting on a show and turning their game up when the big boss is their front row. But it had to be a big deal for you, too, to have Ted Turner randomly at center stage, right?

It was. There was a little bit of nerve-wracking, you know? Because, you know, you always have to be a little concerned with somebody doing something to try a little too hard to get Ted's attention. Like the nasty boys, you know, just, you know, anytime you put the nasty boys. in a ring, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda sitting at ringside, you kind of got to pay attention and be aware, because you don't know what's going to happen. But it was exciting. It was a great morale booster, too. I've talked about this so many times. I don't want to beat on it, but the perception, the reality for those of us who worked in WCW back in 1994 was that we were,

we felt ostracized. We were really invited to the neighborhood picnic. We weren't really invited to the family reunions. It was an awkward feeling to be a WCW employee within Turner Broadcasting at the time. So to have Ted Turner and Jane Vonda show up, it was kind of in a weird sense. It was validation that we were really part of the Turner Broadcasting family. Weren't an asterisk or an afterthought, even though that's the way we were treated most of the time. Well, here's a little afterthought that made the observer. A 6'5 newcomer named Tara Rising, a killer Kowalski student from New England

debuted to dark match and looked good enough. He was given a debut match on TV for the February 26th show. Tara Rising, who'd he ever beat? Whatever became of that guy, Aaron? I think he's managing a jiffy loop? Yeah, that sounds about right. No, is it a taco stand? Oh, he's, yeah, a taco stand somewhere in.

You know what, though? I mean, he looks like management material, really. Possibly. Yeah. The nasty boys had a squash that will never air because things got out of control with Sags and, as Meltzer called it, a jobber named Bobby Walker. Sags was trying to bite him in the face.

And after the match, apparently the Nasty Boys jumped Walker and Black Jack Mulligan had to break things up. The next day, they put the nasty boys in a match with a quote, unquote, different jobber and re-tape the match. I absolutely love the nasty boys. Hard work, Bobby Walker. Help me about this.

Do you remember this? I don't really. I mean, I remember the incident. I remember that happened, but I wasn't dealing with talent, really much at the time in incidents like this. This would have probably fallen under Rick Flair's domain. So I can't, I can't give you details. I do remember it happened because I had to deal with some of the fallout of it,

trying to make it go away. But what led up to, I couldn't. We, uh, we should read this paragraph from the observer here about the transition from Dusty. World Championship wrestling did its quarterly worldwide tapings in Orlando from February 7th to the 10th, giving away some of the aspects of the storylines through the end of May, less was given away at this third taping as compared to the previous two as no title changes were made obvious to the public. This was also said to have been more disorganized than the

previous two. The tapings ended with a largely more disgruntled crew of wrestlers than the previous Orlando tapings due to some changes in company benefits, the perceived emergence of Dusty Rhodes as a Booker once again, and what is perceived to be a less diplomatic approach to talent by Eric Bischoff, who appeared to be the man in charge of the proceedings. While some company officials are still saying Rhodes was in charge of the work he had completed, it became obvious that Rhodes and Bischoff were the ones in charge of the talent aspect of the company, which caused reactions ranging from uncaring bemusement to heat. I find that interesting that there was heat, and a lot of people believe that unless they're

a member of the Rhodes click and they thought he was out, only to be. left with the realization that nepotism had never been more apparent in the company and now people are disappointed I guess there was a lot of people who were happy Dusty was out and when they see well he's not all the way out he's still here and I'm not in the road's click

did you hear that that Dusty took care of his friends and people were glad he was gone and then disappointed when he wasn't all the way gone this is this is typical and this is one of the reasons why I I have so much dis, I have zero respect for Dave Meltzer, bordering on, that's not bordering on, deep into disdain.

Dave wasn't there. Right. Dave has no idea. Dave, being the useful idiot that he is and has been throughout his entire dirt sheet career, repeats things that disgruntled wrestlers or, people who intentionally want Dave to print things and say things that are not true. They use Dave. So if you want attention from Dave, if you're a talent and you want to be positioned well

within the Dave Meltzer Dirtsheet universe, well, then you pat Dave on the head and give him a cookie and tell him he's a good guy. because you know, if you are a wrestler, then you can feed information to Dave that will then make its way into the dirt sheet universe. That's been that way forever. You also have a group of people, which probably still happens today,

