83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 337: Who Belongs In The WCW Hall Of Fame?

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad take your suggestions on who will be the first class into the WCW Hall of Fame. We let listeners and subscribers of 83Weeks.com posts suggestions for their ballot nominees in these categories, behind the scenes, tag teams, generational influencers, group or factions, and single star. The guys comb through your suggestions and create a four choice ballot for you to vote on RIGHT NOW over on 83Weeks.com Results will be revealed next week! PRIZE PICKS - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code 83WEEKS for a first deposit match up to $100! PrizePicks. Run Your Game!  https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/83WEEKS THE TRIPLE OPTION - Get into the game today – follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! Watch The Triple Option on YouTube, new episodes drop Wednesday mornings!  BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE EARNIN - Download the EarnIn app today. Type in 83 WEEKS under PODCAST when you sign up. EarnIn, the most loved way to get paid as you work. 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. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am just doing well, Conrad. I'm feeling great. It's a beautiful Friday here. We're transitioning into my favorite time of year, the fall. The last couple nights of the rodeo are happening this weekend. So I'm going to probably check out the rodeo.

tonight, and it's beautiful outside, so I feel like I'm going to be grilling up some stakes. I mean, I know life can be better in many, many ways for others, but for me, it's about perfect. It's just about perfect. Man, I'm on the same page. I, uh, granted an ear to ear before we clicked record this morning, I texted my wife. I don't remember being this happy. Alabama football, as we're recording, kicks off tomorrow.

It's the first game without Nick Sabin in over 15 years. There's a WWE pay-per-view tomorrow during the day. And we've got good weather coming. It's going to be a fun weekend. I'm looking forward to it. Join us tomorrow immediately after Bash in Berlin. Eric Bischoff and I will be doing a live reaction show. We did it last weekend for AEW.

We're doing it live tomorrow for the Bash in Berlin. Of course, this is an international pay-per-view, so it's not a late-night show. I think it's going to start around 1130 Central. So I think maybe by 3 o'clock, 3.30, somewhere in there will be live Central Time at 83 Weeks.com. So maybe 4.4.30 tomorrow, Eastern Time, make plans to join Eric and I. This is a new era for the WWE. It certainly feels like, you know, as they continue to run more and more of these international

pay-per-views, we're seeing good shows. that are recently going a little shorter. I've even seen a remark that maybe that's going to continue. I don't know that we're getting a lot of storyline with these international pay-per-views, but boy, the crowd is the secret sauce. Their responses, whether it was last year in Puerto Rico or, I mean, we've just seen so many hot crowds. I'm really excited to see what the crowd is like tomorrow in Berlin, Eric.

It's some of the best part. You know, you and I have talked about this. so many times over the last five or six years, but, and I think it was Elvis Presley that originally said it, it's not my quote, but I think Elvis said, you know, the best part of every one of his

shows was in the audience, seeing the people and the reactions and the passion and their engagement. And nothing is more true in professional wrestling. You know, you go back to some of the biggest challenges I had with

Nitro and in WCW when I took over. Yeah, the wrestling was, you know, storylines, all the obvious things you had to worry about and try to improve upon continuity, you know, all that. But the most important part of it was getting that crowd and not only getting the bodies in the seats, but getting that emotional investment. Because I'm sure as we'll see in Berlin, this is a big deal for them. You know, it's not like WWE's there every three months, you know, like we see in some markets here in the U.S. it's a big deal and that energy the size of the crowd

but more importantly the energy of that crowd is going to make that show 30% better than it would otherwise be just because the crowd's hot and that's you know that's a big part of professional wrestling you know what makes it great but also what makes it challenging

because when you don't have that energy you don't have that engagement even if you have warm breathing bodies with a pulse but if they're not into the show, it's tough. It's tough. And people at home sense that, oh, those people aren't that excited. I guess maybe I shouldn't be excited, not consciously, but subconsciously.

So, yeah, crowds are everything, man. Crowds are king when it comes. They're the third character in the ring. Or fourth, I guess, if you want to include a referee. I, for one, and pumped, it's going to be interesting because I don't think there's ever been a pay-per-view in Germany, certainly not a WWE pay-per-view. I think this is a first. So I think they're going to have a big crowd.

I think it's going to be a hot crowd. I do want to ask, you know, when you take a look at, you know, future pay-per-view offerings, not just from WW, but even from AEW. Like we just saw an announcement last week that they're going to Australia next year. And they are going to be back in London, but Forbidden Door, which I think is a great call. next year. Do you think

that AEW might actually start following taking a page out of WVE's book and we see more and more international pay-per-views moving forward? I hesitate because I want to answer the question succinctly and clearly but not

sound negative. I think, let's go back. Here's how we do that. Let's go back to WWE early 90s. Stereway trial, distraction, bad PR, all of the above. Pretty tough time, WWE.

Their house show business was the shits. They were really suffering. Of course, this was before the Monday Night War era and all that, which everything blew up during that time. But even their regular television programs, you know, the crowd was there. not like they are today. And they were suffering, particularly with the live touring side of their business. So they would go over to the UK.

They would almost give the U.S. a break in a way and go to the UK because it was new. Now, WWI didn't tour there consistently back in the 80s and early 90s like they, you know, do now more regularly. So they just gave the market a break. In this case, the market being the entire country. and went over there because the crowds were hot, visually it looked better, the messaging, the branding, everything was better, as we were just talking about, with that big, lively crowd. And eventually, when things changed, they would come back to the U.S. and again, resuming touring here. So they would go to Europe. I think they would, you know, maybe once or twice a year, they'd do some big tours over there.

And it's a great way to give markets a break. And I think specifically with AEW, this isn't necessarily an opinion. It's kind of like right there in front of you, their crowds, their attendance outside of Wembley, their attendance in the U.S. is really suffering. It's probably 40% of what it was 24 months ago. across the board and I'm just guessing on that I don't have any stats to back it up

but I bet you if we looked hard enough your average household attendance is down significantly from where it was even a year ago they need to give it a break and you know you look at AEW they tend to go back to Chicago a lot for obvious reasons there's just

number one it's a great wrestling market for anybody but number two I think there's a sense of hometown team in Chicago for whatever reason but man if you keep going back to that market, even though it's a good market for you, it's diminishing returns over time. It's just not a big deal anymore. I think going over to Europe for AEW for some of their

big pay-per-views would really benefit them because, again, people back here in the States are going to look at that show, they're going to look at that crowd, they're going to look at people having fun, they're over the top, they're engaged, they're bringing their signs, they're having they're fun. I mean, it's like, look, watching a party, and you go, oh, I want to go to that party. That party looks like fun. And you need to do that from time to time. And I think AEW certainly needs to do that. Again, Wembley looked awesome. Again, outlier. It's a one-off. But if they can replicate some of that success, whether they put 50,000 people in a building or 10,000 people in building, if those 10,000 people are passionate, excited, and engaged, it doesn't matter.

it works. I think they will need to do that because they're burning up markets here in the U.S. So, Eric, what we know is, as of about a week ago, as we're recording this, there were only about 600 tickets remaining for this fashion in Berlin show. You got to assume those are all gone by now, and there's probably going to be a few more seats opened up, maybe a couple of sections. I think if you remove all the staging and all of that, it's set for about 17,000 as a capacity for Uber Arena. but of course you sacrifice some of that with the big stage and the backdrop and all the screens and Jumbotrons and all that. I think we're definitely going to be

out of sellout, and I'm sure that ticket prices are a little expensive because, well, it's international and they can get away with it. But I'm excited for a show that is different from the way we've seen a lot of other wrestling shows presented recently. There's only five matches on the whole card,

and four of those have a lot of steam. Now, we've got a women's tag match that for me is just kind of there. But then we've got a really heated match with C.M. Punk and Drew McIntyre. These guys had a lot of steam going into SummerSlam. Some people feel like having a special guest referee and Seth Rollins maybe took away from that.

We're going to see the intensity turned up when it's just those two and a strap. Lots of bruises coming your way. It'll be some uncomfortable flights home. We've also got a mixed tag team match that everybody is paying attention to. This is soap opera wrestling right here, and fans are all over it.

I don't think anybody in wrestling has more heat than Dominic Mysterio, and he's teaming up with Liv Morgan to take on Damian Priest and Ria Ripley. Ria Ripley is an incredible star, man, to the point where they just posted a video about her tattoos, and it's going to have a million views by the time this is posted. Like, the steam that they have in a mixed tag match here is crazy. This is story done right, right, Eric? It's so, I mean, we've been seeing so much of that

at a WWE for the last year, year and a half. They're just perfecting their storytelling abilities and it's resonating with the audience. It's showing up, showing up at the bottom line in every way. So, yeah, they're perfecting story and characters as well. I think Ria, I mean, I just am so excited about her because I think she's still on an upward trajectory. I don't think she's peaked at all.

I think she's still got a lot of room to go. And I'm excited for it. She's very, very unique. You talk about different than, better than less than different than. She's the queen of different than and has really made it work. She's so unique. And the other thing I really like about her is she's not overexposed. where, you know, she uses social media, but not to the point where you're another Rio Ripley post.

I mean, she's judicious in the way she uses social media, and it really works for her. It's keeping a little bit of a mystique, and I like that. Dominic, my God. Like, I'll be honest, when they first started pushing, I want to say pushing. When I first saw Dom on WWTV, I was like, well, at least he's getting to an experience, at least he's getting to experience an opportunity. Holy crap. He's not only experiencing it, he's so capitalizing it. He's so good as a heel.

It's like we were talking about MJF last week. You know, MJF, I think, loves being a heel. Some people do. Very few people do, because it goes against human nature. said last week. I won't repeat it. But those who really embrace it and love in it and love it and bask in the glow of it, it's awesome to see. And that's dumb, man. He just loves being healed. And he has no fear. And I don't mean, you know, doing things in the ring. But I mean, as a character, he apparently, I've never worked with him, obviously. But he just doesn't appear to have any

fear. He's willing to do what he needs to do to get the character over. I, for one, can't wait to see how the crowd reacts to Dominic. I mean, we always get hot international crowds. It's going to be an incredible response, I'm sure. I do want to get your take on this, because

there's only five matches, so I feel confident that all the matches will get plenty of time, and they'll tell lots of great stories, and it'll be a tight show, and it'll be a fun show. I know that before we sit down. But if you were to look at betting, which unbelievably, that is a thing, you can bet on professional wrestling.

It feels like a lot of people know the outcome of the two title matches. Cody Rhodes, I think, is a heavy betting favorite. Gunther is a heavy betting favorite as well. But Cody Rhodes is sort of the face that runs the place. He's been the main event. He's been going on last. But we're in Berlin. If you were formatting this show, would you have Cody and Kevin Owens go on last?

Or would you reserve that honor for Gunther, the hometown hero, and have Cody and Kevin perhaps start the show? Or would you put Cody and Kevin on second to last? Or would you stick with the WW way the way it used to be, maybe? And well, the main event goes on last. And they perceived that top guy to be Cody Rhodes. He would close. What would Eric do tomorrow in Berlin?

I would, and my main event would be my main event. And right now, that's Cody and Kevin. So I would definitely stick to that formula. And I'll tell you why. I think sometimes we... We make assumptions, and we assume that the German fan base, because Gunther's German, his character is very German, we assume that that's going to be the crowd favorite.

