83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 340: The End Of The Bischoff Era In WCW

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

On this epic episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad take a deep dive into Eric's end in WCW. Eric shares his experiences dealing with Turner corporate, handing the booking reigns over to Kevin Nash, the infamous roster meeting where Raven walked out, unmasking another luchadore, and being double crossed by someone he trusted. This is an edition of 83Weeks that you won't soon forget. MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo 83WEEKS at https://shopmando.com/! #mandopod BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE GAMETIME -Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and redeem code WEEKS for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. PRIZE PICKS - Download the app today and use code 83WEEKS to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! PrizePicks. Run Your Game! MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/.  MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order through https://magicspoon.com/83WEEKS , or look for Magic Spoon in your nearest grocery store! LUMEN - Take the next step in improving your health, go to https://www.lumen.me//83WEEKS to get 15% off your Lumen.  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

Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go, Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag. The second, Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it on one trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles.

Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos' Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos, Stronger makes everything better. Hey, Hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric fish off, Eric. What's going on, man. How are you? beautiful sunrise this morning right before i came out here to record out in the treehouse um i took a picture and posted it on twitter x twix whatever you want really cool when you wake up and it's as beautiful out as it is today it's really hard to be in anything other than a

fucking awesome well okay never know what to expect when he said sit down with Eric Wischoff. He's in a good mood today. We'll see how long that lasts because we're going to be talking about Eric's last month running WCW before he went home for his sabbatical around fall brawl 1999. But before we do, I wanted to hit some news and notes this past weekend. Boy, some sports history was made.

I think most everybody listening to this would probably consider Madison Square Garden, the most famous arena in the world. but boy there is a new contender as far as notoriety certainly the history is not there but history was made this past weekend in the sphere in Las Vegas the UFC ran the first ever

sporting event there and man I got to tell you I'm pumped about the idea of one day someday seeing wrestling in that building what an experience what did you see of the UFC in the sphere and what do you think about this building almost becoming the biggest

part of the attraction of the event? I have not seen the UFC event, so I can't comment on it. I can, however, talk about the sphere. Lori and I, I don't know, our daughter, Montana ran a marathon there the spring. I think it was in April. So Lori and I went in to support her. She was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon, and she did.

Congratulations, Montana. Seven marathons. this powerhouse ran and she finally qualified. So she's excited about that. Anyway, while we were in Vegas, we went a couple days early to hang out, see the sites. And we went over to the sphere for their,

they have a big presentation there. You can, I don't know what it is, 25 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever it is. And you go in there and there's just an amazing show. Amazing. In fact, Darren Aronofsky, the guy who wrote and produced the wrestler

is the one who produced the video that you see when you sit in the sphere. And it is, I can't even describe it. It is such an amazing, amazing venue. And I can't wait to see, I can't wait to go to a live event in the sphere, whether it be UFC. I think wrestling, Ashley, is probably a better product inside the sphere just because of the theatrical nature of it. and everything that goes into producing it, I think that would be a mind-bending experience. Like, I've never dropped acid or anything like that,

the system of thing. But this has got to be as close as you can get completely straight. It is such, it's sensory overload is the only way that I could describe it. I can't wait to check it out. I actually did a little bit of looking. Thanks to our friends at game time for tickets for the Eagles in the sphere, because they're going to set up a residency and my dad's favorite band

and I thought, man, that'd be a heck of a Christmas gift. So I'm pumped about seeing anything in the sphere, but professional wrestling, I don't know, it just feels like, you know, a few years ago they tried those larger-than-life 3-D graphics. I didn't really dig that. I thought it was kind of cheesy

when they'd have like a giant cartoon, Roman reigns there. But the idea that I think we've all seen like the Rock's entrance where they do like a thunder and lightning, in the background and, you know, with the giant wall behind him, it looks cool. Now imagine that, you know, all around you, sort of IMAX style. I think there's a lot of opportunities to do something there, Eric, and I can't wait to see

what WWE does someday. Particularly with the WWE's ability, and they've had this ability forever. You know, going back to the late 80s, early 90s, WWE started really putting a lot of effort and focus on production value. And we saw entrances and vignettes and things in professional wrestling back then. And we'd never seen before. And that was just the beginning. You know, WWE has done such a phenomenal job in developing their ability to produce

video, you know, special videos and packages. They're so well done, so dramatic. So, I mean, their feature film quality in many cases. and to see that kind of wrestling product inside this sphere. You talk about the thunder and the lightning, the rock's entrance. Imagine feeling, I mean, your brain literally is convinced that you're not sitting in a seat, watching this on a screen. You're sitting on the clouds surrounded by the lightning and thunder. I mean, you really feel that way.

It's just mind bending is the only way I can describe it. It would be so cool. Let's talk about some other news and notes around the. the wrestling space. You know, we talked last week about how the WWE was going to be running fewer and fewer non-televised live event. And you and I sort of gave an impassioned plea.

If you're a wrestling fan, take the young people in your life to a house show while you still can. But now there's a new wrinkle that's got me thinking. I saw as a part of the initiative of heels being released on Netflix, this past week that they did a whole new round of media

because, well, a lot more people have Netflix than had the Stars app. So a lot of people are going to really discover heels for the very first time now that it's on Netflix. So they did a round of media and the creator of that show revealed that he's had great conversations

with WWB and they were fans of the show. And he's hopeful that heels now that it's on Netflix will gain. a little bit of momentum, and maybe they can continue that show, which was previously canceled on the Stars Network. But his hope was, hey, since WWE is on Netflix too, maybe we could integrate WWE as a part

of our story, and they could present sort of the rival faction to the Duffy Wrestling League that they're building in this Heels universe. And it made me think back, it wasn't that long ago, Eric, you recall, events, you know, had a really, maybe silly initiative to stick with WWE films. They didn't have a huge amount of success with there. They did, though, with the Marine and there was a Halliberry when I think that did well. But most of those WWE produced movies weren't exactly ringing the cash register. But this opportunity of, hey, if we're going to spend less time running live events,

maybe we can use more of what we're great at that we're already paying for anyway, this great production team and just create new content for a streaming platform. I could really see WWE creating more content in the absence of running fewer live shows. What do you think about that possibility in the future, Eric? I think it's a good possibility and it makes sense, doesn't it? It does. If you go back and you look at WWE films, And I remember when that was launched.

I don't remember the gentleman's name that initially was the head of WWE films. But I had a couple of meetings with him. And I wasn't in WWE at that time. That was before, obviously before 2019. It was sometimes after I was there as a talent. So let's say 2007, 2008. I had a couple of meetings in LA with that gentleman. And more than anything, I just wanted to hear as much as they were willing to

share what the plans were and where they thought that initiative was ultimately going to go. And I honestly, I think this is one of the times that Vince, usually Vince's timing was unbelievably canny and he very rarely did not take advantage of an opportunity within a certain time period so that he was on the head of, he was, he was on the front of the curve instead of catching up to everybody else. In this case, I think the WWE Films Initiative was a little too far ahead of its time because there wasn't the streaming opportunities that there are today. I think if WWE Films, the initiative were to launch now or relaunch focused on streaming

capabilities, I could see that division being resurrected. I really could because they're so good at it. So much of the cost and content, wrestling, any kind of any kind of. content scripted especially. It is so much of it is in talent. And they have the talent. There's a wealth of talent there that can do a good job, maybe even some a great job in scripted.

I could see them resurrecting WWE films or a version of it again because the opportunities are here today that weren't when WW films was originally launched. It's just so amazing to me to think. that even though Vince is on the outside now, there's a bigger opportunity to finally do, God damn, pal, we make movies. And there's a bigger opportunity to do that now than when he was ever there before,

which is just crazy. Also kind of crazy, you and I haven't spent any time talking about this, but over the weekend, we saw JBL pop up out of nowhere at center stage in Atlanta. What does he do? That's crazy shit. So far, we've seen him show up at Triple Mania for AAA

down in Mexico City. We've seen him show up at a GCW event. He's been to an OVW, like their arena event. He's been to an MLW event. He's been to a T&A event. What do you think this is leading? I mean, a lot of people were under the impression that JBL was a WWE lifer.

And some people think he's still working for the WWE and he's on a scouting mission for Triple H. What do you make of JBL showing up everywhere but WWE? I don't know. I mean, I know John pretty well. We've become, I would say, very good friends over the years. And this one kind of got my head scratching.

John is, I don't know what his financial situation is other than he's hugely successful. He is independently wealthy. How's that? To say the least. Yes. So this isn't a. This isn't a financial thing. No, he didn't need the payday.

He's not out there hitting the streets to pick up a couple bucks. No. You know? So if it's not money motivated, you're kind of left with two things. He's either just doing it for the fun of it, which I could see. I get that. It is fun to go out there and entertain people and get that live reaction, especially when you're, you know, showing up on an advertise.

eyes and it's what the hell was that it's it's it's it's a lot of fun but over and over and over and over again that leads me to believe that the other option might be there's a plan attached to this yeah somewhere got to be we're seeing the tip of the iceberg but we don't we can't see the rest of the iceberg it's all underwater still we're going to find out that's the only two things He's either doing it for fun or there's a really cool plan that we're watching unfold and we can't figure it out. Either way, I'm pretty excited for John. I'm excited for John, too. I don't really know what to think of this, though.

I mean, I guess the natural next question is, I mean, do you think he winds up showing up in WWE? I mean, we've seen, like, stranger things. All of a sudden, we've seen like, WWE people in TNA. We've seen WW people in GCW. We've certainly known that OVW was a friend of WWV. I mean, I don't know if there is some sort of affiliation with WWE, and this is like a grassroots thing sort of the way. You know, we got clues about the Y at 6 and things like that.

I don't know if that's the angle and where this goes with WWE, maybe shows up on Netflix or I don't know. Or is it possible? Like this almost makes my mind melt. is it possible we could see JBL and A.W? Like, he just feels like such a Vince McMahon guy. And I know Vince isn't even there anymore and it's not the same thing. But the idea of a JBL appearing in AEW is like, I don't know, it feels strange.

That is a weird one. Right? Like, I would have, that idea would not have popped into my head maybe forever had you not brought it up. That would not have occurred to me. But that's one of the things that would make it interesting, right? I mean, if anything would be a surprise and get a lot of buzz and traction, because no offense to any of the other organizations you mentioned, they're pretty much under the radar outside of the internet wrestling community.

So they're not, nothing you can do there is going to get a lot of attention outside of the internet. But showing up in AEW would and at least create a much louder buzz of it. So I guess it's a possibility, but that would be even more confusing to me in terms of what's the goal, what's the mission. But, hey, stranger things have happened, man. This is a fast-moving business. WWE is not the company that it used to be. So trying to predict what they're thinking and what they're doing, even for people that have worked there for a long time. Or in my case, worked there for a while and also competed against them.

You get to know somebody pretty well when you're in a fight with it, especially a protracted one. But I think all bets are off in terms of predicting WWE strategy now. They're just, or tactics, they're just a different company. So it's really hard to predict, man. It's exciting. All right boys and girls, got to run a timeout right now, but with good news. You know, as a kid, man, I loved eating cereal. But as an adult, you realize, well, your wife tells you, honey, that's full of sugar.

You need more protein in the morning. Well, she found a life hack for me. And it's called Magic Spoon, a nostalgically delicious cereal that tastes just like my childhood favorites, but without all the sugar and a ton of protein. And I've got big news, Eric. I know you're already a Magic Spoon fan, but check this out. Magic Spoon has turned their super popular cereal into high protein treats that are light. They're crispy. Oh, there you go. You got one. And it tastes just like those classic, crunchy cereal bar. We all remember. Magic Spoo's brand new treats are so delicious. It's become my wife's go-to, before.

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Look at Eric, wear it out. You know what? 12 grams of protein. is the same amount of protein as you would find in two hard-boiled eggs. But that tastes a lot better than this. It tastes so much better. And you look like an idiot carrying eggs around with you wherever you go. But this thing slips right in your bag to go to.

I love it. For the first time ever, Magic Spoon Treats are available in grocery stores. How about that? With delicious flavors like marshmallow and chocolatey peanut butter, what are you chomping down on there, Rick? What flavor is that? this one is a double chocolate and it's delicious like double shot really good okay sign me up

get five dollars off your next order at magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks or look for magic spoon on amazon or in your nearest grocery store that's magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks for five dollars off magic spoon hold on to the dream well what else is exciting is as you and i are recording this we are just days away from the release of the vince macman documentary and eric bischoff and i are going to be going live every night six nights in a row at five p m eastern four p m central exclusively at 83 weeks dot com it's totally free and we're going to be breaking down Each of these episodes, we'll start next Wednesday, the very day it comes out, 5 p.m. Eastern, 83 weeks.com. Eric and I will be live on YouTube.

It's totally free. So if you haven't already, go hit the subscribe button, turn on your notifications bell. You don't want to miss it. But the more that we hear about this, the more we hear that even Dave Meltzer said that he was interviewed for this. And he was asked about every controversy, there was no stone that was unturned. here. So they're going to address all of the controversies, allegedly, or they did in the interviews. I guess we don't know what wound up in the cutting room floor. But as the story goes, there are folks who were not too happy in WWB with the final product. And as you said last

week, it's kind of weird timing, you know, with WWE going to Netflix and now maybe there's some less than favorable things they have to deal with on a Netflix program. But maybe they can paint that picture that, hey, that was with Vince, and Vince is gone, and that's no longer the case. And I know people are certainly scratching their heads with the news that the plaintiff and that Vince McMahon lawsuit from earlier this January, she's now hired a major PR firm before the release of this Vince McMahon documentary. This thing is just getting weirder and deeper by the day, it seems, Eric.

