83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 313: Controversy Creates Cash

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

On this episode of 83WEEKS, Eric and Conrad dive into Controversy Creates Cash and the process of writing it and Dave Meltzer's thoughts of the book. Before that, the guys discuss everything happening in the world of professional wrestling including Okada's debut, Cody slapping The Rock, Vince McMahon selling millions in stock, and so much more on this week's edition of 83Weeks with Eric Bischoff. AURA - Stop data brokers from exposing your personal information. Go to our sponsor https://aura.com/83weeks to get a 14-day free trial and see how much of yours is being sold. SIGNOS -Signos removes the guesswork out of weight loss and provides the tools to develop healthier habits. Go to https://www.signos.com/ and get 20% off select plans by using code 83WEEKS. HENSON SHAVING -It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit https://hensonshaving.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=83Weeks to pick the razor for you and use code BISCHOFF and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/.  BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE FANATICS - When you - or someone you know - is shopping for the latest WWE gear, you can support 83 Weeks too simply by using our dedicated link! https://wwe-shop.sjv.io/c/5036600/1371040/16449 STARRCAST - Be part of the very first international STARRCAST in Australia! Get tickets and information at https://www.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 https://nationsgo.com/conrad/ 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 https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise 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 https://www.patreon.com/adfreeshows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am doing great, feeling very springy. Spring is in the air. I love it. Not my favorite time of year, but I do look forward to it. And we got that, you know, leap forward, fallback kind of thing going on.

So it was late early this morning. Oh, shit. You like this? Is that what you said? Bullshit. Yeah. Who likes losing an hour of sleep? that's not good it's you're not losing an hour sleep that's a mental thing you're getting the same

amount of sleep it just happens to be lighter when you get up i love that oh god i'm gonna have to agree to disagree i'm over this whole daylight say let's fucking stop with the change in the clocks how's that oh i know it's bullshit it's bullshit it's like arizona right now they're on mountain time. I'm on mountain time here in Wyoming. But we change our clocks, Arizona doesn't. So half of the year, we're in the same time zone as Arizona. The other half of the year, we're not. It's an hour earlier. It changes. And it's ridiculous. There's no reason for it. Life is complicated enough. We don't need to further complicate it with ridiculous maneuvers like moving the clock back and forth for really no good reason. It goes back to the

the end of World War I or World War I when they decided farmers needed more time, more in daylight in order to work the fields, feed the country, feed the troops. That's what it goes back to. And then we just said, now, let's just fuck it. Let's just keep it. We'll make up reasons why we should keep doing it. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

I want to talk about some more ridiculous stuff. There's a lot of ridiculous stuff going around now. You know that. All right. We got to take a time out right now, Eric, because I want you to do me a favorite. pull out your Google machine and I want you to type in your name or your email address I'm telling you you're going to be shocked what comes out it's going to make you uncomfortable because you're going to realize you're exposed people have your information and it's all for sale just like this

you see data brokers sell your information to scammers spammers and really anybody else who wants to target you they've got your full name they've got your email they've got your home address. Dude, they've got your health records, even your relatives. It's all out there. And that's why I've started using ORA, the sponsor of today's video. You see, ORA shows me which data brokers are selling my information and automatically submits opt-out requests for me. And I actually signed up for ORA and could not believe all the information that they were able to gather from these different data brokers. I want to remind you, I've been in the credit business for over two decades. And even I didn't realize the

the depth that these data brokers with. But cleaning up my information not only helps me reduce the spam I get, and wouldn't that be nice? But it also protects me from hackers who could use this information to help access my social media accounts, my bank accounts, or other sensitive information.

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So easy even Eric did it earlier today. That's all. We get everything at one affordable price. You may already have one or two of these tools, but not having ORA is like locking the front door and leaving the back door wide open. It doesn't make any sense. You see, ORA is always on doing the hard work for you of keeping us safe so we can focus on the other tasks with peace of mind.

I have this in the background to worry about. I value my privacy and I value yours. So go right now to aura.com slash 83 weeks. That's a ura.com slash 83 weeks to start your free two-week trial. It's also linked in today's show, but you can type in your Google machine. A-U-R-A-com slash 83 weeks. You'll get a free two-week trial. You're going to love it.

I know Eric did. I did indeed. And by the way, Conrad is very very very. Very intuitive, man, I logged in, signed up, and within three minutes, I was well on my way. And for someone like me to be able to jump on an app like that and get through it as quickly, especially as comprehensive as aura is, it's amazing what they can provide. And it's absolutely mandatory for me. When I saw the kind of information they were able to dig up on me and the number of people that were tracking me and the data miners, holy smokes, I had no idea. But it does explain why I'm getting a million emails a day from people I've never heard of before.

Now I get it. Man, stop all that. Do what Eric and I did. Go right now to aura.com slash 83 weeks. A-U-R-A-com slash 83 weeks. You'd be glad you did. There it is. Let's talk about some big sports news of the week.

Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. It's happening live on Netflix, July 20th. AT&T Stadium, Dallas, Texas. My goodness, 20 years ago, this was maybe 15 years ago. This was the It Stadium. And I guess 25 years ago, even 30 years ago, Mike Tyson was the It Boxer. But when it's come to pay-per-view attractions,

as crazy as it sound, the side show that Jake Paul and his brother Logan have brought to combat sports has put a lot of money in a lot of people's pocket. Of course, famously Logan Paul several years ago, hooked up with Floyd Mayweather. And now his younger brother that's going to be stepping in the ropes with Mike Tyson.

It's come out there actually using an old image of Mike Tyson that's been Photoshop from, I don't know, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. I do that all the time. All the pictures you see me are all old fuckers, like 20 years old. what uh what did you make of this news man like even if you're not a boxing fan even if you're not a wrestling fan this has a lot of people talking right now i think the first thing that i mean it's cool i love it i'm here for it i just to this day i think mike tyson is one of the baddest mucker fathers on the face of the earth i don't know what anybody's thinking about

getting into the ring with him but hey they're going to make a lot of money a lot of money but the most interesting part of it is that it's happening on netflix i thought that was pretty cool live event on netflix totally agree i think that's the thing i'm most interested in because realistically i don't expect this is not going to be mike tyson of 1988 you know that this is the same mike tyson who had an exhibition a few years ago against roy jones and that's what we're going to do here. I don't think anything changes. I think it's an opportunity for people to see Mike in between the ropes one last time. And he's going to get paid a bunch of money and so is Jake Paul. But like we always hope in wrestling, I hope no one gets hurt. But I don't feel that that's really

going to be an issue. I like you, think the idea that it's not on pay-per-view and that it is on Netflix is one of those things that makes you go, hmm. Do you think we'll see other sports, other attractions, start to find their way over to Netflix? I mean, first, WWE, now this. Yeah, I think it's only a matter of time. Yeah. I think it's a matter of time. I don't think it's if it's how soon before it becomes commonplace.

You know, this is, this is unique. It's a unique situation. Probably in another 18 months, it won't be that unique. Maybe two years. It won't be that big a deal because we've seen it. We will have seen it. It's an interesting time. Streaming in general.

Very interesting. Changing the world. I'm anxious to see what's next for Netflix. It does feel like there's more focus on live programming. Netflix has always been the beauty of it has always just been that it's on demand. But the idea that now we're seeing more live stuff, that's pretty exciting and makes me wonder what's next. Not just with Netflix, but how many other people will find? follow suit. It might not surprise me to see that other folks take their sports

entertainment brand to a streaming service. We know that Raw is headed there. Do you have a prediction as to who might be next? I really don't. I mean, the obvious candidate, I guess, would be AEW, right? I mean, there's or impact or impact. either one, I think AEW probably more so, just because they're bigger and they've got a larger footprint in terms of the audience. That'd be my guess, but who knows, man? I don't know. I'm just sitting here watching it all happen like everybody else, mystified, excited, curious about the future. I only bring up the impact thing because I've been thinking about that a little bit lately.

like what are they going to do like without scott dameur it does feel like maybe they've uh i don't know i i don't have any inside track i don't have any feel it just doesn't feel like it feels like without scott d'more there i feel less certain that it's going to exist in its current format i mean what what what it can't be making any who owns it who's a company that owns impact now you're thinking of anthem but the asper family why would they want it it's not you're not generating revenue i guess because it feels programming time kind of like you know reruns of andy mayberry i guess you know yeah but dude they went and bought the television station just to have a place to show the wrestling show right it's weird so like that that whole thing

makes me think man eventually they're going to throw the towel on this and say I don't want that I'm not rooting for that but I wonder hey man if if I'm a streaming service that might be the only home for some of this the archival footage because I do think that those archives have value you could repurpose a lot of great stuff some of it library yeah I'm not saying all of it but I'm saying repackaged like WWE didn't even do that great of a job with that but imagine if we had a guy like Tony Chivani breaking down and explaining old WCW or old Jim Crockett. I mean, I know he's doing AW now, but in an alternate universe where AW doesn't exist

and the network becomes a thing, people would have tuned in for that. They just never really, because it wasn't a priority, I think they got the feedback that all people don't watch the old stuff because it just wasn't priority to them. But if it was packaged differently, I think it could be something more substantial. I'm not going to say it would compete with. you know, a first-run pay-per-view or anything, but I'm anxious to see what's next for impact. I got to think they're going to wind up doing something with a streaming service at some point. It seems logical to me. What's even weirder is because there's really nothing,

I mean, impact is a, it's just there as we've been discussing. It doesn't make sense, really, from a financial perspective that I can imagine. And if Scott DeMor wanted to buy it for $10 million, which is significantly more than I think anybody paid for TNA or impact or whatever it's called, why would you just take the money and move on? You're not really in the business. There's nobody there that's really passionate about it. It's just there with no real goal, no real upside, no real future, no vision, it's just there. And if you've got a guy like Scott DeMore that's passionate about it and believes he can build it and is willing to come to the table with 10 million dollars why in the world would you not take that deal there has to be a

motive there has to be a reason why and i just can't put my finger on i can't imagine what the why is i don't know either i'll be honest i haven't heard the 10 million number um shout out to you for doing whatever research there was involved in that but i uh to me it just feels like without scott you know they're going to be looking for the exit door sooner rather than later and I don't want that. I think it's better for wrestling that it exists. And I hope that, you know, it sticks around forever and ever amen.

I just think it's probably going to have to be with Scott or some sort of streaming service. We'll see. What we are going to continue to see is names roll out for the new WWV Hall of Fame. I can't believe this is real, Eric, but we've got not one, not two, but three entries announced.

We had none when we recorded last week. But now we've announced three different folks. The headliner in Philadelphia, so it seems to be the headliner, will be Paul Heyman, the former Paul E Dangerously, the guy, the wizard behind DCW, the talking head from Jim Crockett Promotions and WCW and the Dangerous Alliance and, man, what a run he's had with WWE, whether it's Brock Lesner or it's CM Punk or it's Roman Raines. I mean, it's been really impressive to see what he's done inside of WWB as a manager. And then to know all the horsepower he had behind the scenes, man, Philadelphia, I'm for it. Congrats to Mr. Heyman. What did you think? I'm excited, obviously, tons of respect for Paul.

Paul and I, uh, we go all the way back to about 1987, 1988, 1988 is when I first met Paul. Paul worked for Vernan, in the AWA. He worked with a cat by the name of Rob Russell. Rob Russon was like the premier used car salesman in professional wrestling. But he, you know, he sold live events. You had to be kind of a used car salesman to sell AWA live events in particular because the market was not really hot back in the late 80s. But Rob and Paul worked together on the live event side of his business, and that's why I first

met Paul. We didn't really work together much. There was no reason for us to work together. I was in syndication and sales and production backstage. And Paul was out really on the road. trying to sell live events. But that's when I first became aware of Paul. And then, of course, and got to WCW, and Paul was there.

And he left shortly after I got there. Paul went on to found ECW, and the rest is kind of history. But during that period of time, you know, Paul and I maintained kind of a, I won't say love, hate, but there was tension between us. Always respect, but tension. And then, of course, during the ECW, WCW, NITRO era, that got elevated quite a bit. and there was threats of lawsuits back and forth.

And I was being accused of stealing ECW talent and trying to put them out of business because Paul did a masterful job of positioning himself as the underdog. Yes. And he was, obviously. But he embraced it. Unlike Tony Kahn, for example, who came out right away and talked about being competitive with WWE.

It's still to this day. And one of the more recent press releases I saw, our interviews that I saw with Tony, he, you know, claiming that, you know, 2025 is going to be AEW's year. We're going to go from being a startup to a legitimate challenger brand. I ask you, Conrad, challenge to what? Challenge for market share? I don't think that's ever going to happen.