Got to remember, and it's one of the reasons why both WWE and AEW do as well as they do internationally is because that international audience still has a big appetite for things that represent the American culture. outside of politics and the nonsense of day-to-day life American entertainment generally is still perceived to be the shit not the shits although it's sometimes it is but I don't think the German audience

looks as it looks at Gutter or anybody you know that's indigenous to the market the same way we assume they would I think they're more excited about seeing Cody and Kevin than they are about seeing Gunther. That's been my experience. Now, this could be wrong. Things could have changed.

Markets evolve. People evolve. All that happy horse shit. Disclaimer nonsense. But I think people overestimate the hometown hero thing. You know, I think if I were doing this, and obviously we know my relationship with Cody and what a big fan I am of him and what he's been able to do in WWE, I think I might start with Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens

and get them hot and then let Gunther close. We'll see what they do tomorrow. We're going to break it down. Join us live here at 83 weeks.com immediately following Bash in Berlin. It's going to be something else, man. I can't wait for you guys to join us. If you haven't already hit the subscribe button,

turn on your notifications bell. You don't want to miss the next time we're live. You would have missed last week's All In reaction show, but also a show that you and I did the middle of the week this week that I'm pretty proud of. We did a, we called an audible. We did a tribute to Sid. Whether you called him Sid Justice or Sid vicious or Psycho Sid, well, there's only one

Sid in professional wrestling. I can't imagine anybody, I don't even know that I've ever heard of anybody else using that name. We all just think of Sid. And man, I've had a great week just watching some of his clips and highlights and it was a really special episode. It's available now at 83weeks.com. That's our YouTube channel.

It's totally free. I was really proud of the show we did, Eric. What did you think of our tribute to Sid? I was so happy with it. You know, the truth be known, the night before, I was going to try to do one solo. And Super Dave Silva and I got on and we're trying for a few minutes

and I just felt so bad because I knew I wasn't doing the kind of job that I wanted to do for Sid and most importantly for his family and fans. And I just felt halfway through it. It's just this is not doing, no pun intended, Sid Justice. Wow. I couldn't work that in if I tried.

So I said the day, let's just wait for Conrad because I knew having you there to talk with and bringing your perspective and knowledge would make this show better and be a better tribute for Sid and his family. I'm like, that's what I really wanted to do. And I think we overachieved on that. You know, the only thing I wish we would, of course, we couldn't have shown it.

We could have shown this still, but the next day I saw the clip, I think the young man's name was Seth, the next to receiver. I mean, I started crying when I saw that. It's probably a good thing we didn't use it on the show because I'm a bit of babbled, puddle of goo. But it was so awesome. And it's like that, that's who Sid was. people have a perception when you see people in the rain, you read about them,

and you read the dirt sheets and gossip columns and all that crap. And you get a perception of what you think you know. And there's always another side. And to be able to see that side of Sid and hear other people talking about what a great guy Sid was, I just think it was awesome. And I'm grateful to have been a small part of that. If you don't know what Eric's talking about, throw in your Google machine. Sid and his manager, Seth, Seth was a young man who lived next door, Sid, and he was a big wrestling

fan, and he had some special challenges in his life. And Sid knew exactly what to do to make that young man feel special. He didn't take it too seriously. He understood what wrestling was supposed to be about, perhaps better than anybody ever gave him credit for. And we're realizing it now. I hope that we continue to celebrate Sid and his legacy. I'd also encourage people to go out of their way to see Booker T's tribute.

Bookerty's told the Stone Cold Truth and Dave Meltzer actually recapted in the Observer that after he had a situation in WCW and a situation in the WWF, Sid was looking for somewhere to go. He wound up in Global. That's where he discovered Kane and Cole, going to go on to become Harlem Heat. And he said, hey, when I get in the WCW, I'm going to get you guys in. And he did. Not only that, he advocating for them to be.

be in the main event of that war games to team with Sid. This is the S-the-Famous Shockmaster one. But Harlem Heat were a new act at the time. Normally, a new tag team doesn't just come on the scene and they're immediately in a war games main event like that, but Sid pushed for those guys. And the result is Harlem Heat enjoyed more success than any tag team in WCW history.

Booker T became the most decorated performer of all time in WCW history and became a superstar in the WWF. And Booker T was pretty heartfelt and earnest and genuine in saying he was so glad that he got to see Sid the last year and thank him for everything. And those are the type of stories we never heard about Sid until this week. And I, for one, am glad that those stories are out there. And I just wish maybe the world knew those stories a little sooner. I'm convinced more than ever, we'll go ahead and call it now. Sid is going to be the first

entrant in the WWE Hall of Fame class for 2025. Like there's no way he didn't go in next year now, right, Eric? I certainly would hope so. And again, forget about what we feel about Sid personally as, you know, the kind of man he was and listening to Booker-Chief story, obviously gives you a good indication

of what Sid Udi was all about as opposed to Sid vicious or said justice. But even just his in-ring credentials. Yeah. I mean, you did a great job last week of recapping just how successful Sid was. And was it two WrestleMania main events? Two WrestleMania main events. And Eric, you know what?

I don't think enough people put together. I just want to give context to this for years and years and years. And you've heard it a million times too. Why didn't Vince McMahon do Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair at WrestleMania 8? Well, as a reminder, Sid Justin. and Rick Flair came into the company around the same time. And almost immediately they were put in the Royal Rumble. As you may recall, Hulk Hogan, who was eliminated by Sid, was then pulled out.

Sid was then eliminated by and already eliminated Hulk Hogan. Hulk was kind of the heel there. Sid was kind of the baby face. It was cleared events, even when he was putting the strap on Rick Flair. Hulk Hogan and Sid is the main event opportunity. And in an alternate universe, if Sid's not there, I'm convinced now more than ever, we do get Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 8.

But when given the option of, hey, do I want Hogan and Flair? Do I want Hogan and Sid? Vince knew what he wanted, and we got it. A title match with Rick Flair and macho man Randy Savage, an incredible story, a great match. but the marquee attraction is Hulk Hogan and he needed a big, mean, nasty, monster heel. That formula had been proven to work over and over and over.

He didn't have to look too far to find Sid. And think about that. In hindsight, Sid gets not one but two WrestleMania main events, and that's two more than Rick Flair. Wild. What a career. It's crazy, you know? What a career.

Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today is a lot of stuff with the benefit of hindsight. I'm talking, of course, about the WCW Hall of Fame nominees. Now, that doesn't actually exist. We're talking about whether or not Sid belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame. Well, we said, hypothetically, shouldn't there be a WCW Hall of Fame? There's a Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. There's a Thesson Tregos Hall of Fame.

There's multiple halls of fame. But can we have one that fans get to vote on for WCW? And we said, well, of course we can. At 83 Weeks.com, we solicited your nomination. And we're going to talk about some of that today. But before we get going, Eric, I got to tell you, I'm pretty pumped. Because Price Picks is back, baby. It's America's number one daily fantasy sports app.

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or just refreshing your promo lineup, 4 Imprint helps you get it done confidently and with simplicity and ease. Head to 4imprint.com to find out more. Let's talk about it, man. We sort of freestyled. There should be a WCW Hall of Fame. and I guess we're going to break it down into a few different categories. We're going to have someone nominated and we're going to talk about these nominees for

behind the scenes. And then we're going to land on who you and I think or who you think and who I think. And we're going to let some folks decide who these who really deserves the spot. I guess we'll narrow it down to four finalists. So we'll start with behind the scenes. Then we'll move into tag teams. Then we're going to talk about generational influencer. We'll talk about groups or factions, then we'll hit single stars.

Let's get right into it with behind the scenes and where else could we start than with Kevin Sullivan. A name has been brought up a lot, obviously, with his recent passing. He's front and center in a lot of people's minds. Furious Prince 97 wrote, Kevin Sullivan deserves to be there. WCW had his creative mind running the book before Eric truly took the reins. And even partly during Eric's tenure, Eric was an amazing man. and was the somewhat stable footing WCW needed during those early 90s years.

A lot of people say Kevin Sullivan deserves to be in the conversation for his influence behind the scenes. No argument for me. What say you, Eric? I agree. I agree. I mean, I like Kevin and I loved working with Kevin for a lot of different reasons. But I really respected Kevin's alternative perspective. How many times have you heard me?

talk about what I like in a wrestling. You know, the style, the presentation, the type of matches I like, which are pretty basic, really. I mean, I love more traditional type of wrestling. I still enjoy all the high-flying, lucha style, and everything

that's come with that. But in terms of the quality of matches and what really sucks me in, I liked a more traditional approach. Kevin was the opposite. Kevin was into the violence, you know, the false count anywhere, the over the top presentation when it comes to no other way to say it, the violence that is a part of professional

wrestling, the stuff that he did with Benoit. I mean, he was just, he was so outside of the box and Kevin was very tuned in to what was going on in ECW. I wasn't. I had an opinion. It wasn't good. So therefore, I didn't spend any time searching it out. We're thinking about it. Kevin did. And Kevin, because of his interest in his perspective, which was different than mine, brought in a lot of ECW talent that really, former ECW talent, that was very much a contribution to the success of WCW in the mid and late 90s. So for that reason alone, absolutely. And in Dusty Rhodes told me, because there was a point in time, I'm backing up just a little bit now, timeline wise, there was a point in time right after I took over and could call some shots. I went to

Dusty and I said, Dusty, what do you need? How can I make your job not only easier, but how can we have more success on the creative side? Dusty didn't hesitate. It didn't think about it. He didn't say, let me get back to you or I'll call you tonight. You said, give me Kevin Sullivan. I mean, no hesitation whatsoever because Dusty knew far better than I didn't really know Kevin at that point in time. I never really worked with him in WCW prior to that. I had no contact with him outside of my first contact with him in WCW. But Dusty was right on the money. Kevin just had a unique perspective and ways to create the type of emotion that is absolutely necessary, which is heat.

Heat is life. Heat is life when it comes to professional wrestling. And Kevin had a great handle on that. So thumbs up on that one. Yeah, no argument for me. I mean, I think it's been said over and over that Kevin Sullivan deserves a lot of the credit for riding the wave of the NWO

and booking heat and all the success that WCW enjoyed during the Monday Night Wars, which is the namesake for this very program, 83 weeks, Kevin Sullivan, a fine nominee. Another nominee that I know you'd be excited to talk about. I mean, if we're talking about behind the scenes and people who are important for WCW,

who's more important than a guy who kept it alive, Mr. Ted Turner. The impact that Ted Turner had on professional wrestling isn't really discussed as much in 2024 as perhaps it should be, but long before there was a billionaire based out of Jacksonville who loved him some wrestling. There was another renegade, another pioneer named

Ted Turner what an incredible legacy he had in business, just a titan of industry but man how wrestling could have been different had Ted Turner not for lack of a better word

bailed out the crockets there the entire landscape looks a whole heck of a lot different for a lot of people including Hulk Hogan right like without that second act as a heel it's a different industry. I don't know that WWB even looks the same.

Talk to us a little bit about Ted Turner and why you think he certainly deserves to be a first ballader in a WCW Hall of Fame. I just can't imagine what wrestling today would look like had it not been for Ted Turner support. And this is one of those things you can sit down and think about it, and it'll take you to a rabbit hole that is fun and hard to get out of.