Yeah, I was, I noticed that the other day. read that story about the PR Furman. You know, I'm going to be careful what I say here because I don't want to give people the wrong impression. But any time that you see civil suits being litigated in the media, it makes me question. Now, I know you have to, in a big lawsuit, big litigation, especially high profile stuff, you do have to manage the public relations aspect of it. I get that.

But I really hope that this isn't so obvious. I mean, what I want to say is I hope that we don't see the PR firm representing Ms. Grant try too hard to exploit this because I think it will only create more questions in this. He said, she said, because at this point that's what this is. It's a he says, she said, with a nasty stuff that we've seen posted. But it still comes down to a civil suit at this point, and I just hope we don't get bombarded with the National Inquirer type of headlines that would be so easily associated with something like this. It would be nice if these things were played out in court, and sure, the public needs to know and has a right to know, there's no question about that. but the amount of drama and scripted entertainment that's created by situations like this can can

can really distort the facts so i just i'm hopeful that it's we don't get bombarded with nonsense it's going to be interesting to see i mean just as a reminder we've got that civil suit that we all read about and heard about this past January. Allegedly, according to reports, the United States government has asked that she paused that lawsuit for six months back in May so they could work on their federal case. We don't know a lot of other details, but that would get us to like November.

And then I guess she can pick up her lawsuit again. But in the middle of that, oh, by the way, here's Netflix. the biggest streaming platform the world has ever known, and they're going to tell a little story about it. Like, this just muddies the water and makes everything even more complicated. Like, you've got three things going on. And, oh, by the way, there's also this company trying to sort of figure out the new path forward without the chairman who's a subject to this.

I mean, this in and of itself, the timing of these things is a movie. I mean, that's the part that is the most bizarre. And one would have to assume, believe strongly that WWE's got a little bit of a voice inside of Netflix. And if you have a voice, why would you not do whatever you can to at least delay this? I doubt that Netflix was obligated to air the series as a part of their deal with the producer. I've never heard of anything like that, but it's possible. and if Netflix didn't have a contractual obligation to do so, why would they? Why would they release anything that could have potentially a negative effect on the brand

that they just invested $5 billion in? That's the part that just, that's a head scratcher, man. The whole thing is weird and the timing is weird. I don't know, but I know that you and I are going to be talking about it next week, along with the rest of the world, and we want to be the first folks you tune into. So 5 p.m. Eastern, 83 weeks.com on your ride home from work, check it out. It's totally free. 83 weeks.com.

Hit that subscribe button. Turn on the notifications bell so you don't miss when Eric and I are live. And yes, you'll be able to ask Eric questions. It's going to be interactive. It's not recorded. It's live so we can chat. Hit us up at 83 weeks.com. Hey, I wanted to talk a little bit about some other news and notes that's hit the

headlines since you and I sat down to record. Dustin Rhodes' future in AEW, is it in question? There's a report out that his contract is ending sometime soon. We've heard some whispers that perhaps in the month of September. So really, really soon. As we're recording, he's still, I think he's still got the R.O.H. Six-man tag team title. I'm curious, like, it's hard for me to imagine him wanting to do more with WWE.

I mean, I understand wanting to be with your brother and blah, blah, blah. I mean, I get all the success that he's enjoyed there, but he had such a long run with WW. Is there something to maybe AEW and Dustin Rhodes aren't forever? What do you expect to see here? Who knows? Who knows when it comes to talents in AEW and tone? these decisions, they're different. What I've heard, don't know that if it don't know it's true or not true, just the

internet chatter, is that Tony doesn't like higher profile talent leaving AEW and is willing to pay to avoid the perception that people want to leave AEW. If that's true, big if, if that's true, it's a great opportunity. opportunity for Dustin to set himself up for retirement. He hasn't done so already. And if that's the case, I'm so happy for Dustin because he's a good guy. He is a good human being, unbelievably talented and I think in some ways criminally underrated in terms of his thought process, his creative instincts.

On the other hand, there's a tremendous amount of story that could be told in WWE with With Cody. Yes. I mean, that's where I would go. Mentally, I mean, that's all of my thought process would be, oh, what, because what is Dustin going to do in AEW? He's been here for five years. What more is he going to do with his character?

But in WWE, there is, you could write a book, you could write a novel with the stories that you could create with Dustin and Cody. everything from Cody and Dustin, you know, Dustin being there for Cody and supporting Cody and getting involved when he needs to get involved or when it's appropriate, you know, because Cody's his brother, or you could go the other way. It could be jealousy and envy, all those things that make great movies and great stories. That could also be a big angle into storytelling or premise, I should say, not an angle. that'll be a great premise.

That's what, if I was Dustin and that opportunity was out there, or even if I hoped it would be out there, again, assuming that Dustin was set financially, because that's also a big part of the equation as you're getting closer to that age, right? I can tell you for sure. It's a big part of your thought process and should be. But man, the storytelling potential in WWE would be freaking awesome.

it would be fascinating to think that there might be an opportunity for him to do something with WWE I mean I'm not trying to put this out there but bad blood is right around the corner it's in Atlanta Cody's hometown I think there's a survivor series coming up maybe there could be a mystery tag team partner I mean there's a lot of I mean if you want to talk about a bloodline storyline well he is in his bloodline so we'll see but I do think you know I would give some question to hey what's next for Dustin like after he finishes the wrestling career we know he's got the his fabulous wrestling academy which by the way this has been under the radar but I mean I think everybody knows that hey Dustin has a sister named Kristen

and Kristen's boys are now a tag team so we've got another generation of Dusty Roads tag team wrestling. I just think that's super exciting. I didn't know that. Yeah. How cool is that? I also, I dig it kind of when you go, look, I'm not really trying to put this out there. And then you throw this

fucking hand grenade of a good idea. I was like, oh, blood, like, whoa, I didn't think of that. And I'm sure other people that are really into this. But I just like you so subtle. I'm not trying to make anybody think I'm serious. Hey, what if? Well, listen, because

that's pretty cool. As you know, I'm real life friends with Bruce Pritchard, but we don't ever talk about creative. And you know we don't talk about creative. But when I say that to other people, they're like, sure, you don't. And it's like, well, it's kind of, I'm in a weird spot. It does me no favors to ask, so we just don't discuss it. But I would be interested to see it. But I would be wondering after in ring, what's next for Dustin?

We know he's got the Wrestling Academy. So he has a passion for teaching. I don't know that he would not necessarily want to live in full. Florida, but Dustin being a part of NXT makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Oh, my gosh. And like I said earlier, I think Dustin's creative instincts

are criminally underrated. I don't think he's ever really had the opportunity. And he's learned a lot, too. Look, he's, I mean, just look at what he's gone through creatively now as a character. He is probably one of the more valuable people to have on your creative team. Not that he's going to come up with all the good ideas. Not that

he's going to save anybody's company. But he would be so cool to have on your team because Dustin thinks differently than most people do. And he could be such added value. I hope he ends up in WWE. I really do. Because like I say, I don't think he's going to get an opportunity to to showcase what he's capable of in AEW. It's just the company's not set up that way. But he'd be a powerful asset in W. Or an NXT. I meant NXT.

Especially those younger kids, man, younger. They're not kids. They're adults. But to me, they're kids. Anybody under 30 is a kid at this point, they would benefit so much from Justin's experience and ability to teach. You've heard the saying, you know, those who can do and those who can't do, teach.

Yes. Dustin is one of those rare people that can do and can really teach because he has a passion for. Yeah, I mean, I think he would fit in great. I mean, another guy who, you know, you talk about can and do and teach, Sean Michaels at NXT, Dustin Reynolds at NXT, boy, we're checking a lot of boxes. Not trying to speak that into existence. I know my man's got his own wrestling school.

He's probably got a great quality of life right now. And on some level, hey, man, that's hard to beat. You know, you get to make a great living and still pursue your in-ring dreams and you get to run a wrestling school. He's got the tiger by the tail right now. So we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. But one thing I know for sure is that Eric and I are loving Mando, and we know that you will too.

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We saw CM Punk jump over to NXT and ratings went up 7.8%. And that's good news for NXT. They've been doing great work over there with Trick Williams and Ethan Page. And I see a lot of excitement around NXT right now. You know, they're trying to get teed up for a. big debut on the CW, you and I haven't spent hardly any time talking about this. What do you think about NXT going to the CW and is this a big opportunity? I don't know if it, first of all, I think it's cool.

I don't know what kind of an opportunity it is. CW is kind of an obscure network. It's not a go-to selection on anybody's cable system. But again, as I talked about the other day with Derek Sabato, strategies change. and this could be bringing in NXT and investing in wrestling could be CW's way to reestablish themselves because at one point CW was a pretty significant cable outlet and they've kind of lost a lot of ground over the last five or six years so this could be something very exciting both for NXT obviously for the talent and and also for the network so it's going to be an interesting

interesting thing to follow from a business perspective. I wanted to also ask you about, well, the big news that everybody's been talking about and whispering about. I know you went live with this a couple of days ago over at 83 weeks.com with Derek Sabato and you guys talked about. The idea that AEW is at the finish line for a new television deal. That's a video that's linked live at 83 weeks.com right now. But here we are a few days later, and we've yet to see an announcement. If you were a betting man, when would you think there would be a timeline on an announcement here? It's weird.

You know, Derek and I talked to, Derek Sabato and I talked about this the other night. I think we were offline when we did. But what's weird to me is that the details of this negotiation have been dribbling out over such a protracted period of time. And again, from my experience, and I've. Jason and I have negotiated deals with just about every major cable outlet out there, including Discovery, by the way, when Zasloff was there. And typically, when you're in a negotiation period, no network wants you revealing any details of that negotiation or even hinting at it.

They don't want to see themselves in any kind of a press release or any kind of a story anywhere when you're in the middle of a negotiation. And Tony has, and I think Tony's done a good job of walking up to the line with possibly without stepping over it. But still, there is so much information being leaked out. And I think intentionally, it's part of the game. It's not anything that I probably wouldn't do myself if it was the right opportunity and inappropriate.

But there's been so much chatter about this. That is surprising. I mean, because if you think about it, if you're weren't, brother's discovery, especially if you just been kicked in a ball's nine billion times, and you're in a middle of litigation with the NBA. And oh, by the way, you're still negotiating with other independent producers and other studios or content. You don't necessarily want people that you're negotiating with for other content to have any

insight as to the amount of money that you're paying anybody else, whether it's AEW or an independent producer like Jason and I were. So it's really weird that this information is being leaked out in in terms of what it means. First of all, it's a good thing for AEW if it happens. And I think it will. I predict that this is a real deal. I think there is enough detail in the information that was published the other day that would lead me to believe that it's legit.

The guy that published it was a former writer with the business journal. So it's not some Dave Meltzer Dirtsheet maggot. it's a legitimate journalist, not a cosplay journalist. So I believe it's true. You know, what does it mean? Who knows? So many people,

and Derek and I talked about this for soul. Even Derek did when he opened up the show the other night. He goes, well, this deal, you don't put AEW in profit. How does anybody know that? I think that's one of the things that has been leaked out of AEW. We either intentionally or just sheer optimism.

That, you know, makes me scratch my head. It's like, okay, they've got to produce five hours of television a week. They've got a talent budget that my estimate is around $100 million, probably a little more than that. I'd say 105 to 110, realistically. The cost of producing those shows, just the physical cost of production, has to be somewhere into $250,000 to $350,000 range. You've got travel on top of it. But all those other, you've got staff.

You know, it's not just the talent that's running AEW. It's not just Tony. There's a pretty big staff of people that you never see on camera that get paid every week. So in terms of will this deal make AEW profitable? Nobody freaking knows. And anybody that comes out and says it is either just gotten caught up in the Kool-Aid mentality of the AEW Internet fans as they are. Or is just hopeful.

But I'm really curious. And my other point in this is, while I'm happy for AEW and the talent, everybody just feeding their family based on the paycheck that they get every week or every two weeks from W, it's not going to make their shows any better. Across the board, if you look at collision, if you look at Rampage, if you look at dynamite, I would say on if you average them together, they're all losing about 30 to 38 percent of their audience year over year. At this rate, at the end of their three-year deal,

there'll be about 11 people watching unless they can stop the bleeding because they're hemorrhaging audience. They're hemorrhaging live attendance and all the while going to some bigger and bigger buildings. So it's just going to be interesting. It would be interesting to me to know, Conrad, if there are any thresholds in this deal. It's a three-year deal provided AEW reaches certain thresholds.

That's not unusual. That would not surprise me. In fact, I'll go the other way. I would be surprised if there wasn't some kind of threshold language in that agreement, especially from WBD's perspective, given that the product is losing 33% or so of it's 35% of its audience. And we're talking about the demos as well, 18 to 49. They're getting crushed sometimes harder than people, you know, plus two general audience.

