83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 314: The Good The Bad The Ugly

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad are handing over the reigns of the show to you the listener for another edition of #AskEricAnything. Eric answers your questions for over two hours covering all the ins and out of professional wrestling. BABBEL - Get 55% off your Babbel subscription at https://try.babbel.com/podcast-flags-2021/?bsc=podcast-weeks&btp=default&utm_campaign=podcast-weeks&utm_content=podcast..weeks..USA..oxfordroad&utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=weeks&utm_term=generic_v1. Rules and restrictions may apply. MANDO - Mando’s Starter Pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a Solid Stick Deodorant, Cream Tube Deodorant, two free products of your choice (like Mini Body Wash and Deodorant Wipes), and free shipping. New customers get $5 off a Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code 83WEEKS at https://shopmando.com/ ! #mandopod 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 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. 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 Fischoff, Eric. What's going on, man? How are you? Things are wonderful here in a land of 10,000 lakes. Indeed, I am back, well, kind of my roots, back in Minnesota, visiting my brother and sister and having a little bit of a celebration, enjoying the hell out of it. I love the new locale, too. It's fun to see the background there.

Where in Minnesota are you? Are you from, like specifically, what town were you from in Minnesota? We live, I'm actually in the same parents, or same house that my parents bought here back in 1970. It's in an area called Lake Minnetonka. It's about 15 miles, 18 miles west of Minneapolis, directly west and it's a nice area nice area indeed so that was the house that your parents

bought 50 some odd years ago it was back in 1970 so whatever that was yeah 54 years ago yeah i moved into this i came here i stepped into this house when i was 14 actually so how old i was when we moved into this house so it's it's fun coming back it's strange in a lot of ways but it's fun man how about that well listen we got a lot to talk about this week We are excited that you were with us here at 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already, we want you to head to our YouTube right now, 83 weeks.com, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. And we've got some exclusive new membership features. That's right.

We've got a membership option we're rolling out at 83 weeks.com. We're going to be going live before and after the WrestleMania show. And we're going to have a lot of fun talking about that. also going to be covering in sort of a post-match way, the Go Home Rawls and Smackdown. So we've got a lot of really fun plans ahead for 83 weeks.com. We hope you'll join us. And I want to remind you that when we're live on 83 weeks.com,

it's interactive. You get to ask questions to Eric Bischoff. And we're going to do that sort of as a sample, if you will, today. Because we're doing Ask Eric Anything. There's been so much going on in recent weeks, we thought, you know what, rather than just me ask the questions, why don't we let you guys ask the questions? And joining us this morning, we've got a live studio audience with our friends from ad-freesows.com. Want to give a good morning hello to Bobby and George and Coach Rosie and so many other folks

who were hanging out. Shout out to Mike Hoop and certainly appreciate everybody stopping by on a Sunday morning like Coach Keith and hanging out with us. you can be a part of our live studio audience at adfreeshows.com and of course always get that bonus content from each and every show every month but eric before we we jump into all the the questions that we got from our listeners and by the way the easiest place to ask questions is over on youtube 83 weeks.com we're scrolling the comments now for questions we didn't do that years ago we do now so ask us over at 83 weeks.com Eric, this has been a crazy week, man.

The Rock was back in Memphis doing a big time promo. Dave Meltzer said, wow, I think it's really moved in Memphis once they announced the Rock was back. He did a little bit of a rock concert talking about Cody's mama. The whole crowd started chanting, whoop that trick, which was from that movie Hustle and flow. Shout out to those guys. And then earlier in the week, two days prior to.

of that. We had AEW big business. Mercedes Monet made her big debut finally with AEW. We saw her pull up in the back in a bivoc and then we saw her in ring appearance, big promo, a little dancing, and then we closed with something we'd never seen before. Not just a ladies match, but I think it was Willow Nightingale's first main event. And I got to be honest, those ladies absolutely tore it up in the main event, but didn't really tear it up in the ratings. Now, of course, we did see Sasha, I'm sorry, Mercedes come back out in a new outfit and the whole deal, and there was a big overrun. But of course, when the report came out, everybody says, oh, well, the overrun, we don't

have the numbers yet. I just couldn't help but wonder, man, what's Eric think about this? Was there a better way to structure the show, to let people know that Mercedes was going to be there at the end because it doesn't feel that way. I mean, her, I think her segment was one of the higher rated segments. But when she comes out at the end, nobody knew she was coming. Nobody expected it. Maybe they should have, but should we have done a better job or what could we have done

differently, Eric? The answer is yes. It could have been done differently. Formatting the show is one of Tony's consistent problems. Talked about it a lot. But I think this past week is an example. And we've seen it even recently before this week, this past week. We saw it with Okada.

We saw it with Osprey. They just popped up in the middle of the show. I mean, yes, there was some commentary. There was some narrative from the play-by-playing color team earlier on. But there's no build. There's nothing is done within the format to create anticipation, to hold the audience with an expectation of something exciting happening that's how you format a show your show throughout your one hour or two hours or in the case of raw three hours ideally and it's really hard i don't even

want to talk about a three hour show because that's almost impossible to to be real successful formatting a three hour show but even with a two hour show the idea is to first of all in in a best case situation, you want to build on your lead-in. So if you've got a million viewers leading into your show, what is the show that comes on before Dynamite? Big Bang Theory or something. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, Big Bang Theory.

And it's a very successful show that does great numbers. Well, in an ideal world, you'll take that million, those million viewers or 900,000 or whatever the number is, it doesn't matter. And you'll build upon it throughout your one hour or two hours of your show. That's what traditionally program executives strive for. Part of that is laying the groundwork. If you know something is going to happen in the main event, something that you want the viewers to stick around and watch, you're building to it, then you have to kind of

lay some groundwork throughout the show. Two or three times in a two-hour show would be adequate, would not be overkill. And that can be 15 or 20-second bumpers, sound bites, perhaps an angle. There's a million different ways one could achieve it. But you have to plant some Easter eggs, so to speak, throughout that two hours to hold onto that audience in anticipation of whatever it is that you are. Building towards, failure to do so results in dismal ratings. Again, Osprey, Okada from the week before.

That, I mean, supposedly Tony Kahn spent $4.5 million a year to get Okada and look at the numbers. Look at the audience. They did not respond. Now, part of that is, I think, because Okina, is, I know the Kool-A-Dinking AEW, snagletooth, hardcore fans are going to, you know, rebella what I'm about to say, but it doesn't mean it's not right. Okada is, no one knows him. Outside of the hardest of hardcore wrestling fans, the internet wrestling community,

those who worship the ground day Meltzer walks up, nobody knows who the fuck this guy is. So, and that's not a. a reflection on him. It's not his fault. He's been wrestling in an obscure wrestling promotion that no one watches, really. It's incumbent upon Tony and AEW to build him up and to make him feel special. Same with Will Osprey. They didn't do that week before.

And as a result, I think the debut of both, no, we've seen Osprey before, obviously, but he's now full time on the roster. That should have been a cause for celebration. That should have been a big deal. There should be something that's done throughout the show to get us excited about that moment. And there wasn't. Nothing was done. Therefore, no one got excited.

And the ratings reflected that. Same thing here with Mercedes. I mean, 800,000 viewers on a show where you're bringing in, you know, arguably one of the more recognizable female stars in the wrestling industry who spent I don't know how many years a decade at a high profile position within the largest wrestling company in the world and you bring her into AEW and you get 800,000 viewers and I know Dave Meltzer immediately went well they did an advertiser that's why bullshit who are you kidding you know if there was anybody who is a wrestling fan or a fan of AEW who didn't know that Mercedes Monet was going to make her debut in Boston, then I don't know what to

tell you. If people like Dave want to believe that, there's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to change anything for them because they're stuck in this little, they're stuck in a rut, a small way of thinking, and nothing is ever going to change for them. But the numbers don't Why, 800,000 viewers for Mercedes-Milene. I don't know. I know everybody's all there, but wait till next week. Now that everybody knows, I got news for you, folks. If that number moves three to five percent either way, plus or minus, I'll be surprised.

It's, and I said it six months ago when the rumors or whatever it was, four months ago, when the rumors started floating around about Mercedes going to AEW, question was, Oh, do you think it'll have any impact? My answer was, no, it won't. Just like no one else that's come from WWE has made an impact on the ratings. It's not the talent. The creative, there is no creative in, there's no functional creative in AEW. I mean, basic television formatting as we just got, as we just finished discussing, doesn't exist.

It's unbelievable. It's like a bunch of wrestling fans who've never produced five minutes of television, got together and said, hey, let's put on a wrestling show. And they're entertaining themselves, I guess, but not the audience, with the exception of a nucleus of internet wrestling fans

that just love AEW. I don't know, man. It's really sad. I feel bad for a talent. I don't know, Sasha Banks, Mercedes. I don't know her. I don't know that I've ever even had a syllable of conversation with her. But I feel bad for her, just like I feel bad for Will Osprey and Okada and, you know, Christian Cage and, I mean, you look at the roster.

Somebody posted an image in social media of all the WWE talent that is on the AEW roster now. I saw that. That was very WCW-like, was it not? There was like 24, 25 top talents that left WWE for whatever reason and are now in AEW. And it's like, what the hell? I don't think, I don't know that at the peak of WCW's talent roster, as bloated as it ever became, I don't think we had that many former WWE talents on a roster. And we were delivering five and six and seven million viewers a week.

I don't know. It's for all the people that defend Tony, oh, he's just so smart. And, you know, Dave Vermecer thinks he's one of the most brilliant people in the world. Are you seeing it? Because I'm sure not. I just don't get it. I've got no dog in the hunt. I don't care.

You know, I know there's some great talented people there. I know there's some people there that could help Tony. He doesn't need to go outside of the company. It's all right there at his fingertips. but for whatever reason he chooses to keep doing things the way he's doing them and clearly it's not working and i keep hearing about oh you know the murder brother's discovery we've got this great really they love us it's never been stronger i hope that's true because if it's not tony's going to be looking for a place to hear that show and we'll see i don't want to be negative i'm trying not to be but i'm also

trying to be honest in my response and break it down so that it makes sense to people and it's not just me spewing negative shit but you have to learn how to format a show you have to learn how to tell a story and i mean a real story not a wrestling angle story or one that like john alba when i talked to him and he has to he's looking so deep at what's going on that he's creating a story in his mind to justify feeling good about what's going on A compelling story is really easy to understand. If I go into an elevator with somebody that I know as a wrestling fan and I ask them, hey, what's the story between wrestler A and wrestler B?

Why are they in an angle? What happened? Usually within about two or three floors, someone can explain to you what the angle is. What's the backstory? I don't know that you can do that in AEW or for AEW without, you know, weed or something to stimulate an imagination and provide you with some reasoning that doesn't really exist on television. Well, I got to disagree with you there.

I mean, I do think there are stories. I know you don't watch every single minute of AEW, and I'm not saying I do, I do wind up fast forwarding a few things here, there, but I, by and large, know that there are stories in AEW, but I do know that that graphic got my attention over the weekend. I think Silva's got it pulled up for us. There's more than 40 talent who are former WWE talent in AEW. And I'm not exactly sure why someone made this.

I guess Black Masked Designs deserves the credit. I see his signature at the bottom right. But like that, I guess it's supposed to be some sort of a knock against AEW. But to me, you know, if you're trying to put together a roster of what you believe to be the best team impossible for your company, well, you're going to look to experience professionals and, well, we've got more than 40 that are here. Now, of course, not all of those guys are in front of the camera. I mean, you see faces on there like Jerry Lynn and Mark Henry and Taz and all of those

guys are working in a backstage capacity or commentary, not just in-ring performers. But, yeah, the fact remains, there's a bunch of moving parts in AED. right now. I think you're on to something with the introduction of Okada. I do believe that a lot of wrestling fans know who Okada is, but let's qualify a lot. How many people have been watching Impact? How many people have been watching New Japan TV?