But Paul did the opposite. Paul, rather than come out and saying, I'm going to be bigger than WWE or I'm going to be bigger than WCW, he didn't do that. He went the opposite. direction. Lesson to be learned, Tony Kahn. Embrace being the underdog. Quit taking shots at the big dog on the neighborhood because you're never going to beat the big dog. But if you embrace the fact that you're an underdog, people will support you because of that. And you won't create this tribalism that everybody's talking about now. It was really created by Tony

Khan and a lot of the talent on the roster who were constantly taking shots at WWE. They created the tribalism and had they been able to deliver and become more successful and actually become a legitimate challenger, then I think people would have gotten on board with the idea, but obviously they haven't. And I think there's a real obvious lesson to be learned there in what Paul did by embracing the underdog status. even though he was funded by WWE, which is even more hilarious. But Paul did a great job of that and got so much support as a result of it.

And eventually, when I went to work at WWE as a talent in 2001, or whatever it was, 2002, 2001, I don't remember anymore. Paul was there, and we became really pretty good friends. But we kept up the illusion that there was heat between us because we both talked about it. It's like, you know, someday there could be. some money in this we didn't know how or why or when obviously it never happened but there was always that potential so we you know publicly we we kind of kept up the we kept the heat alive so speak publicly but behind the scenes we became pretty good friends as i'm looking at that old

school photo of you and paul haman in the ring inside of w i remember that segment because it just it wasn't just the two of you you also had Vince McMahon standing in the ring with you and it's boy how weird is it to think Paul Heyman's going to be in the WWE Hall of Fame Eric Bischoff's going to be in the WWE Hall of Fame Vince McMahon not so much wow not weird that's really weird when you think about it that's really weird but somebody else who is going in the Hall of Fame and we're so excited excited about this. Microtundo and Barry Windham

are going in as the U.S. Express. Now, Barry Windham is already in as a member of the four horsemen. He wasn't in as a solo act, but he went in with the horseman. IRS somehow was not in. What an iconic character he was. I was shocked to hear that IRS was not in, but

they are going in this year. And of course, we know in real life, Mike Rotundo is the father of Bray Wyatt, and we know we lost Bray. And I just if we're not going to induct bray this year and maybe we will as long as his dad's on stage they're going to have that family is going to have a cool moment this is what wrestling is all about to me i'm so glad to see they're going in i am too i never really got to know mike very well you know

obviously worked with him uh for a brief period of time but never really got to know him barry on the other hand i got to know pretty well uh and spent a lot of time with barry Barry was very close to Dusty and as a result I said I got to know Barry pretty well what a classy guy I can't say enough great things about Barry Wyndham he is a he is a class act for sure what I find interesting too is you know there's lots of speculation even on this show hey they should put Bray in this year Bray's real name of course Wyndham rotundo the tag team going in Windham retondo uh the other name that we should announce that's going in the WWE Hall of Fame.

Bull Nakano, man, talk about a throwback. This was a real pioneer way ahead of her time. You know, she was doing that strong style type of wrestling for the ladies. Long before there was a women's revolution or evolution or whatever you want to call it here in America. Man, what a trailblazer. And she spent some time not only in the WWE, but over there in WCW2, it's pretty cool to see Bull Nakano getting a little international flavor to this year's hall of fame yeah i should check in with sunny and see what uh you know sunny on no stays in touch with so many of the japanese talent

uh i'd be curious to see what bolnikano is up to what she's doing for today i won't give you a spoiler but i know and it will shock you and when you see her you won't believe it uh just tell me come on don't you don't have to tease me like that well look some fun some fun we should just hang on to uh let's mention a few other things then we're going to get into the news and notes of today because we're going to be talking about controversy creating cash and we're going to take a look at your first book and dave melzer's responses to it uh we've got a few other things that we need to hit on before we get there but i'm really excited about this i don't know if i'm

ready for this i had a long night last night kind of worse for the wearer this morning i don't know if i'm ready for it i can't promise how i'm going to react were you tipping a few back last night it's just a couple but i really don't drink much anymore so i think i had like three uh vodka sodas and you said you had a long night so i just wasn't sure what that meant what the yeah no but i could feel those three vodka you know back in the day i could pound eight or ten of those things and be just fine in the morning but i had I think three of them, and I'm feeling it. So we'll see.

I'm just going to promise anything. What I'm interested in is to know if you were keeping track of your Cygnos, because I know that, you know, you and I have both been tracking our glucose levels, and we've been getting real reports in real time. We're both doing the carnivore diet. I know there's no alcohol in the carnivore diet. You veered out a little bit yesterday. And I'm curious what you think about the Cygnos reading.

I mean, it really holds you accountable, does it not? I mean, it's a game changer. Let me explain. The CDC estimates that there are approximately 96 million American adults. We're talking like one in three who have what's known as pre-diabetes. And of those with pre-diabetes, more than 80% don't even know they have it. Why does this matter? Well, foods that are high in carbohydrates raise your blood sugar more than other foods.

Well, during digestion, the pancreas produces insulin. which then binds the sugar in the blood and takes it into cells as a source of energy. But if you have pre-diabetes, the sugar begins to build up in the bloodstream rather than fueling the cells. And this is when insulin resistance occurs, and that's believed to be the number one cause of pre-diabetes. Cygnos can help you short-circuit this cycle by using data directly from your body to design a weight loss plan that's unique to your lifestyle. Signos is the only company that compares a continuous glucose monitor with an AI-driven app to deliver real-time glucose monitoring for optimal health and weight management. You see, with Signos, you can literally see which foods cause your blood sugar to spike above reasonable levels and even get real-time alerts to do a bit of exercise to bring them back down. on average people are making about 227 food choices a day you're going to learn the difference between stress eating and physical hunger you're going to be able to better manage your energy throughout the day and even sleep better at night you'll meet your weight loss and health goals that are going to be provided to you with unique data like unique to you data this unique to you program for signals is going to provide weight loss that's backed by growing

of scientific research and scientists that all point to stable glucose as a part of overall health. And I know you could talk about this all day long, Eric. We both really believe in this. I know Mrs. B has basically got her degree in this now. But man, the idea that you have access to a continuous glucose monitor, a CGM, as they call it in the biz, even got my wife excited. She couldn't believe when we got one of these delivered to the house. This is a real medical device that's really helping people, right, Aaron? It's amazing. And it's fun for me because I'm fascinated with nutrition and I pay close attention to the things

I eat and how it makes me feel or in this case, the things I drink sometimes and how that makes me feel, but also how it affects my body. And for me, signals, it helps train me. You become much more familiar with the foods that you would have, you would never have suspected would affect your blood glucose, but do. And I absolutely love it. And it, like you said, one of the advantages in it is, you know, if you do eat something that spikes your blood sugar, you know, it'll tell you, you know, within a certain period of time, you know, if you work out five, ten minutes after you eat something that spiked your blood sugar, it can bring your levels

back down again. So I started, you know, if I ate something, in fact, the first time I did it was when we were in Tampa for Royal Rumble weekend, we got everybody together. Again, I kind of broke my fast, so to speak, and had a couple cocktails and went up to my room and did 100 squats because it brought my blood sugar levels back down. You can really learn a lot, learn how your body, because everybody's metabolism is different. Everybody's metabolism is different. The way certain foods affect you is different. Some people more affected by some carbohydrates than others, different types of carbohydrates.

But Signos helps you learn how your body is reacting to the things that you eat during the course of the day so that you can make better choices and kind of correlate in a more, I guess, visible way how you're eating and how that makes you feel. And once you connect the dots and you realize that what, you eat and how you eat and when you eat sometimes has such a dramatic effect on the way you feel if you pay close attention to it so i love the product firm believer in it whether you have pre-diabetes or suspect that you do or not i just think it's an amazing thing it helps you learn about nutrition learn about your body and you pay closer attention to the things you should be paying attention to when it comes to nutrition it's an awesome product of weight loss and provided us with the tools and knowledge we need to develop healthier

habits. It combines their glucose data from the CGM with an AI-driven app to deliver us real-time glucose insights for optimal health and weight management. And right now, Signos has an exclusive offer for our listeners. Go to Cygnos.com. That's sig-n-os.com and get up to 20% off select plans when you use our code 83 weeks today. That's Cygnos.com. Be sure to use the code 83 weeks, and you'll get 20% off select plans for you today. Signos.com, SIG-N-O-S.com, and use our promo code 83 weeks. So listen, man, you and I talked a lot last week about Sting's last match.

We did an exclusive for YouTube, which is available at 83weeks.com. We did a pre-show. We did a post-show. We talked about Sting and that pay-per-view a lot. what I found interesting is the next day on Monday Night Raw in the middle of a match Michael Cole said something along the lines of we want to congratulate another great champion Sting had his last match last night what a career blah blah something like that and then Pat McAfee said man what an epic match it was last night too and

Michael Cole immediately went back into calling WW programming I thought it was pretty cool you know i didn't know what to expect they didn't have to do it there's been times where something like that would definitely not happen i'm glad it did happen it's good for the industry it was respectful for sting but it did catch me off guard let's say you unique right that word unique typically you know w we i think historically i should say not typically but historically specifically, WWE, never recognized the competition or anybody else in the wrestling business, whether really competition or not. There was only one professional wrestling sports entertainment company in the world,

according to Vince McMahon. Everybody else was an imposter, not worthy of recognition. That was kind of the prevailing ideology at WWE. That's changed, you know, new leadership. ship, a little fresher look at things. I thought it was cool. It was great. It was good for the wrestling audience.

Maybe a way to reduce the previously mentioned tribalism everybody's talking about. You know, it's funny you say that because I never really put two and two together on why that tribalism really existed. I think you said something pretty astute earlier when you said, you know, Paul Heyman really leaned. into the underdog mentality us versus them you know it did feel like a revolution and that was even a t-shirt and a saying that they had back in the day joined the revolution and they tried that

same word when aew was first starting but it doesn't feel like often tony con positions himself as the underdog as you said do you think that's the reason i mean is that the whole reason in a nutshell that you know, Paul presented himself as the underdog and WWE and WCW is the big bad wolf and Tony Kahn just can't or doesn't want to present his product that way? I don't know what Tony's motivation is. I think Tony, Tony has fantasized about being Vince McMahon and reaching that level of success that Vince McMahon did.

Probably doesn't really want to be Vince McMahon right now, but you know what I mean. I don't know. You know, I'll go back to a couple years ago, two and a half years ago now when I first came out and said, Tony, shut the fuck up and Russell. Right. Quit talking about your competition. Quit taking shots at someone that you can't possibly compete with. And that was one of the reasons.

And I talked about it. I predicted what would happen. Tony came into this industry with so much goodwill. it was free. People wanted Tony to be successful. They wanted AEW to be successful. And within a very short period of time, Tony came out and started taking shots

at WWE, at Vince McMahon, at the talent, you know, WCW, I'm not going to make the same mistakes WCW did. If Ted Turner knew half as much about professional wrestling I did, WCW would still be around. He kept saying, all that stupid shit, and I warned him two and a half years ago, don't do that. You're going to lose the goodwill of your audience, and people are going to quit forgiving you for the mistakes that you're going to make early out.

Because a new company, a new wrestling company, especially somebody like Tony, I don't give a fuck how much wrestling he watches as a 14-year-old kid. Running a wrestling company and producing television is not something that you're going to be good at because you were a wrestling fan. It doesn't work that way. you're going to make mistakes. But if you've got the goodwill of the audience behind you, they're going to forgive you for a lot of those mistakes.

And they did early on. But eventually you lose that goodwill, and people start calling you on your stupid shit. And unfortunately, AEW and Tony Khan, particularly, specifically, has gotten really good and consistent at doing stupid shit. And now the audience is turning on it. It's not just me. And again, I'm not, this is not personal.

It's just such a wasted opportunity and it could have been avoided so easily. Had Tony Kahn kind of followed, followed the model of Paul Heyman. Forget about trying to be Eric Bischoff and WCW in the mid-90s or late 90s. Forget about that. Look at Paul Heyman and the success that he created and the legacy that he's created by embracing the underdog status because then you've got people cheering for you. Now you've got people throwing rocks at you. Go online, go over to Wrestling Inc. Or go to anybody out there that any website that's posting news and has a comment section,

so much of the comments, so many of the comments now are so negative about AEW in itself. It was totally avoidable. Had Tony followed the Paul Heyman model and embraced the underdog status, things would be a lot different for AEW. than they are today. I got to tell you, man, I felt like a lot of times when we were recording this and you had these pretty hardcore takes on Tony and AW, I just thought it was like sour grapes and just let it go in one ear and out the other.