that will have, that will make contact, that will engage Dave Meltzer, simply to confuse the dirt sheet audience, simply to take people off track, So Dave is a useful idiot amongst two disparate groups of people, those who have the best interests of the industry in mind, and those who want to use the useful idiot by feeding him a cookie and pat him on the head or aiming a move after him, because you know then his coverage of you as a talent or your company as a whole is going to be biased in your favor simply because you have a relationship or he thinks he is. has a relationship. He does have a relationship, but it's that of a useful idiot. He's a tool like a hammer. And he's used by different people to achieve different things. And this is a perfect example of Dave making a definitive report and stating something as fact that he has no idea

if it's true or not because he wasn't there. What does Dave do? He relies on those feed him cookies and pat him on the head to give him information so he could fill up his 10,000 word dirt sheet without any commas of punctuation, by the way. Forget about that. I'll give you 10,000 words. I refuse to fucking use a comma or any kind of grammar. But he relies on people to feed him that backstage information. It isn't backstage information at all.

It's an agenda. That's why I think Dave Belzer is such a useful idiot and has no respect. And I think we're seeing a lot of that now. That's another great thing about the decentralization of power, if you will, for such a long time. Because Meltzer, you know, to his credit, is one of the first ones to create a dirt sheet or a newsletter, to be kind, a newsletter. Not really news, it's opinion. But we'll call it a newsletter. It was one of the first, going back to what, 1986, 87, whatever it was?

And as a result, he enjoyed a position where people outside of the wrestling industry, fans who desperately, just like they do now, desperately wanted some insight into what is going on within the business of the wrestling business, behind the scenes. Dave got himself to his credit. I'm not taking anything away from this. He was one of the first ones to see that there is a market there. But Dave's approach to servicing that market has been, and still is, bullshit. Bullshit.

And I think his coverage, I mean, how many different scenarios did he come up for the Rock Cody thing? Not like you and I, we've speculated because there are so many options, right? But stating things is fact. And with the authority that Dave tries to have, is where Dave loses credibility. And now if you've, at least on my social media, the number of people that are calling out Dave's bullshit is awesome. Because now there's a platform.

People can actually read his shit, comment on it, and see the patterns that exist in Dave's coverage of the current product. And almost everybody is seeing through it. Some people still like to read them because it's entertaining. But in terms of Dave having authoritative view or an understanding of the business of the wrestling business, or to be honest, any real meaningful contacts within the industry that are providing him with actual legitimate news or insight is a joke. He's a useful idiot, no more, no less.

And if you want to spend money to listen to a useful idiot, share the useful idiot's opinion of a business he's never been in, by all means. subscribe wrestling observer newsletter figure four online follow them you love garbage there's plenty of it there well we uh we got to talk about sherry martel she makes her debut here you know what we talked about her in the archives check that out 83 weeks on youtube dot com but there is something else in the observer we do need to talk about and it is one of your other favorite subjects missy hyatt mouser would say there's no more presence of missy hyatt two days before Martel was scheduled to start, Hyatt was fired by Bischoffer apparently going over

his head to Bob Doe over her contractual situation. Hyatt, whose contract, was said to expire on February 28th, has privately expressed extreme concern. She wasn't going to be resigned, and it wound up being prophetic, perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy. The nature of the firing was such that Hyatt actually went to the TBS offices two days later in Atlanta with two attorneys, asking if she had actually been fired by Bischoff and was told she in fact had been fired. Hyatt said to be moving to New York to take acting lessons and unless she can hook up with the WWF, she'll be out of the wrestling business. We know she wound up sticking around and doing some stuff with ECW, but why wasn't Missy

re-signed and why was she instead dismissed? Do you recall? Again, a perfect example. I want to keep beating on Dave Meltzer, but this is just an absolutely perfect example of Dave's bullshit and the fact that he was used as a useful idiot, he is a tool, he was a tool, continues to be one. That scenario that Dave stated his fact

is absolutely false. Here's why Missy Hayek got fired. And by the way, it's very much connected to Sherry Martell. Missy Hyatt was for the most part, the only on-screen character, female, on-screen character

for a long time in DC, We were at the Disney MGM tapings. Sherry Martel shows up. Missy has a complete fucking meltdown. Acted like a petulant 12-year-old. Confronted me, made it obvious to everybody on the roster, all the staff that was there, Disney MDM Studios, it was not a giant soundstage.

She put on such a tyrant. and acted like such a child that I made in my mind of fire her. It's that simple. It had nothing to do with, again, Dave trying to paint a picture in a narrative that I'm the type of person that would be offended that someone went over my head, which I think is probably a projection, Dave, because it certainly wasn't true for me. My choice at that time was my choice.

