83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 326: Ask Eric Anything 06.14.24

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric is joined by guest host Casio for a wild and hilarious #AskEricAnything. Eric and Casio answer over two hours of listener questions that will make your toes curl and have you in stitches. SIGNOS - Signos removes the guesswork out of weight loss and provides the tools to develop healthier habits. Go to signos.com and get 20% off select plans by using code 83WEEKS. BABBEL - Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com/WEEKS. Rules and restrictions may apply. CHUBBIES - Your summer wardrobe awaits! Get 20% off @chubbies with the code 83weeks at https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/83weeks #chubbiespod MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at Manscaped.com.  BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s BlueChew.com, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE 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://www.savewithconrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency health can be requested even when you're not home. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately. we're here. Oh, we're doing this. We're here. Welcome in to another edition of 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. I'm your feeling host, Mr. Cassio. That is the vacuum of some people leaving because they see my chubby face. But Eric, you're stuck with me. How are you, sir? I'm so happy.

be stuck with you, man. It's been a long time since we've shared a Zoom screen or a stream yard screen. So yeah, I'm glad you here, brother. It has. We are broadcasting, of course, in front of a live audience. Thanks, sorry, I had free shows family. We appreciate everybody there. We'll try to get this as an ask Eric anything. So we'll get to questions wherever we can. We've got some sent in. And if we can, we'll get some from the chat as well, how's everything in your life? What? Every time I talk to you, you've banned something from your life, meat, air, water, carbs. What is, what is your current status, Mr. Bishop? Well, never meet, man. I'm a, I'm a carnivore. I'm an evangelical mucker father when it comes to the carnivore diet. Big, big fan of it. But, yeah, I don't do carbs.

I don't do sugar. I don't do processed food. I don't do soft drinks. I don't do. I mean I just eat really healthy and I feel great I don't feel like I'm missing anything you know you uh you after you went on the first time you did the uh you know just the fasting uh did you know that conrad was doing it no i want everybody to know that he he didn't do the pure fasting but he did just the just eat meat and clear the system out

yeah um and i was absolutely stunned at how long he did it that he was really doing it, that I could not peer pressure him off of it. And he also said he was feeling better. So that was that was super cool to see that kind of spread now after that. It's a, it really is a, you know, it's a lifestyle choice. That's the hardest part. Yeah. Is especially if you're someone like Conrad, who conducts a lot of business outside of the office,

restaurants, dinner meetings, that type of thing. You have to be really, really committed to do the carnivore diet long term. but I don't live that lifestyle. When I'm not on the road, you know, conventions or whatever, I'm at home and I have control over everything. And it's really easy for me. But I'll never go off of the carnivore diet. I'm not 100% carnivore. I should say that.

I get about 90 to 95% of my calories from meat. The rest of it, you know, probably five, maybe sometimes up to 10%. I get from, like I take AG1, which is a. probiotic, probiotic supplement, which is plant-based. So I do a scoop of that in the morning. I'll occasionally do cratum as well in the morning, depending on what I have to do that day. And then I do like sourcrow or kemshi,

some kind of fermented cabbage because it's really good for your gut biome. But that's it. Everything else is just meat. And when I say meat, it's like chicken, fish, meat products, milk. I don't drink a lot of milk, but cheese. if I want it. But it's pretty cool, man. I dig it.

And I like to cook. So, you know, it's kind of challenging to find new ways to cook new shit. Um, a lot of stuff going on in your life. Uh, by the way, shout out to Dave McLeigh watching live.

Uh, he said, I've been doing the carnivore diet for three days now and I already feel great. How about that? It's amazing what it can do for you, man, you know,

especially for people that are, um, pre-diabetic or type two diabetic. It is absolutely. mind-blowing what a carnivore diet can do for you in terms of inflammation just a million different things that all of a sudden go away um eric uh you uh i want to tell everybody watching ad free shows i have watched it i don't know if you have had a chance to see it yet but um conrad just sat down with dennis knight better known uh to wrestling fan as tech slasinger phineas godwin or

the naked mid-in, as I prefer to refer to him. Over at the false finish series, over at ad-free shows.com, Dennis joins a long line of people who want to get their hands on you, Eric. So, great stuff. What the fuck did I do to him? I didn't do any to him. Stand in line, you whiny, bitch. I never did a thing to you.

A lot of people that want to get their hands on me. Our producer, Silver, do we want to wait that, show that video is a tease at the end? Well, we can show it right now and get Eric's response. I was going to say, is he going to get fired up? Should we get some questions out of the way? What do you think, Eric? Let's say it to the ad, because if it pisses me off, it'll fuck up my vibe for the whole show.

That's what I think. And I'll just be ripping. People be asking me perfectly legitimate, polite questions, and I'll be going off in some kind of fucking dark twisted tangent. You got it. All right, we're going to roll that beautiful main footage, at the end, the clip from Midian talking about Mr. Bischoff. Why am I cutting a promo on Midd?

Why does this guy even give a shit who I am? I never did anything to him. What the fuck? I can't. I can't make you pose naked, you big goof. All right, let's get into some questions. We'll first start with already sent in over on the ad free shows platform. We'll start with Angel, Angel T-17, said,

Eric, what if you bought WCW in 2001 instead of Vince McMahon? What kind of stars would you have brought to the company? It's too hard to say. You know, I mean, that's a good question. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate it. But it's one of those questions. To answer it really honestly with any degree of truth,

I'd have to sit down and kind of look at who is available at that time and play with it in my head. And that might be something fun to do over a couple hours on a zoom with a cocktail or four. But to answer it here in this kind of a format, that would be kind of tough. But it is a good question. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll book WCW version 2.0 fantasy booking 2001. We'll do that on every show some point.

That sounds like some good bonus content there. I'm drinking to me, but whatever. Okay. I'm in. Brandon the broker hit us up. He said, what if DX would have been greeted by the original three NWO? Would you have worked something out with Vince on the spot to allow some kind of crossover? Or would you have stuck to your guns, Eric?

Oh, hell, I would have done a crossover in a heartbeat, in a heartbeat. But there was no interest in WWE wanting to do any kind of crossover. They were winning. They had momentum. They didn't need to make a move like that. They may have a year previously, but they certainly didn't need to at that point. But yeah, I would have been, you know, I'm a fairly open-minded guy. I would have had some fun with that.

I think that's always one of the big what-ifs is what if somebody would, like, what if they would have been graded? That's just a, that's one of those great fantasy booking things that just. Here's what would have happened. I guarantee you. If the WCW guys would have been there squared off with all with, with triple H. in the dx guys you know what to happen i'll be high-fiving it'd be a couple over on over the corner behind a production truck smoking a joint i know who though yeah i got a 12-pack in the back of my car

was going to have a beer before the show starts that's what would have happened that's that's real life if anybody thinks there was any animosity or tension between the wwe crew and the wcw you crew? Trust me, there was not. There was not. There was no company loyalty. There was no loyalty to me. There was no loyalty to anybody other than, hey, I haven't seen you a long time, bro. Come on over. What's up? It would have been a social event. Let's go to, we are recording for the live AFS family. Let's jump in and get one of those questions. PJ Taints, Professor Taints. He says, Eric, what if anything, can you share? about your talk with Mr. Rick Flair. Of course, that's been the headlines all over. But how was your

talk with Mr. Flair? I had two conversations with him. I had a conversation with him. I think on Wednesday afternoon where we should, hey, we're going to do this thing. And, you know, we're ready to do it. We're going to square off. I just want to get a sense of where his head was at. And we did. And we both agreed to do the show. And then Thursday, no, maybe Tuesday I talked to Rick. And then Wednesday, yeah, yesterday, I got a call from Ricky. And he just said, look, I've been thinking about it. And I just don't want to stir up any more shit. It's not worth it to me anymore.

I went, I don't blame you, bro. Yeah, you know, there's a lot to be said for not seeing your name in the headlines every once in a while. And, you know, constantly just being out front, even if it's just doing interviews and being, you know, you can be honest, but you could still be confrontational. And that's what it probably would have ended up being. Rick would have been very honest. and it would have been a confrontational, but I think Rick just isn't of the frame of mind to do with the fallout from that.

Sometimes my wife suggests that I not engage in such confrontational dialogue in social media. So it's probably a healthy thing. And I'm glad because I like Rick. And I did say this to Rick. I love Rick. I've always loved Rick, no matter how crazy things have gotten. There's just something about that charming son of a bitch.

I don't know what it is. is he just sucked you back in uh he just sucks everybody back in well you know and it's hey the best times i've ever had in professional wrestling have been with rick flare the worst times i've ever had a professional wrestling have been but there's a lot of stuff in between this pretty fun too so we're good all right let's keep it going uh jim con 1479 It says you seem like a positive guy, Eric. How did you get over setbacks in your career and find the energy to move forward?

Well, for better or worse, rarely have I ever let anything that looks like a setback affect me emotionally. I mean, I've won a lot. I've lost a lot. Ended up somewhere in the middle a lot. But for me, it's always been, okay, next. That didn't work.

Next. It's, it's never been, I've never been the type of person to kind of wallowed in disappointment or, or failure or realizing that I made a bad choice. Just recognize it. What am I going to learn from it? Fuck it. Move on. Next. It's kind of like that, it's kind of like that sports mentality of a quarterback.

Every play is the most important. important play focus on it do it you throw a pick though you got to act like it never happen and move on to the next most important play otherwise you're carrying it around you're second guessing and this look i've not always been this way i was the victim of being exactly the opposite for for a big part of my life when it came to business i was always pretty um durable i mean i never took losses or failures or mistakes i never took them hard on a personal basis though when it comes to relationships, I had a, I had more difficulty just moving on. Let's put it that way.

But it's just come with time. You know, my wife has had a major influence on me. I, you know, realized one day, just, man, I spend a lot of energy carrying around negative shit. It's never going to do me any good. You can't make any money off of it. It's not going to make me healthier. It's not going to make me happier.

It's not going to improve my relationship with my family or with God. So if I'm carrying all this stuff around, it's making me miserable and it's not going to benefit me in any way, shape, or form, why am I carrying it around? And that light bulb went off in my head and just ever since then, I'm pretty good about just letting shit go. That's a great mentality, my friends. It's hard for some people to do. It's the crazy part.

But, you know, that's how life is in human nature. But I fully agree. You just got to, next day is the next day. Let's keep out figuring out how to move on and figure it out the next thing. next time and do the next thing. Miley and Aubrey vlog 5769 who is someone that you thought might become a star in WCW but for whatever reason he just did not. I've always been a bit amazed that wrath wasn't moreover. Man, I haven't heard that name in a while. Yeah. And that's a good and that's a good observation too. So much of it is timing. I think wrath is a guy that had he come along

to WCW a year or 18 months earlier, things could have been different. He came in at a tough time. Tough meaning he came in when things were rocking. Kind of hard to break through the clutter at that point. Another one is Ernest Miller. Ernest Miller had Ernest Miller come into WCW 24 months, maybe 36 months before he did, you'd still be seeing Ernest Miller doing something fun on in WWE or somewhere else.