And how many people have just heard his name? There is a difference. I mean, I don't know exactly how many people saw him in Impact, 100,000, 200,000. I'm not saying when he was Kato, I'm saying most recently. And then when New Japan was doing TV, here in America, that was like 100,000 at best. So you do have a certain contingent, you know, we'll call it 100,000.

You got a solid, hardcore, 100,000 fans who are all about them, some Okada. And that's great. But now we've got to build to the mainstream. So I get what you're saying there. Like we've got an interesting. And Conrad, not to interrupt you, but to dig in on that just a little bit, you've got a hundred. And this is, you know, this is the voodoo part of this.

and none of us can ever really, you know, track or account for credibly. But we'll use the 100,000 viewers from Impact as an example, or New Japan, either one. Because they're probably the same audience. Yes. The same 100,000 people that are watching Impact are probably the same 100,000 people that are watching New Japan that are probably already watching AEW. Not a majority, but yes, there's probably a lot of crossover. I'll see what you're saying.

I would imagine there's a lot more crossover than people think simply because those shows are targeted towards the hardest of hardcore, that segment of the audience, that just are obsessed with professional wrestling and will watch anything that they can watch. And they want to be involved. They want to be able to talk about it. They want to be able to go online and share ideas or argue or debate or constructively criticized, whatever the case may be. that that 100,000, that pool of 100,000 viewers that watch Impact, that watch New Japan are, in my opinion, probably 80% of them are already watching AEW. So you're not getting any added value. It's not that I don't think it's realistic for someone to say, well, there's 100,000 viewers over here for Impact. There's 100 over here for New Japan.

Well, that's 200,000 viewers that are fans of Okada. we should expect a bump in our show. We should expect to bump in our ratings. It doesn't work that way, folks. It's the same audience. So there's no added value. The only way you're going to get added value, now you do have a bigger audience in a EW,

and your job is a producer, not as a booker. I'm not talking about traditional wrestling where bookers just write names down on paper and book them for live events. I'm talking about episodic television and the compelling story. And I think that's the difference.

That's why I get into it with Alba on this a lot. Is their story? Sure. Is it compelling? Absolutely not. If it was, the audience would be growing. If it was AEW on some scale, would be experiencing some of the same kind of energized viewing

that we're seeing in WWE because the stories are compelling. Yes, there's a story. But if the story is so simple, undisciplined, doesn't build, doesn't track along traditional storytelling formula lines, it's just an excuse for a wrestling match. And there's a lot of excuses for wrestling matches in AEW, but there's very little, if any, compelling story. There's the difference.

Well, I want to be clear, too. It sounds like we're trying to pile on AEW. that is not the case. There is a difference between offering constructive criticism and being a hater. And sometimes that gets lost in translation. And if you don't want that to happen in your real life, can we recommend Babel?

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spell that one more time Babel is B-A-B-B-B-E-L-D-L-com slash weeks rules and restrictions may apply Eric Al-Conrad, you want to know where Babel can really pay off, where it's paid off for me specifically Japanese. I can learn

just enough Japanese on Babel to go to a sushi bar. Now, I'm talking about a traditional Japanese-owned. Usually, I look for those. Those are my favorite, you know, a family-owned Japanese restaurant. Sometimes they're in a little strip malls. You've got to look for them. You know, not the big, fancy, super expensive one where the celebrities go.

Those are generally, I mean, they're very nice, but they're expensive, and I don't look for those places. I'm looking for a little mom-and-pop, Japanese-owned family sushi bar. and when you find one of those diamonds in the rough and you sit at the sushi bar and you attempt and with Babel you can do it pretty effectively fairly quickly just ordering in Japanese or saying good evening in Japanese or saying thank you properly in Japanese opens up a whole new world at a sushi bar

because all of a sudden the sushi chef is asking you to here, try this. He may not even speak English. But all of a sudden, you're getting things that you didn't even order because you're making the effort. You're crossing that bridge between the cultures. And it's a way of being respectful. Really, that's how I always take it or think of it. And when you show that little bit of respect or encouragement to try to speak somebody else's language, it's pretty amazing what can happen. The dynamic changes. And when it's happening at a sushi bar and you're getting all kinds of great stuff, but not even on the menu.

Like they only keep it for themselves because they know you're really interested in their culture. It really can change the experience, whether you're out eating or on a cruise, like you say, or just traveling in a foreign country. Just making the attempt to speak in somebody else's language changes

the dynamic of a lot of situations very quickly. Check it out, babble.com forward slash weeks. So, Eric, we were talking a little bit about Lost in Translation. I didn't tell you this. But when I was visiting some of my pals and, well, people that you and I are both friends with on the podcast side of things at AEW and Huntsville, I ran into a fellow who works, we'll say in a backstage capacity, not someone who you and I know or speak to on a regular basis, but someone who went out of their way to come introduce themselves to me and say hello. And with no one listening, share, try to apply a lot of what I learned from Eric.

off what we do here. So I know that there's some people who listen to this show. And when you're critical and I say, hey, what could they have done better? A lot of people, you know, under their tribalistic blankets and say, oh, that's not fair. And here's why.

And here's what you don't understand. It's not coming from a place of, ha, ha, you know, that kid in the Simpsons. No, it's coming from a place of, hey, man, I want this to work. I want this to be better. I want this to be bigger. I mean, that's really the spirit of all of your critiques and criticism, right?

It truly is. I mean, if you think about it, what reason would I have to be critical or to be angry or to just, you know, tear them up, tear AEW apart? I have no dog in the hunt. You know, I can't explain that any more clearly than that. I don't personally. I have no investment emotionally or otherwise. with the exception of the fact that I want to see the business as a whole survive, grow, and prosper. The business as a whole, not just WWE, but I want to see AEW grow.

Like I really thought it was going to in the very, very beginning, and I was very supportive of it. Go back and listen to some of my commentary back then. If you go back and look at some of my social media posts back then, it was very, very positive. It's, again, I don't want to beat up something we've already talked about, but Tony Khan came out immediately and challenged WWE and started taking shots at WWE. And so did a lot of the talent. Some of them are my friends. I'm not going to name drop them here because it's past.

It's not going to change anything. But a lot of high profile people, talent in AW, immediately came out and started making pretty bizarre predictions about what was going to happen in the competition between. between AEW and WWE, Tony himself, up until really recently, I think he's toned it down quite a bit over the last few months. I think it's finally dawned on him that it's the backlash from doing so isn't worth it. But there's just been so much cosplay competition between the two. It was totally unnecessary, and we talked about it last week.

Had Tony adopted the Paul Heyman approach and embraced his role as an underdog, and I know this is going to sound crazy. especially coming from me, but there were two different situations, meaning I was going literally head-to-head in a real-world way. And Tony's not, and hasn't, and won't. So that is a big difference that people tend to want to forget about, I guess. But had Tony embraced his underdog status and actually put over WWE in a constructive, positive way, and I gloat over them,

but, I mean, really acknowledging their growth and their success in almost an aspirational way, the amount of goodwill that he would have been able to cultivate, harness, and enjoy would have been phenomenal. And I really thought that's where he was going in the beginning. But he took another path and that, you know, we're talking about the tribalism. You know, a large part of that is because of Tony and the talent at WWE. They started it. They created it. And now that they're on the receiving end, of course, anybody that says anything critical,

constructive or otherwise, you know, is being accused of being a hater. And that's certainly not the case with me. I want them to be successful. There's people there that I know pretty well and respect. There are people there that I don't know it all, but still respect. And I want them to be successful. I want the business that I spent 30-someodd years of my life in. I want it to prosper and continue to grow.

even if I'm not in it, I have no desire to be in the wrestling business again, especially in today's environment. Zero desire, zero desire to travel, zero desire to deal with the drama in the egos and the bullshit that I know is going on backstage in both companies, right? I just don't want to do that. I've been there. I've done it. I've been to the mountaintop really twice as a talent and as an executive.

So for me to go back into a business, there has to be something really, really, really, exciting about that that I haven't experienced before and that's not there for me and I'm really good with it I'm so good with it it's hard to articulate but that doesn't mean that when I see things that are just fundamentally flawed some of the just most basic things like formatting a television show that seems to escape anybody in AEW it boggles my fucking mind and I'm going to say something doesn't mean I hate anybody quite contrary really Well, listen, the critics and the naysayers of you will say, oh, you're just like some of these other podcasters and your entire format of your show is just dumping on AEW and being critical. But the reality is when something's good on AEW, you acknowledge that.

You highlight it. You celebrate that. I mean, the first collision you were very complimentary of. The Will Osprey match you just saw in pay-per-view, you were very complimentary of. And I don't know. I just think some of there's a lot of bad faith takes, I think, is the phrase everybody's using these days. Yeah, bad faith. The minute somebody says bad faith, I immediately dismiss them as worthless.

Their opinions, their commentary, whatever it is, they lose all credibility when people constantly rely on these terms that are so prevalent in the tribalistic environment of social media. and bad faith is one of them. You know, here's the other one? This one drives me bad shit. You don't hear it in wrestling so much. But any time, especially with politicians, when they come out and say, we need to have a conversation.

Fuck you. You don't want a conversation. You want me to sit down, shut up, listen, and agree to everything you want to say. That's what politicians describe as a conversation in today's environment. And it's the same thing with this bad faith, bullshit. It's usually the people that use bad faith in a regular basis that are most guilty of bad faith. So there you go, boys and girls. If you want to have a conversation with Eric

Bischoff, his response is, fuck you. Let's jump into the question. If it starts off with bad faith, yeah, it will. Sir Exelot says, what does Bischoff think of the state of wrestling presently in the direction it's going? What would he identify as the good, the bad, and the ugly? that's a fine question thank you very much sir ex a lot i mean i think the state of the wrestling business is extremely strong i don't know how anybody could deny that you know you can i mean it all comes down to revenue that's the the ultimate measuring stick how much revenue is being generated in the professional wrestling industry i don't know that it's ever been as close to being as successful as it is today. So by that measure, it's hugely successful and

continuing to grow, primarily because of WWE and the inroads that they're making with sponsorships and, you know, with their premium live events and cities bitty on here in Minneapolis and one of the big news stories yesterday on local news is that Minneapolis is in the running for WrestleMania. And there's as much excitement about that here locally as there would be if the if Super Bowl was coming. I mean, it was crazy. They were out interviewing people on the street. It was nuts. I was proud. I was excited. Because I have a dog in the hunt. I'm not there. I'm not going to be there. I don't want to be in WWE. I'm having fun being a fan. But to see that energy and an amount of excitement for a, you know,

premier, you know, wrestling event for sure, WrestleMania, the biggest of them all. But to see that is exciting and to see that same thing happening in Perth, Australia, and in France and other parts of the world, I don't know how you can be a wrestling fan, or in my case, somebody that spent 30-odd years in the business and not be really excited about that growth. Television is a different, you know,

if you're going to use television ratings and a number of people that are watching television in the United States as your barometer, then you might have some issues. You might have a debate. You might have some questions. But if you just look at the revenue that's generated by the industry, and that's really all that matters, because that revenue is generated in a different way. Some of it, obviously by television. That's a big, big piece of the revenue puzzle, right? Television rights fees. But there's so many more aspects of it, and all of that is growing. I think the fact that Warner Brothers Discovery rolled the dice with AEW and was willing to give them an opportunity,

And perhaps that opportunity will pay off. We don't know what's going to happen in the future. Perhaps it'll pay off. But that's an exciting thing. There's a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the wrestling business in general, regardless of how you feel about any one promotion. That's how I feel about the general say. What's the good?