And going to Bob Dew would have not have had anything to do with it. It would have made me laugh at that point. But it didn't happen. It didn't happen. At least not as the catalyst or the inciting incident that led me to firing her. What led me to fire her is she acted like a petulant child because Sherry Martell showed. She didn't want any, she didn't want any other women in WCW. That's it.

It was pure childish jealousy and the way she handled it that made me go, you know what, you really don't bring that much value to the equation to begin with. It's not like she was a really great talent. And I just, I just didn't like it. I didn't want that type of person on the roster. So I fired her, but it had nothing to do with her going over my head. As hard as her showing up with two attorneys to make sure she was really fired.

News to me, folks. News to me. But again, it's Bay Meltzer. Well, here's some other news, real-life news. There was a stabbing incident we all know about with Arn and Sid over in the U.K. And on January 25th, Arnn is going to file charges against Sid, actually a civil suit, if you will, asking for in excess $10,000. I say it that way because in North Carolina, you either have to say your punitive damages are less than $10,000 or an excess of

$10,000 for assault and battery here. It was quite the mess. We know Cid's not here, so it's probably not any of WCW's concern at this point. Let's talk about the show.

We're finally here. We're two and a half hours into the program so far, and we're now going to talk about our topic. Super brawl is here. The show got 57.8% thumbs down, but it did $110,000 on pay-per-view. The prior year's Super Brawl only did 95,000. And in fact, there's only a $5,000 purchase dip from Starcate. So you're paying customers, by and large, they're

sticking around. The show's happening here on February 20th from Albany, Georgia, and the Civic Center. It's a dreadful undercard and a few strong matches, according to Meltzer. You have a full house, 7,600 fans are there. Only 4,200. were paid fans. The gate is a whopping $39,000. Still not yet in the Monday Night Wars. But it is going to be interesting, you know, this show and how we break it down. We should also mention that a lot of praise was heaped on local promoter Chip Burnham. There was supposedly almost no advance a weekend because the storyline didn't allow them to advertise locally the Flair-Vader match until a week before showtime.

So they were originally just blocking off the building for 5,500. The late interest allowed them to open it all the way up. Got to give props to my man, Chip Burnham here. Because if you can't really market the main event until the week out, boy, that's less than ideal. And for them to be able to pull this together and have this size crowd, that's high fives, is it not? indeed it is very it was a very risky move and I think it says a lot about the psychology of the consumer

because again historically in WCW it was all about voting weeks a month or two in advance if you can promote promote promote promote there was very little emphasis put on spontaneity this was an experiment in a way that if we held off and created compelling story at least with regard to the main event that the buying pattern or habit that we had used in wcdb traditionally You should know what your main event is, start promoting it six weeks, five weeks, four weeks, whatever it is in advance. That's the way you do it. This was kind of a departure from that in the sense that we're not going to, we're going to let the television drive the story, make it obvious shortly before the event itself, hoping that what we did creatively will create an urgency or compel people to go out and buy tickets. that's a different way of marketing and promoting.

And it worked. Now, I'm not suggesting that that's the way it should work all the time. But in this particular case, clearly it worked. Well, there's no doubt it worked. Maybe what didn't work is the way the show opens with a pretty lame angle. We're trying to establish Nick Bokwinkle. We've got Michael Hayes, who as you recall had quit, but he agrees to come back in for this show.

Garvin's going to wheel him out and say he's legit injured and he can't wrestle. and then Bach Winkle is going to come down and lay the law down and says Garvin has to has to wrestle and if he doesn't then Michael Hayes is going to be fined and suspended so they both start panicking and you guys leverage the 900 line with Mean Gene to see hey did Bach Winkle make the right decision give us a call and let us know what you think 1,900 999 so we're trying to drag a little money in with a free bird angle here to start the show. yeah that's not particularly strong one no uh harlem heater out they're going to wrestle and defeat thunder

and lightning in nine minutes and 47 seconds and uh melzer says comes to a close one of the kin dolls has cane in a rolling reverse cradle and cole kicked him in the head and cane scores the pin uh thunder and lightning looked really green towards the end and both teams were missing spots left and right dud rating uh what's your favorite thunder or lightning map Have to be this one. I wanted to ask you before you ask me. I mean, you knew I was going to. It's interesting.