But if you use your imagination and think, just from a purely business point of view, forget about talents and all that, just purely business perspective. Had Ted not supported financially in every other way, WCW, we would not have had a Monday Night Wars. It wouldn't have existed. flat out. Had there been no Monday Night Wars, there's a chance there's no professional wrestling on television, at least not to the extent that we see now. The Monday Night Wars catapulted WWE out of a slow declining business, which they were. Just take your emotions

out of it and look at the math. And if you look at the trajectory of WWE's business, over the course, again, when we talked about it coming out of the steroid trial, they were losing ground. They were not a hot property. I remember distinctly a lot of conversations at the NAPD convention, for example, when you're talking to general manager and program directors and advertising executives, who back in 1992, 93, when I was participating in those events and talking to people outside of the rest of business who were in the entertainment business, television specifically in advertising. it was it was WWE is recognized as a yeah it's a reasonably successful but dying proposition

the entire business would look different if it weren't for Ted Turner certainly a great nominee for a WCW Hall of Fame I don't think anybody can have a conversation about WCW and not include Rick Flair he obviously was involved in a lot of different

roles in WCW not just in front of the camera but behind the scenes as well, you know, he, uh, he had influence. He had power. And he was also a part of a booking committee. And, uh, listen, you were there. You can speak to what his contributions were behind the scenes. How important was Rick Flair and his presence off camera for WCW? Rick Flair kept WCW alive up until, I mean, WCW was able to sustain itself beginning in about 1994, 1995, which, by the way, Hulk Hogan would have never happened to WCW

had it not been for Rick Flair. Similarly to Ted Turner, you know, if Ted wouldn't have supported WCW, not to be redundant, we may not be looking at the WWE we were seeing today. In fact, I'm 100% sure I'm right about that. 99. Same could be said about Rick Flair in WCW

because had Rick not I would say worked with me, but led the process initially of getting Hogan on board. Hogan wouldn't have made that move. It's funny, I talked to Hulk last night for quite a while. We haven't spoken in a long time. He's been traveling. By the way, his real American beer is blowing up. I mean, I'm not going to go through all the footprint that they've created,

but it's huge. It's shockingly huge to the point where, again, I'm going to be careful what I say. I don't know what's privileged or not. But there is a major, major, major brewery that everybody would recognize that's wanting to work with him. And I think we're going to see some amazing things.

But guess what? That conversation I had last night with Hulk Hogan wouldn't happen if it wouldn't have been for Rick Flair. Because Hulk didn't have, he didn't know me. He couldn't have any confidence in me, and nor should he have at that point. I was learning on the job. I still had training wheels on.

I was dependent on other people. when it came to creative at that point. But Rick, Rick solved that problem for WCW and for me and was largely responsible for Hogan coming over. And I think it's safe to say that had Hogan not come over, had the NWO not happened, I don't think WCW would have been around by 1996 or 1997.

I think it would have been done. There was so much pressure on it, And even Ted Turner himself, with all of the support that he gave us over the years, back in 1993 or four, when he fired Bill Watts, made it clear to all of us through Bill Shaw that either this company turns around and makes a profit or I'm going to pull the plug. Well, had it not been for Hulk Hogan, I think that plug would have been pulled, probably by 95 or 96. We got to talk about another Titan. You want to talk about a visionary, a power broker. Dusty Rhodes, the man himself. Of course, WCW had its roots in Jim Crockett Promotions.

And before there was a WrestleMania, there was a Starcade, the brainchild of Dusty Roads. It became the launching point for an incredible run with him as Head Booker, if you will, of Jim Crockett promotions. And think about the Great American Bash and war games. and so many other incredible creations of Dusty Rhodes. But, I mean, if you just had Starcate, if you just had the Great American Bash, if you just had the war games, these are all incredible legacies, have all three and so much

more as commentator, as an in-ring performer, as a creative mind doing his geniusing behind the scenes, Dusty Rhodes has to be in the conversation for a Hall of Famer behind the scenes for WCW. What say you, Eric? 100% man. I just, it's funny, the more I see clips of Dusty, the more I miss him. I guess that's not unusual, right? The longer someone's gone, the more he's missing.

It's really hard to contextualize the impact that Dusty had on WCW. Again, I will say, had it not been for Dusty, you know, Dusty and Rick had a weird relationship, to be honest with you. you. I'm sure it got better over time. Just, you know, like happens with a lot of us in the industry. You're working with people and, you know, you're competitive and you're fighting for some of the same things and same opportunities. But Dusty was the glue that held it together when WCW was at its worst point. Dusty made up for Bill Watts. Dusty, absolutely critical to the success of WCW. And on a personal base,

I don't think I would have made it in WCW had it not been for Dusty Rhodes. Dusty protected me when I first got there and I don't know why because he didn't know me. He had no contact with me prior to my first day on the job. But Dusty took me under his wing and he didn't know he was mentoring me and I didn't even recognize it as such. But looking back at it now, he made it possible for me to survive in an environment where most everybody else was. hoping I would fail. That's what I wanted to say. Dusty made it possible for me to survive and ultimately succeed in an environment when I first came in, even as an announcer, that wasn't a threat to anybody, except for maybe the person that watered the plants at night. I wasn't a

threat, but there were a lot of people that just didn't want me there because I was not part of the click. I never laced up a pair of boots. All that happy horse shit. Dusty fixed that for me. Protected me. And he nurtured. He really taught me how to survive in

WCW. We got to talk about another guy who Dave Meltzer gives a lot of credit to and you certainly have given him his flowers here on 83 weeks. It's a name that most of us listening to this show have heard a lot, but not many people ever met him.

I mean, I don't remember hearing anybody talk about being great, close, personal friends. I'm not even sure I know what this guy looks like, but what an impact he left. Just ask anybody he was there. Zane Breslov, a former director of live events. He was a once upon a time, just a quote-unquote, local promoter. But, boy, he knew about moving tickets. He knew about how to string together. A lot of Ws for WCW.

Dave Meltzer would often say that he was one of the secret sauce of the, winning formula that became WCW in the 90s. What can you say about Zane Bresloff and his contributions? Is he Hall of Fame worthy, in your opinion, Eric? Yes. Yes, because if, again, take personalities, issues, emotion, and all the bullshit out and just look at numbers, you've got to be careful here. Dave, Messer and Zane were close friends, right?

And I knew that. I didn't hold it again, just like you're friends with Dave. I don't judge people by their relationships with other people. I try not to judge people anyway. I try really hard. I sometimes fall down and succumb. But Zane had very little or no influence over creative. He was very supportive and he would love to share ideas.

But Zane was never part of the booking committee. Zane never came in and laid out storylines or suggested storyline. But Zane was a great sounding board. And by the way, became a very, very good friend of not just me, but my wife. We would meet Zane in Las Vegas, even if there was no business there, just to hang out and go out to dinner. I love Zane Breslov. I really did. But Zane had a unique ability.

He was a great sounding board. So if there was something I was thinking about, I trusted his instinct. even though he'd never been a part of the booking committee and you hear me talk about instinct a lot especially when I'm referring to Tony Kahn because some people have a great instinct and it's not necessarily based on their experience or their education

they just have a feel Zane was that guy and if I was thinking about doing something or going into a direction with a talent or even a story in general Zane First of all, Zane and I talked about 15 times a day for 30 seconds at a time. That was Zane, right?

And me, I'm never a telephone guy, but I could pull Zane aside and run ideas by him. And he would be totally honest. He wouldn't tell me what he thinks I wanted to hear or he thought I wanted to hear. He didn't tell me things that would somehow benefit him or a relationship that he had with somebody. He was brutally honest when I asked him questions, and I love that about saying, because I could trust him. I could trust his instinct. And I relied on him a lot in the way I approached some of the creative. Some of it he was very supportive of.

Some of it he wasn't. And when he wasn't, I would kind of go back to the drawing board and go, okay, why didn't he like this idea? What's the why? and go back and rework in some cases storylines. So while he was never officially a part of creative, he was a part of my incredibly close circle when it came to

trying to come up with ideas. There was you know, you listen to too many people, you end up just not going anywhere. You know, you've got eye, I should say. I have to find the one or two, three people at the most that I trust not only their instincts but their integrity

and keep it to a minimum but he was one of those guys and I miss it and he definitely is worthy and if you look at the numbers now look let's be honest as much as I love Zane and want to recognize what he contributed a lot of the success that we had with

arenas and in our live touring level was the result of the success that we had on television right they go hand in hand but when it came to the amount of money, the profit that we made, Zane knew where to spend money for advertising and promotions. Zane had incredible, incredible relationships with local promoters in markets where we wanted to attack, as well as general managers, program directors of primarily radio, but also television in some markets that allowed us to be so efficient

that we were profitable much, much sooner in our live touring model than we would have otherwise been. And that added to the credibility of WCW, not only with the audience, but internally, the business-to-business side. Once those numbers started changing and the profit, you know, live touring became extremely profitable. It's hard to say that in 2024. AEW doesn't even do live tour. They can't make any money. WWE has scaled back I'm not watching their business closely

They've had to scale back On the number of events they were doing every year Because they're just not profitable Zane made them profitable And he did it because he knew his shit He had great contacts He was smart, he had great instincts And I'm missing to death

Let's mention some other honorable mentions I mean certainly No Bad Idea in a brainstorming session but in our very first class for the WCW Hall of Fame, we had these other names mentioned for behind-the-scenes nominees. David Crockett, Janie Engel, Jimmy Hart, Craig Leathers, all important players. I mean, the sounds of WCW were certainly shaped by Jimmy Hart,

and he did so much more than just the music. And he produced WCW Saturday Night for a stretch, and obviously was an average. for talent and maybe a liaison for the office and an incredible performer in front of the camera, but he also knew the business. I mean, you just couldn't have a better representative for your company. Janie Engel, man, what more can we say about her? I mean, she was your right hand for years and years, right?

As well as Dusty's. She was, Dusty relied heavily on Janie. And I saw that relationship. I saw what Janie did for Dusty. even when I was just a talent and, you know, watering plants at night, I watched the dynamic between Janie and Dusty. And when my opportunity came to look for an assistant or choose one, didn't take long.

She was amazing. Just an amazing person. Loyal, trustworthy, incredible integrity to this day. I mean, we saw her on the Who Killed WCW series. I think that's the first time we've seen her on camera talking about WCW because she's so private. And she knows where everybody is buried. She knows what they were wearing when they buried them. And you'll never get it out of her.

She's just, she's an amazing person. What about Craig Leathers, a name that most of us have heard, but maybe we didn't understand exactly what all they did behind the scenes. What do you think Craig Leathers falls into this? conversation about hall of fame members behind the scenes for wcd i think that might be a stretch for craig Craig was vital and there's a lot of people who are vital just because they may not in my opinion that's all this is a subjective opinion but Craig was incredibly valuable and made massive made great contributions but i think the the thing that

mattered the most to me was that once I made Craig the director of Nitro he he had a fresh

perspective he didn't come at it like everybody else that had been doing it previously who were really following the traditional professional wrestling television production model and because Nitro in my mind had to be different than in every way possible,

finding a director who had a fresh take and also wanted to be different than was exactly what Nitro needed. I think if I would have put, and look, it was a toss-up. It was either going to be Craig Leathers or Keith Mitchell. Those are the two candidates that I was looking at. But I ultimately went, I went with Craig for two reasons. One is because I relied so heavily on Keith Mitchell when it came to logistics, production logistics. Keith was amazing.