I think I just covered the good. It's growing. What's the bad? I don't know that there's any bad, you know? In terms of it hurting the business, I think some of the extremes that some people try to go to to get themselves over in an environment that in the environment that we have today on television, I think that's pretty bad and can get ugly. I think the... Can you expand on that? Yeah, the blood.

I think going to extremes of violence in lieu of art, and by art, I mean the storytelling component, as we talked about earlier, I won't beat it up again, quality, quality, discipline, structured storytelling that's compelling and gets the audience into the program. That's the art of it. I think the art of telling that story in the ring is a big part of it. And I think sometimes there is a tendency by some people and the producers they work with to go to an extreme to try to get the attention, to try to get the awareness. And that extreme is usually excessive amounts of violence and blood. And I don't think that that element of the product and the presentation of the product can make up for lack of story and lack of characters. So I think the reliance upon and the go-to for that kind of extreme,

that extreme element of professional wrestling that's always been there. Right. But I think in today's environment, it's bad. It's a bad choice because it ultimately will turn off program directors, television networks, advertisers, and that's bad for business. But I think overall, we're in a pretty healthy state of affairs. I want to bring that up to you because, I'm glad you brought that. up because there was a tweet

that I saw wanted to mention that I saw over the weekend. There was a report somewhere and if Silva can find it, we'll give them credit. But the gist is that some folks behind the scenes in WWE are a little upset with the Rock. Apparently

Nick Conn and Paul Hunter, Triple H, that's easier for me to remember, sent out some sort of a memo or gave a heads up to Talon or whatever the report was because I don't have it right in front. of me. But the gist was, hey, we're still trying to be PG. So, uh, don't, don't worry about what the Rock's doing on social media and what he says in his promos. Because you and I sort of

talked about that in the last few weeks, man, he made me laugh out loud when he said, now go home and smoke some more crack. I mean, it just got all over me. It's one of the funnier things I've ever heard. In comedy, it would be called a callback. I loved it. And then he did some more sort a risque stuff on social media this week where he's dropping the f-bomb and things like that and then did a pretty risque for what it was a little rock concert if you will in Memphis and allegedly a lady flashed and they had to have the screen go black and it does feel like WWB is on a slippery slope there too but if the report is true that is not their intention rock is just doing what rock wants to do and well who can tell him no what do you make of that report

not much because i don't know the details of it and i didn't see i i did read about everything you talked about but i didn't see the incident um i saw it online where in the middle of the concert everything went black and i saw the narrative associated with it yes but you know if you've got a guy like rock who's obviously going to suck all the air out of the room he's going to get the most attention of anybody on the roster, especially given the circumstances, you know, coming in and being a part of WrestleMania, kind of late in the game, so to speak, and all the attention that's on that story and everything, and just the fact that he's fucking Rock, right? If Rock has got latitude and the ability to do things creatively, but the rest of the

roster can't, it's just hard to manage. You know, the rest of that roster are pros. I don't think anybody there feels like they need to go out there and be as graphic as rock as Ben and drop F bombs and things like that. I don't think anybody feels the absolute need to go out there to do that to get themselves over. They've proven that to themselves already that they can get over without it. But it does create kind of a double standard. And my guess is that internally a lot of people just know that and accept it for what it is. But if it continues, like if we see this go beyond WrestleMania and it becomes a consistent thing, eventually you're going to have some talent that are going to start fighting back and having some questions.

It'll create some issues down the road if it continues. Something, I don't know, maybe this is just because I want it to be true because I'm guilty of that sometimes. If I want something bad enough to be true, I will see it is true, even if it's not. It's human nature. But I'm hoping that we're going to get through WrestleMania and that aspect of what WW is presenting will settle down because it does. Now, look, Raw is going to be on Netflix, right? So you get away with a lot of things on Netflix that you couldn't get away with on even cable television.

But it's still raw. It's still rock. And if it goes too far, you're going to have advertisers. You're going to have sponsors. They're going to go, yeah, I know. It's rock and it's wrestling, but this is just a little too much. That's the part that worries me. Obviously, I talk like a trucker.

I have the vocabulary sometimes of a sailor. There you go. And I get it. But I'm also aware of that. And sometimes I've tried to slow. You're not doing it on TV. yeah slow my role a little bit even on this show because i don't want to with i you know i realize even on this show we've got some advertisers that have been with us for five or six years right manscape for

example you know a lot of what buddy after the things i've said on manscape you can't do no harm you know what i mean no well not with manscape because they're there are other advertising agencies where there are people we don't know that tune into our show to hear their ad they have to do a quality check make sure everything's the way it's supposed to be and they may hear things that they're just not comfortable having their client in. So even I'm aware of that, and that's on a podcast, have to be careful. Television, even more so, you just can't, you can't afford to create a situation where you've got media buyers and some of the biggest ad agencies in the world going, yeah, I know wrestling's really popular, but it's just a little too much

for this client. You don't want that. Well, here's, the actual report. The WW locker room was reportedly unhappy with the rock being allowed to curse on TV while the rest has to stick to PG language according to a new report from SE Scoops. The

WWE higher up sent out a memo a few weeks ago to talent reminding them they need to stick to PG language even on social media. Even the rock gets to drop as many F bombs as he wants to online, even on live television. Now there's a problem. I am told

that a lot of talent are asking why Rock gets a pass and no one else is allowed to curse. The thinking is that even if he is the big movie star shouldn't he play by the same rules so he can curse and use that to get over but everyone else is handcuffed well

then there's a response from the Rock this weekend where he basically says through an IG post networks and standards and practices have issues with my language but I'd rather be real than not. I talk from the heart shoot from the hip and try to always have fun and clearly it's working i for one hope that

we break the chains of pg and we just get back to the way things used to be because lord the rock segments have been super entertaining have they not they have and i agree with you i would love to see us get away from the when i say us i don't mean content wise as much it's not like I mean, the kind of language that we're talking about, the kind of stuff that Rock's been saying, particularly in social media, occasionally appropriately done, can enhance the story or the moment and make it more interesting and feel more real in honest, because it is how people talk. It's how politicians talk. It's how teachers talk. It's how business executives talk. Maybe not in public, not when they're on camera, but it is the conversation.

of our life across the boards, for the most part, not everybody, but for the most part. And sometimes done judiciously and appropriately, yeah, it can make things feel more real. It can have that kind of, I don't want to say shock value because nobody's shocked, but it definitely makes you take notice when you hear something in terms of, you know, F-bombs or whatever that you wouldn't normally hear on television. It gets your attention. That's the purpose of it. But when it's done too frequently, it then becomes boring.

It becomes a crutch. It's not special. It becomes a crutch, much like blood and extreme violence and, you know, jumping off a fucking ladder that the referee's holding for you onto a plate of glass when there's nobody around just so you can say you did it. And you have that, well, we're talking about Darby Allen specifically. And you've got that small little hardcore bloodthirsty group of fucking idiots that think that that's what wrestling is and oh my God, this is awesome, this is awesome, right? If that's as far as you're going to appeal to your audience and you rely upon that too much, it hurts the product overall because you're relying on that as opposed to great character and great story.

Same is true when you rely on F bombs and the type of R-rated type of narrative that we're seeing a little bit on social media from Rockin or even on television. If you rely upon it too much, none of it matters. It won't matter. It'll quit being an effective tool. And perhaps that's what WWE is trying to do. They're trying to find that sweet spot where you can judiciously, from a creative, perspective, allow a talent or within a specific story for a good reason to step into that world of reality vis-a-vis their narrative and some of the language they use, but you want to

control it. If all of a sudden, everybody's doing it, it won't matter anymore. And then what if you have? You have to be careful. And I want to believe that that's what WWE is trying to do. They're not saying, no, never, you're never going to be able to do it. I'm hoping that they're looking at this particular situation. Yes, there's some latitude because, after all, it is the rock, is Dwayne Johnson. There's going to be some latitude there, folks, just like there has been with every top talent in every company in the world, whether it's a television company, movie company, whatever. Your top talent is going to be able to get latitude that a lot of other talents aren't. That's just a fact of life.

but I'm hoping that they're trying to be judicious about it, and the talent will understand. I find it interesting. I don't even know who S.E. Scoops is. I don't know any of the people behind it. I've seen them post stories before, but I don't have much of an opinion about them or the quality of their stories.

But much like bad faith, when a story starts out with the wrestling locker room, almost as if they're trying to give you the impression that they were back there doing interviews, right? And they're talking to all the people in the locker room. That's the implication. That's the inference, right? The locker room in general is upset.

You may have one or two people. They're going, hey, how come Rock gets to say, fuck you and I don't? But all of a sudden, it's being reported as the wrestling locker room. Eh, I probably isn't as big of an issue as SC Scoops is making it out to be. Well, I'll tell you what is a bigger issue for a lot of us that maybe we haven't. made it out to be a bigger issue. Pre-diabetes. Signos is a proud sponsor here on the show,

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plans by using the code 83 weeks today. That's Cygnos.com. Use the code 83 weeks and you'll get 20% off plans today. Eric, let's do a few questions here. We got a ton. I don't think there's any chance we get to them all. I'm going to bounce around a little bit.

Let's see if Silva can keep up. Anthony Russo, boy, he's coming in a little negative. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. Eric is AEW still around in five years? I think in one way, shape, or form it will be. I agree. Tony has an unlimited amount of money, and he's not accountable. Let me put it this way.

If Tony was an executive working for a wrestling company, had he been hired to book and manage a wrestling company, he'd have been fired a long time ago. But that's not the case. He's not accountable. It's his money. If he wants to spend it, however he wants to spend it.

He's not accountable to anybody. And as such, he's able to do things that he wants to do as a wrestling fan. Now, I think there's some vulnerability when it comes to television contracts and his ability to keep his show on a established platform. because while he's not, Tony's not accountable financially to anybody other than himself, that real estate that he's occupying in primetime television, that's somebody else's responsibility. Somebody else has to be responsible for that and make good decisions

and getting a return on the investment of that beachfront property called primetime television. That may become a problem for Tony, but Tony's got enough money that he could buy. his way on. He could probably buy a small television network. Impact did. I mean, will it be around? Will AEW, the company, be around? Yes. Will it be around in the same way we recognize it today? If I had to bet, if I was in an investment person and I had to consult with people, people about making investments into entertainment properties, I wouldn't invest a nickel in

AEW in terms of its long-term growth or its ability to sustain its position on national television. But it'll always be around because Tony's passionate about it. It's his baby. It's what he loves and he's got enough money to keep it going for as long as he wants to. It's just probably not on national television. In my opinion, again, hopefully I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love to get up tomorrow morning and read how Warner Brothers Discovery just send a new five-year deal with AEW and they've got an increase. As Tony predicted, Tony, what he didn't predict it? He said, all three shows will get a significant increase. He said that three weeks ago. I hope it's true. We'll find out.