So it's just so fascinating, but it's fascinating because there's so much we don't know. A lot of details we don't know about this deal. But on the surface, excellent, it's going to buy Tony some time to perhaps figure out a way to stop the bleeding and God forbid somebody I know really well has been saying this for about four and a half years grow your freaking audience because like your dad says Tony if you're not growing you're dying I thought I came up with that and I read that Shat Khan said it maybe before I did or maybe he listens to the show oh you think will you stop what's wrong you think no Shad Khan does not let's probably tuning in right now he's probably got the

gimmick name on ad-free shows. Will you stop? Listening to it live. Have you no shame? Either way. Congratulations to Tony and everybody that was a part of putting this deal together. Let's hope that it turns out to be something that allows EW to grow and sustain themselves. You know what's weird?

There's a really fun follow that I have on Twitter. He's posting great nostalgia stuff all the time. I'm a big fan of his Twitter game, as the kids say. But I saw last week he posted, boy, I love consistency and wrestling. And Eric Bischoff has been consistently wrong about AEW getting a renewal. And I was like, wait a minute. When did you ever say they weren't getting a renewal? You've never said that.

Never once did you ever say they're not getting a renewal. That's a that's Dave Biltzer type. I just don't get how people who don't listen to the show and have decided that they don't like you, then quote something that they heard you said, even though you never said it. Like, I don't get it. It's Dave Belzer. It's, what I say, Dave,

it's Dave Belster and his type, his ilk. That's, that's all it is. You've never said that they weren't getting a renewal. Pretty obvious. When I see those people making those comments on social media, it's like,

oh, okay, I get it. I know who you are. I've never met you, but I know exactly. Well, we've got two big weeks of AEW television coming up. Next week is a big one because it's Arthur Ash Stadium. And when they first ran this building a few years ago,

it was for the first ever Kenny Omega Brian Danielson. They had like 21,000 fans there. It was unbelievable. They did like a, maybe it was a half hour. Maybe it was an hour draw. It was unbelievable. Great match, great show. They're going back next week.

And they're going to be doing both dynamite and collision. And I know that they've got a lot of really big stuff planned. I think we've got Darby Allen and John Moxley on that show. I think we've got Silva's got some graphics who'll run through. So we've got the Young Bucks and Will Osprey and Kyle Fletcher.

But the one that I'm probably most interested in as a longtime Ring of Honor fan is Nigel McGinnis and Brian Danielson. And I know you think a lot of Brian Danielson. I know you think a lot of Nigel McGinnis. They had an incredible history in Ring of Honor it looked like once upon a time we were never going to see these guys again

and it felt like Nigel McGinnis said he's excelled so well at commentary you just thought okay that's his new lot by the way he's really really good at commentary I hope I don't mean to jump in on you Conrad I apologize I just say I'm hoping

that this is a one-off for Nigel and he gets to put a period at the end of the sentence from his in-ring performance because he's so freaking good at color, I would hate to lose him as a color commentator so that we can have him in ring, not taking anything away from his in ring abilities

or what he could bring to the table. But I think his future in such a big way is in commentary. Because he's, for my taste and what I enjoy out of color commentating, I think he's one of the best. I really do Of the current crop Nigel would be If I was starting a wrestling company tomorrow

Nigel would be one of the first calls I would make when it came to looking for color comedy because he's really good He's fantastic And we're going to see him In Arthur Ash Stadium Hook it up with the AW world champion

Brian Danielson I'm pumped about it And it feels like If you're going to announce a TV deal Arthur Ash Stadium could be a good spot or the following week on October 2nd. That's going to be the five-year anniversary show. And there's a little bit of-

That would be good. See, that's like your bloodline comment. I don't want to put anything out there. I don't want to drop any hints to anybody. But this makes sense. The five-year anniversary makes the most sense, really. That's a smart. That would be a smart move.

And the match that they've already started to promote, Eric, is a dream match that hardcore AEW and Internet wrestling fans have been clamoring to see. Rickashay versus Will Osprey. and it's been a kind of controversial announcement since they've just done it I guess 24 hours ago at this point because people thought hey this should be saved for a pay-per-view they're doing this too soon I even saw date Meltzer say this needs to be a draw they can't beat ricochet yet but they don't need to put the belt on him yet a lot of people are scratching their heads about what to expect

because when these guys hooked it up in Japan several years ago it melted the internet and it created a lot of controversy. The idea that we're going to get it on free television on the five-year anniversary of AEW Dynamite, I think between Arthur Ash and that five-year, that might be the time I would announce my new TV deal. Absolutely. And as far as, you know, this match on free TV, I get that. You know, right now, Tony is serving his client.

His client isn't, you know, the fan that's going to buy a ticket to go to live, non-televised events. They don't do touring. You know, you only have so many pay-per-views. The television component of Tony's business, and WWE's business, for that matter, is the most important box that you need to check. So the idea of putting this match on free TV, I think, is a smart move. Look, Tony doesn't have financial pressure. Tony is not, Tony doesn't have a boss.

Tony's got a client to serve, meaning WBD. But he didn't have a boss. Nobody's sitting down with Tony going, hey, Tony, we're getting a little, you know, this red ink is getting, you know, a little messy. When's it going to go away? Because he doesn't have any financial pressure in that respect. So for Tony to, without any financial pressure,

to make the decision to put this match on free TV, it makes all the sense of the world. Wrestling fans who think that they understand the wrestling business, well, they'll talk about it because they're just looking for shit to talk about it. the internet. But I think it makes perfect sense. I do want to ask you about Arthur Ash, because I think

it's such a cool building, and I'm glad they're running it, but I know they're going to be running it this year. I shouldn't say I know. I feel confident that they're going to be running this year at a loss. Because as we're recording, the most recent report we've gotten from Russell Ticks is that there's been 4,411

tickets distributed. And that it's only set up for 5728. Now, I know I mentioned a few years ago when they first went, there were 21,000, I don't think that's necessarily fair to compare back then to now. It is a different company. But year over year, I do believe that's fair. And last year in Arthur Ash, they had 11,263. I know they'll have more than 4411, which is our most recent report from Russell Tech's, but no matter what, it is trending down. I don't know how to reconcile

all that in my head. Like, I'm all for the new television renewal and I hope they're wildly profitable and rah-rah. How do we get some of that consumer confidence back, Eric? I feel like when WCW lost it, lost that consumer confidence, they never got them back. And I feel that same way about T&A that when you lose that consumer confidence, they just never came back. With something you'll always keep coming back for is blue chew. I am 100% confident that the consumers of Blue Chew are thrilled. And here's how I know it works. If you're asking that question, does it really work?

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How can AEW get back just to where they were? I mean, just last year, it felt like there was more interest in the live event perspective. Yeah, when you go from 11,000 down to 4,500, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, pretty close to 60%, 55% loss. That's not a little bit. That's why I use the term hemorrhaging. That would be considered hemorrhaging audience year over year. How do they get them back? Dude, I've been saying is for four and a half years.

It's all about story. And I know I can sit here as I say this. I know my timeline is going to get flooded with, yeah, but, and they're going to explain whatever angles going on or point to whatever is happening on television and define that as story. I ain't buying it. It's story, I guess, kind of like boy meets girl, boy gets, girl, boy loses, girl, boy gets girl back.

That's a story. It's not compelling. It's not interesting. It doesn't have any of the elements that make a good story or a compelling story. It's just a story, kind of. But if you give boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Give it to Shakespeare and watch what happens. now it becomes literary history.

And that's what AEW needs, not necessarily literary history, but they need quality storytelling that they have yet, have yet to produce. When and if they do, that will be the, in my opinion, this is all my opinion, having been there done that, knocked it out of the park successfully and fallen flat on my ass and everything in the middle. I've done it all. And by the way, when I wasn't knocking it out of the park, King of the Hill, the biggest wrestling company in the industry, I took it from the sewage, a company that had been beleaguered for years with poor performance, not being able to attract the audience, not being able to legitimately compete with my competitor, WWE at

that time. Competitor only in the sense that we were in the same category until we went head to head. Going head to head is the only time we were truly competitive, but we were in the same business. But we were so far behind because of the mismanagement that took place in WCW for such a long time prior to me getting there. I got the opportunity. I was able to turn around. I knocked it out of the freaking park, but I also, as we're going to hear about on this episode, ate fucking dirt. I've done it all. And when I wasn't doing it all, I was a part of a company somewhere in the last 32 years watching somebody else go through that same process. So my perception, my opinion, is not based in emotion or ego or anything other than my experience.

And until Tony recognizes that, accepts it, and is willing to do what he needs to do, to affect it as part of his brand and make the commitment to it, there's nothing he's going to do that's going to stop the hemorrhaging. It's like a patient laying on the table bleeding out from a femoral artery injury and somebody says, hey, let's just buy more aspirin. You've got to know what your problem is before you can fix it. And Tony, at least from my perspective, from the outside of the, looking in and from someone who's been around for a minute has yet to accept the fact that

his Tony's personal view of the product and what Tony likes is completely inconsistent with what the audience wants. Yes, you're going to have a fraction of the audience that really digs the hardcore nature of AEW or whatever it is they see in it. And certainly some of the talent, because there's amazing talent there. Talent's not the issue. But as we've seen, and as we're discussing, and as Russellnomics and Brandon Thurston and any other credible source that you want to look for that's publishing real numbers and real information, all you have to do is look at that and

go, we've got a problem here. And that's why I'm so bewildered, you know, okay, great, you've got to do a three-year deal, but just do the math. what's 30% of 700,000, which is what AEWs, that's their new high at this point. You're going to lose another 200,000 in 2025. Now you're going to be down to 500.

And you're going to lose another 100? This thing will be less than a decent YouTube show before long, unless Tony recognizes the issue. I mean, I'm sure if Tony was the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, And he was calling the place, and he kept calling long passes, long passes, drop back, throw some bombs, and they couldn't ever win a game that way. Eventually, at some point, some assistant coach would say, hey, Tony, maybe we should get a running back or two. Maybe we need to change the formula in order to be competitive. And that's kind of where AEW is at.

until Tony recognizes it and commits to making that change, we're going to continue to see haemorrhage of ratings and hemorrhaging of ticket sales. As we've watched, it's not my opinion, we've watched it happen over the last 12th, 18 months. Travis Medway is with us here live and he says, hey, Eric, I totally agree on story. Most of the big storylines were compelled by huge names or celebs input.

Hogan's turn, Tyson and WWE. who would you use as a catalyst for an AEW story? Is there a celebrity or some sort of crossover opportunity that, you know, could help catapult A.W? I mean, outside of Travis Kelsey saying he's going to do a wrestling match, I don't know what that would be. What would a modern equivalent be? I wouldn't even consider it if I was Tony because that's the kind of, and look, it's a great stunt. And if you're already kind of hitting on all eight cylinders and things are going well, you've developed a strong fan base with a strong following.

You're growing your audience as WWE is. You look at their ticket sales. You look at their revenues. You look at their ratings. And I know, oh, my God, somebody's going to go, yeah, but they lost, you know, 7% year over year. They're in single digits, which is more closely aligned, I think, with attrition that we're seeing across cable television in general than it is interested in the process. But Tony has lost his interest in his product.

It's just not compelling for most people. But I think the last thing that I would do if I was Tony right now is try to turn my company around with a celebrity stunt. And I know what I call it a stunt, it sounds dismissive. I love doing them when it was appropriate. Some of the big names we did it with, and it worked. It was effective. But it was effective because we were already on solid footing.

When you have to rely on that, see, the wrestling audience is a lot smarter than the internet wrestling community would make you believe. The vast majority of the people that watch wrestling, whether they think about it every day or not, they know what they like. They know what gets them interested. And I think if Tony could get his product on stable footing, just stable, just so that it's not hemorrhaging, just stop the freaking bleeding, get some stability for a while, show a little. bit of incremental growth. Incremental, it doesn't have to be overnight. We don't have to go from 700,000 viewers to a million viewers. That isn't going to happen. Not quickly. But do it with your talent. Make stars out of you. And that's the thing. And I used to hear this all the time as one of the biggest critics. Oh, Eric Bishop didn't know how to make a star. You know, I'll blow holes in

that all day long. That's not my point. But until I was able to at least begin to get an understanding of what it meant to build a star, which is not the same thing as using a star or buying a star or taking advantage of a celebrity star. I'm talking about building organic interest in your talent. Until Tony gets a handle on that, anything that he does, you could bring in Travis Kelsey and he could have a 60-minute Iron Man match with John Moxley. And it may draw a lot of attention to the product for one night. But when Travis goes back home, hooks up with Taylor so we can watch back his match

on DVR, once that's over, nobody's going to care because you haven't fixed the problem. You can take advantage of an opportunity, but if you haven't fixed the problem that existed before that opportunity took place, you're going to go right back to where you were. So I would do it with talent. It's hard work and it takes time. The hardest part of it, it's not like it's brain surgery. There's a lot of people out there. There's people that already worked there that could at AW, that could affect this.

I don't have to go outside of the company. Doesn't have to hire anybody else. He's got the talent and the resources right under his nose. That's what I would do. And I would really, really shy away from, if not totally reject the idea of a stunt to try to turn things around because it won't. It'll get you attention for a couple days, but that's it. Well, we got some attention this past week from NBC when it was announced that Saturday night's main event is back, Eric, going all the way back to 1985. Now it's back on NBC.