And I didn't want to sacrifice the contributions that Keith made, which were critical to WCW success as a television property. I didn't want to sacrifice those qualities when I had somebody like Craig who was, I hate the term outside of the box, but thought differently and had a fresh take and was excited to try new things. And that's why I went with Craig. Craig would, when I would talk about ideas with Craig and some of my ideas were really good and some of them were really stupid, again, Craig would be honest. he would listen he would be polite but then he would be honest and I respected that number one

but also you could throw an idea out that was maybe half bait or maybe there's a nugget of a good idea there and then Craig would jump on it and figure out a way to make it instead of a four attempt and that's why I went with Craig but it was close he was great but Hall of Fameworthy did he change anything did he have a did he do anything that was different than had ever been done before? No, I can't say that. I can't put them on the same level as a Dusty Rose, for example, or Rick Flair or certainly not a Ted Turner.

But doesn't mean he wasn't incredibly vital. Eric, you know, there is an elephant in the room. If we're going to talk about folks behind the scenes who belong in a WCW Hall of Fame, we've mentioned a lot of really worthy people, Rick Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Ted Turner, Kevin Sullivan, Zane Bresloff, Janie Engel. I mean, on and on. But I think most people listening to this would say,

hey, if there was a WCW Hall of Fame, Eric Bischoff's got to go in. But since you and I are doing this, I mean, where are you at? Is this uncomfortable for you, for us to? I mean, it's, yeah, it's self-serving. It's awkward. Believe it or not, I don't like putting myself over.

I know you don't, which is why I didn't even list you as a nominee, but I think everyone listening to this is like, wait, why is Eric not in that spot? But to be clear, we're not doing that because Eric, well, feels like maybe it's mental masturbation, you know, so we won't do that. And I appreciate that because I have more fun talking about other people. Right.

I would much rather talk about the contributions and unique assets that other people are than, oh, look what I did. You know, people know what I did. They can either love it or hate it, have an opinion. I don't give a fuck. But it's more fun. to talk about other people that have contributed and put them over. So to be clear, Eric, we're going to put a poll up.

As you're listening to this, you can cruise on over to 83weeks.com, and we will have a poll up with four nominees, and we want you to vote at 83 weeks.com and tell us who you believe should be the first entrant into the WCW Hall of Fame that we're creating here for behind the scenes. My nominees, Eric, in no particular order, my four, would be Kevin Sullivan, Ted Turner, Dusty Rhodes, and Zane Bresloff. Who would your four be? Absolutely, Ted, followed by Rick. Can I respond on that just a little bit?

Yeah. Because I didn't say this about Rick. When I got to WCW when I was first hired in 91, I've told this story before. My first day on the job officially was a Monday or a Tuesday in Anderson, South Carolina. I rode there with Dusty and Janie. I got to the building. Nobody knew me. Maybe a handful of people.

Larry's a biscuit because he worked with me in AWA. A few people recognized because of the work I'd done on ESPN for Bergeny. But, and I walked backstage, fish out of water, and I didn't really know a lot about Rick Flair, because I hadn't watched Rick Flair. I didn't watch the NWA. You could find it in Minneapolis, but you had to be really committed. So I only knew AWA, and I heard the name Rick Flair. Obviously, he was a big star. Long story short, I go backstage, and I see Rick, and he's stretching out.

He's getting ready for a match. very polite, I introduced myself, he was very courteous, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he was gone. That was like his last shot, I think, in WCW, and he was off to New York, WWE. While he was gone, again, I'm a fly on the wall. Nobody's threatened by me. Nobody's concerned of what I might or might not hear. I'm literally like a freaking potted plant in a room.

and because of that you hear a lot and the loss of Rick Flair to WWE was pretty powerful within WCW and Turner. A lot of people within Turner Broadcasting who weren't necessarily part of WCW even came out and talked about what a mistake it was to lose Rick Flair, particularly the way it happened because it was kind of a

shitty deal with the way it happened. Well, for WCW anyway, it was great for WVE. And then fast forward, now it's time for Rick Flair to come back. I was already in an executive position at that point. I was executive producer. So I'm listening to different conversations. I'm going from locker room conversations to mid-level top management conversations. And I will say this again, and this is just a speculation on my part.

I'm not sure how committed everybody would have been to WCW without. getting Rick Flair back at that point in time. Everybody that I talked to, whether it was in a locker room or mid-level upper management, felt like Rick Flair is an absolute necessity if we're going to keep this thing alive. So if you're an individual and people believe if it weren't for you, this company might not survive, yeah, you're not Ted Turner, but I'm going to put him in at number two. Just because of that critical juncture, Rick coming back to WCW was a major, major shot in the arm.

So I'm putting in number two. Who's still on a list? I had Kevin Sullivan and Dusty Rhodes rounding out mine. Other honorable mentions might be Zane Bresloff, David Crockett, Janie Engel, Jimmy Hart. But don't give you too many. I'll never remember all those. So we're back to

so Dusty or Kevin. I'm going to put Kevin in there ahead of Dusty. And that's a tough one for me. Well, we're not going in order, Eric. We need four nominees. So All right. So Kevin, Sullivan, Dusty Rose. There's your four.

Okay. To be clear, we're doing a whole class. I did not, because I know people are going to ask, I did not include Rick Flair, my behind the scenes because he's going to be my singles guy. So we're doing a whole class. We've got the whole nominee list for you guys to vote for. As soon as we finish recording here,

it'll be live at 83 weeks.com. And you and I need to sort of get straight on who those nominees are. We need to decide, do we want to let Rick Flair perhaps go in twice or would you rather pivot away? No, no, no, no. Let's see. Okay, I got distracted with my own bullshit. Let's go behind the scenes.

I would leave Rick Flair off of that. Okay, so here's our four nominees behind the scenes. We'll have this live at 83 weeks.com and I know Silva's going to make sure that polls up working with Derek Sabato and the rest of our team. Kevin Sullivan is on the list. Ted Turner is on the list. Dusty Rhodes is on the list. That fourth spot, I think, is the last question mark. Are you and I aligned?

Zane Bresloff should be on that list, or would you prefer Janie Engel or someone else? No, I'm going to go with Zane. Again, for the same reason I talked about so much is he was such a great sounding board for me that he guided a lot of my thought process. So I'm going to throw him in there. Well, I'm excited. I want you guys to go vote right now at 83weeks.com.

And I'm excited that as you and I are recording, Eric, we're 24 hours away from college football being back. Alabama is going to take the field. And for the first time in more than 15 years, Nick Saban is not the head coach at Alabama. But he is the first guest on the Triple Option podcast. Each week, three-time national championship coach, Urban Meyer, Heisman Trophy winner, my boy, Mark Ingram, and the former WWE 24-7 champion. Rob Stone and not really that Rob Stone. They're going to bring together the biggest guess at college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game.

They're going to cover it all, the top stories, recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it and everything in between. Urban Meyer is going to bring his championship pedigree perspective as a head coach. Ingram, of course, is going to be talking about, well, he brings the perspective of one of the best college football players of all time. He won the doggone Heisman and national championships at Alabama, Roll Tide. And, of course, Rob provides thoughts from covering the game for two decades. I'm a big believer in this show.

I can't wait for you guys to check it out. Urban Meyerman. He's never shy on sharing his opinion. I absolutely hated that dude at Florida and Ohio State. And I can't believe Mark Ingraham's going to be in the same room with him. It's going to be a great conversation. And how do you beat Nick Sabin as a first guess? He's more than just a talking head on ESPN.

They're dedicating the field in Tuscaloosa to that man next week. Sadly, as we're recording this, I think his mom just passed away. But Nick Saban, come on. Catch Nick Saban right now. And by the way, they've also got the Oregon head coach Dan Lanning. You can enjoy all of that. And even he breaks down the school's relationship with Nike. You're a business guy like Eric.

That's going to get you excited. Go right now. What are they going to have you on that show? All right. you should be on that show. I should have been in Rob Stone's spot. I don't know how that nothing happened and son of a plumber got that gig. Get into the game today, follow and subscribe to the triple option.

It's available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can even watch the triple option over on YouTube. New episodes drop Wednesday morning. I know the folks who are putting this show together. I'm big fans of what they do. I think you're going to love this. The dynamic of having, you know, a Heisman player and a championship coach. and they were once rivals.

This is going to be great. Check it out. The triple option available anywhere you enjoy podcasts or just watch it with us here on YouTube. Let's talk about tag teams next, Eric. We've covered behind the scenes. We've got our four nominees, Zane Bresloff, Dusty Rhodes, Ted Turner, and Kevin Sullivan. But as far as tag teams go, boy, there was a lot of great ones suggested. And I know for me, right at the top of the list, the Steiner brothers.

When I was a kid, man, they were. WCW tag teams. As a little kid, them facing Sting and Lex Lugar at that early Super Brawl, I think it was Super Brawl 2, was just a fantasy booking, like four of my favorite wrestlers against each other. And we knew even back then, hey, these guys are friends in real life. I don't think there are many teams that are more synonymous with WCW than the Steiner's. What say you? A hundred percent. Not even a conversation, a debate. There's Absolutely. There, there is, they were as well branded in WCW as the three letters, WCW.

This is a tough one too, because like Greg said over on social, more than anyone, the Steiners were the team that bridged the gap from the pre-Hogan NWA WCW to the NWO and Monday Night War era. Arlem Heat were there too, but they never felt like they carried the superstar aura until Booker T broke out much later. But the Steiner's were an event every single time they went out there As a kid I used to watch The Monday Night Wars with my buddy Brian He was an African-American fellow And I would say

Man, the Steiner's are my favorite tag team His was the Harlem Heat And he even said, hey man Harlem Heat's like the Steiner's For Black Boys And I thought, I never really considered that But two brothers In a tag team kick an ass

my Steiner's were his Harlem Heat Harlem Heat comes in number two the most decorated tag team in WCW history if we're going to make a list of four nominees it'd be impossible to not name Harlem Heat they won the tag titles more than anybody I don't think it can be debated they have to be on the ballot wouldn't you agree

thousand percent there's just nothing to talk about the only thing to talk about is which of those two teams had the most significant impact on WCW, and I think because Steiner's got there first and were so consistent that they get the nod in that respect, in my opinion. But in terms of quality, in terms of evolving, as the fan pointed out, you know, they evolved with the product.

They came in under Bill Watts in a pretty sketchy way. But they evolved with the product in the Times and contributed. so much absolutely probably me thousand percent you want to talk about an impact what an impact the road warriors made i mean to this day the response if you get a big response from the crowd even in 2024 i've heard people use the term road warrior pop one of the first mega main event attractions as a tag team certainly of the more modern era they were box office everywhere they went, whether it was Minnesota, it was New York, it was Atlanta, it was Japan. The Road Warriors, man, what an incredible run they had.

I think they got to be on the list because of all that they meant to not just World Championship Wrestling, but maybe even more specifically, Jim Crockett Promotions. I think the challenge will be, did they have the consistency and the longevity of the Steiner's or Harlem Heat? Regardless, I see how they're on the list. Let's say you. Road Warriors are worthy of being on the nominee list, right? Yeah, a couple of Minnesota guys. Yeah.