The Green Devil wants to know. Would Eric return to WWE in some capacity now that the takeover is complete. And in what capacity would he like? Absolutely not. Again, and it's not because I don't like people there. I'd love the opportunity to. Bruce and I never really got to work together in WWE. We were both looking forward to that when I went back in 2019. But Bruce was going through a lot. He was moving from Dallas to or Houston to Connecticut. There were some other issues going on on Bruce's life. So we never really ever got a chance to sit down and start working together. And I would love that opportunity to work with Bruce, but that's not real for me anymore. Because in order for me to do that,

that means what? I'd have to move back to Connecticut. Guess what's never going to happen, ever, ever, ever, ever going to happen under any circumstances. That would be my ass living in Connecticut. This is not going to happen. And there's no other way that an opportunity like that could exist. Can't do it on a Zoom. Can't really be a part of that business remotely. You have to be in that business 24 seven you have to it's been used and abused so many times but you have to live it and breathe it and sleep it and I'm just not there anymore I have other things in my life I'm I'm going to be 69 years old this month and I know it's my favorite right I'm looking forward to it and at this stage of my and I'm healthy as fuck I'm probably healthier now than I was when I

was 35 to be honest about it I have energy my you know mentally emotionally, physically, I'm in a much better place than I've ever been as an adult, realistically. But I want to apply that to other things. I don't want to go back to doing something that I've already done and not to sound like an arrogant asshole. I've been to the mountaintop. I've achieved something nobody thought could be achieved when I turned WCW around and

turned it into a profit center and became the number one wrestling company in the world at that time, at least on television. I've done all of that. I've traveled the world. I've made friends with Muhammad Ali. I've drawn to North Korea. I've done so much stuff that why would I want to go back to a business where I could never achieve that level of success again? I can't get motivated about that.

And it's unrealistic to think that I ever could achieve that level of success in today's environment. It's not going to happen. So the idea of going back to a business that I'll never be as safe. successful in as I once was, I can't even describe how what appealing that is to me. It's just not comprehensible. Let's do another one here. This is from Cleveland Screamer, not to be confused with Cleveland Steamer. What is something people about you, what is something people assume about you that you wish people didn't?

That's a good question. you know, I don't know. I don't know how other people look at me, to be honest with you. I mean, I've certainly heard things that people said about me that weren't true, but I don't know that people assume that it is. Sometimes people say things about you just to get attention or to take a shot, people that don't even really know me. And I'm used to all that.

That's fine. It comes to the territory. I've been used to that for 35 years. No big deal. But in terms of what people assume about me, I don't know, kind of Ed, you're probably better equipped to come. on that than I am. I don't know. I think people think you're way more arrogant and cocky than you really are.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Sometimes EZE, you turned up the volume in a performance. But then in real life, you're just, Eric. I mean, like when you boil it down, I've heard people say, like I heard Kevin Nash say once, hey man, Hulk's just a dude. And I've heard once, you know, Bruce years ago, before all the nonsense it's came out. Bruce said, man, Vince is just a dude. And I would kind of say the same thing about Eric. Like the perception of you and the reality of you are different. That, and I'm, that's probably self-inflicted. I probably create a lot of that, you know, because I get emotional. The easy E and me comes back out of the performance is always going to be there because I love

performing. It's part of the reason why I love doing this show is it still gives me a chance every once in a while to put my, my toe in the water and perform a little bit, even if it's just for a few moments here or there. But yeah, some of that is self-inflicted. But I think I'm pretty down to earth. You know, I don't, I don't need much anymore. My ideas of success are way different now than they were, you know, 20 years ago. Success for me looks so much different than it did 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago. I'm pretty down to earth. And I don't really have that high of an opinion of myself, which doesn't mean that I'm, I don't believe in my convictions and I'm firm in them, I am. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm pretty basic. Well, I would agree with

that. You're easy. You're easy. Let's do one from Mitch. This is a great question about the old days. Nitro and Raw seem to have entrance tramps on opposite sides of the rings. Was that an intentional decision to be different than? Of course, what Mitch is talking about is from the hard cam perspective on Monday Night Raw, you would see talent come in from the left. Whereas on Nitro from a hard cam perspective, you would see talent come in from the right. Is it that simple? You wanted to be different than? Gosh, I don't know.

I've never noticed that before, but that would probably be my first question or my first observation. They just want to be different. You know, it's hard to separate the two shows. One's red and one's blue, right? One's got one roster and the other's got another. but it's still WWE and finding ways to distinguish between those brands sometimes are really big things sometimes they're not you know the colors are an obvious one well

we're talking about raw and nitro back in the day oh raw nitro I'm sorry I'm sorry I thought you were talking about Ron Smackdown um no that wasn't part of the equation not that I can recall it's just one of those things it just happened yeah It just worked out that way, yeah. Carlos Estrada says, and I know you love fantasy booking, it's your favorite. You're starting a new promotion. You get two single male stars, two single female stars, and one tag from any promotion. Who you choose in?

So this is. I have to give that some thought. It takes too much time to think through those something like that on a podcast, but I'll post something later on. Is there a single talent that jumps to mind, whether it's male, female, or tag, where you're like, I don't know, but they're on the list. yeah there's probably a lot of them or several of them i just it's 10 o'clock in the morning i've only had three cups of coffee i can't think through it right now sorry i would think you know if we're going to play that game while you're thinking about it later and you're going to post on social you got to go with some youth i would think and if you're trying to build a promotion you want

to get people you think you can hopefully keep stuck around for a while like too yeah i mean i know He's going to sound crazy, right? But I really, really, I just got a powerfully good feeling about Will Osprey. Yeah. And not even the, I mean, obviously the work in the ring, right? The presentation was otherworldly in many respects. But that's not what got me the most excited about him, believe it or not. There's something, he has that it, you know, that it factor.

Yes. that you can't really define, you can't put it in a pill, you can't put it in a bottle, you can't wear it, you can't manufacture it. There's something different about this cat that I think is magic that could be really built upon. Time will tell if he reaches his potential as a character and we see some of that charisma if that becomes a thing and is built upon in AEW, I would love to see him in WWE. I would love to see Will Osprey with that magic that he has,

that hit factory has combined with his amazing abilities in the ring, but in an environment that builds story and other characters around him as opposed to just going out there and having, you know, Dave Meltzer Circle Jerd 4-star matches. That's not going to get him anywhere. that he'll reach a certain level and he'll stay right there but i think he has the potential of being a major major star just not an AEW well i didn't want to bring this up but you mentioned his name and you said what you said about matches and match rating so i got to reference

it over the weekend there was a big debate and discussion online because i guess someone was defending kurt angle if you will saying how in the world did kurt angle never get a five-star match from Dave Meltzer, and John Moxley did. Now, I'm not here out of throw shade at John Moxley at all. He's been the MVP in a lot of ways for AEW almost since the beginning. But Kurt Angle, my goodness, one of the best all-time wrestlers, I mean, goodness gracious, if he's on your Mount Rushmore, who could be critical of that? That being said, when someone tried to take Dave to task for that, he quote tweeted it and said

something along the lines of go study cage match and get back to me and I said to myself self that's fucking stupid when Kurt Angle was doing what Kurt Angle was doing and I'm talking about Pete Kurt Angle not the TNA stuff I know he was there a lot longer I know we had arguably as good or better matches but I'm saying when he was in front of the much bigger audience of WWE, Cage match was not nearly as prevalent as it is now, and it's only gained a little more steam in recent years because of Tony con, but it's based on-

We're making fun of it. It's based on fan voting. I respect what Cage match does. Like, what a great little community of diehard, hardcore wrestling fans. But at the same time, fans are rushing to the computer after a show now to rate a match and rate a show. They weren't doing that in the Kurt Angle days.

So what in the world are we saying? Like, hey, go study where fans vote and get back with me. What? Fans weren't able to vote back then like they are now. And that's not even the point. The point is that Dave lives in a world all of his own. And he, he assumes that his view of looking at wrestling is the best way. I mean, look, Tony Khan is essentially booking for Dave Meltzer.

Now, they may not, you know, they may even debate. They may even argue over the phone. may not even get along. I don't know. I don't give the fuck. It doesn't matter to me. They get along. That's kind of what I thought, but I don't want to imply it because I don't know it for sure. But whatever. Let's assume they're at least sociable. Dave Meltzer has a view of what works in wrestling, and I think Tony Kahn subscribes to it 100%. Unfortunately, it's fucking wrong. And now it's being, you know, Dave for years has always known a better way, has always had a different opinion.

and now Tony Kahn is out there manifesting Dave Meltzer's approach to professional wrestling and he's shitting the bet in the process in terms of television. It's not getting him anywhere. He's dying. House show tickets. Do they even do house shows anymore? I don't even think they do. No, I haven't.

They're not even in the live event business, which is a weird thing to say for a professional wrestling company. They're not even in the live event side of the business. And their television product is weak. best, their attendance for their television productions, Dynamite, their number one show. They're lucky to get 3,000 people. They have to paper the house to get there, according to recent reports. So there's no metric that you can look at to suggest that Dave Meltzer's view of the

wrestling business, because as he says, he studies it. And he's such a student of the business. But everything that Dave Meltzer suggests is the right way to do things. is manifesting in AEW and it's failing miserably. So in a way, AEW's failure to succeed beyond their current level is in large part because of the Dave Meltzer philosophy of professional wrestling, which Tony Kahn clearly subscribes to. It's not working.

And the idea that Dave Meltzer would refer to cage match, rankings as some kind of barometer that has any credibility in terms of what's working and what's not working on television and what's quality and not quality on television, I think tells you every, not you, Conrad, but tells one everything one needs to know about Dave Meltzer's experience, his perspective, or his basic, fundamental understanding of professional wrestling as a business. Dave Mouser has no clue. He's never been in the business.

Now I know there's a lot of sports writers that have never played professional sports and they comment on sports writing. Great. But we're talking about business. The guy Dave Mouser, who says he studies the business. No, you don't, Dave.

You're a fucking goof. You've never studied the business. You're a dirt sheet writer. You've probably never been in a business outside of writing dirt sheets. But Dave's, Dave has always tried to influence the product as best he could from the sidelines. Well, now he's got a great opportunity because Tony Khan is a student of Dave Meltzer and look what you're getting. And it's becoming more and more obvious.

And I think that reference to check out the cage match rankings is only one example of what a moron Dave Meltzer is. okay doke uh let's move on marty b says now that we have a direction for the main event of night one at russomania how would you finish night one eric and then the obvious question how would you finish night two would you throw any surprises in there like seth turning on cody again it's fuzz into the fantasy booking category and i'm intentionally not thinking too much about what i would do because honestly I want to enjoy what they are doing. I want to be surprised.

I don't even want to be able to predict too much. I want to sit back and just watch it and see what's going to happen as a fan, not as a former producer. And in order for me to turn my producer brain off, I just have to quit thinking about it and just enjoy it. In terms of Seth turning on Cody, I wouldn't do that because it's five pounds or, it's like 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

I just wouldn't do it then. Maybe after, maybe something happens in the match that allows us to create a Cody Seth's story going forward. Like that's the opening act of Act 1 in the new Seth Cody story. That can happen, right, at WrestleMania. But I wouldn't want to see a full-on turn at WrestleMania because it's too much too soon and not necessary in that moment, in my opinion. Can't wait to see what they do there. Let's talk about championship belts. Wrestling fans and science says,

Hello, Eric, hope all is well. I know WW already has enough championships as is. With all the factions they've been putting together, do you think they possibly could have a six-man tag team division before you answer, Eric? Let me just say, please God, no. We've seen a six-man in AEW. We've seen a six-man in Ringwball.

I think, if anything, it's just hurt their tag team division. Like, I'd rather have a badass tag team division than trying to have a tag team division and the six-man tag, much less two sets of six-mans. What say you? Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, I could just, I could go off on a tangent about six-man tags. And no, no, trios, suffice it. Oh, fuck.

I just do all that shit. It's just, oh, see, I run out. a gimmick ideas. Let's do a gimmick of a gimmick. Ah, yeah, and we'll call it trios because I don't know, sounds cool. No, no, fuck no. Stop it. Stop it. Melt those belts. Put them up at auction. Donate them to charity. Whatever the fuck. But don't create a signal. Hey, uh, let me ask you this. We saw over the weekend. I don't know if you saw, but there was a report, I guess about a week or so back that John, Moxley just re-ups a new deal and allegedly he's going to be exclusive except for AEW's

international partners so meaning he could go down and wrestle for CMLL or AAA or go over and wrestle for New Japan but it certainly seems like his days of moonlighting a little bit here and there for game change or wrestling are over and then over the weekend it was announced that Josh Barnett who puts together a WrestleMania weekend spectacular every year it's different than and it's called blood sport and he got triple h to allow shana basler to participate this is something we haven't seen before you know under the old regime they would go out of their way to block every building and every event within the vicinity of rassalmania they didn't want wrestle con they didn't want every indie in america to run shows that are

based on them bringing WrestleMania to the market. They would legitimately go out and rent buildings. They had no intentions of using. They would get holds on buildings and then cancel them at the last minute because all these buildings were so desperate to do business with WWE.