He was so good. He had so much natural charisma and talent. He didn't have the time in the ring and the experience for a long enough period of time and the exposure that comes with it to really build equity with the audience because the wrestling audience is pretty tough. You've got to be around for a lot of. long time before they really grow you in right and you have that real connection to a vast majority of the fan base it takes a long time you can get their attention very quickly and they

may they may they may they may stick with you for a while but to get that real brand loyalty that character equity that takes time and ernest because he was such an athlete um had he had another year or two ring time so that his in ring ability could have caught up to his natural charisma and just the entertainment quotient he'd have been a superstar uh it's it's amazing every time i um every time i meet somebody that has met ernest at a con or whatever the place you know he's been to top guy weekends and uh some of our get together's there every time they leave and go man that was a great guy at a fun time made me laugh just a great guy to be around and and I'm with you just his mic skills

I mean he just has that it charisma where you want to focus on him and and you did and you hardly had to give him any direction yeah I mean you know he had to know what the storyline was you know give him a couple pointers in terms of where we're going next and then he could just turn him loose and let him go and he was just nailed it he was so good it just I wish he would had about 24 months under his belt before he did and things would have been a lot different for him but he's still great guy he's come earnest is coming out to my house here in august ernest and sunny um jim duggin and his wife are going to be here and we're all going to cook stakes and hang out on the deck and look at mountains and shit that sounds like a fun damn time right there

you won't suck uh eric let's tell you about uh i know you look we talked about at the beginning the show how important your health is to you, Eric, and everything you do, you pay attention to what you put in your body and everything that means to you. And that's why I know Cignos is proud to be a proud sponsor of 83 weeks, an incredible program, and they're going to take care of our 83 weeks. Listeners, diabetes is really big in my family, so I know how important this is. but Cynos giving you that real-time glucose access. Checking you're out, what's your chance to prevent type 2 diabetes?

You can check that out with our friends over at Cignos, Eric. Let me, I am absolutely a firm believer in Cynos and your ability to monitor your blood glucose. I watch my, and it's for me and my wife. If it's really a hobby, you know, we're not doing this because we have to do it. We're doing it because we want to do it, and we're so fascinated with the access to technology, like we're seeing here with signals. This is technology that the only way you would have had access to it five, ten years ago was through your doctor. And not only would it have been much more expensive, it would have been a lot more inconvenient.

And now you have access to this technology that can tell you in real talk. time how different foods affect your metabolism and spike your insulin and you can monitor your blood glucose level so you can maximize your energy and improve your health in so many different ways there's not enough time for us to talk about it here but let me be really clear if you're interested in your health if you whether it's longevity whether it's performance whether you just want to feel awesome and have optimal brain function because There's so much of what goes on in your brain or doesn't go on in your brain starts in your gut. And when you start to learn the connection between what you eat, how you eat, when you eat,

and your blood glucose levels and where you get those insulin spikes, once you can see that in a real time and you start making the connections between what you're doing, what you're eating, and where your blood glucose is and where your insulin is getting spiked, when you start dialing that in, I'm just speaking for myself. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a, I'm not anything. I'm just an average guy that's really interested in being healthy. For me personally, my energy level has gone through the freaking roof.

My ability to focus, which has always been a challenge for me, because I ate too many carbs. I was eating too many things that affected my blood sugar and then affected my brain. I'm so much more on the money creatively in terms of carrying on conversations, my ability to focus some things that I'm not necessarily even really that interested in, but feel like I need to focus on, whether it's work or otherwise, off the charts, and it all starts for me with knowing what's going on with my blood glucose. Those real time results that you were talking about, Eric, literally real time. Had a glass of wine with dinner. How did that change your energy level? How did that affect your blood sugar? Do you go on a walk after your meal? How does

that affect it? Did you have a beer at lunch? Did you skip lunch? literally real-time results, and you can start figuring out what you need to change in your lifestyle, what makes you feel bad, what makes you feel good, and change it in real-time with Signos. Signos has removed the guesswork of weight loss and provided, can provide you with tools and knowledge you need to develop healthier habits. It combines glucose data from the CGM, or that's the continuous glucose monitor, with an AI-driven app, and that's going to deliver real-time glucose insights.

for optimal health and weight management. And right now, Signos has an offer exclusively for our listeners. Go to Signos.com. That's S-I-G-N-O-S.com and get up to 20% off select plans by using code 83 weeks today. That's Signos.com. Use the code 8-3 weeks, 83 weeks to get up to 20% off select plans for you today. And we appreciate Signos for being a proud sponsor of everyone here at 83 weeks. weeks.

And you know what? It makes me feel good other than Signos. What's that? Brian Lestop. He gifted 5.83 weeks memberships. What?

3 Weeks.com. See, that's a cool thing. Whoa. That's why we love this family. They're not only the most enlightened group of wrestling fans anywhere in the world, but they're generous to. And I love that.

Spread the word. That's the word. Spread the word. I love it. Gifted memberships. That's where it's. that's a family right there man that's part of that family right there we appreciate that Brian we appreciate that and everybody joining us in the live chat speaking of let's get back to the live chat and get a question there for we jump back in our questions uh Jim

Pisinski Jim in Buffalo he's got a question for you froze up on me bro I'm here oh I got you now I'm here let's jump back in the chat Eric and get a question from our live audience here that nice audience that is gifting memberships Jim in Buffalo has hit us up. It says, Eric, we know you don't watch every week, but thoughts on the direction of the bloodline angle. I'm impressed how Paul Heyman has kept it going and built anticipation for Roman's return. I've been traveling so much over the last four weeks.

I haven't watched any wrestling at all. So I wish I could comment. And I could take the easy way out and make it sound like I did, but I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. But no doubt, based on the discipline that I've seen in WWE storytelling over the last six months or ten months, I am absolutely certain it's being done with perfection, particularly because Paul Heyman is involved. Well, I'll do the follow-up from Jim then.

He also says, nice shirt. As a former brewer of beer yourself, did you see any of the promotion for Hulk's real American beer? I'm looking forward to trying it. Are you? I have not seen that. didn't know. I didn't know either. He just called me yesterday and I missed them because I was recording something else. And I'm going to call them back this afternoon as soon as I've done here. I'll ask him about it. I didn't know that. Now, Dr. J. Brewing was a guy that I met when I was

brewing beer. We have Buffalo Bill Cody beer, which is still available here in Cody, Wyoming. You can still find it. It's on tap some different bars around town. But when we launched that, I met a guy who was a former, he was an Iraqi vet. I'm assuming he was Army. Could be wrong on that. And he and a bunch of other vets got together and created their own independent brewery. And they called a dog tank brewing. And you get your can, they would can their beers and it was distributed around the United States.

And they had a picture of a fallen soldier and his or her birthday and some information about him or her. And that was on back of each can. So I don't know how. they're doing now he moved from montana out to virginia or somewhere to a bigger brewery so hopefully he's doing well well check that out thanks uh for the heads up i didn't see the real american beer so i can't wait to go i didn't either that's a good one no that's a perfect timing you can fill that bud light gap thank you for that jim and buffalo appreciate you joining us and interacting let's get back to the submitted questions uh j banks 979 hit us up and said i know so much of what

kill WCW was the many Turner mergers and the fact that Ted was no longer in charge of the company. I'm just curious if given the chance to change one creative decision made during your time in charge, what would that be? I would have had Ron Reese come out dressed like a mommy trying to butt fuck anybody. I'd have killed that scene. That scene should have never happened. Well, when you put it that way, it seems like logical.

decision it was horrible horrible horrible it's horrible it may not recover for that when put that way it seems like the right call to not do

yeah sometimes things are it may look good on paper but man man what a way to put it Oh, I can't even read the question about House or Water. Maladin says, was it ever, was it ever considered to return Bobby Heenan to a manager role? No.

No, Bobby, uh, you know, I think Bobby would have. I'm not going to suggest he wouldn't have done it. I didn't want to do it. I got the impression he was no longer interested in doing that. for any number of reasons, I guess. Maybe because he did it for so long, he just didn't want to do it anymore. Bobby also had some severe,

he had some, you know, physical, he had a bad, really, really bad neck. He was scared to death of being in a situation where inadvertently he ended up taking a bump. So my guess is that may have had something to do with it. Because if you're in a manager, and, you know, it's one thing to be standing there, you know, holding a mic,

it's another thing to be out there at ringside as a manager. That's where something can go along. So that might have been part of it, or maybe he just liked it. He was more comfortable behind the desk. I don't know. All right. Eddie Bamber wants to know.

Do you think the name All Elite Wrestling holds the company back in the 90s? It was World Championship Wrestling versus World Wrestling Federation. It sounded like two giant global forces competing. Now none of the non-WWE promotions even sound like they're competing. What do you think goes into the name? I think a lot. You know, your name. should speak to the brand and your brand should speak to your core audience.

AEW sounds like a plumber's union or something, an electrical workers union. Yeah. It doesn't have a, it doesn't, it doesn't resonate. You know, no acronym is going to resonate until you make it resonate. But I think when you, when you launch a new company in particular, your brand is the most powerful thing that you have in the beginning and how you build that brand. And I think the AEW thing was, yeah, it just doesn't roll off the tongue the way it should. It doesn't have that presence when you hear it.

It doesn't make you, I don't know, this doesn't work for me. Now, maybe it's because the product is so fucking lame that it's lived up to the lameness of the name of the company. I don't know. It's just lame. So Eddie's on the thing. Yeah, yeah. Is AEW and where the best wrestlers in a world, you know, can't draw dime. I don't know.

Just think of. They're paid millions and they can't draw dime. Just, just think of we had shown you Midian already. You'd really be fired up right now. See, I wasn't even going to say anything negative about AEW. Fucking media picture. And Mike, no, excuse me, Balenko 8501 said,

were there any talks of AOL, Time Warner, keeping WCW, but selling the TV rights to another network, or were the execs so against wrestling that they didn't want WCW on their portfolio at all? You think that if they sold the TV rights, would WCW still be in business today? That wouldn't have made any sense. I mean, there's no way a deal like that would ever make sense on paper to anybody.