We had mutual friends. I wasn't friends with them when I was growing up in Minnesota, but I had friends who were friends of theirs. We had a lot of mutual friends. They were just from a little, they were from Robinsdale. Basically, I was in a community called Metatakis, so we were different regions, different high schools. I never got to know them directly, but certainly heard a lot about them. And here's what I remember. here's the impression that I'm left with, the strongest impression.

When I was working for Virgania, about 1988 or 1989, myself when a guy by the name of Joe Chupac, Joe was the, I actually did his podcast a while back. It was really fun. I haven't talked to him in decades. But Joe was our Kevin Dunn in the AWA. He did everything. But he was a one-man band.

He didn't have a big staff. He had a control room that, you know, You could probably fit in my bathroom at this point. But to me, it was like massive, you know, so interesting. And I used to sit with Joe. He was younger than me, but I would sit at night when I was done doing my syndication bullshit. I would sit with Joe at night and watch him post-produced shows because I was fascinated

with that and learning the process. And during the course, we'd be hanging out with him, watching him work and learning, trying to learn. We got in, we got in, by the way, this room also had. stacks and stacks and stacks of old one-inch tapes back when television networks stations would use literally big reels of one-inch tape to air their programs. Now it's all done digitally. So we're in this room, and I see all these stacks of old shit there, and I start looking through them. And a lot of it went back to, you know, late 70s, mid-70s, early 80s.

And when I said, Joe, let's take a look at some of these. So we threaded them up and we're looking at them. And I'm looking at the World Wars. And the idea came to us. I don't know if it was his or mine. It doesn't matter. But the idea came to both of us that, hey,

and Vernon was struggling. He needed a financial shot in the arm. So he said, hey, what have we come up with the AWA best of the 80s tape? And highly, because by this time, when I was there in 1988 or 1989, whatever the year was, all of, you know, Road Warriors, Hogan, Gene Oakland, everybody that was a big star in the AWA, we're now in WWE. And, but we had all this tape. So we came up with this idea to do the AWA best of the 80s.

Well, in the process of looking for great content, now I was a fan of the Road Warriors. I knew of them, obviously, having lived in Minnesota, mutual friends and all that shit. but wasn't really that familiar with all their work so over the course of whatever it was weeks or months we're going through the post-production process which is pretty laborious and I'm looking at all kinds of road warrior footage and one of the things I noticed

and this was like the first time my brain started thinking about wrestling as something more than as a fan and I'm looking for the elements I'm looking for what makes things work and all that I'm watching the road warriors who were positioned as heels, but were getting massive baby face pops, which was very contradictory to the way Vern approached things. But the road, even though Vern wanted them to be heels, the audience didn't. And eventually the road warriors won. And they became baby faces.

But they did it in a very heelish way. You know, we talk about the NWO as an example. There's others, obviously, but how characters can be kind of heels but positioned as baby faces. Road Warriors did that shit first, man. They were positioned as heels and the audience loved them. And for that reason alone, their contribution not just to WCW, but really to professional wrestling in general makes them absolutely worthy. The Hollywood Blunds were also nominated. I think everybody agrees.

Steve Austin and Brian Filman were an incredible tag team. I would really struggle putting them on a ballot here for the best tag team, though. The idea that they would win over a Road Warriors or a Harlem Heat or a Steiner's makes it tough for me. And so does Sting and Lex Lugar. Like I could see both of those guys as single stars, but as a tag team, I don't know that I could get behind it, but somebody I can definitely. definitely get behind is the outsiders. You talked about what an impact that other tag teams made.

I don't know that a tag team exists that made a bigger impact on professional wrestling, not just WCW, but just the entire movement that became the NWO started with the outsiders. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. We got a comment from Tim who says, The Outsiders for the first tag team inducted Harlem Heat is more accomplished in terms of titles, but the outsiders had the most impact on WCW and its legacy. So they need to be first. It's an interesting argument.

What's say you, Eric? Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. Again, the hard part of this stuff is because of emotion, our memories, our fondness for those memories and what they meant to us at that point in time. So from an emotional perspective, there's no wrong answer, depending on who's looking at it.

But from a purely business point of view, Hands down, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash. Absolutely. You can put their influence right up there with Hall Cogan's influence when it came to WCW becoming number one in the world, largely because of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, Hull Cogan as well. Here's why I feel so strongly about this choice. I had a good idea. The NWO idea was a good idea.

I didn't even know it was called the NDA. I didn't even have a name for it when I came up with it, really. I just had a general concept. And it kept to myself for a long time. But when Kevin and Scott came in, my pretty good idea turned into the NWO and what it ultimately ended up being. The influence they had on what NWO ultimately became absolutely cannot be understated.

They, it wouldn't, you know, I hate to say these things because it's like, yeah, but look, the Hogan turn put it over the top. But the vibe, the feel, the relationship of the NWO and what it represented, and the connectivity to the audience and the passion that it created, wouldn't happen without them. Crow Sting wouldn't have happened had it not been for Scott Hall. Never would have freaking happened. Nothing even close to it would have happened

because it was so far outside conventional thinking. And that's what made it work. And it wouldn't have happened without Scott. Kevin's influence. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Just Hulk Hogan, you know, he's been honest about this.

He leaned on Scott and Kevin to try to find that relevant vibe. It's a kind way of saying to get cool again. He relied heavily on them and was heavily influenced, and it worked, just like it worked for Sting. That's all Scott and Kevin. absolutely a lot of other honorable mentions especially when you go back to the jCP days you'd have to include incredible tag teams like arn and tully the rock and roll express or the midnight express but respectfully those names do feel more jCP and less wcw i think if i were hard pressed to come up with four nominees eric they might look like the steiner brothers the harlem heat the road warriors and the outsiders what do you think of those for being our nominees i'm with it I'm with it. So we've got two sets of nominees confirmed now.

Kevin Sullivan, Ted Turner, Dusty Rhodes, and Zane Bresloff behind the scenes. And as far as tag teams go, it's the Steiner Brothers, Harlem Heat, the Road Warriors, and the outsiders. We want you to go vote at 83 Weeks.com. And we're talking about tag teams. We've got to talk about getting a hot tag for your wiener. Blue Chew is another great sponsor that's been here from day one for us. They're in our Hall of Fame because they're a unique online service that delivers you the same active ingredients as Viagra, the Alice, and Lovietra, but at a fraction of the cost and in chewable form. And the process is simple, folks.

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The promo code is 83 weeks to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast. You buy a pair of socks, that's two socks. You buy a pair of Bomba socks. That's four socks. Because one purchased is one. donate it. Sox are the number one most requested clothing item in homeless shelters. So

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And I think when I say that, most people think immediately, well, it's Ray Mysterio. look at what he did that changed wrestling forever think about how many performers we see on a Monday night or a Wednesday night or a Friday night or a Saturday night who were influenced by Ray Mysterio I mean just at the top of the show we're talking about his son in one of the more heated matches of the entire weekend and he's still kicking ass on TV today talking about Ray Mysterio no doubt that Ray Mysterio is on a ballot for me he's a I mean, what a great nominee for influencer, right? 100%.

How, yeah, it's not even up for, I don't even know how you discuss it any further than just go, yep, because you're right. You see, I was in Phoenix not long ago on business and got hungry, went into a restaurant the south side of Phoenix, and I love, I love me some Mexican food. I walked into this restaurant and there was Ray Mysterio murals all over the inside of this restaurant. It was pretty cool. So, yeah, talk about an influencer, not only in terms of, you know, young talent, the style of wrestling that we're seeing today. Obviously, the Lucha style has been around for a long time before it got popular in WCW and then around the world.

As a result, I think of people like Ray Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero and all the Lucha. Doors and Conan and the influence that all of them had in the mid-90s, late 90s, has evolved into almost mainstream wrestling in the U.S. There's very few people that watch wrestling that aren't familiar now with Lucha because of Ray Mysterio and the people that worked with him in that division. But yeah, I think even outside, more, I think race had kind of like, the example in the restaurant, I think Ray's had a significant impact on the business of the wrestling business because he's Hispanic, because the Hispanic audience and Hispanic advertisers

and focus on the Hispanic culture and television audience was emerging and beginning to emerge right about the same time as we were putting Ray in prime time on the number one cable show every week, most of the time. in wrestling was I think Ray had an influence on the business of the wrestling business outside of what he delivered

in the ring. We got to talk about another influencer. Rick Flair, he's back on the list. I mean, it feels like these days he's everywhere. I mean, he's somehow more famous now than when he was an active

in-ring wrestler. Isn't that, I was thinking at the same thing the other day. It's like every time I look around, there's Rick Flair with another celebrity or promoting a new product or he's so high profile. I mean, it's incredible how Rick has maintained his relevance in connection to not only the wrestling audience, but probably more so outside of wrestling. No doubt outside of wrestling.

I mean, you hear woo's in sporting events. I mean, there is a minor league football team in Waterloo called the Waterloo Woo. It's based on Rick Flair. Here in Huntsville, whenever the trash pandas hit a home run, the entire crowd woos. They play the clip. Like, he's a part of rap songs. He's got an energy drink. He's got a cannabis line with Mike Tyson.

It just feels like whether it's LeBron James or, you know, the Colts in the huddle, like everywhere you look. I mean, even Rick Flair drip, I mean, the number of streams that song has, it's crazy. Rick Flair has to be in this conversation. Oh, 100%. And even to the extent, like, before the NWO and Nitro and all that, somehow or another, we wanted to put together a celebrity and Rick would say, oh, let me give my buddy Charles Barkley a call. Huh?

Now, isn't it, Barclay was really hot? It's like, wait a minute, you can call Charles Barkley? Yeah, here. Well, listen. He's just like he can reach out to anybody. Well, maybe not anybody. reach out to so many people that were so high profile and they would be excited to hear from Rick and, you know, Charles Barkley jumped on board and did some stuff with us. And to this day,

I saw Barclay, I don't, maybe two years ago, I was in New York in business and I walked into a restaurant and Charles was there with a couple people and, you know, come on over. I wouldn't never got a chance to meet Charles Barkley if it wouldn't have been for Rick. And that's just one example. Kevin Green, you know, so many people we were in. able to get access to because of their affection and respect for Rick Flair. How about Ron Simmons? You know, it's always, it puts you and I on a weird spot sometimes when we're on a public forum like this, talking about, you know, the African American culture and all that jazz.

But he is the first black heavyweight champion and representation is important. And this is an era where we weren't really talking like that. Like I don't remember in that era hearing people very often talk about how representation, is important. But boy, rather than just being a hell of a hand or just having good matches, he became the top dog in WCW and paved the way for performers like Booker T. And even today, swerf's trickland and all in between. An incredible performer, a trailblazer, he was the right guy at the right time.