Oh, it's just an old man yelling at clouds sort of thing. But then it was like, you just hit me over the face with that like, oh, you should have just did what Paul Hey, and it was like a light bulb moment for me like, oh shit, that's exactly the difference. like you came out and you were poking vince in the chest and you were competing and blah blah blah and maybe tony followed that a little bit but if he would have followed the eccw model i'm with you fans would be channing a e w a e w they'd be the underdog we'd all be pulling for them and instead this tribalism exists and i don't know if that's even in tony's dna like i don't know but that that

was fascinating to me i've never really considered that don't try to be w cd try to be ECW. Pretty fart smeller there, Mr. Bischoff. Yeah, been around for a minute. Learned a hard way. Learned a lot of things the hard way. Well, your biggest rival back in the day,

Mr. Vincent Kennedy McMahon, got a big cash out. 25% of his stock he cashed out this past week. Over $400 million. Mark Shapiro went out and told the press that Vince is not coming back to the company. They're not in any conversations with him. They don't know his motives or plans. It was pretty clear that the company is trying to separate themselves from Vince and for Vince to be cashing out 400 million. Maybe he's

trying to separate himself as well. What a weird sentence. Is it not? It is. And like you pointed out early in this show, you know, Heyman's going to be in the, Hall of Fame. I'm going to be there. Vince won't. And that to me is the weirdest thing ever. Vince McMahon, not even in his own Hall of Fame. Weird. Yeah. Super weird. Um, I wonder how Vince feels right now. I wonder what miserable. Frustrated. Angry. That was his life, man. I mean, from the time he was a kid. When his dad was running the business and Vince was learning the ropes, literally putting up rings and everything else that Vince did, it's been his life.

And to be persona non-grata at this point, where if he tried to walk into the office, he'd probably be escorted out by security. Forget that, man. How weird is that? It's just still so hard for me to comprehend. Just walking. around Greenwich.

I mean, this guy was the toast of the town for decades. I'm sure any restaurant, any bar, any, any business, any establishment, the minute he walks in, there's somebody who would go, hey, that's a positive, hey, that got created at WWE, whatever. And boy, they're crossing the street right now. Like, it's people, you went from being, people went from falling all over themselves to do something. for you and endear themselves to you to crossing the streets and not have to cross paths

with you i mean it's a it's it's it's like a fall from grace like o j simpson level where one day you're doing meet and greets and you're an endorsement you know you're doing commercials and then the next day it's like nope nobody wants to even claim they ever knew you it's going to be he's got to be just miserable right now he's such a complicated individual. I mean, there's so many weird, not weird, there's so many, there's so many aspects of Vince McMahon's personality that are conflicting. You know, I mean, I don't want to make this all about Vince McMahon, but Vince McMahon has done some pretty big things for people that others don't even know about.

I'm not going to publicize it because Vince decided and the other people involved decided. that they didn't want it known, but I'm firsthand aware. And some of this happened long before I ever went to work for Vince. So I'm not saying this because I had insight while I was there. But there are parts of Vince McMahon that are gracious and generous and kind. And every once in a while, you'd get a glimpse into an aspect of Vince's personality, or at least I did. where I went, wow, this guy really does have a heart.

He really does. This is this facade that we see isn't completely true and accurate. There is a real human being deep down inside. And I've had that thought a number of times in my interactions with Vince. I remember sitting in his office one night at 1 o'clock in the morning when I was there back in 2019. And subject of conversation came up and it's got a phone call in the middle of that. conversation from his mother. Wow. And I would, I, you know, once I realized it was a personal call, I, it was one o'clock in the morning. I was begging for a reason to get the fuck out of

there. But I started to get up to walk out. If it's, you know, put up his hand, it's just wait a second, you know, I sat there and I listened to his side of that conversation. I thought, what a, what a wonderful son this man is. He does have a heart. And then, there's the other side. There's the business side that we all know of, at least. I experienced firsthand competing against him legitimately. And that hard, super hardcore, aggressive, take no prisoners. He was a killer when it came to business. It was like Ganga's fucking con when he came to business. Very complicated guy. Very complicated. And I, You know, it makes me also wonder, you know, what aside from not being able to, you know, gain

access to the WWE headquarters building, which is just sounds weird even saying it, really. But I wonder what is the situation is with the family. Stephanie, Jane, grandkids, Linda and Vince had a unique relationship, you know, for quite some time, nothing new there, but I'm just wondering what the relationship, is it healing, can it heal? Maybe it's really not that damage. We all think it is, but wouldn't it be interesting to follow Vince with being around for a couple of days now and see what he's up to and how he's reacting to all of this?

I, um, you know, I don't know what to believe. I don't know who knows what and all that jazz and really a son of our business, but Wade Keller has some points and he believes that Vince is probably estranged from his family and the idea that it didn't have anybody is is awful and weird uh and obviously what he's been accused of is awful we're not i'm just saying like this is not the way we up we imagined his life would go i mean you said it again a minute ago the idea that you know paul and you were in the hall of fame and he's not you mentioned his mother uh vicky she passed away of natural causes at a hundred and one years old so i mean if he's got that gene my man's going to be here a long

dime um yeah let's talk a little bit about uh the other news from shapiro he's talking about russomania and he's expressing that russomania is going to have a big william morris endeavor influence wm e of course the parent company for tk o and wb but i guess that means a lot of celebrities are going to be coming through uh this feels like they're intent on making russleman bigger and bigger. I don't know if this is, obviously this will be the first endeavor WrestleMania.

It'll be the last one that's not on Netflix, I guess, for a while. Even John Sanna was on first take, sort of hinting that he's going to be at WrestleMania. And Shapiro even says he feels like

the premium live events are severely underpriced. Of course, the deal with these premium live events is there with Peacock until 2026, but Netflix, Apple, and others they've discussed are all having the discussions about, you know, what is that going to look like?

I mean, I kind of tend to think that they're going to be moving away from this peacock deal or just looking for a bigger fee. But we know that UFC Plus and ESPN and, I mean, that's all a part of the endeavor play. It feels like the way pay-per-views are presented might be changing. with endeavor. What say you? Clearly they are. I mean, the business model is changing dramatically. I mean, it's feeling like pay-per-view as a form of distribution and revenue generation is becoming kind of like Blockbuster. It's just fading away and changing. And I certainly

don't have any insight or even a feel for where things can go because I'm just not in the streaming business and don't understand the opportunities and the evolution. You know, where's it going? What's it look like a year from now? Two years from now, five years from now. It's just such an amazing thing to watch as it's happening. But I read the same thing that you read. You know, I took that to mean, and maybe I didn't read it closely enough,

But what I took away from that, those comments, was more about sponsorship and the revenue that can be generated in addition to whatever the streaming rights may be or the premium live event purchase price may be, whatever that ends up being. So I don't know, but clearly they're going to make a lot of money doing it. And I talked a lot about, you know, when Endeavor was first announced as the company that's going to. going to acquire WW. What is it now been over a year ago or whatever it was? Almost a year. Yeah. Almost a year ago.

One of the things that we talked about early on in terms of opportunity was the synergy, the real synergy that can be created when it comes to sponsorships of the big events. And that's happening very, very quickly. It's happening faster than I thought it would. We saw the big announcement with, what's the name of the energy drink, Prime? Oh, Prime. Yeah, I want to talk to you about that because it certainly feels like, you know,

they're doing a bit of a makeover in WWE. First of all, with the way they're doing the approach to celebrities at the premium live events, maybe we're going to do something different at the premium live events themselves. But the sponsorship piece is something I can't wait for us to talk about because it feels like it's going to be a whole new look for WWE. Oh, and by the way, top of the morning to you. This episode is brought to you by the St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Shavers,

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You mentioned in passing the prime energy thing on the ring. I do want to talk about that. But before we get there, I saw over the weekend Cody Rhodes posted on his Instagram he's got a new rap on his bus. Now that in and of

itself is not a big deal. Hey man, you don't want to be low key. You want to let everybody know the American nightmare is coming in. That's cool. I get it. It's even more interesting is that the rap is for a vodka brand. Wheatley vodka is now the official sponsor of WrestleMania 40, the official vodka of WrestleMania 40. And they've even wrapped Cody Rhodes bus. How about that? Wheatley Lodge. like listen i for one am all for it i felt like this was a lost opportunity a long time ago we've heard the stories for years that wb really wanted a beer sponsor and i think once upon a time there were some hurt feelings over there being a miller light commercial and a cor's light

commercial that were wrestling themed and w wb wasn't as involved and i know in like 89 jim heard got coors light associated with wcw and that was cool but it never really happened again I was shocked that there is a vodka sponsor of WWE, but in a good way. How about you? Same. And for years, one of the reasons, and I too, when in WCW, we were doing everything we could to get a beer sponsor. And we get close because especially in the 90s, late 90s, we were delivering massive numbers. We were kind of up there in a pop culture zeitgeist, so to speak.

One of the reasons I wanted to have a presence at Sturgis was to help attract not only automotive sponsors, gas and oil, as they refer to it in the ad space. But I was also hoping that we would be able to crack that beer sponsorship. Couldn't get it done. And one of the reasons we couldn't get it done is because, or at least this was the reasons we were told, by the ad agencies and media buyers, was that because even though WCW was primarily an 18 to 49-year-old demo, that was our, target. That's what we were working towards. There was still such a significant teen and preteen composition of our audience that beer companies just felt like it was inappropriate. Even though we were targeting 18 to 49 and our show was rated accordingly, the fact that we

had such a significant segment of our audience that was below drinking age, scared off the beer companies. So to see all of a sudden, you know, people embracing WWE, which I think probably has an even younger demo than WCW did at the time. I think it's pretty interesting.

Things are changing so much. I mean, look at some of the, I mean, okay, we got a vodka sponsor. By the way, cool bus, Cody, cool bus. I never had a bus at all. I had a motorhome once at Sturgis. That was it. You had an airplane. Well, yeah, but I bought it myself.

Nobody bought it for me. nobody was paying for it i had to buy it but not only are we seeing now vodka sponsoring a russomania look at some of the the language that rock is using in his promos on instagram for example we're leaning into you know fuck your dream cody roads you know what's like whoa whoa whoa so maybe there's uh there's a move of foot to kind of abandon the teen and preteen safeguards that have been in play for so long for so long it's so exciting to think about and i got to tell you the thing that really as silly as this is the thing that proved once and for all boy vince McMahon is gone and he ain't ever coming

back logan paul on smackdown introduced a prime bottle in the center of the ring for years and years, the canvas has been off limits for advertisers. Yes, if you want your name on the ring skirts, we can do that. If you want them on those barricades around the ring, we can do that. If you need some signage as we come in and out of the break and you want a live read from the announcer and Michael Cole tell you about how you can bundle and save, we can do that. But never have they ever allowed anything to be on the ring canvas and you were doing this way back when in wcw and it sort of went away but now here it is again and we have seen this in a w in the past with like draft kings and maybe state

farm i know over the weekend rampage had it for woo energy which i was shocked to see but prime i mean this was announced as being the biggest sponsorship in wwe history and it apparently is not only going to be there at WrestleMania, but all major premium live events going forward. Man, if we're not talking about one Paul, brother, we're talking about another. What do you make of this, dude?