Take that gun right out of your hand, brother. Kane and Cole, too, before they became Booker and Stevie Ray. It's humble beginnings for Harlem Heat. We know they're going to go on to become the most decorated tag team in WCW history. And actually, Booker T is going to become the most decorated performer in the history of WCW. But it's probably hard to see that here. Next up, this is on paper. review boys and girls we got jungle jim steel taking on the equalizer in six minutes and 31 seconds

i can't believe this is an actual thing uh melzer would say steel does a bad ultimate warrior gimmick actually it's bad to be the second power because a good ultimate warrior gimmick is inherently bad and the finishing sequence is one of the clumsiest high spots ever on a pay-per-view show negative two and a half stars the jim steel doing his best warrior impression dave sullivan as the Equalizer. This is on track to be a piece of shit paper view so far, Eric. Your father-in-law's fault.

I blame you personally. We got Terry Taylor. I was in the booker. Rick Flair was the booker. Your father-in-law. You let it happen. Okay. I'll take that.

Terry Taylor's going to pin DDP. They go 11 minutes and 45 seconds. We know DDP is going to become a superstar. He's not. not yet here. Of course, Meltzer gets all of his information in this era from Terry Taylor.

So we see things in the observer like Taylor's timing was perfect on everything. Terry Taylor gave Dave a cookie and patted him on the head. Half a star in the observer for that one. Next up, we got Johnny B. Bad and Garvin. They go 10 minutes and 48 seconds.

My man Jimmy Garvin's semi-retirement doesn't seem to last here because he's back. with much shorter hair. He's a professional airline pilot. Well, it gets a dud rating. We know Johnny V. Bad is the real-life Mark Mero, a real inspirational person, and he helped so many people, and he would eventually flourish with this character

and catch the attention of Vince McMahon, but it wasn't this match that did it. We finally get something decent, but maybe it goes a little too long. Steve Regal is going to wrestle Arne Anderson for the TV title. And they go 27 and a half minutes. Regal's going to grab Sir William's umbrella and sit on Arne for the pen, but Meltzer would say it was just way too long. He says they shaved time, so it was announced it being six seconds before the 30 minute time limit.

It only got half a star, but it's a 30 minute match. So far, this pay-per-view is dragging, and we respect the hell out of Regal and Arne, but, man, you're asking them to follow some bad stuff and to go long, probably not the best formatting here. Yeah, and this, I mean, the style of wrestling that Regal and Arn can bring to the table, personally, like, I love it, but it's not dynamic. Right. It's not spot heavy.

It's story heavy. It's actual round game wrestling heavy. And that just wasn't really the main course that a lot of wrestling fans were looking for or the dessert, that a lot of wrestling fans were looking for. But I personally, fucking loved it. I think you would too. I mean, I want everybody to go watch at least the Arne Anderson match forward because the next match, boy, it is a car crash and one of my favorite ones.

It's nasty boys taken on Cactus Jack and Max Payne. Meltzer would say it looked more like a major car wreck at the interstate more than a pro wrestling match. We can't possibly describe it. this to you? It's brutal. Nestee plunges off the apron, cracking your head on the concrete, hitting your head on the guardrail, bleeding from the mouth. I mean, Cactus jack pulls out all the stops in this to the point where he has to be hospitalized after the match. It's freaking unbelievable. I think you should go out of your way to see it. But pain is going to do a

suplex on Brian Knobbs that looks like it breaks his arm and neck with the bad landing. It turns out it's quote unquote only a dislocated shoulder, but this is going to sideline him for weeks. This, this match was brought to you by Percocet. Three stars go out of your way to see it. I mean, listen, it's not, it's the exact opposite of Arne and Regal. It is a spectacle with a guitar finish. Yes, a guitar.

go out of your way to see it three stars it's wild you've seen so many memes of this and so many gifs or gifts whatever you're going to call out of this this is where the show happened or the match happened and eric and i simply cannot do it justice by talking about it so pull your peacock out and watch super brawl four you're going to love this one now the next match actually got the highest rating on the whole dog on show it's sting teaming up with Brian Pillman and Dustin Rhodes. Doesn't that sound fun? And they're taking on Rick Rood, Steve Austin, and Paul Orndorf in a thunder cage. Pilman's going to pin Austin after Sting press slammed Pilman and throws him into Austin. Meltzer would say Austin was the best

wrestler on the show and this was an excellent match from start to finish. Another big spot was Rhodes going for a bulldog on Rude, but Rude blocked it and dropped Rhodes on the ring post and followed it with a backward superplex. Orndorf would juice. A highlight was Austin on the apron and Rhodes need him and he took a bump and pretty much crouched himself on the cage. After the match, Root slammed the door on Sting's head and left him laying with a rude awakening