I'm glad he had the opportunity to be the WCW world champion. He's certainly got to be on the list, right, Eric? 100% and the only thing you left out is what an amazingly class act he is yes he could have been the face when I say the face I mean he could have been the the hood ornament uh in WWE or WCW because he was incredibly classy he knew how to carry himself he knew how to talk to media he was engaging and he was so incredible impressively intimidating

but he didn't rely on that he's just to this day I see Ron out on the convention circuit autograph circuit a couple times a year what a class act and he brought all the credibility

of his collegiate success and notoriety and I think, you know, I bust Bill Watts balls quite a bit because he deserves it, probably more than I do. But the one thing I will tip my hat to is Bill Watts that made Ron Simmons heavyweight champion. It wasn't me. It wasn't Jim Hurd.

It wasn't Dusty. It was Bill Watts. And Bill deserves credit for that. Doesn't make up for the rest of the stupid shit he did, but he does deserve credit for that. And I think it was a great choice. I would have liked to have seen Ron go on to WWE and perhaps have just a more significant singles run as opposed to being part of a faction. Incredibly classy guy, an amazing athlete and a good person.

Such a blast to meet in real life. If you see Ron Simmons at an event in your area go out of your way to go meet him, you're going to know when you meet him that you're shaking the hand of a man. I'm talking about universally respected. You said, you know, quietly intimidating. Boy, he checks all those boxes. And Rick Flair tells such a great story. I mean, listen, it's out there. There's been a lot of books written about it.

Once upon a time, boy, the Steiner's were hard to handle. And when they decided they were going to fixate on somebody, that guy, well, he was going to have it rough for a little bit. And once upon a time, they set their sights on Butch Reed. And as Rick would say, boy, they were just being terrible to Butch, duct taping him to shit and all kinds of other funny, silly, wrestling ribs. And Ron casually asked, or Rick casually asked Ron one day, man, the Steiner's were giving butch a lot of shit. Why don't

they fuck with you? Ron, without hesitation, turned and looked at Rick and said, Rick, I'm unfuck withable. And I think Ron certainly deserves to be on this list of influencers. I mean, how many great African-American performers do we see

today who were inspired by what they saw Ron Simmons do in said, hey, I want to go do that. Shout out to Ron. Heck of a guy if you get a chance to meet him. One more thing about Ron. We kind of generally touched on it, but here's the guy who had more charisma and the little finger on his left hand than a lot of movie stars and television stars that were all

familiar with, do. He had, it was untapped, but he had so much charisma. could have been had he been interested in it and given a little bit of an opportunity it could have been on the silver screen he had the look and again that aura when he walked into a room he's a big guy so you're going to notice him right off the bat because he was so big just you know physically impressive but that wasn't the most impressive most impressive most impressive was just aura of respect and command when he walked into a room and he didn't even have to say anything it was kind of amazing really you know and speaking to that i will say i've been in a room before

where there was a lot of mixed company it wasn't just wrestling people and i was sitting with some non-restling fans and ron simmons came into the room and a lady i was sitting with lean forward said now who's that she didn't know who it was but she knew he was somebody and to me that's what charisma is where hey i don't know what they do they're a musician they're a football player. I don't know what they do. But that guy, that guy's something. That's Ron Simmons.

Hulk Hogan also makes the list as far as being influential. I don't think anybody can argue that. I don't think any explanation is needed. Booker T, sort of the same thing. We've got a great comment that says Booker T is the most generational influencer. He transcends several generations of wrestling fans and is still relative to younger generations today. Being an announcer for a WVNXT keeps him in an influential presence for generation. to come. Hard to argue.

I mean, tag wrestler, singles wrestler, podcaster, radio show host, broadcaster, whatever he is, influencer is a suitable name. Scott Hall, too. Here's a great comment that we saw. Scott Hall would have to come up here. Aside from the NWO

launch, his influence and popularizing the ladder match, coming up with the crow gimmick for Sting and countless other stories of him helping others with ideas definitely show his influence. His look and swagger inspired guys not just back then, but the bullet club and so many more as well. I'm not sure he's the most influential, but he's definitely left the legacy that impacted those

he followed. And lastly, but certainly not least, maybe one of the more underrated picks when it comes to being a generational influencer, Diamond Dallas Page. I mean, you talk about not just what he did in the ring and proving all the critics wrong, going from being a manager who was taller than the wrestlers. That never happened, but he made it work. And then starting wrestling at such a late age. All the odds were against him.

But he succeeded in becoming the Battle Bowl winner, the U.S. champion, and then the world champion. But the real influence perhaps happened after his entering career was gone. I don't think enough can be said positively about the way Diamond Dallas Page has influenced the world. not just the wrestling world with helping people like Marcus Bagwell or Jake Roberts or Scott Hall, but helping non-wrestling fans with DDPY, man, what an influencer Diamond Dallas Page is. He's got to be a shoe-in to be on the short list of nominees. What say you, Eric?

You know, we've often talked about Diamond Dallas Page, my relationship, and how I was harder on him because of our relationship than something. Sometimes I was on others. I expected more, kind of like my kids, you know. You're just a little harder on them in some respects because you expect more and you love them more. I definitely would give a tip of the hat to Diamond Dells' page in terms of what he's done post-wrestling career, maybe more so than anybody else. but in terms of the impact that he had on WCW as an influencer, I'm not sure I'd put him on that list.

So who would be your four nominees for generational influencer, Eric? We know Ray Mysterio's on the list. Right. Ron Simmons, definitely. And we know Rick Flair. So who gets that fourth spot? If not, DDP, is it Hulk Hogan? Is it Booker T?

Is it Scott Hall? Is it someone else? I'm going to go with Booker. Okay. So I'm going to go with Booker. A generational influencers are Booker T, Ron Simmons, Rick Flair, and Ray Mysterio. Let's talk about groups and factions.

Boy, there's a lot of them here. One that actually got a little bit of play online. Nominated more than I expected. And I know you're probably not going to love it. But how about old Bam Bam? He wrote in Raven's flock. Raven had the talent to be one of the top guys with so many egos, running WCW in the office in a rush

to beat the WWF. I feel Raven and his crew didn't get the chance they deserved. Of course, the flock, I guess would be defined by Raven himself and Perry Saturn, Lodi, Van Hammer, Kidman, and Moore. Also on the list, of course, we can't talk about

factions and not talk about the dangerous alliance. You know, Paul Heyman was maybe ahead of his time with this collection of talent. Stunning Steve Austin, Rick Rood, Medusa, Arne Anderson, Larry's Abiscoe, just an underrated group. If you're going to go old school, man, you've got to talk about the four horsemen.

They were running roughshod in 85 and 86, certainly through 87 and 88. And then when the transition to WCW happened, there were still horsemen. And one of the more famous moments in Nitro history is that horseman reunion where Rick Flair came back in South Carolina and you guys were going at it, Man, just no doubt they've got to be in the conversation. But I think everybody here, if there is a laydown in all of this discussion, the NWO is the shoe in for the faction here, right? I mean, everything else is just conversation, right? Yes, to be objective about it.

The NWO to this day is still one of the top 10 merchandise selling things that are available in the WWE catalog. like to this day, 25 or 30 years later. So how can you not? You can argue whether it was good for wrestling or bad for wrestling. You're bad, that, bad, blah, fucking blah. But if you're honest and clear-headed and you're looking at impact, not only as in terms of what happened in the ring and the quality of what we saw in the ring, but in terms of pop culture, there's nothing been even reasonably close until the blood,

bloodline. And even the bloodline, I will say that I think bloodline is a much better story, as I've said before. I think it's a much more discipline story. The architecture of the story is phenomenal. The things that have resulted and grown exponentially as a result of the bloodline story. I don't think in terms of story, there's really much to talk about when comparing NWO to to bloodline. Bloodline wins hands down. in terms of impact on the business, NWO hands down. You know, NWO hands down. No doubt. I mean, this is the one where I even wonder, hey, if we keep this going, in year four, what are we going to be talking about? The NWO's got to be first. I would argue the horseman would have to be second.

The Dangerous Alliance, probably third. Then it kind of falls off a cliff after that. But now we're going to be talking about, well, perhaps the toughest piece. of business, a single star for WCW. But before we do that, I want to remind you that, well, life doesn't happen bi-weekly, so why should payday? The money you earn can be in your hands today with Earn-In. Earn-in is an app that gives you access to your pay as you work, up to $100 a day or up to $750 per pay period. Just download the Earn-In app and verify your paycheck. Then access up to $100 a day as you work and even leave an optional tip. Any money you access,

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When you download Earn-In on the app, just type in 83 weeks under podcast when you sign up, and that will really help the show. Type 83 weeks under podcast. Earn-in is a financial technology company, not a bank, subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period, max on location. See Earnin.com slash T-O-S for details. Bank products are issued by Evolved Bank and Trust. FDIC, download the Earn-N app today. One more time, it's spelled E-A-R-N-I-N in the Google Play or Apple App Store, and be sure to write 83 weeks under podcast. The single star is where it's going to get tough, Eric. Let's recap where we are so far.

Behind the scenes, we've narrowed it down. It's going to be Kevin Sullivan, Ted Turner, Rick Flair, or Zane Bresloff. For tag teams, we know it's going to be the Steiner's, the Harlem Heat, the Road Warriors, or the outsiders. For a generational influencer, it's going to be Ray Mysterio, or Rick Flair, or Ron Simmons, or Booker T. The group or faction, I feel like, is a laydown, and we all kind of universally agree, it's the NWO. I don't know if we even can get close to settling on a four guys here as single stars, but let's just run through them. Who better than Sting?

Here's a great comment. Stig and 9798 gave me a then 10-year-old boy a hero that I, really needed at the time. His Starcade 97 entrance says it all, it still gives me goosebumps. When a man's heart is full of deceit, it burns up, dies, and a shadow falls over his soul. From the ashes of a once great man has risen a curse, a wrong that must be righted. We look to the skies for a vindicator, someone to strike fear into the black heart of the same man who created him. The battle between good and evil has begun. Against an army of shadows comes the dark warrior, the purveyor of good, with a voice of silence

and a mission of justice. This is Sting. My goodness. I mean, when you think about Crow Sting, that's just part of his career. There's also Surfer Sting. I mean, this guy was the star,

the top baby face for WCW. If the WWF and Vince McMahon had Hulk Hogan, well, Ted Turner and WCW had Sting as their franchise, he probably was the franchise of WCWCW. No one could argue that Sting deserves to be on a short list for our first ballot Hall of Famers, right? Consistency, commitment, quality.

Those are the three words that I would use to describe Sting. At a time when WCW, I mean, it was such an unstable company. I mean, the leadership of that company was like had an 18-month lifespan, two years at the most. There was constant turnover at the top, constant turnover of philosophies, incredible political dysfunction internally from probably the day that it became WCW up until probably the end. You know, political dysfunction was a big part of WCW, but through all of that sting remained at the top in so many ways. maybe not in a given moment after Hogan came in the attention went to Hogan obviously

but even then after we rode that wave and Hogan turns who's right there front and center for a long time sting. The fact that we were able to create a story where he didn't say a word

for over a year all he did was point that bat stings the guy I mean consistency quality commitment no argument for me sting's got to be on the list but i'll be honest this is where it starts to get tough for me eric because the next guy i want to talk about is rick flair but respectfully well we've done that all morning when we talked about behind the scenes we mentioned rick flair

when we talked about an influencer we talked about rick flair when we talked about a faction we talked about the horseman now here we are at a single star and rick flair's in the conversation again i mean ted turner was pretty clear you know he wanted Rick Flair into contract in order to buy this thing from the Crockett's. And he was the masthead for a long, long time for WCW. Not just in Jim Crockett promotions, but the transition. And even after he gets in a pissing match with Jim Hurd and leaves, when he comes back, man, he's setting the woods on fire.