It's going to be simulcast on Peacock. Tickets are on sale now, and they're going to be doing it December 14th in Long Island. and of course that's not I don't know I'm sort of shocked every time we see another big deal like this as a reminder the peacock deal for WWPLEs

and sort of the deal they made to replace the WW Network goes through March of 2026 and now here we are in December kicking off a Saturday night's main event initiative and the next month we start on Netflix goodness gracious

my man Nick Conn is making some big deals for WWE. What did you make of this NBC Peacock's Saturday Night's main event announcement? I'm actually more excited about this than I am just about anything that I've seen, you know, promoted in wrestling since WrestleMania. I think this is such a cool idea. And I say that I have to repeat this more often than I do because I think not doing so. confuses people when I get excited about certain things. It's hard for me to get excited about wrestling matches, folks.

If it's a great story, if it's a big build going into WrestleMania, yes, I will sit back and watch as a fan because I still enjoy it. I enjoy watching live and kind of trying to determine how a story is going to play out in the end, just like I do when I go to a movie or when Lori and I are sitting in the living room just about every night watching Outlander around season five episode four. What a phenomenal series that is.

But the idea of the Saturday night main event gets me so excited because it's such a nod to nostalgia. This is with this show. That's what your whole podcast heat platform is all about. It's all nostalgia based because the market is there.

If you look at the demos for wrestling as 18 to 49, yeah, we all know. We all know what we can read in variety You don't have to be a student of the business to figure that out. Just read a fucking headline in a variety every once. You'll be as smart as Dave Meltzer is if you do that. But when you look at those demos, there's still a large portion, 55, 55, 45, 45 up that are still really active consumers

and have children and spend money and buy tickets to go to live events while they're still taking place or buy pay-per-views or PLEs or pay for the streaming platform. I want to buy the merchandise, which we see a lot of. There's still a valuable market in that older demo. And I think having a property like this, the Saturday Night Show, is going to allow kind of generational viewing, right? That's what makes wrestling work. It's also what makes sports work.

But it's what makes wrestling work as you're introduced to wrestling, you know, by an older brother or cousin or an uncle or father, mother, brother, whatever. and you bond and it's communal viewing. One of the last probably vestiges of communal viewing, other than, again, sports is wrestling. So when you've got a property that dad can sit down and enjoy, mom and dad can sit down and joy because when they were kids,

they watched Saturday night, WWF Saturday night, now you've got the same opportunity for their kids. I think from a family viewing point of view, this is a really brilliant move to have a nostalgia product branded nostalgia. Now, I'm assuming it is because we've seen the promotions, and it's just drips nostalgia with some of the clips that they've used. But if it's a nostalgia themed show that is throughout the show

gives a nod to early days of WWE, I think it's going to be a phenomenal success if that's what they do. If it's just another wrestling show with a cute open, it's going to struggle. It just is. It's Saturday night, folks. It's just like Friday night's hard enough. Now you're doing Saturday. night. If there's not something unique about it, if it's not different than what we see on

SmackDown and Raw, it'll be okay, because it's WWE, it'll always be an audience for it. But if they really give a nod to nostalgia and theme that show properly and consistently and keep it that way, I think that over the next two years, I could build a hell of an audience. Check this out too, just so you know. There's no NFL game that day. There's no college football. So college football regular season ends two weeks prior. A week prior to this is when you'll see a lot of championship games. Like the SEC championship, that's a week before. So that day, December 14th, there's no NFL game.

There was a Thursday night game, and there's, of course, a load of games on Sunday. But they're strategic NBC and WWE here. No football competition that day. Saturday night's main event, Saturday, December 14th, As you're listening to this, tickets are on sale now. But I'll tell you what, what I would do is I'd just pick up game time. That's what I do anytime I need tickets. I just pull out my phone, fire up the GameTime app, and I'm good to go.

GameTime even has a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only the incredible deals on great seats. So you don't have to waste time searching through thousands. of tickets. I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be using game time to get tickets for my dad for the Eagles and the sphere. Well, if you're trying to make it to Saturday night's main event, can I recommend game time? I'm a big fan of this. I've been a big fan for a while. They've got something called the lowest price guarantee where game time will actually credit you 110% of the difference if you find a better deal. How about that? Talk about peace of mind.

and you eliminate any risks when you get a panoramic view from your seat before you actually buy. You're not looking at a seat map and wondering, is that a good spot? Well, you actually get that POV from your seat, real-life seat views. You also get all-end pricing, toggling this feature, shows you the total up front. So there's no surprise fees at checkout. It's not just for comedy. It's not just for sports. It's not just for concerts.

It's for everything. Think about that. You can do wrestling. tickets for me and you. I could do Eagles tickets for my dad. I could get some theater tickets for Tony Chivani and Lois and I could go sing some damn show tunes. Game time can hook us all up.

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for $20 off. Download game time today. What time is it? Game time. I just love this sponsor, Eric. You've used it. I've used it. Man, Game Time just takes the guesswork out of buying tickets.

I don't think it could be any easier than game time. Yeah, I agree. Our daughter, Montana, reached out to me 10 days ago and said her and her significant other, her boyfriend, and I can't remember this cat's name. He was a country singer, but he's really, he's been around for a while, but he's beginning to emerge. And now he's the hottest thing going. And they both love his music, and he's going to be in Salt Lake City in December. I think it was in December.

But she asked me, hey, do you know anybody? You know, I want to buy tickets, but I don't know the venue. I don't want to, because they're really expensive tickets, right, the one she was looking at. I bet I'm a freak, because she's really conservative. Like, she's the opposite of me. I would just buy the ticket home for the best. if it's not any good. Yeah, whatever.

She's not that way. So she's him and home. I said, honey, hold on one second. And I flipped over to my game time app. I found the concert, found the artist, found the concert. I said, how about these seats? I gave you the information on the seats, but I said, I'm looking at it, and here's what I see.

And we bought the tickets through game time. It's so convenient. It's so easy. Even a high-tech redneck like me that struggles with. with anything other than my iPhone can figure it out easily. So yeah, check it out. It's a cool thing to have on your phone

because you never know when you're going to use it or need it. Check it out. Download game time today in the app store and then you want to use our code weeks. You'll get $20 off your first purchase. I wanted to show you one last thing before we jump into our topic today. You know, listen, I know sometimes we talk about negative stuff here on the show. But I thought, Jeff, Hardy did something super classy, want to give him some props and a recent T&A taping, he did a little

tribute for The Fiend. It's been a year since we lost Bray Wyatt, and I thought it was super cool that of all the different artwork that that creative genius known as Jeff Hardy could do, he drew the fiend. I thought that was a nice tribute from Jeff for the wrestling community's loss in Bray Wyatt. Yeah, good on you, Jeff. He is a, this is going to sound weird on a wrestling show. He's a sweet guy.

Yeah. It really is. Let's get to our topic today. Now that we got the niceties out of the way, it's time to start busting Eric's balls a little bit. Oh, God. You know, it's going to be fun because we're taking a deep dive into what your life looked like 25 years ago. We're going to touch on the end of your run involved in WC.

be creative within the last few weeks as we're building to fall brawl 99 and then we'll actually run through the paper view but you know 1999 was an interesting time in in the wrestling world when you think of 1999 as a whole is there any one thing that stands out that characterizes that you could think with that right there that's really what my 1999 was about in the wrestling business not in terms of what was going to going on on television in the ring and and this is a hell of a thing to say I don't want to turn anybody off at this point because we're just now getting into the topic so hang on as often happens as we progress and the questions start coming to me the pictures become

clear in my memory but it's almost like I put 1999 out of my mind I mean I remember you know the end of it, more clearly. But the first quarter, second quarter of 99, it was such a blur, or is such a, but probably was then too, because the things that I was immersed in, 102% of my focus and energy, what there was left of it at that point, hadn't had nothing to do with the the creative. I had to hand that off. I had to be aware of what was going on in case Harvey Schiller or somebody else from Turner called me and asked. But all of my focus is on every aspect of the business other than creative. So sometimes until I see it or somebody jogs my memory with a

question, it's like 1999 never happened. Well, it did. It didn't start until September 10th, 1999, that's what I got sent home. And by September 11th, I was right down the road between here and Yellowstone National Park, catching fish. That's almost where my 1999 started in terms of my memory. Let's talk about what was running in the Observer in the Torch in August of 1999. The Torch would say Kevin Nash will be taking off the next six weeks from in-ring appearances and then return, probably doing the outsider's gimmick with Scott Hall. Nash is also taking off the next three weeks from booking. His duties have been handed to Kevin Sullivan in the meantime.

Nash has been complaining about not having taken a vacation since joining WCW over three years ago, and he's burned out from wrestling and his booking duties. He's telling friends that booking is more demanding than he expected, and he considers it tougher than being a full-time wrestler. At one point, Nash had expressed interest in quitting wrestling to constantly, and trade on booking. Apparently, he's reconsidered that stance and is excited about the prospects of revisiting the outsider's gimmick.

Boy, I think this is a tale we've probably heard before. It seems like fun until you're the guy doing it and dealing with everything. And then you're like, you know what? Let me just go have fun with my buddy again. That was fun. Maybe this not so much. Yeah. Now, in fairness to the position.

it's always hard, even when things, if you talk to Bruce Pritchard, you and I both talk to him. And like you, I never ask him about creative or anything to do with the inside of the halls of WWE. Because his friends, you don't put your friend on the spot, right? You don't want to ask questions that maybe would make your friend feel awkward in answering, for whatever reason. So we never go there. But I bet you if I called Bruce today, as great as everything is going for him personally in WWE, as great as the business is going, the growth opportunities there we're seeing, if I call Bruce said, but how do you really, how do you like it every single day?

It's a freaking grind. That's when things are going well. It's a freaking grind. And in WWE, you know, the entire company is, it's got infrastructure, it's got experience, it's got highly qualified people. There's no lack of top talent in the ring or out of it in WWE. And it's still a freaking grind. Now, let's go back to 1999 and you're Kevin Nash and you're taking over booking in WCW where nothing was going great. it makes what's a freaking grind into really

I don't know that there's anything harder mentally or emotionally not that I've ever been involved in it just drained you and I know especially you know wrestling fans it can't be that hard you know I'm sure Tony Conn was probably surprised at how difficult it can really be

because you can't anticipate the nature of the talent that's what makes it hard And add to that, the audience is fickle. It's hard to predict what the audience is going to really latch on to, whether it's music, television, movies, or fashion. It's all the same thing. People like what they like, and you have to provide them something compelling to do so. In 1999, you think Kevin Ash had any idea how to come up with something really compelling?

It was more about, my God, how do we keep the wheels on? How do we keep from hitting that brick wall? So it's not surprising that Kevin, you know, came to the realization that anybody that would be in that position would eventually, but Kevin, Kevin got a close-up look real fast at the worst possible time. Let's talk about Jimmy Hart, too. Something that I think people forget about. I was recently reminded when I read Dave Penzer's book, Sitting Rings Side, highly recommend if it is a hidden gem that Guy Evans, who we both think a lot of, who was a big part of putting together the Nitro book and working with you on your book. book, he helped with Dave Penzer's book, too. And they spent a little bit of time talking about when Jimmy Hart was in control of WCW Saturday Night. And I'd kind of forgotten about that.

Here's the write-up from the observer at the time. Jimmy Hart is now in charge of WCW Saturday night. He wants to turn it into a more Memphis-like show with the announcers at the building live rather than doing voiceover tapes in studio. It's very difficult because they book angles and with no long-term planning, things taped make no sense by the time they air because last second title changes are thrown in on Mondays and guys there trying to give TV time on Saturdays get their souls taken from them in the last minute angles on Mondays. Artin had a lot of changes in mind, including wanted to make the Saturday show almost a separate circuit from Monday and Thursday, concentrating on younger guys that wouldn't be

beaten on the other shows and bringing in an occasional star to give the show credibility, including creating separate title belts for the show. They're doing an angle with Barry Darso where he took a bump on his head and has amnesia. In one week, he was Crusher Crews Chef, and he will also be the golfer guy and blacktop bully as well as himself over the next few weeks. Of course, for legal reasons, he can't do smash or repo man. They're going to do programs with Evan Courageous, but he got his soul taken, so they're starting something with a four by four and he got fired, etc. Either way, there's lots of reports that, hey, man, he's really motivated to do this, but his one caveat was, hey, I want to do it my way.

I know Penzer was helping formatting the show, and it feels as if you guys did carve him off enough autonomy to say, hey, between Nitro and Thunder, we got more than we can say grace over it. Jimmy, if you want it, go with it. What do you remember of this arrangement? You pretty much summarized it. I mean, again, a lot of this was driven. by the stress and the pressure that nitro and thunder and turner corporate created right it was hard enough to get nitro and thunder out the door that when jimmy stepped up and it was his initiative i didn't go to jimmy and ask him

jimmy came to me and didn't ask for more money it wasn't like some kind of selfish ploy on jimmy's part it was jimmy seeing that saturday night was being treated like a an afterthought, really was. It was last minute. I mean, nothing about it. There was, there was just no horsepower to put against it. Our resources were beyond tapped with Noges on Thunder. So it was sheer luck more often than not that we could even get a Saturday night show on the air. And Jimmy saw that.

And Jimmy has all, you know, when, look, I've used the term Jimmy Harded into a deal with respect to me. Like, I was Jimmy Harded. into the Hulk Hogan T&A deal. TNA didn't want me. That wasn't their interest. Hogan didn't want to be there without me, so there I was. And I refer to that as being Jimmy Harted in a respectful, loving way, because I love Jimmy. But Jimmy was Jimmy Harded into WCW, but the minute he got in the door, and he knew that,

there was no pretense on Jimmy's part. He didn't, no illusions of grandeur. He knew exactly what he was there to do. and why he was there to do it. But rather than just take the check and do what he needed to do, he wanted so badly to get involved and creative. He saw the talent, he saw the passion of these young guys like Evan courageous. And he created three count.