No, look, they just, it was clear, and then even more clear now as a result of the first two episodes, I think, of who killed WCW, because now we're hearing from Stu Snyder, we're hearing from Brad Siegel, we're hearing from Dick Cheatham, who was the Turner executive in the finance division that oversaw the Braves and the Hawks, Omni Arena, and WCW from the very beginning, not just towards the end. and Dick Cheatham saw all of the shenanigans that were going on in WCW, particularly towards the end. And it's really interesting. I heard Brian Alvarez talking. I listened to a brief clip where Alvarez was being interviewed the other day because he's co-authored a book called the death of WCW, which evidently is getting a resurgence because of the documentary. And that book is such a piece of shit put together by two hacks. who had no sources, did zero research. They just had friends who had friends that knew somebody that was in a locker room.

That's probably an exaggeration, but probably not much. And yet you've got Guy Evans' book, 120 interviews with executives, some of whom I never even had a chance of meet face-to-face, all of whom had their fingerprints on WCW. But Dave Meltzer and Brad Alvarez choose to. discount all of that, just pretend that didn't happen because they're so locked into their narrative and what they've been telling people for 25 years. And now it's all being exposed. And I think it's awesome. But if you listen to Dick Osse, if you listen to Dick Cheatham, if you listen to some of the people that were actually there, there was no way anybody at AOL Time Warner would have considered doing anything to keep WCW as an asset. Because

they were doing everything they could to bury it. Again, Dick Cheatham's words, head of Turner Finance, not head of Turner Finance, sorry, worked for the head of Turner Finance, Vicki Miller. His job was to oversee the finances of WCW, and he, in one of his interviews, I think, on the last show, talked about how different divisions in Turner Broadcasting would funnel their expenses onto my books. It's called an intercompany allocation, especially towards the end when everybody knew they were going to dump it anyway. So Dave Maltzer likes to talk about all the money that WCW lost.

They didn't lose that much money. A lot of other divisions with internal broadcasting lost a lot of money, and a lot of those expenses and those losses got allocated in the WCW because they knew it was going. That's what companies do. That's called a write-off. put all of your expenses, every expense you possibly can. If you can justify it, if it's legal, and what Turner Broadcasting was doing was legal. I saw every year we would sit down and go over all the intercompany allocation. Sometimes it was for the positive, sometimes it was for the negative.

It was the finance system, perfectly legal. However, like anything else that's legal, can be abused. And I think it towards the end, this is my opinion, towards the end, when the executives, and broadcasting absolutely knew that they were going to be able to get rid of WCW. Finally, after years of attempting to do it, because again, according to Ted Teddy Turner, Ted Turner's son, who was also in the documentary, Ted had lost power. Those executives from A.O. All time Warner and Turner, who had for years been trying to get rid of WCW, now had a clear

path to do so. And knowing they were going to do so four months prior to selling it, they started loading expenses from other divisions into WCW's books because they knew it was going to go away. It was all one big write off. And those other divisions that didn't have to carry those expenses because they got shifted over to my books. They got bonuses.

Pretty cool. Hey, give me for somebody like myself, what do you mean what would be like an expense that they would lump in like advertising expense or like what an example advertising marketing any number of things that you could just come up with as an expense for example Turner Home satellite was one of our pay-per-view providers well if they decide you know they're going to allocate 35% of their employee budget to WCW because we do 35 percent of their revenue.

Those people don't work for me. I don't fucking need them. I don't even know who they are. Yeah. Tell them to stay home. Don't make me pay for them. They don't do shit for me anyway. But that was the way

things were set up. That's the way it was set up before I got there. It's the way Turner wanted it set up. Turner Broadcasting wanted it set up that way. Could be advertising, could be marketing. Happened a lot with ad sales. They killed with allocations from ads. sales on top of the fact that we didn't get any license fee.

AEW survives off a license fee. If AEW didn't have a license fee, they'd be making nothing because they wouldn't have pay-per-view. Well, they might know if they didn't get a license fee for the TV show, but they still aired the, they wouldn't have been able to afford to air the TV show, but whatever. Yeah, without TV licensing, WWE wouldn't be at all what we're seeing today. The $5 billion from Netflix never would have them. All those hundreds of millions of dollars from USA Network and Fox would have never happen.

So what do you think those companies would look like? But that's how WCW was operating. That was the business model that WCW was operating in. And we were still profitable. This is fucking hard to believe, but true. A couple follow-ups from the live chat. Anthony D. He wants to know.

Eric, do you feel a sense of vindication from who killed WCW showing what it took out of you while the uninformed gave you undeserving blame? It's a hard question to answer, honestly. I feel like, maybe I want to feel like, it's not so much vindication. As much as it is, thank God, at least there's a different. perspective out there in people that are really interested in making informed decisions and enjoy some level of critical thinking who are interested in that time. And it should be because it was an interesting time, not just for WCW, but for the business of the wrestling

business. But I think if you're a critical thinking person and you're intellectually curious, at least now there's another perspective from executives from Turner Broadcasting, in no small part to Guy Evans. He's the one to dug these guys up in the first place that wrote the book which I'm sure inspired a lot of why this docu-series even exists because now for the first time

there is real, credible information, interviews, and research, whereas before all you got was Dave Meltzer and Brian Elriss is bullshit. Greg Jacobson also in the live chat since you brought him up.

talked a little bit of Turner. He wants to know, do you still stay in contact with Ted? No, I haven't talked to Ted in years now. I know, you know, his health is an issue. He's up in Bozeman, which is not too far from me. And I know he's up there a lot in the summer. And I'm going to talk to Teddy, his son, who you saw in the documentary. And if it's practical, I'd love to swing by this summer.

Because Lori and I are going to be driving right through there in August. For our honeymoon, we're going to leave. from Cody and we're going to throw the dog in a truck and drive up to Missoula, Montana and hang out with some family and friends there. But we're going to spend the night in Bozeman. So I'm going to talk to Teddy and if it's appropriate, swing by and pay my respects. Nice. That'd be a fun little trip.

Let's go back to the submitted questions. 1983, Jay Cheat wants to know. Do you have any advice for aspiring wrestlers? That's aspiring wrestling writers. Oh, wrestling runners, I did skip a big word. Yeah. I don't really, because it's such a hard business to break into. And there's no one way.

There's no easy way. There's no formula that gives you a better shot. It's just like anything else. And Cascio, you're, you're a comedian. You've been a comedic writer. You know, you know the business. And I'm sure the answer you would give is similar to the one I'm going to give, which is just keep writing, keep submitting, keep doing it,

keep your brain working, write every day, you know, start thinking about writing in terms of story arcs, start learning what a story really is, learn the difference between a wrestling angle and an actual story. Read the book, Heroes Journey, by Joseph Campbell. Do that first. And if you're already a writer, an established writer, and I'm giving you shitty information, I apologize. But so many people want to write wrestling, but don't understand what story even is. And that's where I would start. And then I would just start writing show Bibles.

Imagine your own, create your own cast of characters. Create those characters. Create a character Bible for each one of them. so that you know who each one of those characters are. And then put them in a six-month story and write that story. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be

to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me.

Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.gov. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. Why start with Hero's Journey? Tell me if you're going to teach you the basics of fundamental storytelling. Okay. It's just, I mean, George Lucas read the book, and shortly thereafter came up with Star Wars,

and credited that book for helping them understand how to tell you. tell that story, that he had ricocheting around in his head for years. He couldn't figure it out. Read the book. Kind of gave him a pathway. And with wrestling, you have to look at, you know, traditional storytelling, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, all of the plot points along the way that you have to have in order for it to be a legitimate story, right? You have to have those elements. And when you look at those elements and what they mean, maybe for someone who's writing a novel, for example, okay, well, that doesn't apply to wrestling necessarily, but if you start thinking about what does that plot point achieve, what's the goal of that plot point? I know why it's there if I'm writing a novel, but what do I do with that if I'm writing a wrestling story? Well, think about that device, how that device is being used and use your imagination, because that always comes in handy.

and try to think of a wrestling-related beat or moment or point. Words are just words. They're all the same thing. A wrestling-related story point that would fit in there. So you do have the appropriate plot points throughout the entire arc. Because if you start, you say, okay, I want to write a beginning in the middle and an end. That's an arc, okay? You've got to write a beginning in a middle of an end.

Well, the beginning has a purpose. What are you doing in the, in the, first act of a book or a TV show or even a fucking TV commercial. You're establishing information. You're telling the audience who the characters are, what their points of view are, what's going through their mind in any particular moment, who they're surrounded with. You're establishing that scene. And somewhere in the middle of Act 1, something is going to happen. It's like a catalyst. It's the first domino that would fall. Something happens that kind of snaps your hero, in this case, out of their normal everyday life and thought pattern

into something that they didn't see coming and begins their journey into the second act. So each act has a purpose, but within each act, you have certain beats along the way that you have to check to make sure that you've got all of the emotion you can possibly get, you've checked all the boxes for that act. do the same thing in the second or third act but if you learn how to do that and and think about wrestling in terms of a legitimate storyline instead of thinking about wrestling like it's a fucking angle and everything has to start off with hey you know i'm in the ring cutting a promo and somebody comes out and interrupts we've seen that about a million and a half times this year so start

thinking about use your imagination what else can i do to kind of snatch my hero out of whatever moment he or she is in, thrust him into something unexpected that is the beginning of a new story. Anyway, I could talk for hours about this. And I owe everybody one. We're going to break down what is an act one. I'm going to try to get it done this week, if not for sure, next week, and talk just for an entire hour or two about what is an act one, what are those story points in act one that we need? And how can we imagine those story points within act one from a wrestling-related story as opposed to a novel, an action movie or something like that. So there you go.

I'm sorry. I'm talking too much, man. Oh, I'll ask you about it. So it's Heroes Journey by who? Joseph Campbell. Okay. Joseph Campbell, Heroes Journey. Get that if you want to check that.

Came out in 1983, I think it was. Wow. It still holds up. That's some knowledge right there. Eric, let's take time out to tell you about our friends over at Babel. Yeah, that noise is amazing every time. It's the best way to learn a language. Immersion, living where the language is still,

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slash weeks that's 55% off at babel.com slash w-e-k-s that's spelled out B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash weeks. Rules and restrictions may apply, and we appreciate Babel for sponsoring 83 weeks. All right, let's jump back into the questions. Cain-Doss Rifle says,

if you could, what would you have personally have chosen for a finish at Starcade 97? Sting clean. Sting clean. that was a plan 18 months that was a plan so yeah if I had to do it all over again and everything would have worked according to my plan our plan all things considered everything would have gone smoothly yeah they had a clean finish and the NWO would have probably

had to scramble and resurrect and figure out a way to make their comeback what David Langley, 9597 says, what was the original main event for StarK98 before Kevin Nash became the Booker? I am so sorry. I just can't answer that. I can't even guess. That was a minute ago.