I wish I knew the dollar amount. I haven't heard anything. I don't know if you have. No, I haven't. I can ask, though. I'd be really curious what that sponsorship looks like. Did he get a friends and family discount? Perhaps because

they wanted to Break the ice, break the ice and attract other potential in-ring sponsors. Pretty amazing. But you're right. I mean, if anything is kind of in your face and reminding us that Vince is really gone and really doesn't have any influence, I think it's the fact that a brand other than WWE is getting such a prominent placement inside of WWE programming. That's one of the things that Vince was always...

focused on was in justifiably so i mean it proved to be correct but the brand it was wwee above all else not so much anymore do you think this becomes a new trend in other areas of wrestling i mean we've seen you know we saw like master lock i think did a paper view for y'all in wcw in 2000 maybe it was bash at the beach but i know there were sponsorship opportunities in WCW. And we know that AEW has done some of this. I've certainly seen an MLW. Well, look at

Slim Jim. I mean, there are still, I was in the, where was I was in Detroit a couple weeks ago, went into a convenience store and there's a giant Randy Savage Slim Jim point of purchase display. Still there. I think Slim Jim is probably the sponsor in ring and otherwise that we've, you know, become so familiar with. But I think we're going to see more of it. I don't know if we're going

to see it in Impact or TNA or whatever it's called or how much more we'll see of it in AEW because it's, you know, they don't really have a significant enough audience to make any kind of a really big deal work. But it could, could see it in the future, assuming impact is still around and at some point AEW starts to grow. You could see it. I hope you see it. I'm just blown away that it's happening. I will say it's a great deal for prime. I mean, think about how many times you and I have gone back

or through all of our little podcast network here and we fired up nostalgia footage on Peacock and the idea that as we're watching these old matches, you're going to cut out the commercials. But those matches and the things that happen in the confines of the ring, that'll live on forever and ever. And it's one thing,

if it is just a random television show. Yes, a lot of people will get that first time on television. But if nothing of major consequence happens on that show, by and large, that show's forgotten about outside of the people who were in the building that night. But man,

know that if we were to fire up SummerSlam 88 and there was a Coca-Cola logo on the ring, and they're still getting value for that in 2024, good call by the prime business folks. who were helping Logan in these sort of deals now great move do you do you ever see I haven't seen prime on the shelves have you seen it yes I have yeah okay I think granted I don't go looking for energy drinks but I'll look for it but I wonder how how long has that brand been around is this like within the last year or two or is it been around yeah he just launched a couple

years ago they did over a billion dollars in sales last year but when they were first getting rolling yeah over a billion right away but when they were first getting rolling the kids because that's who this is targeting kids were were selling empty prime bottles and refilling it to look cool at school they did a whole episode on this on south park where they just spoofed prime they didn't call it prime i don't think they called it something else but my goodness it took over the youth and that's the reason they blew up and the reason you haven't seen it is And it's because you haven't looked for it. It's because it's targeted for kids.

I just think that's fascinating that I know that we're going to say, no, they're not targeting kids, but that's who Logan Paul and KSI are brand influencers for. That's a perfect illustration of, I mean, what a juxtaposition, right?

You've got prime in the center of the ring. And a vodka. And it's targeting kids. Yes. Unapologetically. Yeah. Successfully targeted kids. But over here,

we've got. vodka. It's then, now, together forever. And maybe it's, you know, and I said this, I think I said it to you last week, or maybe it was to Elbow over on Strictly Business. Perhaps, you know, advertising is changing as well because of the, the, the, it's become so much more difficult to reach your target audience. This has been going on for a long time. Really, since the internet, there was back when the internet and social, media first started really evolving, there was a lot of conversation about advertisers, taking some of their traditional media buying budget, traditional meaning television,

radio, print, and now taking a part of that budget and moving it over towards internet marketing. Well, fast forward, several years, a decade or so, now you've got streaming platform. So as an advertiser, you've got much more complicated decisions to make and opportunities in front of you. You still have essentially the same amount of money theoretically in your advertising budget but now instead of going, okay, it's radio

television print, maybe some billboards, and we'll sponsor a golf tournament. Now you've got streaming platforms and internet and Facebook and Twitter and it's a much more complicated environment

to reach your, there's more opportunities granted but they're complicated and perhaps now we're seeing advertisers you know kind of dropping some of the prerequisites that they used to have for example with vodka perhaps they don't worry quite so much anymore whether there's a significant part of the audience that's teen or preteen whereas that mattered a great deal 20 years ago 15 years ago 10 years ago perhaps now because advertising is advertising has become so much more complicated and challenging, maybe now it doesn't matter anymore.

And we'll start seeing your sponsors and people that typically wouldn't advertise in wrestling do so because shit's changing. Well, something else that's changing is the WrestleMania card. We have it official now. I guess we got a night one main event this past Friday on Smackdown. we saw an in-ring segment with roman rains the rock set ralins and cody roads they let out pretty clearly what the steps were what the stakes were we'll do a tag match on night one at russomania and when rock and roman win it's bloodline rules on night two but if somehow some way

Cody and Seth can win the bloodline is banned from ringside and Cody gets a fair shot with Roman reins on night two they've hit us over the head with this stipulation so it makes me feel like the obvious is coming or we're getting one hell of a swerve we don't know for sure but we do know that the show went off the air with Cody returning the slap to the rock of course famously the rock slapped Cody at the WrestleMania press conference well we turned the other cheek on smackdown i'm sure you got to see it what do you think of that segment and uh now that we've got our night one and night two matches lined up yeah i didn't see it live i obviously i saw it afterwards you know clips of it and so

forth i did not see it live i was out of the house um i you know the steps are straightforward right these are not this is not complicated this is easy to understand i love that um I think it's going to be a very understatement of the year. It's going to be a very, very interesting pay-per-view. And the way that they've got themselves into a little bit of trouble by jumping right in with the rock and possibly, in my opinion, underestimating the audience's reaction to that

and having to adjust on the fly, they pivoted very, very well. And now they're settling into a very basic kind of a promotion. It means simple stakes that everybody can understand and relate to. Kind of classic wrestling in a way, old school, if you will, in terms of the way they're building mistakes. So I'm here for it, man. I love it.

And I think Cody needed it. Cody needed to step up and man up with Rock. Rock's been pretty aggressive, said a lot of shit, haven't heard too much from Cody in response, really. I think Cody needed that to show some fire and to fire up his fan base. I was happy to see it. I was happy to see it too. It's been a long time coming.

And I'm wondering what I'm, I mean, listen, I guess we're not really fantasy booking, but we got to kind of try to figure this out. I mean, it feels like we got enough breadcrumbs here to know that Rock's going to turn on Roman and Cody's going to get a fair shot on Sunday night and then there's it's going to be some sort of fallout and reckoning with Rock and Roman after the show. Is that the way you would see this or?

I don't know. I'm so confused by, I mean, Rock is decidedly, you know, taking on the heel persona right now. But if we were to, if we were to go, if we fast forward through WrestleMania and what you see happening happens, is Rock back being a baby face again? that's kind of quick you think i don't know man i can't call it you know it i think i think the rock has the ability he's one of the the rare talent who can make you love him or hate him just like that i mean if he comes out and and cuts a funny promo people love him in that year if he comes out and shits on their local the hometown sports team they know to boo

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Well, how thin a razor should we make? Well, what if you made the thinest razor you'd ever seen? Well, how thin would that be? Well, it'd be 0.0013 inches. Man, ain't that like thinner than a human hair? It is. Why would we need that? well because it'll give you a more stable blade a more secure blade

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It really is. And that's one of the things that's so great about this podcast is you get an opportunity to try products that you might not otherwise try and discover can kind of change your life, sometimes in small ways, sometimes like the glucose monitor, in big ways that can help save your life and in this case it's henson shaving when it comes to grooming i don't think there's a better product out there i don't think there's a product out there that's even close as a matter of fact i don't ever want to advertise another razor other than henson because i would feel like a fraud promoting it i never want to do it if another razor company comes to us and says here's x amount of

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a little bit about AEW at the start of the program we are going to be talking a little bit more about AEW here in a moment but before we do I got to ask man with the benefit of hindsight Cody jumping to w and now being on top of the mountain at WrestleMania, working with the Rock on 9-1 and seemingly winning the world title from Roman Rains on night two. How's history going to talk about Cody's jump from AEW to WWV? I mean,

I know that story's still being written right now, but it seems like it gets bigger and bigger with every passing day. That's a really great way of saying it. It will get bigger and bigger and bigger because we're all, you know, in it still. I mean, the fact of Cody is even in WW. He returned back to WW where he started from.

But after stepping in to AEW and being such an important part of that company, the launch of it, in some respects, the face of it, and along with others, but certainly a very, very high profile within AEW. And then to turn around and walk away from it, which was a big move. First of all, it was a big move to walk away from WWE in the first place. When Cody packed his bag and says, you know what? I'm done. I'm going to go give this AEW thing a try.

That took a lot of courage. You know, and I texted Cody as soon as that was announced. I remember I was in L.A. on business. And I was sitting in a restaurant when I got the news and I sent him a text and how proud his dad would be because that's a dusty roads. Yeah. You don't like the way things are going. If you don't believe in.

in the company you're working for, the position that you're in, and you pack your bags and go try it somewhere else. Ride that lightning bolt is what Dusty used to say. That's easy. You ride that lightning bolt till just before it hits the ground and then go jump on another one. That's the way Dusty described,

riding the lightning bolt to maintenance. And that's exactly what Cody did. And he moved over to AW, but he saw the handwriting on the wall. And it wasn't the vision that he came to AEW with. I'm not putting words in his mouth. That's my assumption based on things that I've heard and read. Never even had the conversation with Cody personally.

But I think it's pretty apparent that things were going the way he wanted to go. And he made the decision again, a big, big decision because you have to know Cody Rhodes walked away from an enormous amount of money. And a lot of security had he stayed in AEW, but he wouldn't have been happy. And again, much like his father, Dusty, back to him. his bags, went back to WWE and look at where he is now. And I think once the story has been completed, sometime after WrestleMania, I think we'll probably be able to look back and go,

wow, what a journey. Maybe the most interesting journey in terms of a professional wrestler, ever, ever, to go from the number one wrestling company in the world, where he's making a significant amount of money. I don't know what he was making in WWE as what was his gimmick, Stardust or Stardust, yeah, Stardust, I don't know what he is. I'm guessing if he was in the middle of the card based on what I've learned over

the years, he's probably in that 7,800 grand a year category, which is a lot of money, maybe more. But he left that security as a very young man. He left that security of WW and took a chance on AEW and then left AEW to take it an even bigger risk and going back to WW. And it all worked out for him, or at least it looks like it's going to. It's going to be a fascinating story someday. Let's talk a little bit about AEW. Right after Sting's last match, the very next dynamite this past Wednesday was the launch of a new season, quote unquote.

The idea was we got a new change in the graphics and the presentation, a new set, or an old set, depending on how you look at it. But the tunnels are back and the lighting is a little different and the presentation's a little different and the song's a little different. I guess you knew that freshen things up every now and again. What did you think of the new AEW initiative on Wednesday? I liked it. I liked it. I tuned into the show. I watched the whole show.

I love the colors. I know that sounds really weird, but I think AEW needed something to make it pop visually. There's a, and I know I've talked about it. I enjoy, in some respects, I enjoy the AEW production technique a little more because it feels a little grittier.

It feels, I mean, when I watch AEW sometimes I feel like I'm sitting. in the arena watching it. And that's how I like to watch television. If I'm watching wrestling, I want to feel like I'm in the arena. I don't want to feel like I sometimes do with WWE, where I'm in an IMAX theater watching a Disney presentation

of professional wrestling. It's so big. It's so colorful. It's so perfectly produced that it's easy to forgive that you want, easy to forget that you're watching a live event, whereas with AEW, it makes me feel like I'm there, and I like that. However, there's kind of a, darkness isn't the right word, but the lack of vibrancy and color in AEW makes it feel less than. Part of that is because Here we go.

Here comes the hate mail. So much of the talent looks like they've not given any thought into their gimmick. They show up, you know, Eddie Kingston. And I know that's his character. I get it. I'm not picking on Eddie Kingston. It's fine to have one guy that dresses like, you know, he just came from Jiffy Loob, where he works part-time. It's okay if that's part of the character.

But when you've got so much of the character, you've got so much of the, talent showing up in jeans and ripped up gear and just the lack of color and and there's a void of character sometimes because everybody kind of dresses the same and looks the same and looks like they you know they get their gear at Walmart and I think the color combination the set I thought brighten things up I like the banner the LED banner that I saw, you know, from a hard camera shot. I like that. It just brightened everything up a little bit.

So I thought it was a good move. I didn't pay attention to the music, I guess. But I did like the, I like the graphics. I like the colors. I like the set. I think it brought some new energy, much needed energy to the show, visually. Wow. Shitting on guys' gear.

That's a new thing. Well, come on. You know I'm right. I mean, these guys coming out, it's just, I don't get it. And it was really, really, when Will Osprey came out, that's where it really, you know, it really hit me. And I made a mental note of it because Ospre came out looking like a fucking star. He looked like a star.

He carried himself like a star. And it provided such a unique contrast to me. to so many of the other talent that don't look like stars. They don't carry themselves as stars. It was just a world of difference. Well, but to be fair, and I'll admit, I like Eddie Kingston a lot. He's one of my favorite promos in wrestling. I enjoy him as a person, et cetera, et cetera.