I mean, Hurricane Helms owes his career to Jimmy Hart. Really, that's not an exaggeration. Or do I mean that to do? diminish hurricane, trigger Shane Helms, don't mean to do that. It's not my point. My point is he would have never gotten the opportunity that he has in WW2 this day, had it not been for Jimmy Hart's passion for the project and what he saw in Shane. I think it's really cool, but that was all Jimmy.

And everything else you talked about pretty much on the money. It was like Jimmy demanded it Right Jimmy believed that he could make a difference With Saturday night And what he told Look as you described Or whatever it was

Wherever it came from torture Or Meltzer You just described NXT Yes And I want to make a mental notice I wasn't Jimmy Hart ahead of his time Yes

Two different You know It's pretty cool So props to Jimmy I mean you know But every time I see Jimmy Hart, every single time he comes running over, hey, baby, baby, baby, I just want to thank you for the opportunity you gave me to book WCW Saturday Night. How cool is that?

Every single time. It's, I think in the last 15 or 20 years that I've run into Jimmy out and about, he has never once failed to say that. It's pretty cool. That just gives you some insight. to who Jimmy Hart really is. And it tells you how much he, I mean, think about that. This is a guy who like, of course we would let you book Saturday night.

Jimmy, who better? But he's still so gracious and thankful. I mean, he really loves it. And you could tell. And that's the reason this report came through the tour. Some big name wrestlers have come to Jimmy Har and told him they're willing to work his WCW Saturday night tapings, even if management doesn't schedule them for the dates. The plan for the show is to utilize the mid card and lower card wrestlers in compelling

episodic storylines. The format of the show may evolve into a studio type format, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. But the idea that talent is going out of their way to say, hey, I'll come book it or I'll come work it even if I'm not booked. Like that tells you what high regard and how hopeful and optimistic they were about this opportunity and how much they may be believed in Jimmy Hart, right? How much they respected Jimmy.

Yeah. And yes, believe in them as well. I don't want to admit that. But really what that was? is respect for Jimmy. I mean, how old was Jimmy then? He was in his 60s back then. Yeah.

Late 50s. And he didn't need, see, and that's why I brought it up earlier. He didn't get paid any extra for this. He didn't ask and I didn't offer it. Because at that point in time, I didn't have it to give him, even if he did ask for it.

Our budgets were getting creamed. But it was, it was his passion that did it. And it was the respect that Jimmy had, still has, with so many of that top talent. Because if you've ever worked with Jimmy, and I'm not just talking about a one-off here and there, but I mean, if you were in a day-to-day grind with Jimmy, it would be really hard not to have respect for him. He is one of the hardest working people I've ever been around. So much so that even though I was in my, what, 30s, I guess, or early 40s back then,

Jimmy was in his late 50s, maybe early 60s. I don't know. I can't do the math in my head. while I'm talking to you, but he'd wear me out. Just listening to him would fatigue me. Not because he didn't have interesting stuff to say. In fact, it was because he did because you couldn't afford not to pay attention. But holy cow, hey, Jimmy, how you feeling today?

It's like walking by a McCullough chain sock. He's just taken off. And like I said, want to pay attention. He'd wear me out. And I think a lot of talent, like I said, the guys who actually worked with him and, you know, other talent that were up and down the road with him, just had so much respect for him. And that's what that was. I'm just, I'm super proud of, of Jimmy because, I mean, he even started this thing by saying, hey, our goal is to draw better than Nitro. You know, his goal was not Nitro, the Thunder.

Can I build this thing up to where there's more people watching it than Thunder? It wasn't a priority. It was a leftover. and we're going to take the guys they're not using. And I just think it's so cool and such a good idea. Shout out to Jimmy Hart, man. Super cool. We mentioned Kevin Nash is going to take a break.

Well, Nitro is going to be business as usual in his absence. This time we're going to have match instructions given out by Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham. Nash is telling friends that he's going to be phoning in his plans, even during his three-week break from booking. And the torch would say, surprisingly, Bischoff didn't take on any more. more responsibility than usual in the wake of Nash's absence. Instead, several wrestlers are saying that while he's submitting ideas to Sullivan, Graham, and Dusty Rhodes, the concepts of the ideas are usually lost in translation, and Bischoff rarely follows up to make sure the ideas are executed properly.

Other wrestlers say they've approached Bischoff with ideas for their characters, but even if Bischoff likes the idea, they have to keep after him if they want the idea to come to fruition. So, listen, you're hearing some sour grapes come through. the reports that Wade is talking to in WCW when they're dealing with you. But we know behind the scenes, boy, you're dealing with real crocodiles and in wingtip shoes and red power ties and blue suits. And I know Evan Courageous has a great idea, but it's probably not going to be priority when you're dealing with those chomping crocodiles, right?

You know what the sad part is? is, by the way, that coverage that you read from Wade, yeah, 100% on the money. I, I, I, it's the difference between Belcer and others is I could absolutely imagine that conversation happening between

Wade and somebody that was affected by the way things were going on in WCW. because everything that that person said to Wade was true. None of it, none of it was spun. That's what was going on in WCW at the time. And the really sad part is that there were some good ideas. I'm sure there were great ideas that either talent would come to be with and I failed to or didn't do an adequate job in executing and developing. Because, you know, sometimes you get, you know, talent come to you with an idea.

And it's like, okay, that's a cool idea. But then you've got to take it back and you've got to spend a lot of time if you're really committed to that idea in planning it and breaking it down and deciding when you want to interject this idea and how. Now, if it's a finish of a match or something, you know, one offish, no big deal. But if he says, hey, I have an idea for, you know, the storyline, maybe a month, two months, three months and you hear nuggets of good shit in there, that's when you go, wow, I like that. It's not like the complete stories there.

You don't have 12 weeks of TV laid out on paper. That's the part you've got to do. That's what comes in if you're going to do it right. And we just didn't have the horse part to do it. And I just wonder how many ideas from Evan Courageous or anybody else at that time, you know, got thrown up against the wall and there were some great nuggets there and just nobody had the energy, the focus. or even the desire to grab it, that's the sad part.

I wanted to ask you about Buff Bagwell, too, because there's a report here that he's only got five months left on his contract, or at least that's what he's telling people in Wade's reporting in the torch. And Wade would even speculate. Some are wondering if management realizes that his contract will be expiring so soon, since Bischoff isn't already trying to strong harm him in designing new deals like he did with Chris Benoit, Andy Guerrero, and Dean Malenko. and at least he tried to do with Chris Cherico. Although Bagwell hasn't given any indications, most are assuming he may leave the company.

He's been expressing dissatisfaction with his current angles and push. Apparently he was happy to be working Savage and Piper, but feels his current feud with Ernest the Cat Miller is a step down. Were you souring on Bagwell, or do you just covered up, as you were saying, and too much. Couldn't do it all. I don't think I was soured up Bagwell as a talent. And my perception of his value on the roster, that hadn't changed. Again, what had changed is my emotional connection to it.

I had other things that I was more emotionally connected to in WCW, the business side of it. So it was like, dude, do what you have to do until I figure this out. If you got to go, you got to go. And I was that way with everybody at that point. Early in 99, it might have been a little different. Late 98, it would have been different, for sure. But by the time we're talking about here, the time frame, it's like, sorry, I got nothing. Because I didn't.

I didn't have the budget to, I couldn't make decisions about budget issues without prior approval. And it took forever to get approval if you got it at all. You usually either got to run around or denyed. So contracts are coming up. Guys are wanting to go to WWE if they can or know that they're going to stay in WCW. Their clock is ticking. Mine wasn't. Or at least Turner Broadcasting's wasn't.

That's a better way to say it. So, yeah, there was very little that I could do. Which is why when Wade said, you know, Eric's not as aggressive about resigning people, no shit. He didn't, Wade didn't know it at the time. There's no way I could. Let's be honest. Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming. But with For Imprint, it's easy.

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Four imprint, for certain. Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag. The second, Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it on one trip.

He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos, Stronger Makes Everything Better Well, I love talking about this era of WCW

because it does feel like every now and again we stumble across something that maybe slip through the cracks because we were all focusing on other things like this, for instance. First Daughter was a movie made for TBS. Diamond Dallas Page has a significant role in the film. He's going to work hard and do a bunch of promotion on it as well. And the result is this first daughter film on TBS is the most watched movie in the history of TBS. It did a 6.89 rating and a 12 share.

And then they did a replay and that did a 3.82 rating and a 7.0 share. And just how big is a 6.9 rating? Well, over the past 12 years, only 27 movies in the history of Basic Cable have ever drawn a 6.0 or better. That means this First Daughter movie is the most watched television show of any kind in the history of TBS. Can you believe that DDP is a part of that, Eric? That seems make believe, but also very on brand for Diamond Dallas Page. I am Googling First Daughter as we speak and while I answer this question, so bear with me. I want to know who the producer that was and I'll find out as soon as Google gets back to me here and we'll talk about it but

see this is the kind of thing when you bring this up it's just like forest Whitaker was the no that's not right I'm listening keep going okay it's miss opportunity like opportunity you've heard me say this before and it's just core to who I am and how I think hey I got the director it's Armand Maastriani say that wrong Yeah, I don't It's written by Chad Hayes and Kerry Hayes Chad and Kerry Hayes I remember the name

I remember their name and I probably was in a meeting with those two who's the executive producer? No idea. Doesn't say it's probably the Hayes brothers then either way, wait, wait, oh

co-executive producer Jason Herbie there you go Tom Patricia and David Salsberg, but Jason Hervey was the co-executive producer. Yeah, David Salsberg and Jason Hervey were partners before Jason and I became partners at B.H.E. So this, yeah, this took place when David Salsberg also worked with Jason Hervey at Mandalay Sports and Entertainment. So that's how all this is coming. Thank you for doing that, by the way, because I'm always fascinated about how the pieces come together because that's what producers really do.

They just put puzzles together. But, yeah, where I was going before all that good information was missed opportunity pisses me off almost more than anything else. I don't like rude people, rude, disrespectful. Same thing in my book. That just gets my attention right away, not in a good way. Right after that, missed opportunity. When I'm pissed off, more often than not, I'm pissed off at myself.

First and foremost, like when you hear me raise my voice, not you, Conrad, because you're not around me like that, but when I raise my voice or I get physically agitated, you know, my hair stands up at the back of my neck or whatever, it's usually at myself and almost always associated with some, you know, dumb, fucked up form of missed opportunity. And it could be little things, too, like, oversleeping and missing an opportunity to get a good look at the sunrise. It's not always big stuff. But it's like, life is, you know, nothing but the opportunities that you take advantage of, whether it be in life or in business. And when it comes to business, man, those opportunities are few and fucking far between. You've got to work hard and you've got to pray hard. And you've got to be the right place at the right time as often as you have to be smart.

And this is one of those things that just adds more to my memory of 1999 is, it took a while to get WCW brand and its performance to a level where people from Hollywood who have nothing to do with wrestling nor care to look at what you've done with your brand and go, hey, I want to hook my horse to your wagon or vice versa. Hey, I want to hook my wagon to your horse because I think you could help me win a race or whatever. And that's what 95 and 96 and 97 and even 98, which was a record year financially and otherwise for WCW, I believe, those four years, whatever it was, three and a half

four years, that's how long it took to get an opportunity like for Stodder to get Mandalay Sports Entertainment, who was Jason Hervey and David Salzberg at that point. to get them to the point where they're going to write a check and pay for that movie. And that was such a great opportunity. And had the merger not occurred, had Ted Turner, merger, no merger. Had Ted Turner remained in control of Turner broadcasting, 99 would have been a building year just like 98 was. and this is one really clear example of the power of the brand that we built over three and a half for four years

and what could have been oh there was a Warner feature film opportunity mixed in there as well imagine that and then just to pull the plug on it going back to you know the rocks vices who killed WCW to intentionally in my definite opinion after seeing the research the Guy Evans and his book did about Nitro. And certainly after seeing some of the interviews from top executives, including Stu Snyder and Brad Siegel, I am more convinced than I've ever been that the destruction, the death of WCW was premeditated.

It didn't happen for any other reason that a lot of executives in Turner Broadcasting wanted it to happen. despite the success that we had created and the opportunities that we're seeing in 1999 that are a reflection of that success. It's just pisses me. Well, it won't piss you off as prize picks. They're America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. Price picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports.

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It's guaranteed. Prize picks. Run your game. Hey, Eric, let's talk about 1999. You know, not only is DDP enjoying this success with First Daughter, but we've also got some things happening across the water, as my father used to say. There's a New Japan tag team tournament where Scott Norton and Ming are going to be involved. and you want to talk about two badasses to send to Japan like my God I never saw it but now I'm like they were working together I got to go see that how fun does that sound and two of the sweetest guys on a planet too I mean two of the scariest slash nicest guys you'd ever meet unless you pissed them off but oh my God to I want to go back and find that now

Those two monsters working together. Scott worked a lot in Japan. In fact, one of the reasons that I brought Scott into WCW was because he was such a critical component to the relationship that we had. Scott was amazing, man. You talk about a guy who could go and tough, and then he put him in a ring with me. I just would like to know what the Japanese wrestlers on the other side of the ring.