to set up their match at the next pay-per-view show, four and a quarter stars. This is one of the great forgotten matches in WCW history. It wasn't a main event, so people don't really talk about it, but I want to run through the competitive. editors one more time. Sting, Brian Pilman, and Dustin Rhodes go 14 and a half minutes

with Rick Rood, Steve Austin, and Paul Orndorff, 4 and a quarter stars, and the takeaway from Dave was, even though Regal was on the show, and Arne was on the show, and Sting was on the show, and Flair's on the show, Steve Austin was the best wrestler on the card. It's a breakout performance

for him, and it's setting up Rude and Sting. This is WCW maybe at its best here in 1994, I think. 1994, absolutely. And I had forgotten all about this match. And I am going to go back and watch this because just the level of talent in that ring. Yeah. And together.

I mean, it's, it is noteworthy for sure. I go back and check it out. Our main event is a rematch. Rick Flair and Vader. They're going to go to a referee stoppage in the Thundercage. The boss is going to be the special guest referee. that's Ray Trailer, the former big boss man. They go 11.5 minutes and there's a lot of great heat and intensity, but it's probably a

disappointing match. It's not nearly as good to me as the match that we saw at Starcade, even though we had a cage against three and a half stars. It's interesting, I suppose, that you know, you follow up with a rematch in a cage and it's not as good as just a regular match. But that is the case here. I wonder why they did it in a cage. I mean, that's a question for Rick.

Yeah. But I wonder why they followed up a cage match with a cage match. Well, there wasn't a cage match at Starcade. It was just a regular match. So they followed a cage match here. But to me, like, that match at Starcade 93 is probably one of the better matches of Flares whole career as far as story. Do you think, come around out to interrupt you,

but do you think it's because it was in a cage and because it takes away some of the mobility and some of the tools? Perhaps. Maybe you feel like because there's a cage, we have to use it. Instead of just doing what we would normally do, we feel like, okay, now we've got to use this thing.

So let's force it into the story. They told a great story without the cage. And it's not like there was a ton of outside interference. I mean, I know Harley was there for Verva. that's why the boss man's here or the boss is here and he's got handcuffs the good news is though they've announced that ricky the dragon steamboat who's been interviewed throughout the show and a few times they let you know he's in he's in line for a title shot at the next pay per view so that's going to lead to the last great steamboat flare match spring stampede

1994 so even though this is a three and a half star match we know what's coming on the next pay-per-view. It's definitely going to have Rood and Sting and Stainboat and Flair. That's going to be a hell of a match. Overall, though, I thought this show started like just one of the worst WCW or maybe just worst wrestling pay-per-views

in history. Arne and Riegel maybe went too long, but that was good wrestling. And then from that point forward, it was great. I mean, the Cactus Jack performance, the cage match with Sting and Austin and others. And then, of course, no one,

hey maybe this isn't as good as the last one but we're getting flare steamboat next good stuff strong way to finish i uh i found i wound up having a thumbs up for this show but i do wish if you're going to go back and watch it just go ahead and fast forward the first several matches what's your takeaway from this one i agree with you however if i put myself back into 1994 and at least try to reflect on a booking philosophy or approach to pay-per-views. The idea that you have less than stellar matches as your warm-up matches, as your pre-game, what do you mean, no? No, that's awful, isn't it?

Like, you got to start hot. That's what you did in the Monday night hours. Well, we figured that out later on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was kind of like the standard model. You start out, you've got your opening matches, much like you have an opening act at a concert. Right. Right. You get the audience ready. You keep them entertained. You get them on the edge of the seat. You prime them, so to speak, for your last two or three matches on the

card. Right. That was the methodology or the thinking, at least in WCW. I don't know what it was like at the time. It wasn't until later that I went, whoa, wait a minute, things have changed. We have to change with it. You have to adapt. But at that time in 1994, yes, the matches were weak opening up. They weren't great. They weren't even really given that much thought in terms of execution. But I think it ended up so strong and led to anticipation for the next pay-per-view that I would definitely give from a, if I were to go back and say, okay, on a scale of one to ten, what would you give Rick Flair as the Booker for this pay-per-view? Given the context of the time that it took place. I'd say it was a seven or an eight in terms of creative strategy because you're building,

you're ascending, you're creating anticipation before the show's even over for the next pay-per-view. I don't know. I have a positive, positive feeling about the approach to this. Granted, it wouldn't work today and is somewhat embarrassing by today's standards. But a lot has changed between now and 1994. Hey, in my real life, man, I'm helping people save money. I'd be glad to help you too. If you're looking to buy a house, if you're looking to get out of that apartment, if you're looking to sell your house, if you're looking to fix your credit, so you can buy a house, if you're looking to get some pro tips on how to save money to buy a house, or how much you need to buy a house, or maybe you're just trying to save