God. I can't. I wish I could. I can't even make shit up. That's how far along. That's how far back that was. I can't even make something up. You'd see through that shit in a minute.

Let's see. Jimmy D. 9354. Was there any communication between Turner Legal and either Rick Flair or you, Eric, in regards to their legal battle outside the ring? Are you, are we talking about Rick's legal battle with WCW that I was involved? Is there any communication between Turner Legal and either Rick Flair or Eric in regards to their legal battle outside the ring? No, I mean, Once it gets, look, just protocol, rules of the road, when you get into a legal situation,

somebody's filed notice or intent to file notice, at that point, all the conversation is between the lawyers. Yeah. The principles, like me and my case or Rick and Rick's case, we're instructed, you know, we're threatened. It's made abundantly clear that we are not to talk. The attorneys do all the talking. So we have no communication. all right um fight fightans one says where did you film that scene in nitro's opening title sequence

with you next to a fireplace that was also i was always one of my favorite scenes so creepy for no reason creepy it's my living room it's a giant stone fireplace with a buffalo head that I named after Ted Turner. It's Ted Ted, Ted, the Buffalo Head. Ted, Ted, the Buffalo. It's sitting in front of a 125-year-old bar that used to sit at a legitimate bar, a drinking establishment in Hardin, Montana. It's a classic bar.

Robert Redford has the only other one in this area. There's one down in a bar called the Palace in Tombstone, Arizona, only it's much longer than mine, much. there's not a lot of them around but I never nobody's ever walked to my house and said man that's creepy maybe because all the lights were out and it looked kind of spooky whose idea was that do you remember yours no I mean the guys from dark side of the ring have probably been out to my house 15 times and they've shot all over the place so they knew right where they wanted to shoot when they got here um let's see what we got

Anthony B. 9226. Eric, I'm moving to Wyoming in September. Yo! What's some tips and what should I expect? Well, that depends. What part, I know, Anthony, if you're listening, maybe you can just jump in a chat here, but what part of Wyoming are you moving to?

Because that has a little bit to do with my answer. What's the differences say? Well, north, south, east, west, like that. Yep, northwest, this is where I live. I live right outside of the Yellowstone. National Park, about 40, 43 miles. And where I live, I get a lot of wind, very little snow. But if you're down south of me, say down towards Jackson Hall, Wyoming, you can see,

I don't even know how much snow they get, but I'm guessing it's in the 30 or 40 feet a year category. They get a ton of snow down there. Their winters are completely different than ours. If you go to the southeast corner of the state down around Cheyenne, first of all, it's very flat. Wyoming parts of it are some of the most beautiful parts of this United States. Some of it is just fucking like Mars.

And the southern part of the state, the eastern part of state is, it's all high desert. It doesn't look any different than northern Arizona. Temperature is different. But it's windy. 40 mile an hour winds all day long is normal. So just depends where you're at. If you get up into the northeast section,

it's a lot more temperate. Like if you come right across from South Dakota, the Black Hills area into Sundance, Wyoming, maybe before you get to Gillette, Bighorn Mountains, very, very beautiful. And the weather's much more temperate. So it all just depends on where. Well, jump back in the live chat.

Dave McCleigh, what's up, Dave? He says, Eric, do you believe Brett Hart will ever say anything good about you. I hope not. Oh, not. Because I don't expect him to, and it would ruin my expectations. It would make me realize that I can't read everybody

as well as I think I can. Look, Brett, Brett's one of those people that just loves being miserable. He's got to have somebody to hate. Just look at Brett's commentary over the last 15 years. years, 20 years, hated Vince, and he hated John Michaels, and he made up with Vince, and he made up with Sean Michaels. He hated Rickler, made up with this guy, made up with

that guy. He's just, fuck, he's just such a miserable guy. I saw him in Australia a couple weeks ago, a month ago. And we were friendly, you know, I said hello. He said hello to his wife. She's very nice, very nice lady, beautiful lady, but very pleasant, you know, and no tension or anything just hey bet here that was it and then i hear him and he's just so whiny and dark and i honestly i'm not saying this to be a smart ass i really hope he just finds a way to get fucking happy like smile i'd love to see a picture of brett hart so have you ever seen a picture of brett hart with a smile on his face no i've seen two in 28 years the rest of the time he looks like he's in a funeral

fuck you know how bats and hounds always look like sad bloodhounds always just like mopey yeah you give him a fucking t-bone steak and they still look mopey reminds me of brett he or just man he's he or people love misery uh all right let's go

uh what we got johnny sanders in fours If you were in charge of AEW, what would you do first? Well, the biggest issue is they don't have an issue with talent, although they have way too much of it. But that's more of a business problem, financial problem. The core of their issue is story first. like really bad like the patience on his way out or her way out and you got to fix this because it's from a storyline point of view that company is bleeding out on the table

and it needs triage but after I triage the story and what story means means for that company and try to explain the vision for the company and what the company really represents, that I would focus on the characters so that they fit into that vision and fit into the type of story. Because right now your characters are all over the map. There's some good ones. Tony Storm is a great character, very mediocre wrestler, but a great character. Well, you can fix the wrestling part.

it's a lot easier to get somebody up to speed technically or work around whatever their weaknesses are so that you focus just on the character as much as possible so there's some great characters there but there's some that aren't there's a lot of them that aren't there's a lot of them that are the same it's like 75% of that roster looks like they're there to fucking change your tires looks like they're there to change your tires I mean it looks like somebody you you you you, if you pull around the back of a jiffy lube at lunchtime, everybody's back there, smoking a cigarette,

having a sandwich. Looks like half the roster. Am I lying? Cascio, am I lying? No, no, you're not.

It's an interesting looking roster. I'll give you that. Raccoons, raccoon with rabies, rabis, I guess. I wants to know, if you see anything from Lucha Underground,

four seasons developed by Robert Rodriguez and Mark Burnett, aired on El Ray Net, There were some great matches, but it was presented as a TV show with over-the-top vignettes, giving the viewer calls to suspend belief akin to how Matt Hardy's cinematic matches would be later. Have you ever seen Lucha Underground? Yeah, interesting, uh, interesting point of fact, you're only going to hear on 83 weeks. I actually had a meeting with Mark Burnett and I think it was Robert Rodriguez and his wife could be. wrong. They flew me out to L.A. to talk to me about coming in and working with him on that

show. Wow. And I was kind of interested because it was such a unique idea. And this is before they shot the first show. So they were explaining to me what they were hoping to achieve. They hadn't shot a sizzle reel or a demo tape or anything at that point. It was early. And I really liked the idea of it. And I almost, I was pretty interested. I wasn't committed to it. They didn't make the offer either. My interest was really more in working with Mark Burnett than it was working on that show. I was interested in the show because it was unique and different. And I would have, I would have probably gotten involved to some degree just because I wanted to see if it was possible to pull it off. But the opportunity to work for Mark Burnett was something that I had

Mark and I almost worked together on one or two other projects. We had a reality show that we developed or I developed with Jason Hervey for Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon signed on. He was attached to it. And we had all the other components that we needed to pull it off. And Mark was going to jump in on that with us, but that deal fell apart at Fox at the very last minute because of NASCAR complications. Wow.

Of course, everybody should know Mark Burnett's resume. is insane yeah he's like he's he's he's the very gordy of reality television Survivor the apprentice are you smarter than the fifth grader tons more but just absolute iconic shows so yeah would have been cool to see you work everybody wants to work with him that'll be awesome um Instagram a wrestling historian wants to know how would you have booked a Brett Hart versus hold Hogan match at Halloween Havocan Havocke, thanks in advance.

I'd have had Hogan beat Brett Hart like a fucking drum. Pillar to fucking post. And then have Rees come out and try to bug fucking. You got to finish it off right. Give the people what they want. Give them a callback. It always works.

You know, be funny. if you just you know if you were crazy enough like just imagine for example you were you know the son of a billionaire and it didn't really matter if you made any money or not you could just do whatever whimsical shit you wanted to do if it just struck you like you know you're sitting out of toilet taking a shit in the morning before you go to work hey i got an idea we can just go do this because this is what i think would be fun and it really wouldn't matter if people watched it or not as long as you were having fun because you know you're billionaires kid you can do what the fuck you want sure what if that was like you or i and we were booking a thing we're sitting

around having some fun maybe a cocktail we said hey i got idea let's have ron reese jump out he dress him up as a mummy and just every once in a while randomly have him come out and try to like hump somebody in the ring and then take off out through the crowd and for no reason it's kind of like the 24-7 title we have ron reese dressed like a mummy Wouldn't it be fun? People will be talking about that forever. Do it dress up and money and shit? Oh my gosh.

Let's do that. Let's do it. I'm in. If that's the case, I'm in. No, you'd only do that if you were a billionaire's kid and it didn't matter if you made any money.

I'm just booking for the sickos. I don't care if you guys want to, hey, I don't care if nobody's watching my, show i don't care people are buying tickets to come to see me produce by a show on wednesday nice three four thousand people who cares as long as there's more than four or five i don't care because they'll go this is awesome as long as they can go this is i'm good i'm good forget about the money i got all the money i need let's have some fun let's have some fun uh the slash works, says Eric, what was your initial reaction to WW's locker room compared to WCWs?

Do you think showing you backstage on camera before the reveal you were the new GM was a mistake that took some of the shock and all from the reveal itself? Yeah, that's a, that's a, you know, that's a point. It's an argument. It's a good one. It's probably the one that I gravitate towards. but the other side of it is and I'm not sure there's any absolutely correct answer

I think both answers are good answers but one school of thought is just surprise shock the shit out of people I kind of like that one but the other one is by walking me out and revealing me and walking me through the crowd and getting the reaction from the talent in the locker room because that was pretty good.

There's some great reactions to see those reactions right before a three-minute, two-and-a-half or three-minute commercial break creates a little bit of buzz and gets people who may not be tuning in to tune in. Now, it's incremental. It's not going to be major. But it's incremental. It matters numbers numbers matter so i see both arguments but i probably would have thrown caution to the win and said fuck it i'm just going to do it the way i want to do it because that's what my gut tells me to do and i would have probably just shocked as opposed to teased all right let's jump in the live chat pj pj's got another question w3 is a pay-per-view maybe didn't work because of the TVs at the time you think with everyone having 55

and 65 inch TVs nowadays maybe it could work say that again i didn't hear that world war three pay-per-view oh oh oh he was saying he didn't it maybe it didn't work because of the TVs you think everybody has a huge tv now would that make a difference no it's just too much going on it's just too many bodies in the ring too much and it looks horrible i mean battle royals look like shit anyway in my opinion guys got standing around looking for somebody to hit i mean i've been in some shitty bar fights before and I've never been in a bar fight that looks as bad as a battle oil. It's look horrible. And, yeah, 60 people just walking around going, okay, who am I supposed to punch next?