So maybe I'm defending a little bit. But just wanted to say, dusty roads looked like the every man. that's the reason dusty roads connected with the audience he was the common man i mean he'd come out there in a solid gold Rolex and a t-shirt and mismatched knee pads and whoop your ass and some ill-fitting jeans i think that was awesome i do too i gotta think that's what edie's going for and that he wants to look like the every man he's just a dude you know who loves this and wants to fight and blah blah not everybody if everybody comes out doing an oska dance and an oscar dance and an a presentation you don't have anything different but well and and i'm going to throw it right back at

you i agree that's a great analogy that you came up with dusty and eddie kingston perfect analogy then protect eddie kingston and make sure that everybody else doesn't show up looking like eddie kingston you see the same thing with the bats sting was the bat guy right now everybody's got a bat jericho comes to the ring with a bat everybody's got a bet what the fuck. If you want Eddie Kingston to be the 2024 version of Dusty Rose, I'm all in. I love the idea. If somebody was pitching that to me in a creative meeting, I would perk up and listen closely. But then protect him and your own product by making sure that everybody else doesn't show up looking like Eddie Kingston, including Moxley. And half the

rest of the roster that all looked like they just left a jiffy lube and showed up in an AEW wrestling ring decided to have a street fight that's not protecting your talent that doesn't do anything for Eddie Kingston or Jesse Rhodes if everybody else in NWA or WCW or WWE at the time because he was going to polka nuts back then but if you want to get a talent over if you want that character to be defined clearly and to be unique because of how he or she dresses and comes to the ring and presents their character that protect it by not allowing everybody else to do it too that's my bitch it's not that eddie doesn't look like a star and he doesn't but eddie doesn't stand out from anybody else on the very few people

on that roster because they all look alike none of them look like they really i shouldn't say none of them few of them look like they really are giving any thought into their gimmick or their character work it's my opinion who in uh in the ufc looks like a star to you yeah i i don't it's a difference it's a different it's apples and oranges no no i know i'm i'm not arguing that i'm just wondering is there a kind of mcgregor kinder mcgregor looks like a star he's not he's not a fighter though he hadn't fought in years so i'm i just i mean i know i know what you're saying but i'm just wondering is there somebody out there like over the weekend we saw nagono just get fucking destroyed by anthony joshua and i don't i know

a lot of our listeners don't keep up with mma and boxing and i get that but i'm just wondering is there is there someone outside of w w i mean we see how w bese presents their talent i'm wondering is there another place to draw inspiration from in the entertainment game i mean i think look at WWE, Jimmy Hart used to drive me crazy. Remember, you know, I always, I learned a hard way. I said that in the beginning of the show. I learned shit the hard way. I've never learned anything the easy way.

I've always learned everything the hard way. And one of the things I learned the hard way. And Jimmy Hart used to drive me bat shit fucking crazy with this. Because if you've been around Jimmy for any length of time, especially back then when he was younger. and more assertive, right? And he's never been aggressive, but he'd just pick away, pick away, pick away,

try to make a point, never let you forget, always be on you. But one of the thing that Jimmy used to point out early on, when I first started really getting involved with creative back in 95 or so, Jimmy used to bitch all the time about what wrestlers would wear to the ring. And he used to drive me crazy,

because in my mind is like on a list of things that I needed to fix and address the color of someone's tights was like at the bottom of that list. Right. But Jimmy would always put it at the top of the list. It'd drive me bat shit with it. Every single television show we do,

we produce. I can't believe these guys. Look at the way they're dressed. The way they're coming to the ring. They don't look like pros. And Jimmy used to have a saying, I guess it was Dick Clark. Yeah.

Back in the day when Jimmy was a part of the gentries evidently he had a conversation with dick clark for those of you that are older than me which probably not many of you listening to the show they're older than me but even people that are younger than me probably don't remember american bandstand but at a point there was a point in time where american bandstand was like it was the m tv of the 50s and the 60s right probably 60s well sad and jimmy had a conversation with dick clark and dick clark said something to jimmy Hart. I'm paraphrasing this because obviously I wasn't there. But if you dress like the audience, at some point, you're going to be in the audience. Meaning, dress like a star if you want to be

perceived as a star. And I remember listening to that going, oh, fuck to me. That doesn't have any place and this is different. I just dismissed it. But he was right. And I hear that all the time. I hear Jimmy Hart's voice in my head when I watched AEW last Wednesday. There was a point in time And it might have been before last Wednesday show. It's watching a match. And I think I may have pointed out. There were four guys in the ring, all of them wearing black. All their gear was all black, all four of them.

Now, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's a reflection on the lack of detail when it comes to character and production. It's, you know, television is nothing more great television, is nothing more than, attention to details, story, lighting, performance, whatever it may be. The closer you pay attention to the details of a production, the more likely that production is going to be successful. We're going to talk about dynamite this past Wednesday a little bit more, and I'll give you some more tangible examples of what I'm talking about. But if you're not paying attention to the little details,

you're not going to get the big shit right. Jimmy Hart was right, as much as you used to drive me bad shit, and I used to dismiss it. It's one of the things I learned the hard way. If you want to be perceived as a star, then come to the ring looking like one. If you want to be perceived as a part-time car mechanic, come to the ring. Oh, God. Will you stop?

I'm not going to stop. I'm making a point, and I'm correct, and you know I'm correct. It just pays you to sit here and have to listen to it because you know what I'm right. No, no, I just don't think if everybody's coming in. And, like, you mean, we had sick boy and the flock and Billy kids. It's stuck because they all look the same. A lot of people listening to this liked it, Eric. Not a lot.

There was a, there was a segment of the audience that liked it. Just like there's a segment of the wrestling audience that enjoys watching AEW. You're always going to have a percentage of the audience that's going to gravitate towards something. that the majority of the audience doesn't really enjoy. That's part of the fun, right? But again, like, you know, I used to think I came up with it, but I think it was dusty. I might have just borrowed it,

kind of like the NWO that I borrowed from Larry Zabiscoe when I thought I came up with it. But somewhere along the line, whether it was dusty or whether I came up with it myself, the analogy of wrestling needs to be a buffet. You need to have a little bit of everything for everybody, if you want to be successful. So I'm not saying you should never do something.

You should never come dress like, you know, a grunge type character. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you shouldn't have 75% of your roster looking like that. If you want your company to be perceived as something bigger. I, for one, look forward to when Eddie Kingston cuts an Eric Bischoff promo. That's going to be fun. Well, again, it's not like I'm beating up on Eddie Kingston and I'm not. I, there's a love to say, you just mention it every week and say he looks like he changes

fucking tires and jiffy lobe well does he no am i right no wow i mean what has it been since you've been to a jiffy loop dude i i can't help but wonder is that the same attitude you had towards steve austin oh same black trunks same black tights why don't we get some colors why don't why can't you dress more like alex right why don't you come out there never that never that whole black boots black tights narrative is bullshit i never said it it's just something that you know that kind of popped out of the internet wrestling community ground but that was never my issue with steve austin ever let's uh let's talk about okada ocada made his debut in atlanta man the the

momentum that this company has for their hardcore audience and to to come out and have will Losprae, just put on a clinic, an unbelievable match of the year candidate. And then a couple hours later, Sting has his last match. And then a few days later, here comes Okada. Next week, we know it's Sasha Banks, Mercedes-Mone, as we're going to know her. But before we talk about that, what did you think about the introduction of Okada? The Young Bucks come out as heels, of course. They're saying, and I love that they took credit for Sting's last match.

was awesome. And they fired Kenny Omega, who's been sidelined with diverticulitis. We don't know when he's coming back, but eventually he will. So I guess that's the end of Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks being a Hill trio. Instead, taking his place, Okada. Man, what a performer. Lots of rumor in any window about the type of contract it took to get him there. What did you think of his first appearance as a member of the main roster here for EW. He looked good. Yes. Right?

He dressed like a pro. I was impressed with that. You know, and I don't know enough about Okada to have too much of an opinion yet. I'm certainly looking forward because I've heard so much about him and praise in terms of his work and all that. But I'm just not familiar enough with him as a performer to comment too much. But in terms of the setup, in the way he was introduced, I thought it was pretty good. It wasn't bad.

It wasn't great. And I talked about this a little bit on strictly business. Both Osprey and Okada, those are two big moments in that show. They got almost no buildup during the course of the show. And great. Osprey's here. Wow, he's part of the AW, AW, AWA roster. Whoa, fuck.

And he got 654,000 viewers. What the fuck? And certainly not Will Osprey's fault. Nothing was done. Very little was done. Maybe nothing. Nothing that I can remember was done to build anticipation to that moment. You could have easily, with a series of 20 or 30-second bites from Will, let us hear from him.

Let us, let's hear what he wants to achieve here in AEW. Let's hear why he's side. Why is he now a part of the roster? What is he looking forward to? Who does he want to fight? Russell, whatever. Let's hear from him as we're getting ready to see him later on in the show. That's how you format a show.

Knuckleheads. And it was nothing. He just popped up. Ah, Will Osprey's here. Great. 654,000 people watched it. that's ridiculous the lack of format the lack of understanding of how to produce television is tony con's biggest flaw he does not get it i don't care how much of it he watched as a child

it doesn't matter the fact that they both now it kind of got a little bit more right but the fact that you've got a guy you've spent as much money as you've spent on will ospre because whatever whatever reason you believe that that's the future of the the industry. And I'm not even going to argue that. It may be. Well, I'm saying. I made the show and you did nothing to build it up and build anticipation. You just put them on TV and expected it to work. I don't know. And here's the part that frustrates me. If you go back and watch that show, there were backstage promos that served absolutely no function. It was filler. And they were horrible.

horrible. They actually made your show, made the show, not your show, made the show look amateurish because they were so poorly produced and written and served no real purpose. Why? Did you like anything about that motherfucker on Wednesday? Huh? Can you find anything you enjoyed on AEW Dynamite all Wednesday? Just one thing. I did enjoy watching Will Osprey work. I enjoyed the hell out of his match.

Who did he wrestle? Kyle Fletcher. Okay. Look at you. Again, another guy that, you know, I only know because he wrestled in that match, but I did watch that match and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I mean, it was a work of art. Will Osprey is he's otherworldly in terms of his abilities in the ring.

And he's got character. He's got a presence. He's got a look and he knows how to use it. very, very effectively. In fact, I think the biggest challenge that AEW is going to have with Will Osprey is because he's so far ahead of everybody else on the roster, not only in terms of what he's capable of doing in the ring. And maybe Okada's just as good or better.

Maybe Kyle Fletcher is just as good or better. I'm not here to argue that. He's exceptional when it comes to what he's capable of doing in the ring. Better be careful how you use him. because there's not a lot of people that can keep up with him on that roster. There's not a lot of people in the country that can keep up with him. Probably not a lot of people in the world that can keep up with him. He's that fucking good.

But it also means you have to be careful how you use him. Because if we're going to see Will Osprey every week, you're going to get to a point after a couple months where he's wrestling guys who just can't keep up and he's going to have to slow his game down. He's going to have to adjust to the talent he's working with. And you'll be taking away the very thing that makes him such a special performer. I would use him as an attraction.

He'd be my Hulk Hogan when Hogan came to WCW. He'd be the Undertaker in WWE towards the end of Undertaker's career. I would be very judicious, how I would make him so special and make people so hungry to see him perform that he remains that attraction and holds that value as opposed to what we saw was C.M. Punk. When they brought C.M. Punk yet. And he's wrestling people that didn't matter.

And before long, C.M. Punk didn't matter. When it came to ratings, when it came to, the only thing that we can measure that's that's objective and not subjective is the numbers listen i i want to cut in right there because i totally agree with what you're saying you know to use a real estate term like if we were doing an appraisal which is something i do in my real life uh shout out to save with conrad dot com skip your next two house payments real time um the highest than best use of punk was probably not wrestling guys who were part of a tag team in a singles match

in prime time maybe not the best use of him i get that and it did feel like there was a lot of 50-50 where he was giving a lot to the guys and i know he was trying to make guys but i feel like when you go back and look at the very beginning of a w maybe cody and the bucks were doing too much of that they didn't position themselves enough like a star and i wanted to see what you thought about because i for one thought and i listen i know that fletcher is a badass wrestler and i know he's got a ring of honor title and i know they have history him and osprey but as someone who's just watching the show maybe you don't know that because you tuned in because it was stings last match and boy you couldn't help but be impressed with osprey i didn't know if fletcher was the right

first opponent for him and i didn't know if a six-man tag with okada on collision on saturday night was the best use of okada i don't know that you saw that it was a quick win he he hit his finish and that was it but i don't know i don't know i I was not too sure on, is this the highest and best use for Okada and for Osprey? And we know that Osprey has a dance card now with Danielson at the Dynasty pay-per-view. April 21st in St. Louis, I'm excited about that. Osprey and Danielson are going to tear it up. But Okada, what did you think about his debut and now a six-man tag on collision?