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or give us a call. It's whole free. 888425-0105. By all means, give us a buzz. Ask for me. We're right here on the parkway in Huntsville, Alabama, but licensed pretty much all over the country and able to help you remotely. Seriously, think of me next time you need something in that

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But savewithconrad.com, that's your hookup, man. Let's talk about what happened on the show. There was a couple of references to Hulk Hogan, one of which was put directly to flare in an interview before his match with Vader. where the possibility of a Flair Hogan match for the title was brought up. And Flair responded by saying if it did happen and be the biggest event in pro wrestling history. Meltzer would say,

although the best of our knowledge, no contracts have been officially signed and those close to Hogan insists no deal has been made, WCW officials are clearly under the impression that not only will the Flair Hogan match headline the Great American Bash pay-per-view show in July, but also numerous house shows around the summer where things might get kicked off

in May. So we know it's going to happen, but I find it interesting that you actually have mean Gene who we have seen hold that microphone for Hulk Hogan on more than one occasion, ask Rick Flair about it while he's the world champ. You had to feel pretty good about it or you wouldn't have planted that seed, right? Yeah. And to be clear, it was a risk because we still were in negotiations. That was a fairly long process. And we certainly weren't ready. to make any firm announcements in February, but we did feel good about it, and it was worth the risk,

and it was a risk. That means there's only one last paper review in WCW history before the Hulk Hogan era begins. Spring Stampede 94, they're going to go out with a bang, Rick Flair and Ricky Steamboat, just a phenomenal match, a great show, one of the most well-reviewed and revered shows in WCW history.

let's let's hit a few questions here and then we'll move along uh Simon C wants to know I recently watched Ray Trailer's WCW TV debut a few months prior to Super Brawl I noticed he was in his old WWF gear once he debuted did you expect an IP challenge from WWF or did you think WCW would get away with it that's a great question he did start wearing that correctional officer's outfit did you think you could pull that off just with a different name honest answer is I was so unaware of trademark and copyright issues and what could happen. And I mean,

many times have you heard me say I was learning on the job. This is a good example of learning on the job. It's not that I thought I could get away with it. To be really honest, I didn't give it any thought at all until after. And I started getting an education. Adam wants to know. can you speculate as to why Superbraw 4 was the only pay-per-view during this time period

to not get a home video release? One would think it was a cost-cutting decision, but the next pay-per-view in succession, Spring Stampede, was released on VHS. So could the omission of Superbraw 4 to the home video lineup simply have been an oversight within the Turner video production department? Could have been, I'm not sure what the reason was. Turner Home Video, interestingly enough, I believe, was running. by a guy by the name of Stu Snyder who went on to become the president.

I'm pretty sure Stu Snyder was the one who oversaw Turner Home Video. Could be wrong. I don't think I am. I'm sure I will be corrected if I am. But that was one of the frustrating things about WCW and the way it was structured is there were certain aspects of our business that we relied upon for revenue, that we had no control over. And it very well could have been an oversight or there could have been a specific reason for it that I wasn't aware.

Aaron Sheen wants to know, what was the backstage feeling with the talent knowing Hogan was coming in? Was anyone threatened about potentially losing their spot? I'm going to be, I'm going to answer that as honestly as I can, but acknowledging that a lot of the feedback that I would get to my face wasn't. real. I was the one that was driving that decision. Rick was working directly with me. Couldn't have done it without Rick. Be clear about that. So to my face and probably to Rick's as well, it was nothing but positive. Now, some of the people that were on the roster were people that I was close enough to that I knew that their reactions was legitimate and honest and sincere. And they're For the most part, I don't remember anybody bitching about it, saying anything negative about

it, nor would they, nor would they to my face wants to be non-supportive of a move that potentially could be so big for WCW, whether it jeopardized your spot or not. I am sure there were some who felt that way, but it was never expressed in front of me or certainly not to me directly. I never got that sense. The sense that I got from my unique position at that point in time was nothing but supportive, but I'm not stupid enough to think that all of that was sincere.

But I did, nobody came to me in an earnest fashion to say, hey, I have got some questions or concerns about this. That never happened. Like I said, I'm not stupid enough to think that it didn't happen while they were in the car driving to the next town going,

Well, I can't believe it. I'm bringing Hogan in. What does that mean for me? Because that's kind of human nature, isn't it? Absolutely. A wrestling historian says, what did you think of the Thunderdome or I'm sorry, the Thundercage structure?