Even when macho man comes in, how show business turns around because of that match. And the biggest match in WCW history at that point was his match against Hulk Hogan at Bash at the Beach 94. Like everywhere you look, man, the 16-time world champion, he's in the conversation. He's got to be on the list.

But, Eric, I'm struggling with if we're really going to stick to this thing and we're going to take pride in our first ballot Hall of Famers, I mean, do we want to put Rick in every category over and over and over the first year? Or is there a place besides as a single star that you think Rick deserves it more?

Is he more influential? Is he more behind the scenes? Is he more as a single star? Where do you think Rick belongs for the first iteration of our Hall of Fame class? Again, I have to go to what really forms most of my opinions on this type of thing is who had the most impact on the business of WCW's business. Not who had the best matches, not who won the best matches, not who won the. the most titles, who had the most impact on the business of the wrestling business in

WCW as a single star, not as an influence or anything else? And look, it's so close between Sting and Rick Flair, it's really hard to delineate one from the other in so many respects. So here's where I land. Rick Flair made Sting. Hmm. The rest of it's just personal opinion. I mean, that Rick Flair made Sting.

And Sting would agree with that. Sting would be the first to say that. So no argument there. But here's where it starts to get tricky. Because you yourself said, hey, who had the biggest impact on the business? And boy, we're going to get a lot of shit for this. Because it is a WCW Hall of Fame. But if we're really talking about the most impact on WCW's bottom line,

Hulk Hogan's got to be on the list. The man, the myth, the legend. when he decided to turn heel, that became the match that started the fire that created everything that followed for the Monday Night Wars. And I know that a month prior, as when Stone Cold said Austin 316, I got you. But I don't know that they would have leaned as far and went as far with the realism and more edgy content and programming and less cartoonish presentation. if we didn't have the black and white of the NWO

just slapping us in the face on the other channel. And without Hulk Hogan, how long does that outsider storyline last? Three months, six months, a year? I don't know that it would be a top selling t-shirt all these years later. It would have gotten tired of six months. Hulk Hogan has to be on the short list of nominees here. Although a lot of people consider him a WWF guy.

Boy, that second act. I mean, the NWO, the two sweet, the air guitar with the belt. What else can you say? Hulk Hogan's got to be considered, wouldn't you agree? I mean, I understand why people would argue it because of their emotional attachment to other things and other times and memories and relationships and all that shit. But again, if you're being objective, you're looking about the business of the wrestling business. Look, there would be no bullet, there would be so many things that you wouldn't be seeing today

had it not been for the NWO and the NWO wouldn't have been what it was without Hulk Hogan turning heel. They're all interconnected. So 100% agree with that. And I know it's controversial because again, you know, he spent the majority of his career in WWE. But the impact that he had as a single's performer and specifically his turn because again, as much as, you know, I love Hulk, he's one of my closest friends, but truth is the truth. Facts are facts. Had he not turned heel, I think the legacy of Hulk Hogan as it relates to wrestling would have been much different. But that heel turn made all the difference in the world. And anybody, I don't care if you're a dirt sheet gossip columnist, columnist like Dave Meltzer,

or you're just trying to track the business, anybody that doesn't recognize that without the NW. and everything that Nitro was doing to make it feel more believable and real, there would never have been an attitude era. And had there not been an attitude error? Because the attitude error was nothing but a reaction to the fact that we were kicking WWE's ass while they were doing the teen and preteen presentation. Vince was forced to, as they were pulling the water coolers out of Titan towers

or out of the offices because they couldn't have. afford to service them anymore. That's how bad it was. And that from people, by the way, who were, whoa, are you there? Yeah. Okay, because I just lost you visually, but that's okay. Had it not been for Hulk Hogan's turn, there wouldn't have been an attitude era. There wouldn't be a publicly held WWE, in my opinion.

There wouldn't be a TKO in my opinion. There wouldn't be a lot of the things that we're seeing now. and all of it can be traced back to Hulk Hogan, turning heel. Got to be on the list. Hulk Hogan as a single star. Some other names that were mentioned, DDP.

I mean, he's going to go from the power plant to becoming world champ. Vader, he was a big, mean, nasty monster in a time that WCW desperately needed that.

And Goldberg, my gosh, when you take a look at just all that he accomplished when the business was at its absolute peak in 1998. I mean, to this day, the high watermark is that Georgia Dome show. That's the crowning of Goldberg.

It was a phenomenon. He was our Mike Tyson in WCW. I think if I had to pick four for a single star, Eric, as tough as it would be to drill it all down, I'd go Sting, Rick Flair, Paul Cogan, and Goldberg. How do you like those four nominees? Or is there another name that jumps out to you? I'm having a little bit of a difficult time with Goldberg just because, I mean, obviously phenomenal grow, explode on the scene.

But Goldberg became Goldberg because of everybody else, because WCW was, Nitro was hotter than anybody else. Nitro was the number one show in the world. There was so much great talent around Bill that allowed Bill to become the star he became. if Bill Goldberg would have come into the into WCW two or three years sooner he wouldn't have lasted he came in at a perfect time with a perfect cast of characters around him to make him a superstar so I'm having a hard time with Bill I'd like to think of somebody else for that fourth for that fourth role and I don't know who it is off the top of my head so my default I'll give it to Bill Bill I know you'll be pissed if you hear about this but it is what it's is. I don't think Bill deserves that knock. I really don't. Well, I don't think he's going to win, so I don't think it really matters. Let's run through who I'm going to be voting for, and I want you to give us your answer as well. When it comes to behind the scenes, and by the way,

we want your vote right now. We're not going to decide this. You guys are. We're running a poll at 83 weeks.com. We're going to have all the nominees up. If you haven't figured it out yet, 83 weeks.com is the official home of all things, Eric Bischoff. Hit that subscribe button, hit the like button turn on the notifications bell you don't want to miss us the next time we're live but the poll should we tell them about the secret the the big surprise coming up that we're going to do on 83 now we'll save it to the end we're going to get there at the end first let's run through who i'm voting for and and i want to hear who you're voting for behind the scenes with kevin sullivan ted turner rick flair i'm sorry not rick flair dusty rose and zane brezloff

so behind the scenes kevin sevin ted turner dusty roads and zane brezloff I love all these guys. I get it. But for me, behind the scenes, my vote's going for Dusty Roads. Who were you voting for? Ted. There would have been no scenes had it not been for Ted to be behind. I can't argue with that.

So we got one vote for Ted Turner. We got one vote for Dusty Roads. We want to hear from you who you would vote for. You know what? We don't normally do this. But let's break the fourth wall. Silva, you don't have to get on camera if you don't want to, but pipe in with your voice.

Who would your voice vote for? Would it be Ted Turner? Would it be Dusty Roads? Would it be Zane Bresloff? Would it be Kevin Sullivan? Mr. Dave Silvar, producer, the third man here on the show. Who's your vote for?

I vote for Dusty Roads. Yeah. All right. Has to go with Dusty. We've got two votes for Dusty. One for Ted Turner. You cast your vote right now at 83 weeks.com. Now let's talk about tag teams.

We've decided that the Steiner Brothers are on the list, the Harlem Heats on the list, the road warriors and the outsiders are on the list. I, for one, man, I'm a homer. I'm going with the Steiner's. I know they had that one year little experiment with the WWF, but it feels like they were almost day one for WCW all the way to the end. I'm a big fan of them growing up.

I understand it's a Homer vote, but for me, it's the Steiner's. Who are you voting for, Eric? The Steiner's, Harlem Heat, the Road Warriors, or the outsiders? Outsiders. Business of the business, baby. That's all that matters to me. I had a feeling you were going to go that way. Silva, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Who will you be casting your vote for in our tag team category? I have to agree with Eric. It has to be the outsiders. Well, I'm going to get them in with the NWO. That's my thinking on not doing it there. But I understand and appreciate what you guys did. Let's talk about generational influencer. Diamond Dallas Page was not on Eric's list.

He would have been on my list. But Ray Mysterio, Rick Flair, Ron Simmons, and Booker T. I don't think there's a wrong answer here. here, but I do think that influencer, I'm probably going to go with Rick Flair, just because the impact he's had on pop culture is far beyond the impact that he's had just on wrestling. And still today, there will be an independent show tonight on August 30th, 2024, where one guy will chop another guy and in some random National Guard armory, the whole crowd in unison will go, woo, this is a guy who's so famous.

that there is a noise associated with him. I saw this happen at Joe Rogan's show. He did a show in Nashville many years ago at the Grand Ole Opry. I couldn't believe it. And as he's standing on stage there, I'm sorry, it's the Ryman. He was at the Ryman.

And as he's standing on stage at the Ryman, he said, it's like Rick Flair. And he holds the microphone out and the entire crowd goes woo. And he says, see, we didn't plan that. How crazy is it? This guy's so famous and so popular. There's a sound associate.

with him. Rick Flair gets my vote for generational influencer. Easy E, what about you? Ditto. I think it's unanimous. Dave Silva has Rick Flair underwear on. It's 100% Rick. And that was hard for Silva because there's at least a little bit of him

that is Hispanic and you would think that that would mean Ray Mysterio. But nope, Rick's unanimous. We want to hear from you though. Ray Mysterio, Rick Flair, Ron Simmons, Booker T, who is your generational influencer? Cast your vote right now at 83 weeks.com. The next category is probably a gimmy.

Maybe we'll eventually get into a Celebrity Hall of Fame after we run through these. But Eric, I think you and I are pretty clear. We're voting for the NWO in groups or factions. Silva, are you going to argue for anybody else? Are you aligned with us? It's the NWO. It's hard to agree with you guys with the NW because you know how much I love the horseman.

I'm looking at a poster of them right now. But yeah, it has to be the NWO. NWO, no-brainer. And now this is where it's going to get tricky. To be clear, Eric, so far you've cast your vote for Ted Turner behind the scenes. You've cast your vote for the outsiders as a tag team. You've cast your vote for Rick Flair as an influencer. You've cast your vote for the NWO as a group or faction.

But as a single star, well, we've got to hit the reset button. Sting, Rick Flair, Hulk Hogan, Goldberg. Who you're casting your vote for, Eric? I'm going to depart from my typical business of the business approach because I'm so impressed that I have so much respect for the commitment, the integrity, the consistency of Sting, and the fact that he was one of the reasons that WCW was able to sustain itself through the most miserable of times. And again, you know, you can't talk about Sting without talking about Rick Flair. That's what makes this so hard. But I'm going to go with Sting because the qualities that Sting brought to the company, to the perception of the company, to the industry in general,

because of his commitment and his consistency and his integrity, I'm going to Sting. No argument for me. You know, it would have been easy to say Rick Flair. As you said earlier, Rick Flair made Sting. It would be easier to go to Holcogne because we know that, well, Well, business was abomin with him. It would also be easy to vote for Goldberg because, I mean, that dude made a career off of, what, 12 months on top at best. But we should, you know, go ahead and cast those votes and throw it out there.