They'd much rather have WWE there than some outfit they've never heard of. So by the time WWE pulled the hold, it was too late. The guy, the local promoter, couldn't sell tickets. This is a real about face. Now we've got main roster talent

appearing at work to shoot indie shows on WrestleMania weekend for other promotions. Like, this is a whole new world now, Eric, is it not? Do you think it's possibly a reaction to the MLW suit? Oh, I had not thought of that. That's interesting.

Yeah, seems like that to me. You don't think it's possible? the Triple H just sees wrestling differently than Vince did? Fuck, no. Okay. There's a reason behind it. I don't know that that's the reason. But if you just, you know, there's a dot, there's a dot, there's a dot,

let's connect them and see what the picture looks like. You know, a $20 million settlement because the perception is that WWE is trying to be a monopoly and are freezing other people out of the business. better way to overcome that than to allow talent that it's an independent contractor, technically speaking, to be able to provide services to another wrestling promoter within the industry. Could be not saying it is, but that's the first thing that crosses my mind, is that this is a reaction to a situation as opposed to an ideological change.

Well, let's do, let's talk about something else. it's changing. And this is from Cody Rhodes is a Jedi. What a great handle that is. With prime ads now being on the ring every PLE, what other changes do you think are coming that Vince McMahon would not allow?

But we've certainly heard people say the word wrestling more on TVs or anything else you can think of besides Shana appearing at a non-WW.E. shows or something else? Oh, yeah. you know, one of the things that I had a hard time adjusting to when I was a talent in WWE was the idea that I had to wear a sport coat and tie on a plane. You know, Vince was just obsessed with the appearance of talent even before they got to the building.

I heard a story, and I certainly don't know if it's a true story or not, but the story I heard when all this went down, because there was a point in time, when, even when I worked there initially as a talent, you didn't have to wear a suit, you didn't have to show up at the building in your sport coat and tie and all that bullshit. But evidently Vince was out somewhere and saw some talent getting in and out of a car and they were wearing their sweats and they looked like, you know, they looked like they were going in the gym and it might have been for all that, for all I know. But evidently that upset Vince so much that some of his top talent looked like they were going

to work at a jiffy loop, that it became a policy that independent contractors, including me at the time, had to wear a sport coat dressers and slacks on a flight because the theory was, oh, WWE's paying for that flight, in my case they were at least, so therefore they can tell you how they want you to represent the company while you're utilizing the ticket that they paid for. You can't really argue that. I mean, I couldn't. I wasn't willing to at the point in time. It wasn't necessary. But, But I hated it. I just hated the idea of having to travel wearing a sport coat and tie or worrying about if Vince was going to see me outside of the venue, if he was going to be upset the fact

that I wasn't dressed like I was going to work as an accountant. I'm hoping that some of the, not hoping, I don't care if it does or doesn't, but I would imagine that some of those weird Vince things like dress codes, that'll probably be relaxed, I would hope for the talent sake, because it is a pain in the ass, real pain and he ass. But other than that, I don't know. It's been so long since I've been there. I don't know. Well, something that has changed for both you and I, we've changed our deodorant, and we've made a big change to our friends at Mando. Mando is the real deal. We have both used this, and I got to tell you, I don't know who liked it more, me or my wife.

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Mando.com, or I'm sorry, shop Mando.com. That's S-H-O-M-A-N-D-O.com. Use the code 83 weeks. Let's do a few more questions here, man. W-D-W-Plan-Tunes says, was there ever corporate training programs at Turner? How did you navigate the transition from announcing to producing

to being an executive within Turner corporate? It's something we never talked about. Were there any classes? Not traditional classes, but there were probably once or twice a year human resources would require that executives attended, I guess, classes, if you will. Seminar is probably a better way to say it in terms of how to best deal with sexual harassment situations and that type. of HR issue. Those happen frequently and you do some role playing, you know, that was always kind of silly and fun. I found them to be interesting and helpful in my case because I'd never worked in a corporate

environment before, and there are issues in a corporate environment, particularly a publicly held company that you just really have to be aware of that you probably wouldn't think about or deal with in the course of your normal everyday life. as a private citizen or working for a small company or in my case being self-employed. So I found those to be helpful, but beyond that, no, there was no, I get a lesson every day. You know, I was being schooled by all kinds of people within Turner broadcasting, especially early on about how Turner functioned and my responsibilities within the team and things like that. Harvey Schiller taught me a lot.

Bill Shaw taught me a lot. Bill Shaw was really a mentor for me. Of course, Bill Shaw was a VP of Human Resources for Turner Broadcasting. So my first year or so 18 months with WCW, I was under the direct mentorship, tutelage, if you will, of Bill Shaw. So I learned a lot from Bill, but it wasn't really in a classroom type of setting. Here's an interesting question we've never discussed before. OPW, Chris says AWPPEP pay-views were broadcast in movie theaters the past few years. Now it looks like theater showings have come to an end.

From outside looking in, and as someone who has run a company, why would one eliminate guaranteed revenue? Bars and restaurants are still paying to show it. I think the answer here, Eric, is, as you know, AEW licenses real music. They're not just using Mikey Ruckus and in-house musicians to create theme songs. So because they're actually licensing music, I think the license to air on television is different than the license to air in a theater. That's what I've been told. Either that or nobody's coming to the theater to watch it. Oh, well, you...

No, I mean, that's the other option. What you said could be true. That could be the issue. I kind of don't think so. But it's possible because usually distribution agreements when it comes to licensing include all kinds of potential distribution or presentation opportunities. they're very much of a blanket. Now, perhaps with regards to some of that music,

there were restrictions on it, which would prevent their product from being shown in a theater if that music is utilized. That is a possibility. I don't think so. I think it's just the case that, yeah, they're shown in theaters, but nobody's coming to watch. And if I own a theater and I'm spending money to present a product,

and there's only four people there, I'm probably not going to do it for very long. That's my bet. I think movie theaters are looking for anything they can get these days. It does feel like they're on their last legs. But the word I got was, like, a song like Seeking Destroy, because that's the biggest one that comes to mind,

because Sting just used it on the most recent pay-per-view in the main event. I don't think they had permission. I think it's a whole new set of expenses to show it in a theater. And I would guess whatever that cost is doesn't really warrant the need to even do. Well, then you'd have to do some math, right? You'd have to break out your calculator and go, wait a minute, I'm spending all this money for music. It's not really helping my television ratings much.

I can't really bring people to the arenas. That's dying. Now I can't go to a movie theater because I want to use music, certain music. Why not put using that music? Because it's not working for you anyway, dude. it's not it's not generating revenue so why do it because he wants to huh i know this sounds silly but it's the same reason he started a ew he wants to

well like i mean i know that sounds crazy but you and i are approaching a lot of these conversations from a pragmatic business owner standpoint this is a cat who realistically has infinite money so why did you play that the same song it costs a lot of money because it wanted to okay okay so he's a money mark that can do whatever he wants and he's not responsible to anybody but himself because he wants to that's fine that's just good for him I mean are you gonna I mean is there anybody if you googled money mark and Tony con's picture doesn't come up I don't know what who's would this guy is the personification of money mark i don't know how anybody could deny that

but the well listen if you allegedly there's been business valuations done of this company now listen i know you're laughing but here's what i'm saying remember once upon a time they said twitter twitter was worth all this cash but it was still hemorrhaging cash every year I mean, a lot of these startups and tech companies, they'll tell you, oh, we've got this so-and-so-billion-dollar valuation. Well, how do your books look? Well, we lost 50 million last year. But come on, come. I'm just saying, you and I, a small business.

You know better. I don't know better because I don't know. Are you going to compare a wrestling company to a tech startup when tech's got all the potential in the world? A wrestling company is it's a television show. Tony Khan is. nothing more and nothing less than an independent television producer that's producing a television show. Let's quit trying to pretend he's something else. That's all it is. And it's not working. Well, yeah, but here's all right. I'm not arguing it's not working for you.

But if he's about to get a renewal, if he is going to get a renewal, it's working for someone. But what I'm saying is true or false, Tony Kahn has gotten the second large. just television rights for wrestling in the history of wrestling on television besides wwee obviously sure so i mean by definition that he's losing money doing it well we don't we don't know how much he's losing we don't know his book yeah okay i mean we can guess that we can guess they're losing money but we don't we can be pretty accurate in an assumption that they're losing money there's it's it's the words we choose words have meaning if If he was making money, we would all know about it, and Dave would be shouting it from the

mountaintops, his little puppy, Dave Meltzer. He'd be shouting it from the mountain top. Tony Con is not making money. He's losing money and is going to continue losing money. So the idea that somehow he's got this television company, a production company that's producing professional wrestling that can't draw people to the arena consistently, that's deteriorating in the ratings on a regular basis, and as overall kind of mismanaged from the outside looking in, that that has.

some kind of relative value to a startup tech company or to a sports organization. Kind of, they Meltzer's saying, yeah, but what about all these sports companies that are, you know, these teams and the value of teams? It's not a fucking team. It's not a sport. It's a television company that produces professional

wrestling and it's doing so on a really, really shaky basis. To suggest that there's some kind of intrinsic value and it's going to be worth billions of dollars because, I don't know, a startup tech company, follows. Oh, no, no. That's not what I said, Eric. Now, come on. What I said was I made the analogy

that when something's new, it takes a few years before it becomes profitable. And if he gets this big, like if you were an NFL player and you're going to get drafted here in a few weeks, everybody knows you're working for that second contract. That's where you make your big, like lifetime money. The first contract's good, gets you in the game, you prove your worth. The second contract's where you cash in. I got to think that's what Tony's thinking. here. And that's probably what he and his dad have seen time and time again in their management of real sports. Well, I would, I'd sign up for that if there was growth. If there was an indication that Tony's toy box was growing and was becoming more successful, if there was any

indication that there was growth in the future, I would tend to want to believe that. But the opposite is true. And anything, you know this kind of way better than I do, value is relative. Something is only as valuable as somebody else is willing to spend on it. Yeah, that's true. And if you look at what AEW is, if you look at the, expenses look at their video game which by the way we don't hear much about that video game do because they lost a fucking fortune doing it because they don't know what they're doing they were

incompetent in its design and implementation it failed miserably and they spent a fortune i've heard the number from people in the industry i'm not going to repeat it because i don't know it's a fact and i don't do that shit that's what dave bouncer does but if the number that I heard from three different sources is close to being accurate. It was a disaster. And then you look at everything else around AEW that's not working, as we've discussed. It's only worth what somebody is able to pay for it. And why would anybody want to spend any amount of money on that company unless you're Tony

con and you grew up fantasizing about being a wrestling promoter and now your dad gives you a billion dollars and you can go do whatever the fuck you want to do that's what it is it's a really well-funded independent wrestling company that's run by a guy who is a fan of wrestling or money mark that's been a good let me suggest that's going to be worth billions of dollars because wwe is or because a hockey team is or because a soccer team is is just another that's kind of like the cage match reference yeah just go look at, you know, look at the value of, you know, professional sports leagues and then tell me AEW is not worth more money.