Oh, you're standing there. You're not doing anything. Okay, you punch me. I'll punch you. Okay, I'm going to go walk over here and get punched. I just fucking hate it. There's nothing about it. Look, wrestling's not supposed to be logical.

If you sit around and you're trying to apply a logic to professional wrestling, then you're a fucking moron. just go bang your head on a curb somewhere because there's no reason to do it just like there's no reason to apply logic to an action movie because none of that shit's real either just fun to watch so don't apply logic to it

oh there's no way that that Mercedes 600 SL could take a corner that fast fucking kidding me and people watch wrestling the same way good job there's no way absolutely zero chance that a mummy comes out and tries to butt fuck me at any point during the show well i've been to parties we're never mind let's let's keep it going kind of based on what we're talking about i'm going to stay in the live chat uh airborne 37th uh hit us up and said you think there's a lack of certain types of life experiences

that have maybe turned some wrestling into gymnastics, maybe a lack of getting into fights when you're young or military services. Point being, how can you have a fake fight if you were never in a real one? There are, I've known people throughout the decades

that have subscribed to that theory. I don't think that's it. I just think the style, I think video games has probably had more of an impact on the presentation of wrestling than any other one thing, including lack of street fighting ability or experience.

By the way, spend a couple of... Go over on Twitter X, Twix, as I call it. Search for Steve Inman, I-N-M-A-N. He does these clips. Yeah, he does voiceovers, but he does these voice. He's a sports guy, M-M-A guy. And he does these voiceovers. he takes these clips of guys in street fights or women in street fights,

whatever the case may be, and it's just fucking ridiculous. And then he does a play-by-play over it. It's funny as hell. But you watch these people, these street fights, there are none of that that's applicable in real life either. I mean, these people are fucking horrible. It's a wonder anybody gets hurt in a street fight.

Now, there are some good street fighters. I'm not suggesting around. But the vast majority of the garbage that you see on social media, people shouldn't be swat and flies, more or less picket fights with other human beings. So, no, I don't think that's it. I just think, you know, everything changes, music changes, fashion changes, everything, tastes change, people change. And I think over the years, probably starting with the cruiser weights and guys that had so much influence like Ray Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, all the luchadors that we brought over. and we brought them over consistently.

I wasn't the first person to do it. You know, Paul Heyman did it, ECW. Paul Heyman didn't create a cruiserweight division and commit to it and bring people in from all over the world on a weekly basis, whereas I did. But I think establishing that cruiserweight division and establishing that smaller guys with a much different style, you know, a guy who's 5'10, 5.9, and 180 pounds can do a lot of things that a guy who's 6'8 and 340 can't.

just visually. And I think when we brought those guys in, and intentionally, that was the goal. It was the reason I brought them in. It's the reason I created the conversion weight is to have that different fast-paced style and presentation. That had so much influence over the years that a lot of younger, smaller guys that weren't six foot six and 250 pounds when, hey, I can maybe,

maybe I can be the next Eddie Guerrero. Maybe I can be the next Ramis Serio. Maybe I can be the next Dean Monaco. And all of a sudden, you've got a lot smaller guys that are capable of doing much more visually dynamic things. And all of a sudden, now, everybody's trying to do those visually super dynamic things, high risk offense. I think that's changed. That and video games. I just think video games and the quality of the action and play design that you see in video games,

you know that kind of sets an expectation in a way and now you're watching live action on television and to me it kind of makes sense that kids younger kids that grew up watching really cool action and video games are now getting an opportunity to see that same live action or something kind of similar to it with real people inside of a wrestling ring so I understand the evolution of it my only bitch with it is that it's all being done at the expense of story. So much focus on the physicality and the incredible athleticism

the guys like Will Osprey and others bring to the ring because they can do some amazing shit. It's just amazing shit that doesn't really mean much in the context of a story, in the context of emotion. It means a lot in terms of an audience

going, oh my gosh, did you see that? That was so cool. I've never seen that before. That's not the same thing is creating emotion. But that's a discussion about the art of the art of the business versus the presentation of it.

Yeah. All right. Back to our questions. Let's see what we got here. Mr. P.L. Luke says, Eric, while in 1999, WCW had a lot of changes in logos and presentations, belts did not get changed.

Why was that? He says he saw a few J-Mar concepts with the new belts. Why never accepted? I don't really know. Other than to say that it wasn't the priority it perhaps should have been. That's an honest answer. Okay. Just didn't it fill the name?

need so it wasn't a dire need there was a ton of needs for a ton of shit every single day but the belts were probably in the top ten but not in the top five and when you look at where WCW came from beginning in 1995 94 really and where we ended up in 2000 that was a motherfucking treadmill every day was a treadmill so there were a lot of things that i wish we could have paid more attention to and perhaps we should have paid more attention to like the belts that really just weren't the priority because of the velocity that that wcw was growing through growing at i should say eric the weather is beautiful what's the weather like up there right now When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed.

But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment, to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me. Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.gov. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits.

mention here. Are you a diehard Packers fan, then you need the Packernet podcast in your life. Tune in daily for the latest Packers news analysis and insights from every angle. We've got multiple shows covering everything from game breakdowns to roster updates. Don't forget our fan favorite call-in show Packernet After Dark. That's right, you call in and talk about whatever you want because here it's all about you and your passion for the Packers. So what are you waiting for. Subscribe to the Packernet podcast today and never miss a beat. 72, 74, sunny, zero humidity and no wind. It's just glorious. We just got a little bit of a heat wave. It's supposed to hit 90 here, but still skies are clear,

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always supporting us here at 83 weeks heading into the summer season. All right, Eric, we'll jump back in it. Dr. Adam Kay wants to know. One of the most iconic moments in WCW history was when Goldberg defeated Hogan at the Georgia Dome. You've often explained why this match happened on Nitro instead of pay-per-view, but why was the building itself booked to host a nitro instead of pay-per-view. Was there a specific reason why we never saw a pay-per-view emanate from the Georgia Dome? Not really. Scheduling, perhaps.

Atlanta had been pretty good. It was really good for WCW by 96, 97, 98. but prior to that, WCW really struggled back when it was the Omni in WCW. Now, prior to, you know, 92, 93, there were some good houses in the Omni. I'm not saying wrestling didn't work there, but WCW didn't work in Atlanta for a long time. And I think we just started having so much success in other cities. It wasn't like, you know, producing in Atlanta was any kind of cost-effective opportunity because it's 90% of your talent, a lot of your freelancers, everybody else.

So they don't live in Atlanta anyway. Oh. So it really wasn't that cost effective, to be honest. And we just did really well at a lot of outside markets. So there was less risk. All right. Dyslexic chaos wants to know, Eric, what was your favorite song to come out to?

And why was it White Train? Because I love that movie with Antonio Banderas. I can't remember the name of the movie now. now, fuck. Desperado. Oh, yeah. With Antonio Banderas. I love that music. I love the scene.

The first time I heard that music in the scene, it was like, whoa. Someday I'm going to do something with that music. A couple years later, I'm thinking, hey, I need some theme music. I like that. I like the drums. It's got a good beat.

All right, this goes back to a little bit earlier when we were just wishing we were a billionaire's kid. Nothing mattered. but TTC 2,234 said if WWE needed or wanted to sell WCW rights in library, would you buy it, bring it back and run the company as owner if you could afford it? Also another question, would you work for another billionaire startup that wants you to run the company completely? You think you can assemble a roster in either of these scenarios and surpass AEW? I think you could and will be excited to see one last run, either on-screen character with WW,

or a new company running a show. A lot there. Yeah, there's. Would you buy the WCW library if you could afford it and they were, it was up for sale? No. Okay. No.

If a billionaire wants you to run his company completely, would you do it? No. Okay. If you were forced to do it, do you think you could assemble a roster in either of those scenarios to surpass A.W. In a heartbeat.

Oh, okay. In a heartbeat. Because, again, it's not a talent issue. It's, it would be so easy for, if somebody, somebody were to come along and say, here, go, go, go, go start a wrestling company. The last thing you to do is even think about WWE, but you could, you could snatch AEW market share and momentum in 90 days. 90 days, wow.

it would be so easy it would be so easy i mean it's not they're just that bad they're just that bad it would be so easy to put out a product that would be so much better and noticeably so immediately uh if you did have one last run would you rather it be on screen character or running a company behind the scenes if i had a chance to do it an on-screen character that was fun and different, not the evil general manager stuff that I've done. And I'm grateful for every second of it. Don't get me wrong.

Right. I don't want to do that again. But if it was something that was a little fresh, different that I hadn't done before, a character that was a bit of a stretch for me that would challenge me, I think that would be fun. But I wouldn't want any kind of management position. All right.

Gregdale 9472 who do you think is the best seller of all time i've been rewatching some of the late 80s early 90s and it was amazing seeing how good rick rude and sergeant slaughter were and selling they weren't flying around like a henning or ziggler but they made every move that they took looked like it had impact randy orton randy's great i i i shan michaels Randy Orton I'm going to go Randy Orton but it's close and to me that's the magic that is if there's one thing

one thing that if I was coaching wrestling or working with somebody a friend or family member that I would just beat them over the head with to the point where they were sick of hearing it is to learn how to sell.

Study, study Razor Ramon. Study Scott Hall. Scott was, Fogg. Scott was amazing. Sometimes more amazing than others, but always amazing. Randy,

orton, like I said, I don't think there's anybody wrestling today that's even in his universe when it comes to selling. Sean Michael's right behind him. As far as anybody else today, I'm sure there are, I'm, I'll just leave it, I'll leave it at those choices now because I'm inevitably going to leave somebody out that I shouldn't. But selling is everything, man.