Not much. Eh. Kind of like the only. Is there a reason for it? Is there anything unique about it? Is there a compelling motivational, example of why this should be interesting to me. Otherwise, it's just another cage.

What is the Thunderdome? What makes it unique from, I don't know, traditional cage? I guess you can climb out the top instead of going through the, okay, cool. Ah, nothing. Gimic. Now I feel about gimmicks.

Well, no gimmicks for our ad-free shows. We got a lot of questions from our ad-free shows members who joined our live studio audience. We'll try to zip through as many of those as we can. can coach keith wants to know this question is for both eric and conrad what about priests and the money in the bank cash in where and when i mean you got to think he's going to try to cash in if set has a match at elimination chamber and i don't know that he will but if he does you got to think they try to cash in there and if not perhaps they cash in after seth's match at russomania

whether it's night one or night two but i kind of don't hate the idea eric you know the the other money in the bank is coming up in a few months. What if another guy won and we wound up with two guys running around with those cases? And they both tried to cash in on the same guy right after each other. That could be interesting. That's so much fun. That's a fun thought. Yeah, that could be fun.

Different than, right? Different than anything else we've seen before with regard to money in the bank, which I believe was a Chris Jericho inspired idea. I could, if I'm right. But either way, I think that's a very interesting idea. You know, and I hope that that's a case. I love different than. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not so much,

but I love the fact that it could happen. Bobby wants to know where do you think Gunther and L.A. Knight fit in. Maybe they have a match to determine the number one contender at the pay-per-view following WrestleMania. I would assume they split them apart and give title shots on each night. So Logan defends on one night and Gunther defends on another night. Oh, I see. He didn't say Logan.

He said L.A. night. Yeah, I could see L. challenging for sure. I think L.A. Knight wins a title on night one or nine two. I don't know if that's against Logan Paul or if that's against Gunther, but

I kind of think L.A. Knight's going to leave Philadelphia with some new gold. I agree. He's got too much momentum. There's no reason to stall it if there's an opportunity to keep it going. But also one of the things I like about race, WrestleMania. It's not only

the event, but WrestleMania historically, sets the stage for what's going to happen the rest of the year in some respects. And it's almost like a reset in a way and a springboard. And I love the idea of both Gunther and L.A. Knight ascending in their roles and will certainly have the potential to do it. PJ Taints wants to know, could you see a situation where W.W. Bies T&A as another developmental territory. I think

Oh my God. You know what I just thought of? What? What if Vince buys it? Why is what? TNA? Yeah. Okay.

Look with that. Why would he? Why would he do that? I don't know. Just freestyling. If they're really trying to unload something, he really does want to get in the rest of the game. I can't,

I cannot, For the life of me, imagine a single reason why Vince would want to do that. But, listen, he's, uh, Vince McMahon is not an easily predictable person. So I'll keep that door open. I just can't imagine it. And neither. I was, I was about to, but I was about to finish with, I think the days of developmental territories are gone.

Yes. I don't see that ever becoming a strategy again. and not with the performance center and the quality of talent that's coming out of it, they've found the formula. They've found a way to do what so many people were concerned about. This is one of the things when I first got into management at WCW. And I was, you know, I was learning.

I was a sponge. And I'd listen a lot to Oli Anderson. Oli's position was, because Oli's, Oli believed, you know, you got to go back to the way things we used to do. And one of the things that Oli would talk about all the time was you're not going to be able to create and build new stars without a robust house show business because that's where talent learns. And O'I was of the belief that you could teach people basics in a training environment, in a training center, but you can't give them that real life experience that is so vital building a talent without things. going out and performing live.

But going back to 1993, 1994, when Oly was beating the drum about this, you couldn't afford to go out and produce live events that were losing money for the sole purpose of developing talent. So there was all these different combinations of how we do that. WWE did it with OVW and other, you know, Smoky Mountain, I would imagine. There was a lot of efforts made in that regard, and it did create some great talent. but you didn't have control over it, not the amount of control that you really wanted.

And I think WWE with the Performance Center has proven that they have the formula to do that. I don't see them ever going back to, oh, let's buy a small independent wrestling promotion and turning into a developmental territory. I think those days are gone. I agree. Let's do one here.

Another from Bobby. Which is better, in your opinion, for each show to have exclusive talent or the, you never know who you'll see approach A little brand split question here. What do you prefer, Eric? I like exclusive talent. It's very difficult.