I mean, all right. It's, it's the cage match rankings analogy. Well, I mean, listen, you and I both know. There have been a few people who were interested in buying AEW. I mean, really? Yeah. I don't know that. You and I talked about it before.

I'll remind you. You did? Yeah. No, I'm interested. Uh, let's, let's, let's move on from talking about AEW. Let's give it a break. for a minute. Josh Hennie wants to know.

Happy 316 Day, which was this past week. Stone Cold ever give you any tips on how to take the stunner? No. Just did it. You've been paying attention. Somebody else may have,

Steve didn't. I may have worked with, there may have been an agent the first time or two I did it that kind of walked me through it. But I don't remember who it was. But I mean, it's not that hard. I'm going to kick you in the stomach.

going to bend over, you're going to do what I'm going to do and sell it. If you've seen it on television, you can pretty much figure it out. Would you be surprised to see Austin at WrestleMania? No. I wouldn't be surprised. I would be surprised if we don't see him

because of just the level of interest in the excitement and enthusiasm. Steve is still out there. You know, he's still in business. We saw him do a commercial on Super Bowl. he's still you know he's still out there he's not he's not crawled into a hole out there in nevada on his ranch and he's still out there so yeah i expect to see him and plus it would be fun i mean if i was steve austin i'd want to be a part of it if i if i'm steve austin i want to run in

and give the rock a stoner that's what i want to do yeah that'd be a fun conversation to see in the back room i mean you know i know they had a professional rivalry and i know the rocks on the board. But let's remind everybody, the Rock's first WrestleMania main event was WrestleMania 15 in Philadelphia against Stone Cold. You telling me Stone Cold hitting him with a stoner on the 25th anniversary wouldn't hit. Come on. I'd be all about that. That's fun. Let's talk a little bit about the bloodline. We've talked a little bit about AW maybe a little too much. Kevin Crowley says just as important as how they choose to end this part of the bloodline story is what they follow it up with.

I think of how interest dropped off a bit with Marvel after finishing the Thanos story arc. What would be your post-Resslemania storyline to keep momentum going? Man, I love that people are thinking along these lines, Eric, because you've told us so many stories of back in the day in WCW where somebody would go pitch creative and then a friend of yours would rub his foo man shoe. and he wouldn't say what you think I'm going to say that doesn't work for me brother he would say and then what yeah and I think a lot of people are going to be curious on

Monday the Monday after WrestleMania and then what I mean is there something lying in weight that you think could keep this thing going immediately I mean the rumor in any window is that the rock is going to be doing a movie based on the smashing machine. Mark Coleman, an excellent documentary, if you've never seen it. Mark Kerr, my apologies. Mark Coleman's on my mind after he just was a hero and saved his family dog from a burning house. My goodness. And he's somehow survived and kicked out and he's in the hospital and awake and talking. And we're thankful he's here. But anyway, the rock is going to be off making a movie for

several months, starting in May. How do you keep some stickiness, some hotness here with WWE, with Roman, the Bloodline, Cody, what's next for any of those guys? Have you put any thought to that? Not really. I haven't put any thought to it, but you've got a lot of players right there. You've got the Lusos in there. Sammy Zane, who we haven't heard from for a while,

was very instrumental in the Bloodline storyline a little over a year ago. Is there a way to bring Sammy Zane back into it? I think Sammy Zane was one of the reasons the bloodline story got so exciting last year. Is there a way to reintroduction? him back into the story, I don't know. I haven't given it a lot of thought, but because there are so many components of the bloodline, so many personalities, big name personalities, great performers, that it's just a matter of imagination.

It's just coming up with the right way. I'm sure that it's there, but I haven't given it a lot of thought. It's going to be interesting to see what they do next and where they go and how they keep this momentum going because I agree they do have it too ahead I mean everybody's talking about wrestling and seemingly has been for months now let's do one from this is really not a question a compliment but I want to make sure you see it Jared Turner says not so much a question but thank you I'm a history teacher in Oklahoma and started using a variation of Eric's Sarsa model in class I'm now a top five finalist for teacher of the year

in a district with over 1,300 educators, thanks Eric. How about that, easy? How about that? I know this is going to come off like you and I talked about this previously, and this is a planned response. It's not. First of all, thank you very much for that. It makes me feel good to know that we're talking about things on this show

because so much of what we talk about is just... Grab ass. It's just fun. It's not meant to be too serious. But occasionally we share, you do. I know that you do this a lot with regard to mortgages and finance and your experience and you've helped a lot of people. And that's what makes this really fun is when you get those brief moments in time where

you can actually do something or say something that helps somebody. But with that said, I'm going to be introducing very, very soon on YouTube. I'm not going to go into too much detail right now, but you'll be hearing about it and seeing it more. but we're going to do basically a seminar about the Sarsa formula and how to apply it to different things outside of wrestling. Very, very cool guy by name of Ryan McGrath is helping me develop this, and people will be able to join us for free on YouTube, and we're going to give examples of how you can take the Sarsa formula,

story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action, and apply it to whatever it is you're doing in life. in this case, a teacher, and improve and grow. So we're going to be doing that. I think we're going to have our first YouTube show in May is what the schedule is right now. So if you're out there, because we get these, you know, I get these comments every once in a while about how people have applied Sarsa, that formula to whatever walk of life they're in and have reached out to me

in social media and otherwise and thank me and talked about their success. So I encourage people if you've got that experience, number one, stay tuned. But hit me up in social media, send me a DM, hell. We may make you part of the show. I love that. That's 83 weeks.com is where you can keep up with all the YouTube updates from all things, Eric Bischoff. John B says, if I were to nitpick, the main thing I personally think is missing from

WWE is better ring music for most talents. It feels generic at times. Everything else seems to be close to perfect point. or anything you could improve on? If so, how would you do it? We've really been heaping a lot of praise on WWE lately. Do you think there is any room for improvement? What are some things that you think they could do a better job of?

And what do you make of the complaint? And I've seen this a lot, that theme music doesn't seem as distinctive now as maybe as it once was. I've heard that a lot as well. I don't pay close enough attention to theme music to have an opinion, really. but I think the general consensus of the music being kind of bland and maybe it's because it's all familiar. There's a sameness to the music, which happens when you only have one or two people in charge of creating music. They tend to create what they're good at or what they like or what they have the most experience in.

And as a result, things start feeling very similar. And with regard to music, and this is so true. This is something I do notice all the time. Do you ever watch the series suits? No, but I'm familiar with it. It's a really good series. It's kind of cheesy. It's not, you know, it's not great storytelling or the acting is pretty good some of the times.

But it's pretty, you know, it's pretty middle of the road entertainment. But the producers are really good at finding the right music for the right scene. And they do it once an episode. And I look forward to it. And half of my, not half, a good portion of my playlist is music that I've downloaded as a result of seeing a scene. Sometimes I'll hit my Shazam. Like when I watch the show, I usually have my Shazam ready to go because it's very consistently, I'll hear music that's really emotive that really supports the scene that we happen to be watching. But I ended up liking the music anyway.

Music is really important, really, really important. And I think maybe Jim Johnson, who everybody got so familiar with and did such a great job and now he's gone, whoever is producing that music perhaps is guilty of just a sameness, a similar quality, whether it's the B, I don't know, I should all, I don't know anything about music, but I know what I like. And maybe there's just the sameness to it that is causing this kind of a reaction. I've heard it before so it's probably true

Lopez says with the inevitable shift to online streaming such as Netflix will the KPI change and ratings no longer matter that's an interesting one do you think that

that's that far off that we stop talking about ratings and wrestling I you know until another KPI's key performance indicator for those people who are living under a rock

ratings right now are it It's the only thing that's out there that we can point to and track that has a history. Not going to suggest that it's the most accurate. It just is what it is. It's what makes the world of advertising spin on its fucking access. And until something else comes along that's more accurate or is generally accepted, ratings are going to be the one thing we do have.

Not in the streaming industry. I don't know what's on the horizon. I'm certainly not a tech person by any stress of the imagination. But I would imagine as things evolve, as they do, there will come a time when there is some other form of rating system that maybe will be more accurate. We're not there yet, but probably people working on it as we speak. Until then, the only one that really matters is revenue.

Because that's what all the KPIs in the world are designed. to predict and track. It's revenue. Television ratings are nothing more than a tracking system that advertisers can use to decide the efficiency or determine the efficiency of the money that they're investing in advertising a product on a particular television show.

It's all you got, folks. But it's really just a predictor or tracker. At the end of it all, it's just revenue. Money is the only thing that makes the real world go around. And these indicators, whether it's ratings or KPIs or streaming, comes up with something else. All of them are nothing more than a tool to anticipate, predict, and track revenue. Sure, there'll be another one coming along. But in the meantime, with regard to WWE, just look at their quarterly financial reports.

It's public knowledge. It's a publicly held company. You can see it. You can track it. You can see the growth week or month over month, year over year, decade over decade if you want to. with AEW or Impact or some of these other companies that are privately held, that information is not available and you have to rely on Dave Meltzer or ratings. But eventually it'll happen.

Interesting question from a live experience perspective. Just went to a live raw. This is from D. Just went to a live raw and it was start and stop. Do you think the current production set up where they bring out a store and go to a commercial break hurts when it comes to building momentum and getting someone over. It doesn't help. It's an issue. And I don't know how long commercial breaks are now.

They used to be, I think they were two minutes and 30 seconds or 2.45, maybe 3 minutes when I was producing Nitro or even in TNA. I suspect, I don't know this, could be wrong, but I suspect commercial breaks have gotten longer because while the value of the commercials have decreased over time because of streaming, because of internet advertising, a lot of different reasons, because it's harder to get a return on your advertising dollar investment with a traditional commercial on a television show, they've started adding more because the cost of the shows are going up. So you've got to figure out a way to create more revenue. And I think the commercial

commercial breaks are even longer now than they were when I was producing. It's a long-winded way of saying that. And one of the things that we used to do, I started out with DJ Ram. I hired a DJ out of L.A. I think he was from L.A. He was either L.A. or New York. A really cool guy, fun guy. And he would, we'd go to him in their bumpers. So a match is wrapping up, or maybe we just had our three-count. And we'd get a shot, the camera, the crane, we'd get a crane shot flying over.

We'd go over to DJ Rand. We set them up right in the audience, right there. So we were surrounded by people because it added to the vibe. And we listened to DJ Rand music into a commercial break. So while we're in a commercial break, the people in the venue were jamming to the music, right? We kept them alive. We kept them interested. We kept the energy up.

We kept their attention using music. We then, after that, we moved to the nitro. girls who did the same exact thing. We were getting ready to go to a commercial break, the nitro girls would come out, they'd start performing on stage, we'd go to a commercial break, the girls would come to the ring, they would continue that performance in the ring, interact with the audience, all of that design to keep the energy up so that you didn't have that start, stop, feel emotionally. You don't want the audience disengaging for three and a half or four minutes.

You want to keep that energy and that focus alive. And we used, like I said, DJ Rand, we use the nitrogers. I'm sure there are other things that can be done. But it is an issue, you know, because you get everybody up, and then you're dropping them down. And then you're trying to get them up again, and then you drop them down. You're doing that over the course of three hours on Monday Night Raw or two hours if it's SmackDown. That's a long time to go up and down and up and up and down. And it's hard on talent because you get the audience up, especially if you're, you know, you get the audience up,

If you're following a really super hot match with a great finish, you get everybody excited and then we go to a commercial break. And now you've got to pick them back up again. It's a lot easier if you can keep them kind of at a mid-level range in terms of focus and energy. And music is a great way to do it. Nitro Girls was a great way to do it. There's probably other ways of doing it. But it is an issue.