You can learn a rest of it. If you can sell, because if you can sell really, really well, what you're really doing is making your opponent. That's how you make yourself valuable. That's how everybody wants to work with you. because you can yeah you've got offense you've got a promo but when you sell you're making your opponent look like a million bucks you're getting the audience to engage emotionally they're not sitting back like have loves dogs going this is awesome they're actually engaged

emotionally which is the whole goal behind presenting this kind of drama in the first place the conflict and the drama of a good guy and a bad guy or a good good girl and a bad girl whatever fuck to stick with me people it's that good versus evil dynamic that's at the center of the story and when you've got someone like a randy orton who's up there and he's facing this monster that's trying to put him out and randy's selling it and he's getting the audience emotionally involved so that when he makes his comeback it matters it's really simple shit but it all comes down to store and that's the part that would be so easy to demonstrate straight to

to AEW fans so clearly that it needs to be done and should be done. Just put a product up there that is completely different than AEW is a new one because everybody's going, yeah, but WWE this

yeah, but WWE that. Just take a brand new company and get a half-ass decent roster, but get a good story, get some strong characters and let people watch it for a couple of weeks. that'd be fun that's fast

it's fun to hear you talk about you know Randy Orton being a fan of his knowing his career and how long he's been doing it at a high level I think the more I've got into this podcasting space

in the wrestling world meeting people and interacting people in the business like yourself and many others I mean doing the podcast with Road Dogg he says quote Randy Orton's the best television wrestler

there's ever been. And I think it goes back to that point of being able to do everything for television the right way and correctly, selling promo in ring, like just hearing everybody in the business, everybody I meet that's worked with him or interacted or even just watched has nothing but incredible thing. I think that makes me appreciate him even more. And me too. I mean, the older I get, the more I really begin to understand and think through what works and more importantly why it works it all comes down to emotion that part of your brain the amygdala that's where emotion happens that's where you feel happiness and sadness and all all the human

emotions such right there kind of at the core of your brain and that's why people watch wrestling that's why people go to movies that's why people read books they're looking for that emotional response wrestling is no different despite the fact that tony fucking con thinks it is and we'll Osprey is convinced it is it's not you guys are focused on what trips your individual triggers and you're neglecting the fact that 99% of the rest of the world out there that aren't your sickos who are only interested in the physical display inside of the ring vast majority of the audience is looking for an emotional experience and you're not going to get there and that you've got talent that understands how to tell a story in the ring and like Randy,

Wharton and Sean Michaels and Scott Hall and Rick Flair know how and when to sell. All right. Let's jump back in the live chat. Get some questions from there. Brian Lestat says, who came up with the idea of Little Natch? I couldn't tell you. Just kind of popped up.

I think it was one of those things that started happening as a rib back in a locker room. because Charles looked so much like like Rick and and you know he just he just adored Rick you know he just looked up to Rick so much and was kind of like his shadow probably started out like anything else as kind of a rib and a joke backstage and then all of a sudden became a wrestling thing all right dairy in Wetherspoon 1320 says I've seen a number of interviews from Brett Hart where he has another nothing but nice things personally to say about Eric personally prior to his stroke. Even Goldberg, he didn't harbor any ill feelings too.

You can see some shoots before 2002, he says. You think his stroke has perhaps affected his perspective on things as it seems more personal now than just professional differences. Obviously brain injuries can affect your mood and memories and I'm a Brett guy. So it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier. You're just always negative these days. Could be. It could be the result of the concussion.

Could be just frustration. Yeah. My dad, going to a little bit of story here, my dad was born prematurely. He weighed three and a half pounds when he was born in 1930. Wow. He was born on a farm, premature as he was. they kept him in a dresser drawer, and they kept him warm with a light bulb, and he survived.

And a very physical guy, loved to hunt, loved to fish. He was in great shape. Join the army. Got out of the army. Got married. I'm born. My dad's 25. A couple years after I'm born, my dad's debilitating headaches, horrible, horrible headaches found out that because he was born premature and because he was born so so premature that his spine never fully developed up near the base of the spine and there was a hole in his spine in the bone where that was a part of his cervix or stenous cervix whatever the bone is there. And it would fill up with cerebral fluid and that cerebral fluid would put pressure on the spinal cord and my dad's hands would get numb and tingly and he'd get these freaking horrible headaches obviously i was too

young to remember all that i found out much later so my dad went in to get brain surgery and by the way my dad was a happy fun guy like he said very physical very very very active life of the party kind of guy 27 years old he goes in to get this neck thing fixed But in order to get to it, they had to get into his brain. Long story short, in the process of that brain surgery, they destroyed the nerves in his fingers, in his hands, and for the most part, his arms. So he had no use of his hands or his arms.

So you could imagine somebody going into the hospital, a physical athletic, hunt, fish, and hang out with your buddies, drink beer, all that good fun stuff. Had a good job. And then come out, you can't even brush your own teeth. And oh, by the way, that's in the 1960s. So my reason for telling you this story is because it's one of the reasons why

when I hear Brett speak and he says horrible things about me or anybody else, it doesn't bother me at all. I don't take it personally because I think having seen what my dad went through to have something taken away from him, his self-esteem, when my dad had to get up every morning. my mother had to dress him so that he could go to work and tie his shoes for him. He could brush his own teeth or calm his own hair. That took a lot out of my dad, and my dad became a very bitter, resentful person.

And he took it out on everybody around him, myself included, my mom in particular. So when I see someone like Brett who did have a lot taken away from him, whether it was his fault, Goldberg's fault, nobody's fault, doesn't matter. His life, the vast, the most important part of his life at that point, or one of the most important parts of Brett's life, was snatched away from him. And he's bitter, and he's angry, and he's resentful. I wish he wouldn't be. I wish he could find a way to get over that and not carry those bags of bitterness and anger and resentment around with him because they're not going to do him any good

just like they don't do me any good or anybody else. But until Brett decides to drop those bags of bitterness and resentful feelings towards certain people, he's going to stay the same. He's going to be Brett. And perhaps it is the brain injury

or perhaps it's just human nature. He feels like his career was cut short and it was unfulfilled and I'm sure it was. All right. We'll jump back in the live, Jerry wasn't that cheerful fuck how'd we get a I just want to people understand why I feel the way I feel as opposed to just what's how I feel so there you go I was an experience I was I was thinking of how I would have answered that the same way it's just I mean it's kind of hard to tell but also yes like

you said it's people change after surgery some people change after surgery a lot of people change yep after surgeries and you never know what they're going through there and uh and he's dealing with it however he thinks he should deal with it um jerry o solomon in the live chat wants to know we saw mrs b on the last who killed wcw episode was there ever a time when you thought about using her on television maybe when you and garrett had your feud in t and a no she would have had no interest in that she just now now if i would have suggested it would have been she probably would have done it, but she would have been happy about it.

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That's 20% off with free shipping at manscape.com and use code 83 weeks. never forget where you came from if you know what I mean happy father's day from bandscaped and everyone here at 83 weeks uh yeah Isaac Winston said you've been a Zaddy longer than you've been a daddy Isaac Kristen our Grammy award winning composer musician here thank you Isaac yeah I've been working to Zaddy giving for a while maybe that's you wanted a character you could lean into if you ever made one last run

Daddy to Daddy. Daddy to Zaddy. Let's jump back in it. Let's see what we got here. Dizzy B says in WCW was your attitude towards the business. I'm probably going to do this until I retire or were you just trying to make it to next week? What is the psyche of a newly in charge Bischoff? I didn't think about retirement. I just thought about the goal. You know, when I was hired as executive producer and M.A. vice president, I had a very clear goal. My job was to make a dollar a profit.

I was told when I was hired as executive producer that if WCW didn't turn around and show a profit, that Ted Turner was going to pull the plug. That was in 1993. So everything that I thought about with regard to WCW was all about turning. that profit until we did and then it was growing the company so i never really thought about how i wanted if i was going to stick around for three years or ten years or 40 years or whatever i didn't think about it at all i just thought just thought about the goal sg buzzby wants to know i remember eric mentioning that talent had a number of appearances on

their contracts that affected how often they can be used on tv this became more troublesome with being introduced and booking talent on that. My question is knowing what you know now, do you think a draft split, half the talent on Nitro, the other half on Thunder, would have helped in that situation. WCW at the time had a lot of wrestlers

under contract, so it could have been possible. Thank you, Eric and Conrad for 83 weeks, and take care. Yeah, and we wouldn't have done necessarily a draft, but the whole idea behind Thunder, in our approach to Thunder, was to have NWO have Monday night, WCW have Thursday night. So in effect,

you would have two separate rosters. In essence, a brand split or a draft type of scenario. That was the original goal until things went that shit. Brandon Williams, 5613, with hindsight being as it is, how should Goldberg have been booked

leading up to and after StarK98? if there were a way to erase the whole finger poke of doom debacle, was Nash the right guy at the right time to end the streak at that starcade, or should Goldberg have continued this stretch of mowing guys down well into 99? No, I agree with Kevin Nash, you know, when we heard him in the interview. There's just no way Bill Goldberg was going to be able to maintain the momentum that he'd been able to maintain up until that point by going out and having squash matches.

There was no one left to fucking squash. Yeah. Who is he going to start squashing? The guy selling hot dogs in the stands? You know, the grips pulling cable backstage. I mean, there was no one left. He went through the entire fucking roster. The only people left would have been the guys at the very top.

Are we going to destroy the entire top of the roster so Bill Goldberg doesn't have to learn how to wrestle? I mean, that's, look, that's harsh. But that's where we were at. Bill had just squeezed every ounce of value out of that Goldberg character at that point that we possibly could. It was time for Bill to be able to get into a match that would be more give and take. Instead of it being 80-20 Bill, it had to be more 50-50, 60-40, 70-30 at least. We had to see more depth of Bill's character. and for anybody that suggests,

oh, you should have just kept eating people because everything would have been better. If you wouldn't have done the fingerbook of doom and Bill Gorberg would have still been squashing guys, W.CW would still be here today. I mean, there's so much of that Dave Meltzer bullshit floating around out there that I can't take

too much of it seriously. But if you go back and you just look at the reaction to Bill's matches, there were still, you still have Pavlov's dogs out there, people reacting because they'd seen Bill do it so many times on TV and they know their job is just stand up and cheer on Bill. There was still a lot of that, and that's very valuable. I'm not dismissing it.

But there's a point. There's a limit to how much you can continue to do that before you start losing that audience. And here's the trick, folks. You want to know you're losing audience before the audience knows they're being lost. You've got, you can't wait until, wow, looks like 50% of the people that used to support, Goldberg aren't supporting them anymore maybe it's time we take him off the streak you've already lost you've got to be able to as dusty roads would say you've got to get off that lightning bolt and onto another one before the one you were on hits the ground you're going to ride that fucker into

the ground like i did with the n wo you're going to get what you're going to get part of the success for a lot of characters like bill who are new and green and look at what wwe's doing look for example, Jay Cargill, they could have brought her in here and just shoved her down everybody's throat and she could have dominated for a short period of time, but she doesn't have the repertoire or the company, she's not comfortable enough yet. She doesn't have the experience of the reps yet. So they're managing it. They're not putting it. She's in the tags and the spotlight isn't on her. And they're letting her get her legs underneath her, so to speak, her wrestling legs, so that she's got more of a repertoire that she's very comfortable with.

That's where Bill was. Bill needed to learn how to go out there and have different types of matches that required different types of skill sets, including learning how to sell because you can't have matches with other top talent if you're not really good at selling. That doesn't work for very long. So, no, I think we made that, look, could things have been different? Could it have done better? Could we have done a different opponent?