I agree with you. It's got to be Sting. He was the franchise. He never left. He was there the entire time from Crow Sting all the way back to Surfer Sting. We saw that character develop and grow all through Deng. WCW, there was no jumping ship, and we never really did it as a heel, pretty much consistently the entire way through as a baby face.

He was our hero. If you grew up watching WCW, Sting was your guy. Silva, who are you voting for, Sting, Rick Flair, Hulk Hogan, or Goldberg? It's really no debate. It has to be Sting. My God, last weekend, he shows up in Wembley and the world goes wild. And, yeah, it has to be sting. So we've cast our vote.

We want to hear from you. You've got a decision to make it, 83 weeks.com. And to be clear, we'll never, ever again have something like this where it's a first ballot Hall of Famer from the inaugural class. To recap, everybody on our show is aligned, Sting should be the single star. The NWO should be the faction. Rick Flair should be the generational influencer. And that's where we start the debate.

Will it be the Steiners, Harlem Heat, the road warriors or the outsiders on the the tag teams will it be someone different behind the scenes i think dusty roads silva agrees with me and eric reminds us hey this was all because of ted ted's got to be the guy behind the scenes who's your guy cast your vote right now at 83 weeks dot com don't forget to hit that subscribe button turn on the notifications bell and don't miss us tomorrow as you're listening to this right after bash at berlin go straight to 83 weeks dot com eric and i will be live. We'll be taking your questions, as silly as they may be at times. I mean, they asked Eric a few weeks ago if he ever shoot his pants full of doo-doo. And I asked it to him because by

God, that's what you wanted. So we're short order cooks. If that's what you're looking for at 83 weeks.com, we're going to make it happen. Come on now. We're not going to ask all the silliness. But it did make me laugh because the phrasing of that was just L.O.L. Something that we weren't really laughing about, though, that we're all kind of scratching her head about, is this real? I just assumed when we hadn't heard about it for so long after he had his controversies a couple of summers ago that the whole Netflix Vince McMahon project had been shelved forever and then I felt confident when everything came out in January where it looked like Vince has definitely severed all ties with the WWE

and the WWE is taking their programming to Netflix it felt like well, that stuff will never see the light of day. I think once upon a time I was under the impression it was going to be 10 episodes. There is a report out right now that says there's actually going to be six episodes, but we are less than a month away from that being released.

It's a brand new docu-series on Netflix. They're going to be six episodes. They're one hour long. And I don't think we should just watch this from the sidelines, Eric. I think you and I should jump. on live and do a recap at 83 weeks.com

following each and every episode the mastermind the madman, the Netflix documentary series on Mr. McMahon. I'm pumped for this. I might be looking forward to this more than anything else in wrestling right now, Eric. What say you?

Pretty incredible, right? I remember when this project, this is an older project. This has been around for a while now. And Vince was I have a friend of mine who is a writer in Hollywood he wrote Joker the most recent one and he also wrote Joker 2 which is coming out I think in November and we were just talking last night actually Scott's very very tuned in to everything that's going on at some of the highest levels in Hollywood in terms of things that are being developed and people that are

developing them. And we were talking about this and how shocked we both are. Now, what I've heard some stories through through my friend, Scott, where, because he knows a lot of these people. He knows other producers. He knows other writers. He's familiar with it. It's a small circle of people at that level. And evidently, there were a couple people that Vince was interviewing to tell his story. This was Vince's idea originally. And some of the stories that I've heard that Vince would tell the writers that he wanted included in this documentary that was being discussed several years ago now, were off the charts. Like, why would you, why would you volunteer that kind of information?

Personal family stuff. Perse, like, questionable personal family stuff. but Vince was like, no, put it all out there, pal. Put it all out there. And these writers were actually uncomfortable. Yes. Now, usually it's the other way around.

Usually it's the writers and the producers that want to get inside your head and what were you thinking at this point? I mean, they want you to spill your freaking guts because the more guts you spill, the more movie they can make, documentary they can make. And these writers and producers were actually shocked that Vince even wanted to have that conversation.

So it'll be interesting to see how far, it'll be interesting to see what's still left on screen. Because as you know, in the editing process, you can shape a project, you can shape a message, you can shape the perception of a person in a documentary. That's why people do them most of the time, or many times. but in this case it's going to be really interesting because Netflix has WWE if they spent $5 billion for it so how far is Netflix going to go to allow certain things to be covered in and associated with because while w wince is gone now from

wwe he's not a part of the team he's way outside the box does Netflix feel comfortable enough now that everybody understands that the WWE today is not the WWE of Vince McMahon? Maybe. I do know, I do believe, I've been led to believe, I should say,

by people that I have confidence in that WWE had no creative control over this. Even in the very beginning, Vince had no creative control. Most good documentary people will not give up creative control. Most good producers don't give up creative control unscripted. But it'll be really interesting and it'll be fascinating to see how Vince is going to be portrayed in this and how WWE is portrayed in this. And I think we should at the end of every episode, I don't care if they drop all six at once. Let's review each episode.

On it all individually. Dump them all that. Let's review. each one and six days in a row, let's cover this, or six weeks in a row, whatever the case. That's what's going to happen. To be clear, Eric and I will be live, and we don't know exactly what time of day this will be posted or anything like that. So just go ahead and get ahead of this and go hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. If they post all six the very first day, well, that night we're going to be live and we'll go live for the following five nights. We're going to cover all six episodes, one episode at a time. We're not going to binge six and then try to recap it. We're going to break them down individually.

And then maybe at the end, we'll bring some other folks on and discuss it. But some new details that have come out are, WWE doesn't even have a production credit in this. I know there's been a version of this floating around for a while. I wouldn't say floating. But I do know that they've had a version of this prepared for a while. and the word I hear is it is not favorable or flattering

to Vince McMahon in the least. So I don't think, I think this will be the most talked about thing that's happened in wrestling in the entire year of 2024. I don't know another way to say that because they're pulling from over 200 hours of interviews with Vince and his family

and other people who work in the wrestling business and of course all the talking heads. But the folks who put together tight King, Chris Smith, he's involved, as well as Bill Simmons, who we've all seen his work from 30 for 30. This is going to be the talk of the wrestling industry. And I do wonder, you know, how, if anything, WW will continue to separate themselves from Vince.

I mean, we know at this point he is on the outside looking in, but you got to assume for this to be on the Netflix platform, they're not necessarily going to be going after WWE as much as they are Vince. I don't know what has changed or if anything changed at all, but I'm fascinated by this. I can't wait to see it. We're going to have six hours of Vince McMahon's story.

And before it even airs, I wonder, do you think Vince will work on some sort of a response? I mean, he's got obviously all the resources in the world if he wanted to put out his own documentary to sort of counteract or counterbalance some of the things that are said. And we've seen that happen in recent years.

where a documentary comes out or a story comes out. And then the subject says, well, here's the rest of that story. Here's things from my perspective. Do you think Vince will try to control the narrative? I mean, we know that's what he did in WWE, but it obviously doesn't have any influence over what's posted here and what Netflix is doing and what they're posting.

It doesn't have any editorial control, creative controls, the term we would use in wrestling. Do you think we'll see Vince formulate a response, Harry? I can't imagine. he would under the circumstances and if he does it'll be quite some time before he does. Keep in mind he's still under investigation

by the federal government, SEC Securities and Exchange Commission related to the current lawsuit in issue with Janelle Grant. For that reason alone I think he's going to have to keep his mouth shut

under advice of attorneys. I don't see that playing itself out for the next six months or a year, maybe longer. So if he does have a response, it's going to be quite some time before we hear it. And again, going back to the beginning of this project, it was Vince's idea. It was Vince's idea to talk about all the things that we're going to see in this documentary. I don't think we're going to hear from Vince. I really don't. It's not a matter of money. It's a matter of survival. And I don't think Vince wants to go to jail. I don't think he wants, I think he wants this chapter of his life behind him. And he's right in the middle

of it. And his SEC, you know, investigation is, is ongoing currently. What's he going to say? That doesn't put him at risk. What's he going to, what's he going to say? I don't imagine it. But I, it's fuck. It's Vince McMahon. Who knows? Who knows? There's always that. Well, here's what we know. We want you to go vote on our first class for the WCW Hall of Fame right now at 83 weeks.com.

Hit the subscribe button, turn on your notifications bell. We're going to be going live tomorrow for Bash in Berlin. Think about this, folks. If you go right now, you can vote in the polls. And if you turn on the notifications bell, you'll get the heads up that we're live tomorrow reacting to the huge success that they're going to have in Berlin for the WWE show. and then in less than a month we'll be live taking your questions breaking down all things happening

with Vince McMahon in this new Netflix documentary series and it's all happening at 83 weeks.com so hit that subscribe button, turn on your notifications bell. Erica, this was a fun show man. I know we talked about talking about the nominees was fun today. We'll talk about the induction

and what the voting looks like and I'm sure there'll be lots of other contract news for us to discuss. There's rumors out there about Daniel Garcia and sort of Strickland, and we'll be talking about all the good, the bad, and the ugly here next week in professional wrestling, and given the results of what you guys think the first ever WCW Hall of Fame should look like. In the coming weeks, we'll be talking about fall brawl 1999.

We'll also talk about fall brawl 93 and Vixie Carter and Celebrity Championship Wrestling. And there's just a lot of really fun stuff on deck. If you haven't already, make plans to join us at 83 weeks.com. And Eric, I'm pumped. This time next week, you and I are going to be hanging out in Chicago, having a blast and well it's top guy weekend and we always pull out all the stops and we've got a big and interesting surprise for people next weekend in chicago don't we i don't know if i'd use the word big it's interesting and you'll see why but yeah absolutely and i'm really really looking forward

to this and i don't want to say anymore because i'll probably give it away but yeah i'm looking forward to this. It's been a long time coming. Let's put it that way. We've got a lot of surprises lined up for you on Saturday as well. Top Guy Weekend right around the corner. Of course, if you don't know what we're talking about, we're talking about ad-free shows.com. Just

last night, I was live with not only Jeff Jarrett, but I was live with Tully Blanchard. And it was a pretty emotional moment that I didn't expect. We talked about the fantastic series of matches that demolition had with Arne and Tully, way back when in the WWF, and

a lot of our long-time listeners will remember that was the longest reigning tag team title run and company history that demolition were on and ultimately it all came to an end and it came to an end on a Saturday night's main event when it went two out of three falls and for whatever reason there was an accident that happened that night with a chair that was delivered by Tully Blanchard to the back of the head of Mr. Barry Darsoe and Barry did an interview where he talked about what the long-term effects with that chair shot were. He only had no idea. He found out last night watching live.

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every single monday you get to talk to the third man in the ring and what about learning lucia with our pal sam adonis we're figuring out hey what the heck's going on down there below the uh the line there with CMLL and AAA and it gives you some real context. I mean, we see whenever we hear there's this great Luchador who's going to debut for WW. We're all excited to see them, but now we get some context. Hey, what's really going on down there? There's more than 100,000 hours of bonus content behind the paywall at ad-free shows.com.

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I can't wait to see everybody in Chicago and have a lot of fun. Of course, it's all out weekend. We're going to have fun at the show and we're going to have fun with our friends talking about wrestling. That's what ad-freeshows.com is about. It's a community. And I want to thank our community for showing up today. Lindsey was here and Eric was here and Coach Rosie was here

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