Good, good question. No chance you remember this one. RCS 88 says when he had your tryout with the WWE back in 90, said you got to do commentary with Lord Alfred Hayes. Any chance you remember what matches you did commentary on? No. Absolutely. I probably didn't remember 10 minutes after I left Stanford

because I was so nervous and excited and overwhelmed. No, I probably wouldn't have remembered if you asked me that question on my way to the car leaving the building. Mike Kling, 71.44 says, if the shoe was on the other foot and WCW won the war, would you have made Vince the GM of Nitro? That could have been fun. Do you imagine Vince strutton of the ring? I mean, I never, I've never given that. Well, actually, the only time I ever gave that any thought was the first time I ever

talked to Vince, aside from my audition in 1990, when Vince called me to offer me a job back in 2002 or whatever year it was, 2001, I can remember. the very first thing that Vince said to me was hurt i'd like to believe and this would have been different that you would have at least offered me a job something to that effect wow never thought of that before wonder what that would have been like and i haven't thought about it since i don't know if it would have made sense sure sure if this was i don't know that Vince would have been interested in that opportunity. Well, let's just pretend he was for a minute.

Let's pretend that you're going to make Vince the GM of Nitro. How long until you make him, or you have him, you request that he make out with your wife, Laurie, and your daughter, Montana? Yeah, I don't think that would happen. Isn't that weird to think about in hindsight? Like, once in a hundred time, your biggest rival who had to work for him and then he said all right first order of business

go put your tongue down my wife's throat god damn it hold on we lost it i had i had the choke on that one yeah that was weird it was still every time i tell that story it's a it's a winner anytime i'm in front of a live crowd and i try to explain that story vincent is direction. That's the funny part. The funny part isn't so much, you know, it's acting, right? It's no different. TV's movies, you see that kind of silly shit all the time. But it

was the direction that made it so bizarre. I want you to grab her bring her into you wash yourself. I was like, dude, give him just a little too much thought. That was the weird part.

Let's do a fun one here. Rich Piana, 5,8, 60. says in his time at WCW who was the funniest wrestler backstage that's a fun one who was funny back in the day that armstrong was always laughing of he was always fun was dean on the list i hear he had a great draw sense of humor so he was one of dean was one of dean Dean was one of those guys that, you know, he'd say something really funny and you'd think about it for a second, you'd walk away, you'd have five minutes later, you'd bust out laughing.

That was Dean. Bradd, I'm sorry, was a guy that always just, for whatever reason, it's like every time I walk by him, he was cutting up, making other people laugh. He's the only one that I can really think back on that was funny, kind of consistently. Bagwell was funny. Bagwell would tell stories

and it was more often than not it was self-deprecating which I know it doesn't sound like Bagwell right because he's you know if you don't know him or you didn't know him back then you would think he was just you know a narcissist but the opposite was true he made a lot of fun

of himself in some respects you know who else is really funny to this day is Ernest Miller Oh yeah Ernest Miller is a hoot no doubt he's got a great sense of humor he's a great storyteller by the way he's got a podcast i encourage

people to go out and listen to it but ernest miller would he all to this day makes me laugh i love being around ernest miller because he just makes me laugh puts me in a good mood uh at jason six six six king want to handle that is says brighter future eric mjf or brown breaker well that's a tough one you know we haven't seen much mjf lately right? Is he hurt? What's the deal with him? Yeah, he's hurt. He had to have surgery. I'm not exactly sure. I know he's trying to rehab right now, but it was pretty serious.

What was the injury, do you know? Shoulder, I believe. Oh, those suck from what I've heard. Everybody that I've known, I have a lot of friends that have had knee replacements, hip replacements, multiple knee replacements, and probably hip replacements. Back surgeries, Hulk has talked about. his back surgeries, 17 of them, 18 of them, 40 of them, whatever he's had.

But even Hulk said the worst of all the surgery, and I think Hulk, I've never known anybody that have half as many surgeries as Hulk Hogan has. Hawke said the absolute worst surgery he's ever had was shoulder surgery. And I think Bruce is probably right, Bruce Pritchard is probably right there with him on that opinion. He said, Bruce had both done. And Punk's got one going right now and MJF. Man, in a business where everybody's trying to pin shoulders to the mat, they're all being driving up.

Well, the good thing about MGF is he's young. Yeah. You know, I mean, he's very, very young. Your body heals. You can rehab, you know, it's just all works better when it comes to rehabbing and healing up the younger you are. You know, punks in his 40s, that becomes a little more challenging. Your body just doesn't respond the same.

Given that piece of information, if I had to put money, by making an investment, on somebody's future, I'd go to broth just because of that injury, because that's a significant one. Fade into obscurity says, would you ever challenge Dave Meltzer to a fight like you did Vince McMahon in the 90s? That could be fun for charity. Would you do something like that, Eric? Hell yeah.

I can still go. I can't go a lot. I can't go long. But it's funny. I was thinking about this. the other day, you know, I spent seven years studying martial arts, and 80% of everything that I learned and trained in and practiced diligently is completely not usable in a self-defense situation. It's just not. But that 20% is, and they, and they,

80% all of that training, the fundamentals, the footwork, the balance, all the shit that we used to hate doing over and over and over again is essentially creating muscle memory. I mean, you get to the point where it is like riding a bike for certain things. And of all of the techniques I used and competed with, and very effectively at one point in my martial arts career. I was actually pretty damn good at kicking people's ass competitively. But only about 10, 15, maybe 20% of that would actually be usable in a self-defense situation in a real, honest, practical way.

Of that 20%, I probably got about 12. So I'd be happy to go. Absolutely happy to go. That'd be fun. Well, you know, you said you couldn't go long. If you want to go long, can we recommend trying our friends at Blue Chew? Going to have you feeling like you can still go. Blue Chee is a unique online service that delivers to you the same active ingredients as

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We've got another question for Eric here. And this one's about Brett Hart. Matthew Hutchinson 1167 says, I noticed you and Brett Hart are coming to Victoria, Australia next month, but you go out of your way to talk and engage with the hitman. As a big 83 weeks and Brett Hart fan, it would be great if this feud could end and you two could end up being friends again.

So before I let Eric answer, I want to remind everybody, that's right, I'm going to be on stage with Brett Hart for the very first time and it's happening in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. April 11th through April 14th, and it won't just be me in the building. Eric Bischoff will be there too. Braclets are on sale now, and if you pick up a bracelet, that means you get access to all events. And when I say all events, I don't just mean our panels. I mean there's not one but two wrestling shows.

Mickey James is putting together an all-lady show called H-E-R. And there's another show called Brett Hart's Australian Stampede, a super card of wrestlers from all over the world. Now my panel with Brett will be called Hitman an evening with Brett Hart where we will take some of your questions but we'll also be discussing the 30th anniversary of his WrestleMania 10 match with Owen Hart.

Plus, like with every Starcast, meet and greets galore, meet all your favorites, see the matches, watch the shows, one bracelet, get you access to it all at starcast.com that's S-T-A-R-C-A-S-T-C-A-S-T-com. StarC-R-R-C-T-T-com Eric, what do you think of the question? Are you going to try to bury the hatchet with Brett Hart?

He's going to be there. I'm going to be there. You're going to be there. It's going to be contentious. Are you guys going to be pals? Well, I don't know what. I can't speak for Brett, but I've got no, honestly, I've got no ill will towards Brett.

I could easily sit down and have a beer with Brett. it's not like I'm harboring any grudges or ill will or he's got his view of the world I got mine we differ but that's okay you and I differ on a lot of shit sure it doesn't matter it's not like I'm gonna be angry I'd love to sit down and have have a stake with right I'm cool with it join us starcast.com Ballarat Victoria Australia April 11th through April 14th we're inside of a month now it's gonna be fun we've got a bunch of different questions but one about your hair you used to brag that you had the best hair in the business and it's still fighting its way back your your hair is the ultimate

underdog your hair loves a comeback story your hair endeavors to persevere as you would say and here's a great question from our gook the butcher i've been going gray since my mid-20s and i've been dyeing my hair regularly for years now at 38 years old i'm pretty much over it and I'm ready to succumb to the gray, when did Eric finally decide to hang up the dye and how liberating was it once he did? One of the greatest decisions I've made in my television career was not dyeing my hair.

And I too started in my mid-20s, I think, 26, 27, 28 somewhere in there. And this is a funny story. So, you know, because my hair was black. You know, I mean, it looked the same as I did when I did. I died. It was the same shade of black. It sounded like I was light brown or anything like that. It was black hair. But the first time I noticed that I had a gray hair, I thought it was a gray hair. I thought it was a dead hair. And I went to Lori. And I said, hi, look, look, one of my hairs died. She said, what? I said, no, it's a dead hair. Here, I'm just going to pull that out because it's dead. I'm not thinking I'm turning gray. I just think I had one hair that died. Out of the millions of hair follicles in my head, I've only got one that died. Maybe it wasn't getting nutritious. Maybe I hit my head with something and it killed the root.

I don't know. Dead hair pulled it up. A couple weeks later, I go, fuck, I got three dead hairs. What's up with my hair's dying? I pulled up to three dead hairs. And eventually, over a period of a couple months, I mean, I'm plucking hairs on my head on my head on the Like in their faces. And Lori says, you say, Eric, they're not dead.

They're gray. What? What? No, your hair's turning gray. No, it's not. It's just a couple dead hairs. I've got to eat better. Maybe there's some nutrition.

I'm not getting it. No, Eric, your hair's turning gray. And once I accepted it, I kind of got over the initial shock of it all because I was in my 20s. and there's oh well i'll just dye it now the majority of my hair was black so it wasn't a big deal but as time went on now i'm dying my hair because by this time it's 1987 now i'm on television at this time right and i have been dying it before that but now i'm on television 1987 1988 now my hair is you know i'm dying on a regular basis and over a period of time

i didn't realize how gray my hair was getting it's getting grayer and grayer but i don't really notice it because I'm dying it every two weeks or three weeks, whatever it was. And to one point, I think it was in WCW, like, Nitro era, because I let my hair grow longer. Before I was, you know, when I was just doing announcing and played by playing color, I kept my hair short, looked like a, you know, sportscaster wannabe kind of thing, weatherman. You look like a weatherman is what I look like. But as I, you know, the character, you know, the Eric Bischoff-heel character, I sort of let my hair grow on. My hair was very thick and heavy, straight, of course.

So as my hair is growing, now I'm seeing this silver streak down the middle where my hair parted. I look like Pepe Lapeu, the cartoon skunk. Oh, wow. And I'm just, fuck. Now I've got to dye my hair every like eight days because my hair grows fast and grew fast. And I got to the point where I went, you know, I got to quit doing this. I was just tired of it.

I was tired of getting my hair. I call it painted. It's like every two weeks, I got to go get my hair painted. I hated it. And that's when I came up with the idea. I think didn't Rick Flair shave my head first? Yeah, I think so. I think it was Rick Flair.

That whole idea was really about me going, fuck it. I'm going to get my head shaved. I'm going to embarrass myself on national television. Everybody's going to see that I have gray hair and I'm never going to have to die it again. It was purely selfish. I wasn't doing it to get Rick over. That was a side benefit.

Not that I needed to get Rick Flair over. Rick Flair was already over. But it was a nice little thing, you know. Feather and Rick's cap, I guess, as a character. But that wasn't the reason I did it. I did it because I was so fucking tired of dyeing my hair that I wanted a reason to go out and get my head shaved in public so I never had to do it again.

And I was so happy with that decision all the way up until I got a phone call in 2002 from Vince McMahon. Hey, pal. Think about coming in, being a general manager. Cool, Vince, cool, can't wait, boom, I'm in. Day later, I called because Stephanie was in charge from that point out after Vince and I talked to, if you got any questions, reach out to Stephanie. So a couple of days later, I called Stephanie.