I didn't see the six-man tag. Obviously, I was out at a fundraiser. So I didn't see it. I can't comment on it. Again, you know, the debut when I brought him in, I thought it was fine. It wasn't great. It wasn't bad. It was sufficient.

I thought he looked great. Can't comment on what happened on collision. But again, just based on what you told me, absolutely not the right way to use them. That's what, you know, I've used the word discipline a lot when I talk about creative, discipline, story arcs and things like that. Yes. Discipline applies here, too. You've got two massive stars, and there's so much potential in them. Be careful how you use them.

Be careful how you expose them. Because before long, they're going to, if you're not careful, it's kind of like a reverse rub, you know? It's like if you're an up-and-coming talents and you get an opportunity to get involved in a program with, you know, John Cena, Steve Austin, a Rick Flair and his day, whomever, Undertaker, that's, boy, you're getting elevated. You're basically getting a raise right there on the spot because you get to work with somebody that's so over. And assuming they're going to work hard to get you over, that's the next big jump in your career.

The reverse of that is taking somebody like Will Osprey or Okada, assuming that he's in that same category. Haven't seen him work, don't know. But taking someone like Will Osprey, who I have seen work, and when he has to slow his game down or he starts working with people that don't really matter, they're not getting a rub from him he's getting a rub from them and not the kind you want got to be really careful about that we'll see hopefully hopefully tony's listening to this or somebody that works with they can get to him and just be careful just because you have a new toy doesn't mean you need to play with it every single day well the brand new toy is going to be debuting this wednesday no we're not talking about okada no we're not talking about will

Osprey. Yes, we're talking about Mercedes Monet, yet another major free agent who's going to be debuting for AEW. And this time, it's a special show that we're calling a big business. It's this Wednesday, Samoa Joe will be defending the AEW title against Wardlow. We've got the new elite, which is Okada and the Young Bucks taking on Pinta, Eddie Kingston, and the returning Pock, and allegedly the debut of Mercedes Monet. As of a few days ago, Russell Ticks was reporting more than 7,000 tickets sold. I think the show was set up for 7,800. The last time they were here in Boston was blood and guts in July of

2023. That's all just under 9,000. Mercedes man, she's a big star. This show is designed for her debut. It feels special. It has felt special. And then I just read an interview with her last week where she said she has unfinished business in WWE.

she knows she'll be back there eventually. And I said to myself, self, what the fuck are we doing? Like, all due respect to the real life Mercedes Monet, but I don't think that's probably the quote that Tony Kahn was hoping for just days before your big AEW debut. My God. Hey, at least she's honest.

Well, you know, everybody else would be like, oh, I can't wait to work for AEW. This is the biggest opportunity in my life. this is going to be great. No, it's not. You're just going to pick up a payday until it's time to go back. I love it. She was very honest.

You don't really think that's all she's doing, do you? Yeah. It's business. Well, but I mean, listen, isn't there something to be said about being able to paint outside the numbers and have a little more say in your creative? Like, I don't know, but I would guess that Brian Danielson really wants to wrestle Will Osprey.

And so it's going to happen. but that's not the way things always work over in WW, but it seemingly is the way it works in AEW. So if you are looking for a little more say and a little more creative freedom, maybe AEW is the place for you. It feels like she'd be game for that after years of essentially being dictated to. I think things are perhaps I don't know Mercedes Monet or Sasha Banks. I don't either.

I don't either. I don't know her. I don't think I've ever even had a conversation with her. Um, so I don't know what she's like, but the WWE, she left is not the same WWE that exists today. Well, that's fair. Do I think she probably has some form of remorse having left the way she did? She clearly wanted to go back.

She had conversation. Well, I assume I've been led to believe that there were conversations about her coming back. and they just couldn't come to terms. That generally means money. Yes. And she went to AW to make more money because Tony Kahn, if you believe what we've read about Okada, at $4.5 million a year,

over three years, almost, what, 13.5 million over three years? Congratulations, Okada. Good for you. I don't know if it was. Barry Bloom. Barry Bloom is rolling in fucking money because of Tony Con is fucking hilarious. I mean,

you got to think it's, and they called me ATM Eric. What my God. Oh, my $4.5 million for a guy that nobody knows. Well, hang on. Hang on now.

I mean, listen, if you're going to call yourself all elite and you really want to pride yourself on having the best wrestlers and the most five stars and blah, blah, blah, poke fun at that all you want. But if that's really your initiative, signing these three free agents

boy you're checking a lot of the right boxes if you've already got Kenny Omega and you've got the young bucks that tells you that's where you're looking right away but to continue down that rabbit hole and oh we've got Brian Danielson now and we've got Sasha Banks now and oh how about Okada and Osprey they're all here too I get it

but it is interesting to say the least when you think about the amount of cash that Tony is spending on some of this town and how many of them, I believe, I mean, I don't know for sure that he's dealing with Barry Bloom, but there was a report a few months ago that perhaps Okada had been introduced to Barry Bloom through Kenny Omega. I don't know if that's true or not. But goodness gracious, I think Barry Bloom represents JR, who just got a new contract we revealed on grilling JR. We know that Kenny Omega got a new

deal and hangman got a new deal and the buck's got a new deal chris jericho's got a fat deal chris jericho's got a deal it does feel like barry bloom's uh 401 k is a 401 con goodness gracious unbelievable unbelievable but you and again you talk about here you got will aspirate making his full-time roster debut you've got o kata showing up And they lost audience. Yeah, let's talk about that. How the fuck does that happen?

Is it Sting? Were people tuning in for Sting? And it's like, that's the only reason. I've already said that for weeks going into the event. People are not buying that event and tuning into that event because of the storylines and the angles and the other characters on the show. They're buying it because they're getting a chance to be a part of history.

And it was all about Sting. And to come off of all of that. build and come off of that pay-per-view and all of the buzz and your next show with Osprey making his roster debut and Okada showing up with all of the dirt sheet hype and they lost audience from the week before it's not just me being negative it's not and I'm not a hater I'm I'm a guy that points out obvious shit and I've been playing it out for years and now it's all happening the result of which, you know, the criticism that I made over the last couple of years, and now it's coming home and people are seeing it, it's not being a hater, it's just being honest.

How does it happen? How do you come off of that pay-per-view, introduced to, you know, Osprey in particular, because he had a match, and in Okana, in introducing him and making him a part of the elite, and you lose audience, does that not tell you something? If it doesn't, then have fun. You're into business. You get to hire all these people and you get to have assemble this dream roster and nobody cares but you and the small handful of people that watch your show

every week. It's weird. Golly, you're just going super negative. It's like you just want to be super. obvious, am I saying anything that isn't true? I think you're coming to this entire conversation with a growth mentality. I mean, you and I both share that in business. We're interested in how do we grow?

How do we get better? How do we do more? How do we get bigger? I get that. I just don't think that's where Tony's brain is aligned for AEW right now. Our friend, Jeff Chirrett, uses the phrase goal alignment. I think what you would perceive to be the goals of AEW, you are probably not what Tony Kahn perceives as being your goal.

That's really obvious. So I'm just saying when you're making fun of it, it's like you're making fun of it because he's not getting closer to your goal. But he don't even have your goals on his radar. I don't know. When Tony comes out, as he did recently and talked about how 2025 is going to be the year when people look at AW as the Challenger brand.

that's why I brought that up. Tony Connie is still talking about growth. He infers growth every time he compares himself to WWE. He's not coming out like Paul Heyman did, so to speak, paraphrasing obviously. Say, yeah, I don't really care about WWE. I don't really care about anybody else. I care about what I'm doing and I want to produce the best wrestling that I think appeals to my audience. Cool.

Do that. Then quit talking about being a challenger brand. You can't have it both ways. You can't, because you like Tony, you're friends with Tony. I don't dislike Tony, but you can't have it both ways. You can't continually come out and talk about how your rights fees are going to double or triple or you're going to be the challenger brand for decades to come when you're kind of circling the drain every week. They're not circling the drain, Eric?

Eric, why would you say circling the drain? Okay, ratings were down this past week, but to last October, it's not like it's an all-time low. Look at the ticket sales for their A show. They can't put 3,000 people in a venue for a live television show. If that's not circling, that's WCW, that's WCW, 1992 levels. Not quite, but getting close. They're actually trending in that direction. That's circling the drain to me for the amount of money and investment that's going into this company and to only be able to have a difficult time getting 3,000 people to come to a live show, live television show, that to me is circling the drain.

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And we want to thank Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast. And Eric's raging boner for Tony. so listen man we've talked about all the AEW shit i care to talk about today let's talk about why we're here as we're damn near two hours into the show our goal last week was to talk about your book controversy creates cash that is still our goal for this week did you approach w.W.E about writing a book or was this when they had a book deal and they were looking for talent and they came to you they came to me i never considered the idea of writing a book

I didn't think I had anything to talk about or just saying what was that process like like does someone remember the writing staff or the office or an outside I mean just talk me through the whole I think it was Mark Carano okay I think it was Mark Caronel came to me and said hey have you ever thought about writing a book wow said nope never have would you like to not sure mark don't know that I have enough to say who would read that yeah but we think there could be some interest in it cool I'll talk about it and then they hooked me up with a writer

what was his name he's actually a really good writer and he his name is Jim D. Felice that's his real name right and if you look him up Jim D. Felice D.E. Felice he's written some amazing books like Jeremy Roberts is that Jeremy yes that was that was his wrestling book name but his real name is Jim D. Felice and he's a phenomenal writer he's written a lot he's written a number of bestsellers and some really really good books wrote the book

sniper which was turned into a movie was really good um it escapes me right now some of the stuff he wrote. But I, and talking to Jim on the phone, and it's how we did it. I'd never met him in person. Mark set me up with Jim DeFleese, who had a deal with Simon and Schuster, which is where WWE had their publishing deal at the point in time and was doing pretty well with it. Jim and I got on the phone and he just started talking me through the process and asking questions and building a rapport. And before I knew it, you know, we had a book. It's a pretty interesting process. And it made me, you know, because, Jim did a lot of research. As Guy Evans did, a ton of research that made me remember things

much more clearly, things that I had just forgotten about and didn't really pay attention to, didn't think were that significant in the moment. Jim did a great job of bringing those things to life and reminding me and asking about them in a way that made it fun for me. It was a journey. Just the process of writing a book was really a journey. How involved or hands-on was WWE with editing of the book? Zero. Okay. Zero.

There was nothing in all of the interviews that I did with Jim, and I would see rough drafts, you know, along the way, and by the time it got turned in, there was nothing that I wanted to say that anybody in WWE said, I don't prefer if we don't go there. Let's not bring that up. There was zero, zero, zero influence. in terms of my book, my version of my story,

what Jim D. Felice wrote it for that book and what ultimately ended up between the covers is. I know a lot of people thought that that was going to be the case. And, you know, WWE would have a heavy hand in it and edit some of the things that I wanted to say. The exact opposite. Were you concerned about any political fallout at all from what you might say or not say on your book?

No. I enjoyed my time in WWE. I really, really did as a talent. But I came in believing that it was just a very, it's going to be a very brief run. I'm going to use a term that is probably going to be misunderstood, but I didn't give a fuck.

I did, I wanted to be me. I wanted to do, I wanted to be a great, I wanted to perform. I wanted to be the very best performer I could be. but I was never concerned about whether next week was going to be my last week or not. I just didn't care.

And again, part of it is because I had enough going on outside of wrestling that financially it didn't matter to me, really. I made a significant amount of money, but it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, I need this. It was nice. It was cool. But I wasn't dependent upon it, I guess, is the way I want to say it. But I, the first time Vince called me and talked to, to be about coming into to wwe i hung up the phone going wow this is going to be fun i get to

go out and be a performer i get to end my career the way i want to end it but i honestly i don't think it would last more than six months so by the time it came time to write that book i just wanted to be honest i wasn't worried about the politics of it we know that the book is going to have a hugely successful release it comes out in november of o six it was actually the most successful release for the WWE since Flair's book back in 2004, it even beat Eddie Guerrero's book, which came out just a month after Eddie's death. Were you surprised how much marketing WWE put behind your book? I mean, this feels like a vote of confidence in you and your story, right?

I wasn't surprised because WWE typically does a great job of promoting and marketing, whatever they put their brand on. I was surprised that the book did. I mean, we made the New York Times bestseller list at one point for a minute. It didn't last long. But in fact, I still have it. It's one of the few things I have in my office up on the wall is the New York Times bestseller list, the week that my book came out. And it's up there.