Like, who were they in? What were they thinking? Hey, check this matchup out that Wade says, or Dave says you guys were working towards Masahiro Chono teaming up with Don Fry to take on the Great Muda and Scott Norton. Oh, my God, Don Frye and Scott Norton. Goodness, gracious. You know, in 99, I know that New Japan is really starting to explode and they're having a lot of success over there. You know, as you're starting to fill the walls closing in,

New Japan can't be a priority in your day-to-day life at this point anymore, right? It kind of was because of a personal relationship that I had, not only with Brad Riggins, but by this point in time, I was close to Inoki. But much more so, Masa Saido and his wife, Michi, she often worked as an interpreter for Masa with Sonny. Mr. Baisho, who was kind of the head of the business affairs, behind the scenes, money, all the administrative details of New Japan. I've become pretty good friends with him.

He and his wife came to Hawaii, along with Masa Saito and his wife, and there was some other representative. I can't remember who it was from New Japan. Lori and I renewed our vows in Hawaii, and they came in for that. Oh, wow. So that's how close we were outside of the day-to-day business. And because of that, look, I knew where things were going. I didn't know when I didn't know when I was going to catch a bullet, but I knew the bullet was coming at some point.

Okay. I didn't know if someone else was going to put it in me or if I was going to do it myself at that point. I don't mean this literally, obviously. But I wanted to make sure that my relationship. relationship in New Japan wasn't a casualty as a result. So I kind of kept them, as best I could, kept them in the loop as to where I was at, where things were at at, WCW. Let's talk about something that happened on Nitro here.

On August 9th, we're going to introduce Ming as Flair's bodyguard. That's kind of fun. And we're also going to have a thunder taping where we have to edit a Randy Savage interview, where he's talking about how everyone has already seen the identity of the Humveed driver, except, you know, we hadn't. And there's a report here in the observer that says, apparently the plan for the Humvee driver was to get Carmen Electra to show up either on Nitro or at the paper view.

They appeared to have a deal at a $200,000 price tag for one appearance, even so that Savage did the interview to build up the angle, but it must have fallen through. Savage on his interview talked about running for president, an angle which wasn't booked for him and went off on his own tangent about the Humvee driver, which didn't pick place, and about a bodyguard for Gorgeous George, which didn't happen. And he said he'd have a new

Miss Madness contest on the August 9th Nitro, which also didn't happen. So Savage is doing his best Hogan here, just having some fun, but I do want to ask you, I'd never heard, I don't remember ever hearing. Do you remember, does that jog your memory?

Carmen Electra? No, you never heard it because it never fucking happened. That's the difference between, you've just, you took a big, bright, white hot spotlight and put it on the difference between a piece of shit, garbage, wrestling nerd, like Dave Belser, and Wade Keller's reporting at the same time. Are you freaking kidding me? Carmen Electra? A one time at 200 grand, that never happened.

There was never even a suggestion that it could happen. Nobody in their right fucking mind would have even brought that to me to suggest that possibly it could. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. But that's the difference between people like Wade Keller who do their best to cover the business and a parasite, tapeworm piece of shit. shit like Dave Meltzer.

That sucks the life out of the business and leads people to leave that he believe that he actually knows what the hell he's talking about. He's just a, he's a creepy little prick that does damage to the business. And I'm going to go into this in great detail, not from my point of view, but from someone else's in the next week or 10 days on 83weeks.com.

And I get hot about this because it affects people, lives. It costs people money. It changes perception. And as sad as it is that that parasite even has enough of a following that you have to concern yourself with it. The fact is, especially now with the internet, it's harmful to the business when people outside of the industry who want to find out a little bit about what's going on inside of the industry and somehow stumble across this garbage, it's not a good thing. And if people want to pay them 20 bucks a month or 15 bucks a month or whatever to read that garbage, more power to him and to you. But just know what you're getting.

And this was a perfect example of the same situation back in 1999. Complete fabrication. Here's another report I want to ask you about. The original plan for Hogan and Bischoff was to turn heel together on August 23rd in Las Vegas. A correction from last week, Hogan donning the red and yellow was not Hogan's last. last-ditch effort to keep him from going heel, figuring it would get a face pop. That was the booking committee's idea to convince fans that Hogan wasn't going to turn since judging from crowd reactions.

Fans didn't trust him as a face yet, and his turn would come as no surprise. It sure seemed they were building him up to turning him on sting, but you know how plans change. Do you remember there ever being a discussion about, I mean, why the red and yellow, was it to turn? Did you think you and he were both going to turn heel again? In fairness, even to that parasite, Dave Meltzer, I can't remember. It could have been something that was being discussed with the creative team. It may or may not have been presented to me.

I can't say for sure, unlike the previous comment, it's pretty clear. This one could have happened. but I don't remember. I do want to ask you about Brett Hart because there's speculation in the observer that there's been discussion about bringing Brett back as a heel. Now normally I would say,

oh man, I love that because I loved his heel stuff in 97 in the WWF. But this is now late summer 99 where in May Owen passed away. It's hard for me to imagine in the same calendar year, him being a heel. And maybe that seems silly, but I'm just saying,

I think wrestling fans would want to cheer for Brett right here, and that would be an uphill battle to get them to boo him fresh off of what happened to his brother. Do you remember it ever being discussed? I mean, did you prefer Brett's heel work but knew that's a square peg here? Did you think there's a way to make it happen? Well, there's always a way to make it happen. If everybody's on board, Brett was not in any way, shape, or form.

I didn't think that, and I'm absolutely convinced now, Um, he just wouldn't have been able to, even if he would have said, and Brett, you know, Brett was a pro. Brett wasn't a my way or the highway kind of guy. The difference between Brett, you know, bracing an idea, not embracing an idea was a pretty significant gap, but he, he wouldn't, he didn't throw down, um, but it wouldn't have been the right thing to do. Just, yeah, timing on that was horrible. I don't, it wasn't a serious discussion with me.

I knew where Brett's head was at at that point. I was only a couple months removed. And Brett is super sensitive always has been about his Canadian hero status to begin with. So it would have to have been a really, really powerfully good idea for Brett to even entertain it. So it makes me believe that this is just more Dave Meltzer garbage. Let's talk about Sid. In this era, you guys are trying to build him back up and you're doing. doing this Millennium Man stuff and he's trying to do a Goldberg winning streak or even

announcing as we're doing a show here in Colorado Springs on August 16th that Sid Vicious is 55 and O and of course if you're paying attention he's losing house show matches but we're not acknowledging that we're just I think the way we approach the streak with Sid is so different than the way we approach the streak with Goldberg, it just doesn't have near the effect. And that's not to say that Sid wasn't as effective as Goldberg, but we at least pretended to have a little bit of consistency and continuity with Goldberg, but we're kind of just being a little silly with Sid's.

What say you? We're being sloppy. Yes. We're not putting the effort in. We're not paying attention to detail. We're not building an arc. It's just, it was a bad rip-off. of a good idea with Bill Goldberg, a well-executed idea.

The idea wasn't that big of it. It wasn't like an earth-shatteringly creative idea, but the execution of it was pretty good. This was like a dollar store special of a good idea. It was, it's embarrassing. You know what's interesting to me, Eric, is I thought Sid was doing it for heat. Like he's saying, Oh, 55 and no, we know he's not really. But it feels like he's doing it for heat.

But then the announcers are acting like, no, it's a legitimate streak. It was a mess. Yes. It was a mess. It was the right hand writing TV, not managing what the left hand was doing. Yes. So they weren't communicating. They weren't, you know, when you, ideally, this is the way wrestling, I think, always started

back in television time is you shoot your angles on TV and you play them out of the house show. And they were tied together. So when you got to your house show, when you got to your event, nobody sat around and said, what should we do tonight? Anybody got any ideas? Or even in advance, nobody sat around and said, okay, we're going to Des Moines, Iowa for a house show on Friday night. What should we do? It's really easy to figure out what you do.

You look at what you did last week on television and you continue that. story with the same talent, ideally, with the same talent, and you put it into a house show and you may or may not have a finish. You are more than likely what you're doing out there is testing whatever it is you think you want to do to pay that story off. You're trying different finishes. That's why house shows are so much fun. That's why I hate the idea of house shows going away. For that hardcore wrestling fan that really likes to follow the product and kind of see stories develop and how they develop, traditional house show business, gives you the opportunity to do that

because it's so freaking simple unless you don't do it. And that it's a disaster, which is what this was. Because we just didn't do it. We didn't execute. Speaking of disasters, I want to ask you about the Nitro Girls' pay-per-view because we start to see

plugs for this and it's written in the observer that they can't put an ad for the thing on TV, but they can't plug it on commentary. I don't know why that's a Turner rule, but it is, according to Dave Meltzer. Because no ad ran. But we were talking about it to the point where we even had mean Gene ask Billy Kidman, who's the hottest nitro girl?

And he apologetically says Kimberly, that brings DDP out. He's pissed off because Kidman said his wife was hot. Like, that's a bad thing. They have a match. DDP beats the shit out of him. diamond cutter, diamond cutter, diamond cutter, roll up more diamond cutter. Now we're going to whip your ass with a belt.

But it was all to plug this Nitro Girls pay-per-view. I don't know that this necessarily got Kidman over. It does establish DDP as a heel. I get all that. But what I'm really driving at is, how the hell did we get a Nitro Girls pay-per-view and why haven't we spent more time talking about it here on the show? I don't know that we ever produced one.

Oh, you did. Did I really? Yeah, it's out there. It's on YouTube and smother. If you just throw it in your search engine, it's like 90 minutes of talking to the girls and showing them in bikinis and just silly shit where I'm like, why were we doing this? I mean, I get while we're doing it. So it's just a behind the scenes of the natural girl.

It's not a pay-per-view wrestling of facts. It's not nitro girls wrestling. It's just hot chicks. In bikinis on paper view. They didn't do anything. They didn't hit each other with chairs or nothing. I hope not I didn't watch the thing

but I saw some stills and it just looked like But now I gotta go back and watch it Oh I want Wait a minute You're willing to watch it By God I got an idea We're going to do a watch along

At 83 weeks.com Or on ad free show Stay tuned But you being forward We're going to strap you down And watch the Nitro Girls paper I can't wait 90 minutes And watching hot chicks

Hitting each other with chairs Awesome They're not hitting each other with chairs chairs? Come on now. Maybe they want. Okay. The standards are relaxed, according to a report here from Dave Meltzer,

by the standards and practices of Nitro. Now you can say the word ass. It's acceptable. And I guess Hogan hears this, and he has a new catchphrase. Say your prayers, eat your vitamins, and kick some ass. I mean, do you remember there being meetings,

as silly as this is, about, okay, we've decided from on high. that the word ass, a crooked letter, crooked letter is now permissible. Go forth, young man, and say ass on nitro. It seems silly, but that was a real conversation? It was silly, but that's what it was. My God. And by the way, it's not like you could pick up a phone and get an answer like when you needed it.

Because that side, when I say that side, I mean the north tower of Turner Broadcasting, that was all the executives, the administrative side. South side was more of the operational side. generally, and CNN was on the north side. The north side of the building operated on a different timeline and with a whole set of different priorities than the south side of the building, or in particular, or WCW. So it wasn't like you could pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm working on a script. It's 2 o'clock in the morning.

I'm sorry I woke you up, by the way. I'm working on a script and where the idea just came up. Otherwise, I would have called you earlier today because we work all freaking night half the time. And we wanted to use the word ass in this format. And, of course, we're leaving tomorrow morning in order to get to television on time. So can I get an answer on this sometime by new tomorrow? So it made it really difficult to know whether you could or couldn't step outside the lines. And this is one example.

To say the word ass. My God. You couldn't call someone stupid. What? I got yelled at one day because there was a promo. He a little baby face going at it. One of the other called somebody called the other one stupid. And I got a red flag on that.

I got a double red flag on that one. Meaning I got to talk to somebody's in their office. I can't just take a phone call or get a freaking email about it. I've got to actually drop what I'm doing and walk across the atrium over to the North Tower that's filled with a bunch of of muck or fothers that wanted to see my company go away and listen to them give me their view of how I should be producing wrestling and whether or not I should use the word ass or stupid but yeah I got yelled at for stupid can't say that it's demeaning of course it's demeaning he's a heal yeah but there could be people out there that are offended by that it's wrestling

They're supposed to be offended by it. You wonder why I put 1999 out of my mind? See, these trips down memory lane are often fun. This one's, you can't tell them, getting a little goosey on this one. Get me a little agitated. Well, I like that when you're a little agitated. There's a lot to talk about here.