Perhaps. Is there anybody more believable than Kevin now? Who else was going to possibly beat Bill Goldberg on that roster? Think about it. Just physically matching them up, two guys standing in the ring. You've got to bet your last $100 bill on who's going to win. Who's going to put money on anybody other than Kevin Nash at that point? I mean, visually, in order for the audience to suspend their disbelief,

you've got to give them a fucking reason to. You're going to put Bill Goldberg in there with somebody that's, you know, half his size and soft and mushy and doesn't look like he could run a half a mile and expect to get a match out of them or somebody that's just jacked up and big but doesn't know how to work. It just, it won't work that way. It's fun to talk about, but it doesn't work. nope i don't hear you buddy no audio there we go ghost face 1393 he wants to know how do you manage

telling the truth while still being loyal to a fault i don't know you can say that they're hard honest with somebody without being mean you can be honest with somebody without trying to hurt them If I'm loyal to somebody and if I see something that I think is bad for them or perhaps will hurt them in some way down the road or perhaps it's not the best decision, if you're really loyal, you kind of owe it to whoever it is you're loyal to say, hey, you might want to think about this if you're really a friend. And if they're really a friend, they're not going to take it personally. Yeah.

It's not that hard, really. Zim Flims said hypothetical, what-if question. WCW was winning the Monday Night Wars for 83 weeks. Eric, do you think you would back then, would you have accepted a sit-down with WWF vince to stop the war as they were on the brink of bankruptcy? Or do you think back then you were so focused on wanting to put them out of business at any cost

you would not have done that? No, of course I would have. Of course I would have. Look, a lot of the, and I did say it, I think I said I wanted to drive a financial stake through the heart of Vince McMahon. That's pretty clear. No ambiguity in that one, right? And I did say things similar to that.

Part of that was just me trying to pump up the people around me to feel as aggressive as I was. I was focused. I was obsessed with being number one. I was obsessed with making the first dollar profit that WCW ever made. Achieve that. I was obsessed with being competitive with WWE, mostly because I had a gun to my head. I had to be.

But I was obsessed with that. I was obsessed with turning WCW into a major profit center and being the number one wrestling company in the world. I achieved that. So part of my job was to try to keep people around me as obsessed as I was, which wasn't that easy. And sometimes I went overboard. in doing it and sort of making references

to putting WWE out of business because that was never really my intent. I wasn't concerned about it, didn't keep me up at night, that it wasn't my goal. My goal was to be number one. And if me becoming number one met WWE had to shut the doors,

then that was just fine too. But it was never the goal. Well, sneak in another question from our live chat. I want to make sure we get some of those in Before we get out of here, we got a few more questions submitted as well. Anthony D. has a good question. He said, Eric, have you tried to get Dr. Sean Baker on to do an episode of Wise Choices with you being on the carnivore diet?

You know, I bought Sean Baker's book. I've exchanged a couple Twitter exchanges with him. He did let me know if I had any questions, I could reach out to him. and I have thought about having them on wise choices. I may because I get a lot of questions about the carnivore diet. And I tell everybody, A, I am not an expert. I am learning. I read every single day.

I follow Sean Baker. I listen to him. I listen to him on podcasts. I listen to him on Joe Rogan. I search him out whenever he's doing interviews on other people's podcasts. Because Dr. Sean Baker, first of all, he's a, he's a surgeon doctorate surgeon 54 years old he's been on the carnivore diet for eight years so it's not like a new thing for him and he and because he is a doctor you know kind of knows

how to research stuff oh by the way he's a competitive athlete he's a competitive rower and he owns a bunch of rowing records so he kind of knows his shit and i would love to have him on the show my only hesitation is enough people interested in hearing about this kind of conversation. Most of the people that listen here are listening because they want to hear me talking about wrestling. But I am so fascinated with what Sean knows and other people like Sean. I've got another friend of mine that's very, very, very active in the regenerative meat industry for a whole lot of reasons.

I'm thinking about having him on too to talk about, you know, where we get our food. and what's happening to our food chain and our food supply. And it's going to look like a year from now or six months from now or two years from now. To me, this is fascinating stuff, but I'm also afraid that 98% of my audience is going to go, what the fuck is he talking about hamburgers for? I don't know. Maybe. Well, you know, I'm all in.

I ask you about it every time. I am fascinated about it. Yeah, well, I'll see if I could get Sean Baker on. You know, he's kind of a high profile guy in his world. He's a very high profile guy, but it seems like a really down-to-earth good guy. And, you know, when he talks about the carnivore diet, his book has explained so someone like me who's not a nutritionist, not a doctor, just somebody who's really, really interested in being healthy. His book is excellent. It's not only information, it's motivation, inspiration, too.

It's really good book. But, yeah, I'd love to have a lot. It'd be fun. Eric, if you're wanting to have fun and you need a little extra help, how about our friends at Blue Chew? That's right. This episode is sponsored proudly by our friends at Blue Chew. Let's talk about sex, baby.

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and important safety information. And we thank Bluechew for sponsoring our podcast as always. Let's jump back in to the live chat and let's see what we've got over there for some questions. Brian, Stanton wants to know from all your years in the industry.

What is your most favorite memory? Hmm. Honestly, kind of like the first week or so that I broke into the business with the AWA. I just had an amazing experience about two weeks ago. A guy by the name of Joe Chupik, we used to call him Polish Joe. and a guy by the name of Mick Cartch. Mick Cartch was a ring announcer for the AWA of Minneapolis,

and they have another podcast partner, and I'm sorry, I think his name's Chris, but I can't remember his last name. Anyway, Joe, I worked with Joe was a couple years younger than me, probably five or six years younger than me, and he was the director and the editor, had a post-production for AWA when I first went to work. had a lot of amazing experiences hadn't talked to Joe in decades decades and then I got

an email from saying hey we'd love to have you there's a podcast in Minneapolis that celebrates the AWA to all things AWA and I was a I was a guest on that about two weeks ago and just had such a great time talking about those memories because many of them I just forgot about I don't have anybody to share them with you know my wife wasn't there I mean not in the office he was at home. But, you know, some of the things that I experienced my first couple years in the industry, there's nobody in my world I can reminisce with about those things, except for Joe Chupac. And we just had so much fun on that podcast. I can't wait to do the next one. But that was a magic time for me. You know, it's, I never thought about getting into the wrestling business. I never

aspired to it. Was it a goal in any way, shape, or form? And just one day, kind of randomly, I'm offered a job to come and work for the AWA and head up their sales and syndication. I didn't even know what syndication meant. And I didn't have a, there was no such thing as Google back then. A guy that actually did the hiring, his name was Mike Shields, he says, hey, Eric, you know, Vern would like to bring you in. I can tell you're a great salesman. We want to make you the head of our syndication. I went, that's awesome. I got out to my car and I'm thinking, what the fuck is syndication? Why am I the head of it? I don't even know what it is.

Why am I the head of it? I'm going to take the job because damn, I get to work for the AWA and Vernanian. I'm going to learn about the television business and the wrestling business. So fuck, yeah, I'm taking a job. I'm not even sure what it is. I figured it out what it meant and I had amazing it was an amazing experience I look back at that very fondly and I've had a lot of other ones you know going to North Korea being being in North Korea running through the streets of Pyongyang North Korea

in the dark by myself only to watch the sun come up and the citizens of Pyongyang North Korea look at me like I was a fucking three-headed monster that was pretty cool that's a good memory that's one I'll never forget. Becoming friends with Muhammad Ali. That was to this day.

Well, I mean, that's pretty special. I got to meet Muhammad Ali. We went to a couple times, and then we ended up spending time together in North Korea, where I really got to know him, had more one-on-one time with him there. Every other time I had met Muhammad Ali up until that point, it was part of a big event.

There were always other people around. Even when we brought him into WCW and he was part of our, one of our big events in Detroit, a pay-per-view. I can't remember which one. And Muhammad Ali was there and we presented him a check. But even then, there was a bunch of people around. When I was in North Korea, whether we just had one-on-one time, just him and I. Wow.

And then I got to know him. But really the most touching part of it was about a year or two later. It was a couple years later. Muhammad Ali had already lit in the torch in the Olympics, in Atlanta. And if you remember that scene when Muhammad Ali went up there, his hand because of the

Parkinson's was so shaky that, you know, it was obvious while he was lighting the Olympic torch. And I hadn't seen Muhammad. That was in 96. I hadn't seen Muhammad since 95 when we were in Korea together. And I think it was

in 98. Could have been 97, one or the other. at a New Year's Eve show, the Japanese office, Antonio Onoki and Mr. Saido, invited Lori and I and our kids. They invited us over to Japan for the New Year's Eve celebration because their New Year's Eve show was like the biggest show of the year. And it's a big thing in Tokyo. New Year's Eve is pretty cool over there. So the Japanese office flew my wife and my kids over and we went to this big Tokyo dome show. surprising to me,

Muhammad Ali was there. They had also invited Muhammad Ali. I didn't know they were going to invite him. And I saw Muhammad and, you know, we made eye contact across the room. We were in a green room. And he started making his way in my direction. And I wanted to go over and say hello.

And he pulled me aside. We sat down. There was a light green couch. I'll never forget. We sat down. And because there was people all around. And it was a little noisy. And Muhammad, he could,

whisper, like if he whispered in your ear, he could enunciate fairly well. You could tell what he was saying. He just couldn't speak like we are here. So Muhammad Ali leaned in close to my ear so I could hear him. And he said, do you think I embarrassed myself? And at first, I was confused. And I said, Muhammad, what do you mean? Embarrassed yourself? He goes at the Olympics because of my hand. And I started crying. Wow. To this day, telling that story still hits me. Who has that memory? You know? Just you and I am. Wow. And I'm sure a lot of other people had similar things, you know, with other people. You know, for me, it was Muhammad Ali. Um, But, you know, to be able to have a moment like that with someone like Muhammad Ali, what a gift.

I mean, it was such a blessing. And that is one of my favorites memories. But I have so many of those. There's too many for me to really count. But those are the ones that come to mine at first. Man, crazy to think about that moment of basically, cocky's maybe the right, not the right word, confident, charismatic. Muhammad Ali, just his persona of, I'm the best in the

world, I'm going to tell you I'm the best in the world and then go out and beat you, like the best in the world does. But that moment of vulnerability of, you know, worried about maybe worries not, but thinking about that persona of, did I embarrass myself? And

you know, I don't want to speak for everybody, but I think watching it, I think it made us like him even more. And I try to tell him that. I try to tell I said, well, how do you have? I was flabbergasted that he said that, because I remember sitting at home watching it, and I was like, oh, my, I was a wreck.