So I was surprised at that because I didn't think anybody wanted to read anything I had to say to begin with. When he first came to me and said, what do you think about doing a book? It was like, yeah, not really. Who didn't want to read that? So to go from that to making the New York Times bestseller list was kind of a big damn deal. And it surprised me. It's a big damn deal when you can knock out all your credit cards and get a lower monthly payment. That's what we're helping people do pretty routinely over at save with conrad.com.

Tony Flowers has a question for us here. He says, is there anything you would change about the book with the benefit of hindsight? no not at all to count kyle says how did the process of writing controversy creates cash compared to writing the book grateful great question they were both very challenging for different reasons controversy creates cash was challenging for me because I don't hold on to things very long, meaning I don't live in the past. Once something is over and it's done, I move on to the next thing and it just doesn't occupy much space in my mind. So going back and putting together the details that I had to put together for controversy creates cash was a real challenge for me.

If it wasn't for Jeremy Roberts or Jim DeFleese, I would have had a hard time. putting together the timeline and the details. Grateful was harder for me because it was more revealing. Controversity creates cash was about my career in the details of my career and the timeline and the trajectory and all the things that happened. Grateful was about me and my flaws and my strengths in overcoming flaws and in revealing them and being open about it that's a little that was hard because you know you don't want to show your ass to speak to the whole world

it's a little bit you know there were some parts of but grateful that were you know were hard for me to to share but so they were both challenging but in completely different ways you could you sort of answered this earlier but adam has a great question. He says, well, there'd be any significant differences in how the book was written had it been published independently instead of with the cooperation of WWE? No. Again, because I was, I was honest with GMD. Felice in the process and the interview process, all the hours and hours and hours that we spent on the phone over a period of probably six months, I think. I said everything.

It was my voice, it was my memory, it was my perspective, and none of it changed by the time I actually had the book in my hand. So I can't think of anything that I would have changed or anything that would have been any different. Mike over at ad-freeshows.com says, hey, Eric, after the book was published, was there anything you regretted putting in the book or anything that you wished you had included in the book? another question i recall that when you joined hulk and t and a that the w w shop website had the book's price dropped from its regular price to literally being on sale for pennies obviously your book has been out for a couple of years at that point what were your thoughts on that and did it do any damage to your royalties uh i didn't really have any the book had been out for a long time and it's not unusual to have a bunch of books sitting in a warehouse somewhere and

and everybody decided it's time to get rid of them. Here's a funny story. Bob Ryder, who's no longer with us, Bob passed away several years ago. Bob worked with me in WCW. I used to do Prodigy Chats, going way back, way back. I would do chats with Bob Ryder.

And worked with Bob in WCW, and then obviously Bob went to TNA and eventually I ended up in TNA, but I remained friends with Bob that whole time. And Bob was the one that alerted me that WWE was dropping the price on, and I don't remember how much they were, like really cheap. These were hard covers and soft covers, right? So I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll buy them all.

So I bought like a thousand of these books or more. And for years, like, you know, because I thought, well, I'll sell them directly and, you know, whatever, sell them on a website. I didn't really have a plan, but I just knew that there was like a shit ton of these books available for, as the question suggested, pennies out of the dollar. So then, well, I'll find use for them someday. Those books traveled with me for the next seven or eight years. I had books stuffed in closets. I had books in my garage.

I had books in my warehouse. I had books in storage units. I had books everywhere. I think I've finally gotten rid of them. Just within the last year, I finally depleted my inventory of books. But I made money on it. So it's not so bad.

Not so bad at all. Let's talk about while we're here. Your boy, your great close personal long-time friend. Dave Meltzer had this to say, naturally, since in the 389 page book, there are constant references to dirt sheets, always negative. A lot of people have asked me my thoughts. Considering I often talk to Bischoff and rarely a day went by that I didn't get

at least five phone calls from WCW front office personnel, that fact needs to be out right away in his portrayal of wrestlers, quote unquote, leaking information when far more came from the office authorized by bischoff than came from the wrestlers goodness gracious what a bombshell what's so you he's so full of shit there was a point in time zane brosloff who was friends with with dave and i was you know zane and i became pretty good friends over time and zane said man you got to you got to at least try you know try working with him try talking with dave he's not as bad a guy as you think he is blah blah blah i said okay i'll give it a world my thinking was look if i provide access to this guy perhaps he will

be more inclined to report actual shit actual information actual detail as opposed to making the shit that he makes up or relying upon people who have an agenda and use Dave like the useful idiot that he's always been, perhaps if I give him access, because that was the big bitch. Well, what do you expect? These guys are going to write what they're going to write because they don't have access. Zane convinced me to give Dave access, and I did. And he continued to write stupid shit and make things up and lie and distort and serve his agenda or the agendas of others in his role as a useful idiot.

it. So I did give it a try. And I went, fuck it. This guy's a clown. I'm not going to waste my time. So there was a brief period, very fucking brief period of time, where I made an attempt to provide access with the hope that reporting would be more accurate or at least provide another side of the coin occasionally. Well, that didn't work. So I quit. I can absolutely assure you that I never authorized anybody to provide information to Dave Meltzer. That is a lie. Now, maybe in Dave Meltzer's twisted, fucked up mind, he believes that for some reason, but it's not true, not even close to the truth.

The truth is, had I found out and could prove, I suspected a lot of people. Gary Jester, absolutely I'm convinced to this day that Gary and Dave talked on a regular basis. He couldn't help himself. I suspect Jim Barnett probably at some point in time. It was in regular communication and there were others that I suspect strongly suspected. Terry Taylor, who we've talked about a number of times and talent because talent would use Dave. Talent knew before I even got to WCW, and certainly after I first arrived, then it became apparent to me. The talent knew that there was this cat by the name of Jeff Carr.

Jeff Carr was the program director for TBS. Jeff Carr was a wrestling fan. Jeff Carr was a dirt sheet nerd. The only thing that Jeff Carr knew about professional wrestling is what he learned by reading dirt sheets, like Mouncers. Talent all knew that. It was obvious to them. And it was also obvious that Jeff Carr was the only person at Turner Broadcasting at that point in time that had some influence over WCW that was reading the dirt sheet. So what would talent do?

Talent would feed Dave information that they knew would end up in a dirt sheet because they knew it would end up on Jeff Carr's desk. And Jeff Carr was the only person in WCW in Turner Broadcasting at the time that had any day-to-day. influence over WCW. Ted Turner wasn't paying attention to it. Ted Turner wasn't talking to Jim Hurd. Ted Turner wasn't talking to Kip Frye. Ted Turner wasn't talking to Dusty Rose when Dusty Rhodes was the book. Ted Turner wasn't really talking to Eric Bischoff until much later on. And that was only like a three minute conversation on Tuesday afternoons. So, but Jeff Carr, he was the guy. So talent would feed Dave information that they knew it would end up in the dirt sheet because they knew that that executive from Turner would read it.

That's how Dave Meltzer got used. It still is being used to this day by a lot of talent. Dave Meltzer believes that he's actually friends with those guys. Dave Meltzer actually believes that anybody that gives him information is doing so because they respect Dave Meltzer. Anybody that's giving Dave Meltzer information is doing so because they know he's a useful idiot. And that's become apparent over and over and over.

So many times that it's ridiculous. So the idea that Dave would suggest that I authorize people to leak information to him is a reflection of just how dysfunctional Dave's mind is. It's truly a reflection on the weakness of his character because it's not true. Here's another quote. Bischoff blamed the bad situation he inherited on Bill Witts. Watts always claimed he took over a company. that was losing 6 to 8 million per year,

and he got the losses down to approximately 400K in 1992 because he was hired to slash spending. I can only tell you I saw a company balance sheet a few times and 24 million in revenue and 30 million in expenses were where the company was when Bischoff took over, which was a year after Watts was gone, and during a period Sharon Sadello, at the time,

old Anderson's girlfriend who Anderson joked about in his own autobiography was one of a slew of people who had no clue about wrestling that ran WCW saying he even lived with one of them and Bischoff were the other company's main executives so listen I did you understand did that make any sense I couldn't even follow that well the gist is he's saying that Watts said he had it down to only losing 600 grand a year he says by the time you took over there was a gap in between Watts and yourself Where the Delta wasn't 400 grand, it was 6 million. Is that the way you remember it?

The numbers that I remember, and I have no fucking clue what day. He's a journalist. He's a writer. My God, none of that made any sense. But here's what I remember. When I took over as executive producer, not when I took over, took over as president, But when I became executive producer, WCW, the previous year, grossed $24 million and lost $10 million in the process. Now, what Dave saw or thinks he saw or somebody fed to him, I have no fucking clue.

I couldn't follow. The first two sentences confused me. I don't know what the fucking Dave was talking about there. I did inherit a mess. I mean, Jesus. even Dave Meltzer would have to see that it was a mess it was a financial disaster only or or Bill Watts talking about only losing 600 grand I don't know where that came from but that's bullshit I don't know if somebody fed Dave that bullshit or I don't know where

it came from but it's just bullshit it's like trying to prove a negative how do you do that it's I don't know I don't even know how to react to that it's so bizarre WCW under Jim Hurd, Kip Fry, and Watts got virtually no money for television, and in the early years, their pay-per-view revenue was split between WCW and Turner Home Entertainment. The idea is they were to produce hours of television every week that would build up their live events and pay-per-view shows. None of them were able to turn a profit with those splits. Bischoff was the guy, to his credit, to negotiate getting the company paid. at first at first eight million per year in television rights fees since any other programming doing that kind of ratings would cost the station far more that figure alone would have made wcw profitable from its first year underheard

yes this is fucking insane amazing Dave Meltzer he's got to be on fucking drugs to come up with the shit that he comes up with I don't know what kind of drugs they are I don't know for sure I want to try him but he's got to be his fucking mind works in weird ways man that is bizarre that is so bizarre but it's typical Dave Meltzer he's just making shit up

honest to God that is bizarre that's funny people pay him people you you pay to read his bullshit it's got to be strictly for shits and giggles and entertainment because this is bizarre. So look right in the camera and tell everybody what the television rights fees

you negotiated for WCW from Turner would be. Zero. How about zero? Did, oh my God. Whatever. Let's keep going. If Watts was brought in and given the strategy from the people in charge to beat Vince McMahon in 1992,

like Bischoff was told specifically by Ted. Turner in 95. I don't know what would have happened. Most likely it wouldn't have been nearly as successful as Bischoff ended up being because he had an old school wrestling mentality. My feeling is he's a great salesman. This is Meltzer talking about you. He says,

Eric Bischoff's a number of things. My feeling is he's a great salesman. What are he accomplished on the front end with WCW? Taking the company with $24 million in revenue in 93 to almost $225 million in 1998 is a level of exploding growth that only really Vince McMahon and Dana White have done in modern history of the industry. He made many great moves and as many bad moves. As impressive as the ascent was, the decline in 99 was even more spectacular, a product of self-destruction, the likes of which there's simply no comparison. He was a great TV performer, although WWE never allowed

him to get the heat. He could have made a far more valuable effort than he was. even though those who hate him in the company recognize they could have done far more with the character on TV, but the feeling is they were both because he was good and because the constant humiliation was constant retribution by McMahon. So listen, he's given you some props saying they never used you to your full potential as a television character in WWE. That's a nice thing. Calls you a great salesman, again, a compliment.

The explosive growth means he can only be compared to Vince and Dan. to go from 24 million to 225 inside of five years pretty remarkable but then he talks about the decline even more spectacular how does that how does that resonate with you like everything else that dave says it's all bullshit first of all i disagree i think w we did as much with me as they possibly could have done as a character i'm not a wrestler i wasn't able to go in and have matches. I can go and get my shit kicked out of me occasionally by Steve Austin, for example, at No Way Out in Montreal, or a couple other times on television as part of a, you know, Shane McMahon. I had a pay-per-view match with Shane, but those weren't wrestling

matches. And the fact that I even did that much was probably more than in some respects I probably should have done as that character. I look back at my time as a character in WWE is an absolute highlight reel of my work as an on-camera performer. Now, I had some big, yeah, I had some fun stuff I did in WCW, the NWO, there's no question about it. But in terms of utilization of that character, my character, that character in WWE, I don't think they could have done anymore. And did Vince put me in, you know, compromising situations, you know, embarrassing, if you will?