I do want to ask you about Raven. Before we get to him, There's two other pieces of business I want to mention. You're going to have another appearance for WCW on the Jay Leno show on August 10th. Dennis Rodman is a guest, and Randy Savage is going to come out as a surprise and spear the hell out of Dennis Rodman, and they go over the couch. This is a big deal. I don't think this appearance gets talked about nearly enough. I mean, Dennis Rodman is still a big part of pop culture in 1999.

he is a megastar he's in high demand the tonight show was still smashing in the ratings and i know we're building towards you know a match with these guys at in sturgis but how was the relationship with the night show by 99 i mean we know what it was like in 98 when you got j leno wrestling you're back here in late 99 was that deteriorating are you still involved, are you hands-on? Just talk to us about the Tonight Show relationship. And the relationship I had with NBC at that time

in Tonight Show, particularly was about as good as it could get. Gary Considine, who was the executive producer for Jay Leno and the Tonight Show, and had been for a long time, had a lot of influence, obviously, because of it, the success of

the Jay Leno show and Tonight Show at NBC. Very good friends. still had a great relationship any opportunity that we could think of each other could think of to work together we would be on the phone

instantly and bouncing ideas back and forth that didn't change by 1990 that hasn't changed yet for that matter I'm still friends with Gary although he's not at NBC but yeah another relationship

I want to talk about psychosis there's a report here that he's going to be unmasking and maybe there's been talk of a new group being formed with Brad Armstrong, psychosis, Hoovintude, and Chavo Guerrero. Maybe Brad's going to be the spokesperson. That group doesn't wind up happening, but the unmasking does. We've talked about Ray Mysterio unmasking.

We've talked a little bit about whovintude, unmasking, and he did have a unique look. But what about whovintude, not whovintude, psychosis unmasking? Why take the mask? I mean, that was, I don't get it. We didn't really do anything with psychosis after that. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't want to say I can't remember. But keep in mind, I wasn't directly involved in a lot of these decisions.

But I think it's safe to say it was an attempt, while we didn't make a big deal out of Ray's mask or as big a deal as we should have, I should say. could have done so much better and made the actual unmasking Ray actually means something as opposed to just doing it because my reason for doing it was because I believe that seeing Ray being able to visually see him on television and in the arena

emote and show expression would enhance his character and get him over even more with the domestic U.S. audience because that's where I was doing business. So we learned by not making the big deal that we should have out of it, not only from a storytelling point of view, but also from a relationship point of view with Ray

and the stress that that put on that. We learned what not to do. And my guess is, it's a guess because I wasn't directly involved, this was an attempt to make it unmasking a bigger deal and doing it with a talent that was prepared to do it. I would have gone along with that because, as you saw, he's a good-looking guy, but the same principle applies in that when you see a character who's out there working a match and part of that character's job in telling that story and creating the emotion

is to project fear, anger, pain, pleasure, or whatever, it's hard to do with a mascot. It's easier to sell. tools to sell with without a mess than you do with one. So I would have gone along with it for the very same reason that I was behind, quite frankly, unmasking Ray. But here it sounds like we're at least attempting to make a bigger deal out of it. Well, something I'm going to make a big deal out of is this Raven conversation. But before we do, it's the best time of year.

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appear that some wrestlers aren't as over as they really are, and he's going to highlight some of the same problems everyone who's complaining about WCW's talking about, and he even does an interview on the ECW website where he says, I'd rather be working for ECW, and he's telling everyone who will listen, when my contract is up in 10 months, I'm out of here. Now, this happens on August 11th, where he's on Man Cowell. He's going to take shots at Hogan, and he's going to say that the only reason he's getting the bigger pops is because they're running the smaller markets, the smaller towns like Boise and Sioux Falls. And, well, there's some folks who are upset with this, and I imagine you're right at the top of the list. You call a meeting on August 23rd in Las Vegas, and before you start singling out various wrestlers for tongue lashings, you start singling out various wrestlers for tongue lashings, you start

saying, hey, things are going to turn around, but we only want wrestlers in the company who want to be in the company. And then your first target is Raven. You're going to yell at Raven for his remarks that were negative towards the company publicly, in particular, you're going to cite the Man Cow Show out of Chicago, and you're going to offer Raven a release, and Raven walks out of the building. Target number two was Conan, who you're going to yell at for going over the PA in Reno in in response to the Cowboys and cutting a promo with a comeback saying something to the effect of,

you guys don't look like you've had pussy since pussy had you. You ask Conan how he can parent in the audience and explain the word pussy to their six-year-old. And Conan apologizes for the remark. And you offer Conan and anyone else who wants to release a release. Conan does not walk out. and you say that, hey, despite your complaints, many of them that have been public, most of you, when you're faced with this opportunity, you're not going to walk out on these big money contracts. And you go after Ray Mysterio for his remark on Thunder before the Lenny Lane match,

where he talked about going down the Hershey Highway. You're going to yell at Marcus Bagwell for his crybaby behavior that led to the fight with Ernest Miller before the show in Sturgis. and then you're going to yell at public enemy because they complain so loudly about being asked to do a squash job and a handicap match to sit. This is a pretty famous meeting where you're just laying down the law. Some people are going to say that the talent has gotten completely out of control and this was long overdue. And others think you went about this the wrong way. This meeting has been discussed in the internet dirt sheets and the internet wrestling community forever. what do you remember about this meeting

and Raven walking out thinking he's getting a release and he's out of here? I was happy to see Raven go. Look, cool with them now. I mean, had it on the show. I love seeing him out on the road. I have a great relationship.

But at that point, everything that I've heard reported there is absolutely true. I was pissed Now the only thing I will take exception with is I didn't yell I usually don't yell what I'm really pissed off

and I certainly wouldn't yell a talent I would be direct it would be 100% clear where my head was at but yelling wouldn't have been part of the presentation the way it was reported

with regard to my reaction to Conan, I think I would have been wrong on that one. What Conan demonstrated in Reno was a lack of judgment. What Raven did was intentionally harmful. There's a difference. I experience a lack of judgment on a regular basis to this day. It's human nature. We all do, if you're going to be honest with yourself.

We all at some point in time make small decisions, big decisions. I'd go, fuck, I wish I wouldn't have done that. I do. And what Conan did was the lack of judgment. I can live with that. Same with Ray, particularly Ray. People forget how young Ray was at that point in time. And Ray walked the line.

Ray tried to push the envelope, much like Conan does, did. But still, he's a 20-something-year-old kid but not a lot of corporate TV experience. It was a lack of judgment. So to think that I might have offered Ray his release, I'm not sure I did that. I know that I closed the meeting with anybody that wants to feel free because I want to put everybody on a spot.

You put up or shut up, it's just, if you're going to complain publicly, then at least have the courtesy or the balls to complain to me and then we'll come to a resolution. I didn't say it that way. But that was the message. Because at that point in time, I did not care who stepped up and asked for the release. I really didn't.

I had no emotional or personal investment other than I needed to conduct business. We needed to get control over the outside bitching and moaning and piss fest that was going on. It was bad for the brand. It was bad for the company. It was bad for turn broadcasting. I can't just sit back and let them do it and not do anything. So, yeah, I drew a pretty hard, bright, visible line in the sand and offered people to walk out the door. But I think going, you know, going hard on Ray for what he did in retrospect, that was a lack of judgment.

But like I said, Levy was intentional, premeditated harm. And there's such a big difference. I wanted to talk a little bit about the criticism. I mean, there is a criticism out there that says, hey, you only went after and singled out, for lack of a better word, midcard guys. You didn't say anything to Randy Savage who just went off the reservation, creating his own angles, or any other top guys. And when you're offering everyone their release saying, hey, if you want your release, blah, blah, blah, Rick Flair's not in that room. How would you respond to the criticism that, hey, you didn't single out Sting who had done high profile interviews where he was critical?

of WCW or Randy Savage and you didn't go after the top guys Eric that's the narrative Well that's the narrative because it's a bullshit narrative. Look just like I distinguish between what Ray did and what Levy did or what Conan did

and what Levy did from guys going off and shooting their own angles since the history of WCW. It was sloppy poor communication guys had liming improvving from the day that I walked into WCW He was a C-Squot announcer to the day I got sent home on September 10th, 1999,

about a month removed from this period that we're talking about. So the reason for the meeting was the piss fest that was going on in the media outside of WCW. That was my primary concern. If I was to address every mistake that every talent would have made somewhere along the line over the previous 12 months, so that I can include top talent and not pick on certain people. I fucking wanted to pick on certain people. That was the reason I called the meeting. And that doesn't make a good narrative for guys like Dave Monster.

So to try to suggest that, oh, you didn't want to call out the top guys. First of all, anybody that would say that clearly wasn't in that room that day. and looking into my eyes and knew where my head was at. And it wasn't the issue. I wasn't having an issue on creative production and guys shooting her own ankles and going off script, which, by the way, it was kind of the beauty of Nitro from the get-go.

A lot of the stuff that we did on Nitro was not a part of a script. So it's just, again, more bullshit, gaga narrative, primarily coming from one creep who's working hard or was working hard still is trying to convince people that he had some insight into the backstage workings of a company that he had zero in. He was relying on the same type of people

that would piss and moan on a man cow show to call up Dave and say, hey, Dave, this is what's going on because they knew that stooge Dave Meltzer would print it and not verify it, not ask any questions, just go, somebody, there's a wrestler calling me. I'm going to report that. That's what that was, the narrative.

Well, let's keep the story going because as the story goes, as the night goes on, it's Scott Levy, Raven, it's Charles Ashenoff, Conan, Oscar Gutierrez, Ray Mysterio Jr., and Pete Grunner, probably said that wrong, on Billy Kidman. They're all asking for their release. They've all asked you for release, and there's calls that are going to Terry Taylor in the WWF and Paul Heyman.

And Raven is the only one of this four that are interested in going to ECW. Nobody else steps up and asks for a contract release, and it's written here. It was a balsy move on Bischoff's part because if everyone had gotten up and left or even if a dozen key guys had done so, he probably would have shot his job in the head. But it would have been gutsy of the wrestlers to leave guaranteed money when they all have their own mortgages and bills

and no guarantees of similar money employment anywhere else. When Levy goes to the WCW lawyer, Scott Wilkerson about getting his release, Wilkerson brings up the 90-day non-compete, which Levy says, Bischoff said nothing about when he offered me the release. In a later conversation that's written here, Bischoff told Levy he'd release him to go to ECW, but that would be a conditional release and he wouldn't let him go to the WWF for the remainder of his contract,

which was about 10 months left. Levy brought up that Bischoff made no such restrictions at the meeting. He also told Pete that he didn't give him two years on television to allow him to walk over to the W.WF. But a few hours later, Bischoff changed his tune when confronting Pete at the bar and told him he could have a full release. It's believed by the next morning, the story had changed again. Taylor indicated to the wrestlers that he was interested in all of them, but he had to get it cleared through Vince McMahon.

Later, McMahon apparently told Taylor that due to the lawsuits and back and forth and potential tampering charges, he wouldn't enter into negotiations with any talent until Bischoff gave them a full written release. Bischoff later asked Levy what it would take to stay, and Levy said he wanted to be one of the top ten guys of the. the company and noted that none of the top 10 guys would get the younger talent over. So listen, there's a lot of fallout from this. That's all what's been written and reported.

What do you remember about these guys individually or collectively asking for their release? And did you feel like it was a backpedal to say, well, you've got a 90-day non-compete and you can't go to the WWF for 10 months? How do you feel about that now? And how did you feel about it back then? I felt great about it then and I feel better about it now. How's that? I mean, look, do you, does anybody think I should have had more respect for Scotty Levy

under those circumstances based on what he did to publicly, nationally try to hurt the reputation of my brand and work against everything we were trying, however successful or unsuccessful to do, that I should sit down and negotiate the terms of his business. release while I was in this group meeting. No, Muckerfather, you want to go somewhere else, go somewhere else. Oh, and when you leave the door, you're going to find out that the only somewhere else you're going to go was to the guy that can't pay you anyway. Wow.

Which is why you came here in the first place. Well. That was my fuck you. Play games? Find out. That's what that was. And I'm glad I did it. And by the way, I didn't think through it.

I just did it. It was instinct. And it was a good instinct. And I would do it again. a smile on my face under those circumstances you're my spirit animal Eric

that was wow the torch would say after Bischoff's Nitro meeting several wrestlers passed a long interest to Raven Kidman Conan and Mysterio saying they'd be interested in releases also

once some of those releases became final some are saying Conan back down from Bischoff at the meeting because he fears that the luchador's he brought into WCW with him will be fired if he leaves. He's scheduled to return on the August 30th Nitro.

You know, how did, did you feel like this was a big day long blowup? This is something you dealt with for a couple of days. After this big, hey, you want your fucking release?

Bruhaha. When do things sort of level out and get normal again for you? Are you dealing with that for a few days or is it business as usual right away? It's pretty much business as usual. I mean, look, there was a, things had gotten so bad. I mean, backstage, just in terms of the mood, the vibe, people were miserable.

It's frustrating. It wasn't fun anymore. You know, there was a point in time when we first launched a nitro. When Scott Hall, I'll never forget the night Scott Hall came in. I was so afraid because of the things that I had heard and read about Scott that he was going to come in. and disrupt, which was an incredible cool vibe in the locker room on May 27th, 1996. And it had been really ever since Nitro launched back in September of 95. So it had been almost, you know, whatever it was, eight months, nine months.

And I remember that thought and that concern on my part being such a clear one. well in fact i when scott was coming in to do the making show i could have arranged for him to get a ride to the to the arena to the arena but i wanted to i wanted to drive down to the arena with scott myself i wanted that one on one time to number one get to know scott a little bit because i i barely knew him in wcd when he was there certainly did get to know him personally and i only knew him of his rep i only knew of him of his reputation so i wanted that ride It was about an hour, 45 minutes from Atlanta, the Macon. Wanted that so I could get a feel for him and see who he really was.

But also, in my subtle way, because I do have subtle ways, believe it or not, let him know that one of the things I want to see is him be successful and us be successful, but I also want to maintain the vibe in a locker room. And I had that conversation with Scott. I let him know how important this aspect of our relationship was. It wasn't just the money. It was more to me, at least. And I said that because when I got to SWW, it was probably much like I hear AEW is now.