Hey, Stephanie, good talk to you. We've never met. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, hey, Eric, can't wait for you to come in. We're all so excited. I said, Stephanie, just out of curiosity, you know, what do you think in? You know, my hair's gray now, silver. You know, it was black back in the NWO thing.

I said, it's up to you, Stephanie, because, you know, I work for you now. What would you prefer? And in my mind, I'm thinking, no, no, no, don't tell your hair. And she goes, oh, no, die it black. Fuck. Fuck. Okay. You've given me 350,000 reasons a year to dye my hair black.

I'll dye my hair black. Good to go. But I think you should embrace the gray. Embrace the, first of all, chicks kind of dig it. It's weird, isn't it? It sounds crazy. Especially if you got those 30, something's out there that still have some

lingering daddy issues? Holy crap. It's unbelievable. So don't be afraid of the gray. Okay, dokey. A little pro tip from Eric there. Maybe have some blue chew too and that gray will fool them.

Ting Heat says, how do you feel about Logan Paul's run so far? Personally, I feel like he is a natural for this and he's right where he belongs. Eventually, I'd love to see him as the WWE champion. Him carrying that championship would be huge for the brand and business in general.

Have you been keeping up with Logan Paul? What do you think of what he's been doing lately? I mean, a little bit. I'm not following closely, but I think he's a money-making machine. I think he, yeah, he was born for the business. I think he's a fucking wrestling version of a test tube baby. He's like perfect for the business.

I mean, he brought a massive audience with him and the audience that pre-existed prior to his arrival love him and have accepted him because of his performances, which was like the biggest thing. Wrestling fans, believe me, we all kind of know this in different ways at different levels. Wrestling fans are demanding. I mean, if you try to shove something down in their throat,

they're not only going to gag it up, they're going to gag it up all over you. They do not like things being forced upon them. You have to earn the respect of the wrestling audience over time, and it takes time. The newer you are, the tougher it is. Because I think the wrestling fan in general, obviously we're talking about generalities here,

but are very resistant to anything new. But once they find something new and it earns it she earns their respect whether it's a storyline or talent or music or whatever it is once they accept you you're kind of good for you're good for a long time if you work at it and i think logan paul because he was such an amazing performer and over delivered much like bad bunny did but Logan came back and kept coming back and is now back full time, or at least it appears to be.

I think he's earned so much respect. And like earlier, we were talking about goodwill, that's what I'm talking about, the goodwill of the wrestling up and he has earned it and he's enjoying it. And I think he fits into the industry like he was bred for it.

Let's do three more. Then we'll start to wind it down. We've got an interesting question here from Corey Pritchard 9915. He says, watching WrestleMania 38 back, it seems like Vince knew he didn't have much longer

before everything came out. One more Steve Austin match. One more match for him going against McAfee while trying to boost his next project, Austin Theory. One more stunner. Finally putting the Undertaker

in the Hall of Fame and inducting him himself. And of course his two biggest projects, Brock, I'm sorry, Brock and Roman headlining. WrestleMania 38 seems like it was the real conclusion of the McMahon era. We just didn't know it yet. What are your thoughts?

It's really interesting, isn't it? It is. I didn't think of it, obviously, at that point. But looking back, it's hard not to, it's hard not to come close to that conclusion, whether you actually get there or not, whether he actually knew this. was all on the horizon or not only Vince McMahon knows that, probably Jerry McDivitt. But it sure seems that way, doesn't it? If it's, if it wasn't that way, if Vince didn't know and maybe wasn't feeling like this could

be his last one, it was produced and written as if he did. It's an interesting observation. Could be true. Could be true indeed. Let's do a question here from creating heat. Do you think your good buddy Bruce Pritcher deserves a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame? I know most everyone is familiar with his work as Brother Love, but maybe his overall contributions to the business doesn't get highlighted or talked about nearly enough.

What say you? Thousand percent. Thousand percent. And to me, that's everybody looks at the Hall of Fame differently, as they should, as they have a right to. I kind of regarded as a representation of one's contribution, either as a talent or as a celebrity. Celebrities make contributions to the industry. They bring it up to a different level in some cases.

And they're a part of that. You go back to Cindy Lauper, you know, Muhammad Ali early on. Some of the football players that were part of it escapes me right now. I'm sorry, I'm sometimes shitty with names. But so many of the big celebrities that have been part of WrestleMania that made WrestleMania more of a mainstream property early on when wrestling was still kind of transitioning out of the small venues, arenas, smoke-filled studio kind of environment that professional wrestling had always been stigmatized with or actually was for such a long period of time.

Then you get into the WrestleMania era and cable television and all of the production values and the celebrity, Liberace, all these people that Vince brought in that seemingly had no connection at all to professional wrestling, but they elevated the business. And I think anytime you've got anybody who's had an opportunity to contribute to elevate the quality of the business, Then I think that's somebody who's Hall of Fame worthy. And I don't know how anybody can look at Bruce's body of work and experience in the industry and the things that he's had his fingerprints all over, some of the critical decisions that he was instrumental in making or supporting,

or in some cases fighting, that ultimately had an impact on the growth of the industry, because it's the growth of the industry that I think we should sell. break and I don't know how you can look at Bruce Pritchard and it's a lot of people don't know I mean if you don't know some of the things that Vince was or Bruce was involved in and and the decisions that he made and the experiences that he gained working for Paul Bosch back in Texas as a kid fuck what was he 15 14 barely pupecent at a point in time 12 12 fuck he didn't even have a hair on his chin but he's learning the wrestling industry and that that

that experience, that perspective helped Bruce contribute to the growth of the business. And for that reason, forget about the brother love gimmick. That was entertaining as hell. And almost everybody remembers it that's over, you know, 40 years old. Not because he was the greatest talent in the world, but because of what he's contributed to the growth of the business, abs of fucking lootly. well said totally agree uh let's do uh one more here and we got man we got so many we're going to have to do another one of these maybe we'll do one exclusively for 83 weeks dot com oh you

know what we got a live studio audience let's go grab one of those before we wind things down here man appreciate the question carl hayes and certainly bobby that was a great question as well i'm going to go with bryant's though bryant says a show like lucha underground i thought was way ahead of its time. Could a show like that work today and would Eric be interested in doing a wrestling show like that? You know, Eric, that was really designed for streaming or so it felt. It was not a live event.

It was episodic and it was, what was the word we used during the pandemic when everything was shut down? Cinematic. We had cinematic matches and storytelling. Do you think we might see something like that? With WW easing and the Netflix, could that be the next big thing? Yeah, I do.

Because look, it's characters in its story. And maybe even more so today than back when Lucha Underground premiered because I think people's perspective of professional wrestling is broader and deeper than it was back then. I think people would be more willing to accept it and find it interesting and entertaining.

I don't know that the lucha aspect of it, because that's kind of hard for the American audience to relate to, hardcore wrestling audience, of course. But we're talking about mainstream, you know, if you want to get... I think he just means the style of the show, not necessarily the style of the end ring, but the vignettes. The style of the show, yes, because it's just storytelling. Of course.

It's just storytelling. And I think there's a way. I would be surprised if it doesn't happen sometime in the next couple of years, to be honest. Man, I know I said we were doing one more, but I got to do another one. And I thought we were moving on from AW talk. It was just getting a little too negative for me. But Coach Keith has a great question. And I know you and I know the answer.

What would get AEW kicked off of Warner Brothers slash Discovery, low ratings? Because AEW is getting better ratings than the NBA and NHL that they also broadcast. So the idea here is, you know, I know you're saying, well, their ratings are down and who knows if they're getting renewed and blah, blah, blah. He brings up a good point. They do often beat some of their other live sports programming, but that's not the full story, isn't it, Eric? It's not the story at all.

It has nothing to do with the story. If you're Dave Meltzer, it does. But if you're in the television industry and you recognize that one ratings point, in an NHL game is worth $10 and one ratings point in AEW is worth 47 cents, you realize that ratings in and of themselves are only one measurement of success. It's the revenue, as I talked about earlier, that's associated with that rating. And that's the issue. And it always has been. It was the issue with Fox and Smackdown, wasn't it? It wasn't that the show wasn't getting great ratings. It was the number one show on network television on Friday nights.

Forget about cable. It was the number one show consistently on network television. But Fox advertising executives, people that were selling advertising within a Fox network, could not sell Smackdown at a high enough rate. They're called CPMs, cost per thousands. They could not sell that advertising at a high enough CPM to get a return on the investment that they were making in the form of a license fee. That's the business of the wrestling business, the business of the television business, but in this case, specifically the wrestling industry. So while people like Dave Meltzer who have never been in the television business,

and despite the fact that they say they study the wrestling business or they study the television business, fail to make the connection between ratings and revenue, that's been the problem with professional wrestling historically. It was the problem with professional wrestling, as I just outlined with Fox and Smackdown. And I'm guessing, I'm not going to guess, I'll go out of a limb. It's absolutely 100% of the problem with AEW and Warner Brothers. One of the reasons I keep banging the fucking drum hoping that just by pure osmosis and maybe death by a thousand cuts, somebody named Tony Kahn will listen when it comes to blood in excessive violence

just so you get a this is awesome chant because those are the things that will prevent AEW from enjoying whatever benefit they could potentially enjoy from whatever ratings growth they might get someday that's the issue so it's not what the ratings are it's what the revenue that those ratings can generate, that's what matters. And my guess, it's just a guess, I'm not there, I don't have books in front of me. My guess is that even though the AEW ratings are, could compare favorably to some NBA games or probably almost always NHL because nobody watches that shit anyway, but the amount of revenue that those ratings generate from a traditional legitimate sports league are different than

the ratings that are going to be generated by general entertainment, which wrestling is. It's not a sport. You can say it all you want. You can present it as a sports property if you choose. It's a scripted form of entertainment. It's general entertainment. And those ratings in that form of general entertainment probably are not generating the type of revenue than a rerun would.

Just a fact. Well, it is a fact that we are out of time now. We are going to be going live sooner rather than later on 83 weeks.com. And this is what you can expect. You get to ask your question live to Eric Bischoff. We're going to be going live whenever there's major news or major events. So far, we've circled the Go Home Week for WrestleMania and, of course, WrestleMania night one and two.

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QR code my apologies that's up on your screen right now we've got a link in the description as well but dude this idea that you can go get NWO merch to this day and you never actually officially got royalties off of that but now if they buy NWO merch from Fanatics and they use our special link dude how about that we found a way for you to get paid for your nw show absolutely and if you're listening to the show do not do not do not go to www.com do not purchase this stuff on the wwee website purchase it right here fanatics because you're surely will get a taste it's a little tiny taste just a small fraction of a taste but it's a taste it's all that matter it is a taste we greatly appreciate all of your

support but seriously if you go support our site and man it's so easy it's just an affiliate partnership with fanatics it's shop wrestlingmerch.com not only can you grab nw hats and NWO hoodies and NWO t-shirts but you can get all kinds of other stuff there's more than like a hundred NWO items and when you pick one up at shop wrestlingmerch.com finally for the first time ever Eric gets a little bit of a royalty so hey we found a work around how about that And it makes it feel more original. I mean, I was the one, you know, fairness, Larry's Obisco deserves a little bit of a taste, too, because he came up with the NWO thing before I did.

But in a reality, I created that shit. It was, you know, that, I mean, so now the NW merch that you get from Fanatics is more like original. It's not bootlegs. It's not like the parking lot. The other stuff is a rip-off. This is the original thing. This is the original NWO because it's coming from, well, me. Shop wrestling.

merch.com is where you can hook it up. And if you've got questions, we'll try to have answers. We're going live on 83 weeks.com sooner rather than later. Go hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. And we'll be back next week with another edition of 83 weeks with Eric Bischall.