I mean, that was so emotional. I mean, I was full of joy. Don't get me wrong. Right. But so when, that's why I was so confused when he asked me that question. And I tried to explain to him that. I mean, I had never been so moved by anything that I watched on a screen, ever. And very little else.

in real life. I mean, it was just amazing. But yeah, we had that conversation. And it was funny because shortly after that conversation, we got up and we're moving around the room because, again, a lot of people want to, everybody wanted to say hello and all that. And I looked over and Garrett, my son, who was probably only 12 at the time, you know, was probably 12. I look over and there's Muhammad Ali and my son, like shooting a breeze. What does my, what does my son talk to Muhammad Ali about? And I started walking over there, and I see Muhammad whispered in my son's ear. And Garrett would whisper in his ear.

And they're laughing. They're smiling. I'm like, what is going on? So I asked Garrett later on. And Howard Bingham, he was on that North Korean trip. Howard Bingham was a Mohammed Ali's photographer, at least on that trip. And I looked over and I see Howard Bingham taking a picture of Muhammad Ali and my son Garrett with Mohammed's arm around him.

That was a good memory. That was pretty cool. And I asked Garrett later, I go, what were you guys talking about? He said, Muhammad asked me how many girlfriends I had. I said, well, what did you tell me? He said, I don't know. I didn't have any girlfriends. I said, well, what did he say?

He goes, tell me the truth, young man. Tell me the truth. That's so good. So good. What great memory, man. Thank you for sharing those. Yeah, it was funny. Well, you know, that's why I like doing this show sometimes,

and especially questions like this, because I don't, you know, that memory is just, you know, not that I don't have it or think about it from time to time, but I enjoy sharing that because it sometimes reminds me of some of the cool shit I got to do that it's easy to forget about. Let's jump back into the questions. We've got David G.I.3 says, Eric, you said in the last show that Vince McMahon has the higher power in the WWF, and as we all saw, went on Nitro and spoiled it.

But how did he find out? He never explained how. he knew it was Vince last week. I am thoroughly confused. Eric, Eric said in the last show that Vince McMahon was the higher power in the WWF. Yeah. And as we all saw,

went on Nitro and spoiled it. I did that. How did he find out, meaning how did I find out? How did you find out? You never explained it. Oh, how you knew it was Vince.

I understand the question. That's a good question. Thank you. I would imagine it had to, been a tape show, right? Otherwise, I wouldn't have known because wasn't that the same show that Rock and McFoley wrestled

currently? I think so. I'm guessing it was a tape show. If it wasn't a tape show, I would have found out probably through Zane Bresloff, who had pretty close contacts with some higher up people in WWE, and occasionally Zane would hear shit that he would feed me. I generally wouldn't have

down it because I never knew if it was real or not. Not that I thought Zane would would lie to me, but I assumed people would lie to Zane because they knew Zane would lie to me. Right. Or pass it on. Zane wouldn't lie to me. But Zane would pass on what he had heard. If what, and this is what

happens with dipshit Dave Meltzer a lot. He thinks he's got sources. What he's got are generally one of two categories of people, either kind of meaningless list people that just happen to still hang on and have a job there that feed Dave's stuff because they think it will endear them to Dave Meltzer and maybe he'll write something nice

about them. That's probably a smaller and smaller percentage of Dave's contacts. I think a lot of them are just boys that fuck with him. And now I know that happens because I haven't done it, but I know other people that have and tell me about it when it happens. they intentionally mislead them to make him look like a dipshit or just to get the audience off base a little bit so they're feeding himself because he's a useful fucking idiot he's just a tool and they know they can use him because he wants to be accepted so badly and to be recognized

as a credible journalist so badly that it makes it easy just to fuck with him it's like the old war spies where they would hey let's see who's leaking this let's let this out to somebody and this out to somebody see which one gets back around we can start finding where it's not just like wwe i mean it was who wasn't about a year and a half two years ago some guy you know just caught dave red-handed republishing a fake fucking story as if it was a fact and dave had to admit it he came clean and said yeah i did that but he's such a he's such a fucking hack that it's pretty easy to to mess with him anything thinks he's getting good info.

That's the funny part. All right, we've got two more questions for you, Eric. We appreciate your time. So we've got two more here. WCW versus NWO World Tour and WCW Revenge had a massive impact on the wrestling video game genre and are still remembered fondly by fans today due to their revolutionary gameplay.

What are your thoughts on the legacy of these games and their commercial success at the time? Additionally, can you share any specific? Specific memories are behind-the-scenes stories about the development and promotion of these games. You know, I really didn't get involved at all in the gaming side of, number one, because, you know, video games were still evolving at that point. And I was not, there was never a video game guy. So I let people that understand the business or understood the business at that point kind of head up those efforts. I very rarely, very rarely would get involved.

I would approve certain things, but I very rarely got involved. The only involvement I had was with EA Sports, and I'm not sure if it was EA Sports that put out the WCWNWO Revenge or not. But that was our first really big licensing deal. And I remember going to the EA Sports headquarters in L.A., picking up a check for $5 million as an advance. royalties and I was pretty happy that day very very happy that was it man that's that's the extent of my involvement I picked up a check a WCW developed by AKA I and published by

THQ okay T HQ T HQ okay T HQ K must have been before EA sports um all right we've got one we got one more question and then we will get to Midians to send you out on a good note. Oh, great. I thought we forgot about that. Oh, shit. All right, here we go. Eric Marecki says, just want to let you guys,

let you both know how much you guys mean to people out there. I'm going through a very hard time getting divorced, losing my dad, and losing my job a few months ago. I have three young children ages eight, six, and four. There were a lot of days I didn't feel like getting out of bed. I'm a wrestling fan since 1986, but was exclusively a WWFWWFW fan.

I obviously knew about Eric and WCW, but rarely watched it. I started listening to your guys' podcast in March after I lost my job, and I'm all the way up to episode 300. I admire and respect Eric so much for what he accomplished, and he is truly a mentor that people should look up to and emulate. You both have no idea how much of work means to ordinary people who may be struggling. You guys literally saved me when I was. at my lowest, and I can't thank you enough for what you do.

Just hearing Eric's voice sues me and gives me the strength to do what I have to do for my kids and keeps me going. I know this may sound a little over the top, but I want you both to know what you mean to some people and how important what you do is. Thank you, and I wish you both the best. Thanks, Eric. Thank you, Eric.

Man, that is amazing. You know, I was at River City, Russell, in St. Augustine, Florida last weekend and had that type of conversation with a number of people. And it's one of the reasons I love doing them. And the people at River City, Russicon were so great. The promoters were outstanding. The event was great. It was a beautiful facility. It wasn't crowded. It wasn't too hot. It was an awesome event. But when you have conversations with people and they share these things with you. And it makes you realize that, you know, we all do what we do every day for a living because

it's our job. It's how we pay our bills. It's what we like to do. Whatever the motivations are. But for me, personally, as a result of doing this podcast and doing more public appearances and things like that and hearing more stories like that, it makes me value what I was a part of, not what I accomplished. Forget about that.

what I got to be a part of because I didn't realize while I was a part of it that it actually can help people, touch people, brings people together. The very fact that, you know, a mom and a dad and a son or mother and daughter or father and son or uncle and whatever, I'll sit around and watch wrestling together and spend time together and it has value.

You know, I think anything that you can, anytime you can bring families together or where they're sharing an experience is a good thing. And on top of it, your stories like that. And it makes me appreciate the opportunity. It makes me more grateful for the blessings that I've had. And makes me look forward to go out there and meeting guys like Eric. Next time I'm in town.

It's cool. Thank you, man. Now we've got to hear from Midian. Thank you, Eric. Appreciate that. And thanks for all of you all of you for interacting with us and watching and telling us your stories and how you got into it and what you love about the show and what you love about Eric.

So we appreciate all of that. We appreciate you, Eric. For that message, we got you in a good mood, buttered you up, just for a little midian footage. Oh, God. Bishop was kind of a karate guy, and he knew who my stepdad was. And he was just in an outdoor and we're in the bar. And he's like, oh, come on. He wanted to be all tough and everything.

And he started, like, getting in my face and like, oh, show me what you got. I'm like, dude, just leave me alone. He started getting in my face. And I fucking grabbed him. And I threw him over a table. and he jumps up and he comes at me and I kind of like hip toss him and go to punch him and his wife starts crying

and he looks at her and he looks at me and he stands up and be like, ah, we're just playing and everything. I was like, fuck you. But I love Eric. I love Eric. But that was just a funny beat-up Eric Watt or Eric Bishop's story, you know, which a lot of people wanting to do. Oh, still.

That is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. I'm going to have to ask my wife if that actually ever happened or if this motherfucker fell on his head one too many times. I have never squared off with anybody or even fuck around with anybody. Other than maybe Larry Zabiscoe when we're training for a match. That's fucking bizarre. I love.

Fuck you. I love Eric Bishop. That was great. Look, Mannyin does mushrooms sometimes. That's all right. Maybe he was on a Monday. I'm literally, I'm going to go into my house. and Mississippi is going to be at Top Guy this year in Chicago.

Okay. And I'm going to go to ask my wife if that actually ever happened. And if it did, I want her to tell the story in front of me live in front of the audience. So we'll find out. I feel like if she watched you get thrown by Middy and started crying. First of all, that motherfucker wasn't throwing anybody anymore. I mean, at the peak. he can look he did he just he brought a broke his monitor guys where do we lose you

are you there i'm here oh okay everything went dark for a minute yeah i'll wrap this up i got to go eat i got to ask my wife about this fucking biddy and horse shit before we get out of here of course do some housekeeping. Everybody, if you were business targets 25 to 54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise them right here with us on 83 weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years and why? Because it works. And with our super targeted audience, there's very little way. So go to advertise witheric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 weeks. Also, our good buddy, Mr. Conrad Thompson, he can help you out. Right now your home is

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on all platforms. Twitter handles. He's at E. Bischoff. A follow at, hey, hey, it's Conrad. Tell him how much you missed him. Instagram at the real Eric Bischoff. Facebook is E. Bischoff as well. of course the show at 83 weeks on Twitter or Twix as Eric likes to call it,

Instagram and Facebooks and have all of our merch at box of gimmicks.com. Let everyone know you're an Eric Bischoff Galler guy and the new Wise Choices shirt. And maybe we need a shirt that says a mummy ran out and buck fucked me and all I got was this 83 weeks t-shirt. could be all of that it could be the next nerf gun the next nerve gun go to box of gimmicks.com Eric always fun to talk to you man we appreciate your time

everyone we appreciate watching live we appreciate y'all interacting and watching and being part of the AFS family for Mr. Eric Bischoff I am Cassio thank you Mr. Silva in the production booth. listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Kanichyawa.