As we've seen, I had the problem. WWE has had that problem from day one. We had two different A shows, SmackDown and Raw. Mine was Thunder and Nitro. It's a real challenge. But if you can crack the code, develop enough talent, discipline yourself over a long enough period of time, you literally can create ideal situations where you're competing against yourself, so to speak.

You've got your own internal rivalries, but it takes time, more important than time, and it takes discipline, and thus far, it's been pretty difficult to maximize. I think WWE's doing it better than they've ever done it, but still have yet to maximize it. Bobby says, do you feel that the WWE inducted too many people in the early days? It seems now they are fishing for inductees. No, I've had that thought. I've had that thought for years now. It's like, oh, my gosh, at some point, they're going to be inducting catering managers.

You're going to be inducting cable pullers, WWE Hall of Fame. I don't know. It kind of seems that way, because the magnitude of some of the people, when I say magnitude, I'm talking about longevity in the business and accomplishments within the industry over an extended period of time, contributions beyond just great wrestling matches, things like that. They added so many so early on that it gets a little more difficult this time goes on. here's one from coach keith just a quick shout out the afs family is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me love you guys we love you coach keith nice to see you in tampa and on the live chat

last week can't wait to get together again christopher north says you've often said you were just a tv guy early on not the creative guy who handled the rickflare training montage do you remember what gym you were able to shut down for the shoot Rick would have orchestrated it all. Rick would have would have been involved in laying it all out. As far as shooting it, I had to guess it would have been Neil Pruitt. I would have assigned the crew. Craig Leathers was our director, but Neil Pruitt did a lot of the on-site kind of ENG style packages that we did.

So I would say, again, if I had a bet, Neil Pruitt, Woody Harrelson. What's E&G stand for, Aaron? electronic news gathering, something that's not on set, on location, camera to lock down, standing there with a microphone with a big set behind you. Think of it like, you know, if a reporter shows up at the scene of a house, it was damaged by a tornado, it doesn't look that great. It's kind of gritty, if you will. It's almost like you had to run up on the scene to report.

So it has a more spontaneous feel to the presentation. as opposed to something that was done backstage or on a set. Well, that'll do it, boys and girls. We greatly appreciate you guys tuning in today. We did a marathon episode. We're clocking in it right at three to hours. Appreciate you riding a long shotgun. We got back on track, Eric.

We weren't just talking about the current news. We were talking about nostalgia. And we're going to be doing that next week. We're going to talk about Super Bowl 99. What an interesting time in WCW that was. It's Hogan versus Flair again. What's new is old again or what's old as new. new again, whatever. Goldberg versus Bigelow, Roddy Piper versus Scott Hall, and oh, this fellow

named Oscar loses his mask. It's going to be an interesting time in WCWs. We take a look at February's Super Brawl 99 here on the show. If you've got a question for us, it's easy to ask, hit us up on social media. It's at 83 weeks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Eric's pretty active over on Twitter. He's at E. Bischoff. Find him on Instagram. You can see pictures of his beautiful part of the country and his lovely dog and you can see a lot more at the real Eric Bischoff

over on IG. I am at Hey Hey, Hey, it's Conrad on Twitter. At Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson over on IG. I want to mention too, if you're looking to advertise your product to men that are 25 to 54, no better place to advertise than right here. Find out how it advertise with Eric.com. And if you haven't already, be sure to check

out all of our new swag and merch that we've got. we've got i'm an eric bischoff guy cody is the guy uh the ninja stars and so much more 83 weeks merch dot com eric i never know quite what to expect when we click record but i hope you'll tune in to a w this week and let's see what you think of this young buck storyline i for one am really excited about both promotions if i'm honest the only thing i'm pumped up about an a w right now is the Sting story. But I'm anxious to see how they finish with this because he deserves it.

He deserves all the accolades. He deserves, you know, his moment in the sun and the big proper send off. And we're home stretching it. Meanwhile, it feels like we're just getting started on the story for the road to WrestleMania.

It's an exciting time to be a wrestling fan, Eric. It is indeed. An exciting time to be hosting a podcast with you because we get a lot to talk about it. I look forward to it every week. I want to thank everybody for joining us, whether you're doing on YouTube, ad-free shows, or wherever it gets your podcast. I love doing this.

It really is, not to get too heavy, it really is a blessing for me at this stage of my life and look forward to it every single time. So thanks to everybody that joined us, however you choose to join us. And we'll see you guys next week, right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, here to tell you a little more about what ad-freeshows.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 apps.

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