Sure, just like he did for himself when he pissed himself on national television. television, you know, when Steve McMahon put a fake gun to his head, or the things that he, his own daughter, he had due, that was Vince's M.O. I didn't take any of that personally. And I don't think any of it really hurt the character. So his whole perspective, whether it was flattering or not, is bullshit. He's wrong again. So, I mean, as far as, you know, what happened in 99, look, we talked about it to death. curse people, go read Guy Evans' book. You don't believe me. You don't want to believe that this was a Turner decision or Turner strategy to get rid of WCW finally once they neutralized

Ted Turner. If you don't believe me, go read Guy Evans book. Listen to Dick Cheatham, who was the head of finance, who oversaw the Atlanta Hawks and WCW. Listen to Dick Cheatham's account because he was right there. He was in the center of the universe. If you want to understand, Why I think Dave Meltzer is a fraud and has mental problems, to be honest with you. If you want to understand why I think he's such a fraud, go read Guy Evans' book. You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to believe a word I say. I don't really give a fuck.

Go read Guy Evans book. Listen to people who are actually there, not some jackoff sitting in a fucking apartment, cranking out a dirt sheet with 10,000 words and refusing to use punctuation in the process. it's interesting to see him go on and write about you because one of the things he says is obviously for someone who was a gigantic source of information for me for years and who would even claim that he always made sure I got the right information before anyone else to portray negatively wrestlers or others in the company who leaked information using that derogatory term mentioning my name specifically and not mentioning that fact is disingenuous at best you sort of address that but i just think that just jumps off the page where he called you a gigantic source of information for him when i said mental problems that's exactly what i mean that is a level of fantasy i guess perhaps it is so

opposite of the truth, that it has to be some kind of weird fantasy in Dave's head. That's the only explanation I have for it. He's a bizarre, he's a bizarre, weird fucking dude. And for him to suggest that I was the source of so much information is fucking bizarre. are. It's the only way I could say it. I almost feel sorry for him. I never read that before. I never heard that before. That's weird. He would also say over the years I've been offered to write many of the biggest stars autobiographies, obviously none in WWE. Many I would have loved to have done, but doing this

newsletter makes it impossible from a time standpoint to do outside projects. For those reasons, along with even more obvious political reasons, I couldn't have done this one. But when it was over, forgetting about the dirt sheet knocks I almost wished I could have just because the book could have been so much better now that's an idea we had controversy creates cash now we had grateful with Guy Evans

what about you and old Uncle Dave team up and do a book the third book I'm taking that's a no no go for you oh god none of you even suggested it that was amazing many have simplified the death

into Bischoff's fault Rousseau's fault Jamie Kellner's fault guaranteed contracts bad booking selfish talent on top or a single booking decision like beating Goldberg or the subsequent one finger

title touch or touch title change if all were part of the reason but the reason was a combination of all of them and plenty more standards and practices didn't force them to produce horrible television a turner higher up

who told him he couldn't tell a Monica Lewinsky joke on Nitro may have been too sensitive but that had absolutely nothing to do with the product decline. In fact, the result of that banning Bischoff from doing his Tonight Show monologues were a benefit because that

was some of the worst stuff ever and a rare occasion in that era where an unopposed quarter saw the audience tune out in droves obviously he's talking about WCW and you know as everybody tries to point fingers as to what it was we've talked about that ad nauseum here on the show but he continued in fact when wrestling was at its apex it became so mainstream that producing sleazy television with so many kids watching was no longer under the radar long before it became a major news story bischoff was the person to predict months ahead of time the eventual advertiser pullouts that happened to both companies and in late 99 when those pullouts forced the WWF, which did get very sleazy and edgy, and that was part of the reason they took the lead to tone down, unlike WCW, WWF responded by having an even stronger year the next year. Bischoff complaining they lost because they weren't allowed to do things WWF did.

Actually citing the night May Young gave birth to a hand as an example is simply not a valid excuse. Well, on the one hand, I love he gives you credit for saying, hey man, advertisers aren't going to like this we've got to tone this down this is not advertiser friendly there will be repercussions from this he said you called that months before any media picked up on it but then felt like maybe you were using it as an excuse as to why w f1 did you ever feel like you were making an excuse or were you explaining just the nature of the beast pointing out the obvious yeah is what we did and i know I'm editing myself here because I don't want to go too far

in eviscerating this waste of humanity. But again, all I say is read Guy Evans' book, man. Don't believe Eric Bisch. Don't believe a thing Eric Bischoff says in this podcast. Don't believe a word Dave Meltzer says because he's a documented liar in distortor of truth in fact. So go read Guy Evans' book.

It's all right there. It's all in black and white. And it's all as a result of over 100 interviews with the principles who were actually involved in the decisions at an extremely high level. So you don't have to rely on the president of the company and the guy who was actually there.

Just go read the book. It's all right there. And it's exactly the opposite. to what Dave Meltzer is going to tell you because Dave Meltzer is a liar. He's a fraud who relies upon input from people who are frauds and are giving bad information. And again, we can document, we can talk about all the times that Dave Meltzer has been proven to be a liar or to be distorting the truth or just to get shit fucking wrong consistently and publish things that are lies. It's what he does.

so for me to react to this stuff is it's so hard it's just so hard how do you i don't know i'll keep trying though you're going to like this one eric good i can't wait the one joke that used to be made about bischoff for many people and i know this one firsthand was regarding his memory people would talk about pitching bischoff an idea and a week later he would tell you about his new ideas doing a great enthusiastic pitch for it. He would not even remember that he was enthusiastically putting it over to the person who gave him the idea in the first place. Every great promoter surrounds himself with idea people and you learn from them.

Hopefully next the bad ones and use the good ones. In the world, that's really the only way to learn and evolve. A lot, I think a lot of the book's problems were not based on deception, but simply not remembering details. He gave you an idea, and then you called him back and pitched it back to him all excited as if it was your own idea. That just tickles me to even think about. Oh, my God. He does have mental issues, emotional, one of the other.

I don't know. I'm not a shrink, but there's something desperately wrong with this individual. He lives in a world. He lives in his own world. He's bizarre. This is more, I mean, I've always thought he was. an asshole and a fraud and really a joke in many respects that this is a whole new level of bizarre a world coming out of Dave I didn't this is the first time I'm hearing any of this

this is crazy talk here's a fun one Bishop acknowledged that yes some of the talent was overpaid which was the reason it was hard to turn around the losses but he said that wasn't the primary reason why the company failed saying he was sick of hearing WCW died because talent was overpaid. WSWWB is a business died because nobody was buying tickets and pay-per-views and the contract figures were not overpaying given the high company profit levels, not that it didn't help matters. But if every wrestler in the company in 2000 worked for nothing,

the company was still going to have lost big money due to a lack of interest. Now, that's something I hadn't heard about. Boy, if you just cut all the fucking contract values out, they still would have lost money. Do you think that's true? That'd be tough for me to imagine. The talent budget was about, again, I don't want to get into this,

only because I've talked about it so much, I'm boring myself, and I don't want to do that to the audience. Read the book, Guy Evans book. It's all right there. But the idea that, The talent budget, I believe, in 99,

was under $100 million. Say 80, maybe 90. If that, I can't really remember what it was, but it was under 100. So the idea that you would be able to wipe out that expense and that still wouldn't have covered losses, I don't know that I don't know that that math works man I really don't well I know it's so I it's so difficult Conrad it's not because I don't want to it's not because I don't want to

have fun with this stuff because I do it's it's beating up on Dave Meltzer is it's a guilty pleasure and I'm happy to do it but so much of the stuff that he writes is so abstract and bizarre and not based in reality that it's hard to comment on some of it it really is well here's something that's easy to comment on another five-star review for save with conrad dot com olinda down in hebron kentucky says they always kept me informed great job and we'll recommend through five stars in there for larry and we'd love to give you some five-star service and help you save a little cash i read a report not too long ago that america is in more credit card death than ever before topping one point one three trillion dollars

but just because America's in more death than ever doesn't mean you have to be we want to help you get out of debt and step one if you listen to any planner out there who's trying to get you to put your hands on the steering wheel and take control of your financial life they all tell you you got to pay off those high interest rate credit cards and we can help you do that in one felt swoop at save with conrad dot com how's this for starters no house payments for two months it's your single biggest bill and you'll get to skip that payment for the next two months. And in two months, guess what? All the credit cards are paid off too. Not only is the interest rate much, much higher, but it's also not tax deductible. So if you could get a much better rate and a much lower payment and skip your next two house payments, how about a little spring break from house payments? We can make it happen for you right now at save withconrad.com, and I'm talking to you. I know what you're thinking. Well, man, I had some late payments. I don't think my credit's perfect. Man, I don't care what's in your rearview. I want to be your mortgage advisor for life you've got a friend of the mortgage business and me let me help you

tell me what your short-term goals are tell me what your long-term goals are and we'll work a plan to get you there you see at save with conrad dot com we don't say no we say not yet but here's how let's start saving money today the best time to start doing that was probably 20 years ago the second best time right now save with conrad dot com call us toll free 888 4250105 drop me an email conrad at save with conrad dot com or just get yourself a quick quote at save with conrad.com. Eric, I never know what to expect when we click record. We talked a little bit about WWE.

We talked a little bit about AEW. We talked a little bit about streaming and Mike Tyson and the Paul brothers. We talked a little bit about the book, but I feel like, uh, I'm seeing the tap. This is not as fun for you as maybe we would have liked. So, oh, no, I don't, hey, listen, I don't mind it. You know, I mean, it's just hard to react to it. I mean, I'm not. I mean, you're pissed off or frustrated or any of that.

I'm just like, some of the stuff is so bizarre. I just don't know how to react to it. It's just weird. There's a lot to discuss. We're going to talk about Rick Flair in the future. We'll talk about the launch of Nitro and Lex Lugar and Jesse Ventura and Steve Austin and so much more when we pick up some more trips down memory lane for controversy creates cash.

But we want to hear from you. What do you want us to talk about? We want to know, tell us over on our YouTube. It's 83 weeks.com. we run polls there all the time that's where we're going to be running all of our polls and you never know when we're going to go live so I want you to do two things

go to 83 weeks.com and hit the subscribe button and then I want you to turn on the notifications bell you'll be notified whenever we're live and you can tune in in real time and ask Eric questions you'll be on there asking Eric questions and you can ask him about Tans

or Vince McMahon or Dave Meltzer or anything else God please don't ask By Dave Meltzer, please don't. Please ask about Dave Meltzer. And if you've got a question for our show, man, the easiest place to ask it is our YouTube. That's 83 Weeks.com. We're going to be doing an Ask Eric before WrestleMania.

We're also going to be taking a look down memory lane at some of those T&A moments, some of those WCW moments. We might even have a guest or two before we get to Mania. But we want your feedback. Tell us what you think you want more of and what you want less of and weigh in on some of these crazy takes that Eric had today some pretty ugly ones about my man Eddie Kingston and others it's 83 weeks com Eric YouTube's the place to be is it not it is and um you you suggested that we're going to be doing more on YouTube and we are I'm going to be talking earlier this week or early next week I should say about how to uh on a regular basis jump in live and start covering some news

and hot topics as they happen as opposed to waiting until the podcast. So you're going to be seeing a lot more of me at least and probably you and I both together when it's appropriate talking about all things professional wrestling, but doing it in a much different way. So looking forward to that. And you and I are going to have a lot of time to chat about that as we're flying to Australia together. That's right.

Eric Bischoff and I are coming to Australia and we want to see you April 11th through April 14th. Starcast down under. Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Brett Hart's going to be there too. And Mickey James and Shelton Benjamin and Chris Masters and and and there's two wrestling shows. That's right, not one but two

shows. Mickey James has an all-lady show which we're calling H-E-R. And Brett Hart is bringing the Australian Stampede, a super card from wrestlers all over the world. We'll have multiple stage shows. Eric and I will be on stage. I'm going to be on stage with Brett. This is your

opportunity to have meet and greets galore. meet all your favorite see the matches watch the shows starcast can hook you up with a bracelet right now that's s t a r r c a s t dot com 83 weeks coming down under thanks to starcast dot com make plans to join us now april 11 through april 14th ballarat victoria australia eric i'm excited for monday night raw tonight i'm excited for big business on wednesday and I'm really excited to pick your brain. Maybe we'll go live later in this week at 83 weeks.com. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Kind of break it in. Maybe we should do it right after. When should we do it? Should we do it Thursday morning? I think that's the fun part. We don't want to tell you when we're going to do it. Go hit the subscribe button.

Turn the notifications bell on. We'll be live coming to you later this week right here at 83 weeks. com. And of course, each and every Monday, right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bischoff. All right, listen up. We've got great news. We're excited to announce a new affiliate partnership with Fanatics and the

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