Like it wasn't horrible, but there's a lot of frustration that's borne out a lack of communication, lack of direction, lack of leadership, quite frankly, that was WCW when I first got there. It was WCW all the way through Jim Hurd, through Kip Fry. That was the vibe in the locker room. People were generally okay

because they were getting paid every two weeks. And especially back then, that really mattered to all of them. So it wasn't like, it wasn't like Scotty Lee, these. It wasn't people going off the reservation, burying the company, hoping to get a release. That didn't have.

But just the general vibe was, you know, frustrating, usually, but still fun, a little bit backstage. When Bill Wask came in, it quit being fun anytime. That was a really dark period of time. As a bystander, because I wasn't in management, I was a potted plant on the talent roster.

But as a potted plant, I got a 360-degree view of the room, and it was dark. And once we turned that around, because that was the hardest thing, you talk about turning around WCW, there was a lot of financial challenges, creative challenges, business challenges, administrative challenges. There was a million challenges in turning a business around, any business. But what made turning WCW around even more of a challenge was the most of the morale. And now we're asking a whole company full of wrestlers. And I imagine at that time,

they were probably 60, 65 people on a roster estimate, maybe more. You would see all of this, all this management come and go, the Jim Hurst, the Kim Fries, the Bill Watson, oh, now we got this guy. And yeah, they knew me as the potted plant, but how much confidence could any or should any of them had in me as a leader. So that was kind of tricky and took some time. And then with Nitro, all of a sudden that WCW locker room, many of them, some of them had never worked for WW. Some of them who had worked at the big show, WWE, and had come to WCW to write out the

rest of their career, there's a lot of those. None of those people ever believe that they could hold their heads up high enough in the same room with their counterparts in WWE. We were always going to be less than and way less than, not just a little bit less than. We were the number two wrestling company in the world. We might as well have been number 222. That was the distance between WWF at the time and WCW. And now all of a sudden, we get handed Nitro in 1995. head-to-head competition and now guess what we can hold our heads up just as high and i know i'm

making this sound really dramatic but that's kind of what was going on not just with the talent probably more so with the talent because they were the most affected crowd reaction energy in the venues they weren't showing up at center stage with 250 people 20 of them in the front row with a brown paper bags and a bottle of wine now all of of a sudden, we're in major arenas, mid-sized arenas, but still major markets, and we're selling out. There's actually people, we actually did a $100,000 house. Nobody in WCW ever thought they'd see $100,000 house again.

So the mood and the energy that existed in 1996 on May 27th, 1996 and Mayca, Georgia, the energy that was in that building that night and in that locker room was so positive and I was so afraid of losing that. That's why I had that conversation with Scott. And when you look at the difference between the energy in 1996 and the energy in August of 1999, it was devastating. And that's the hardest part of turning,

that's going to be the hardest part of turning AW. It's getting the talent to believe in this in a new direction, if indeed there ever is one, or in WWE, if they had to drastically change their kind of creative, structure, you got to get the talent behind it, and to the point, not just that they're going to do it because that's their job and their pros and they want to keep their contracts, but also so they can feel it and they have the right attitude about it.

Managing talent is a really challenging business industry. I went off on that tangent, but the door was open and I walked through it. Well, I love that we're having an opportunity to talk about, you know, your edge of frustration with talent. But there's something, because I know that there are parallels with what you were feeling in 1999 that can be drawn to modern wrestling today. But something else that jumped off the page when we were doing research for this was an article that Dave wrote about now that Smackdown is going to become a thing. And now that ECW is debuting on TNN, we're going to have more wrestling on television than ever before. And that may not be a great thing long term.

He's going to specifically point out that Thunder was supposed to be a great thing for WCW but really what it did is speed up the decline of the creativity and he points out something that I don't think a lot of people talk about which is the newfound stress that running more shows puts on the staff he actually predicted morale problems before Thunder was a thing and he says that problems at home as far as marriage problems they usually bubble out of more work and greater stress.

And sometimes people who have enjoyed a lot of success in wrestling and they get this adrenaline rush of success. Well, marital stress really strips all that out to where it's not nearly as fun anymore. And I know we don't really talk about that very often. We think that this stuff just sort of exists in a vacuum. But if you've got a guy who's doing really, well writing one show and then you're saying well no big deal just do twice as much now

and try to enjoy the same success like we did get to a point where perhaps there was too much wrestling creative suffered and if you really understood the way the sausage is made maybe that's not that big of a shock and i know that you were a big proponent years ago of saying i don't know if collision is a good idea you've already got dynamite you've got rampage you've got these YouTube shows, another television show might not be the best idea. I know we're in the content game, though, with the benefit of hindsight, old Dave was on to something that adding Smackdown and ECW to an already bloated thing where you've got heat, you've got Monday Night Raw, you've got Nitro, you've got Thunder,

you've got Saturday night, you've got superstars. It's a lot, Eric. Oh, tell me about it. That's one of the reasons why. I mean, I think it was four years ago, whenever it was, three years ago, when the rumor was that Tony was going to do an additional show in addition to dynamite. And I think it was you and I, and one of our early podcasts. And I said, I think that's it.

And this was when I was supporting Tony and hoping and did an interview with him with you and all that. But I still called it out because I experienced it. Dave predicted it. I experienced it. And I think in the case. Again, I don't want to revisit things I've already said, but in AEW's case, they haven't really figured out how to stop the bleeding with their A show, dynamite. That's their core show.

They haven't been able to stop the bleeding on that. Why does anybody think adding any other show on Fox Sports One is going to help them? It's only going to continue to drain more creative resources, which barely exist to begin with, certainly not sufficiently to not hemorrhjohnie is at least you're going to put another layer of pressure on the same team that's already not performing do you go go get them it just makes no sense to me but yeah i lived it man thunder and i said i don't know when i said it was recently the last day or two i was almost a bit maybe with derrick looking back thunder was the, look, nothing would have changed ultimately the outcome of WCW with

internal broadcasting. That was premeditated and had been being premeditated for years. It's just that when Ted finally lost power, the executives around Ted were able to execute the plan, essentially. So nothing would have changed it, but would have changed the conditions under which WCW ultimately got pulled from Turner would be that in my opinion if Thunder would have never happened Nitro would have not Nitro would have not seen

the drastic decline in numbers that it did it would have held audience it perhaps because we were at our creative I was at my creative peak during that period of time and I had a lot of people around me who were better than me So if we wouldn't have had that thunder show, I really truly believe that the ratings in 1999 would have been a much different picture.

And when the ratings are different, so are the revenues associated with it. Because that's how the math works. That's why the decline of 30 or 35 or 33% hemorrhage in audience from AEW currently is ultimately going to be reflected as we're seeing in real time in ticket sales, merchandise sales, pay-per-view sales. It's not all equal.

It doesn't all happen at the same rate, but it ends up in the same spot. So the additional pressure, based on my experience in 1999, in the time period that we're talking about in what we see today, even with WWE. I think the difference in the WWE

and their ability to take out another show in AEWs is number one, 8WEWE, has a fine-tuned creative formula that works and grows audience. And they have the infrastructure that can handle the additional creative load without the foundation falling apart. Let's be honest. Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming.

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Head to 4imprint.com to find out more. Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag, the second. Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it all one.

trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos, stronger makes everything better. Well, it's interesting when you take a look because we're saying, oh, WCW's in free fall here. It's just awful. It's terrible. It's falling apart. They had 8,900 paying customers at a nitro here in Vegas paying a gate of $180,000. So even as the wheels are coming off, WCW is still doing okay. This show would see the Wyndham's beat Harlem Heat to win the tag titles.

And I know maybe that doesn't make any sense. Like the wait, the rap is crap guys beat Harlem Heat. I don't know if that checks out. But just to add context, that rap is crap song from the West Texas Rednecks was actually getting legitimate plays on country music radio. around the country. I can't help but wonder, Eric, if times were different and you

weren't as sort of scattered behind the scenes with corporate pulling you in a million different directions, if that rap is crap thing would have gotten hot in 96 or 97 or even 98, just one year prior, it

feels like it could have been an even bigger success. They would have been on a tonight show. Yes. They would have been a special guest with Jay Leno. It's crazy. And they would have been in concert at Sturgis right afterwards. Yeah, we would have made a big deal out of that. KS.

is going to do the concert. Of course, that's been discussed. We've discussed it here before. You actually wrote about it in your book. And you're laying out that you're really after Gene Simmons because he is a licensing and marketing machine. And you even wrote, you'd never met him. anyone who understands promotion to the extent that Gene Simmons does.

If we were going to work together, we need a line of merchandise and collectibles, and if we could do that, the licensing end alone would be a good return on our investment. As part of our deal to work together, I bought Kiss, I brought Chris, easy for me to say, I brought Kiss onto Nitro. I overpaid for their appearance, but in the big picture to launch the WCW slash Kiss merchandise, it made good sense. And by the way, it's been reported. I paid KISS $500,000.

The number was actually $250,000. As always, the numbers that were and still are thrown around, whether in dirt sheets or online or in other books, are all bullshit. WCW and Turner never released financials on WCW and no figures are available in the public records. What people have seen are guesses based on bad, quote-unquote, inside information and hearsay at best. So listen, anybody who knows about KISS merchandise,

If you're even a little bit of a kiss fan, you know that there are a ton of super diehard collectors who if you slap the kiss logo on it, we got to have it. And so I'm sure that, you know, you making that investment for 250 grand, sure, that sounds expensive. But at the same time, you've got Kiss on Nitro.

Maybe some hardcore kiss fans will come check it out and maybe they'll see some more of the show. But maybe they'll also pick up some merch. I get it as a business decision. I also think if you live in the bubble and you're just a wrestling fan, you think, well, we could have signed reckless youth. No disrespect to reckless youth. But it's like, come on, man. This is an opportunity to get new eyeballs on WCW.

And at this point, brother needs some help where he can get it, right? Yeah. And this was one part of a multi-part plan. First of all, even back in 1999, I challenge anybody that's actually ever been in the licensing business, like really licensing business, to go back and just do a little bit of research and find out what a upfront guarantee for a KISS license would cost you. Like if you want to put a KISS sticker on a kid's toy, you're going to have to pay, you're going to have to make a minimal guarantee.

and I'm guessing, as hot as kiss has been forever, probably looking at seven figures as a minimum upfront guarantee, meaning you're going to write them a check and you're guaranteeing them at least a million dollars a year in revenue based on your royalty rate, the royalty rate that you agree upon.

It's a major commitment. I got that same commitment in a much bigger one. actually, for 250 grand. So, yeah, it was a good business decision that I would do all freaking day long again if the conditions were to have been a little bit different in WCW at the time. But yeah, that was a sweet-ass deal. But that was only one part.

Here's the other part. It wasn't just, oh, we want to bring a couple of eyeballs and we want to bring some kiss fans to the equation. That was part of it. It was a minor part of it. The bigger part of it was we were going to create, this is 1990. right? We were going to do a pay-per-view called New Year's Evil. Yes, I got their first title. New Year's Evil, because if you remember back in 1999, everybody was concerned about what was going to happen when the clock stuck midnight year 2000. People were actually afraid like planes were going to fucking fall out of the sky. People were concerned. I wanted to do a pay-per-view and I had gotten so far is to work with the city of Tempe and all the principles involved so that we could stage a WCW pay-per-view

called whatever was, New Year's Evil, and we were going to do it on the football field. What's the bowl game that they play there in the Fiesta Bowl? We were going to be a part of the Fiesta Bowl weekend and be there and have access to the field so that the field will be split 50-yard line on one down on this end zone. You've got a WCW ring. On this end zone, you've got a kiss stage. And we're going to open up with Kiss Music and go right to our first match. And we're going to go back and forth all night long in the idea, the initial ideation, as they like to see in the television business,

was that we would time this pay-per-view so that on the East Coast, it would end. The pay-per-view would end on a three-count at the stroke of midnight, East Coast time. Now, whether we would have actually been able to pull that off, timing-wise, it might have gotten a little too tricky. If you remember, WCW, there was oftentimes that we would put a time limit clock on the side of the ring and for some reason weren't able to coordinate, right? Shit would be happening in the ring that wasn't supposed to happen yet. So we may or may not have elected to try to fine tune the finish of that pay-per-view,

but it would have been presented in such a way as, you know, not only the last stage or the last pay-per-view of the old millennium, but will there even be a new millennium? I mean, all kinds of stupid shit we were having fun with. So the merchandise was step one. Establishing the relationship that's normally what you do in any act one of any feature film book or movie or TV commercial, for that matter, is establish a relationship. But we were going to hit Act 3, or excuse me, act we're going to finish Act 2 at the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Evil, which would have been a pretty big story.

Even in the weakened state of WCW's brand at that point, with Kiss, New Year's Evil, pretty cool name, stroke of midnight, people afraid, new millennium, what's going to happen? Shit, let's watch one. I think it would have worked. And at that point in time, that $250,000 initial investment and having them show up to establish a relationship on Metro would have been a joke. But unfortunately, because people truly were afraid. afraid of being away from home at midnight when the clock turned to 2000 or a calendar turned to 2000, a number of WCW production employees, not staff, not my team.

Because we use a lot of Turner Broadcasting production people to produce our shows. That was part of that deal. We had to pay for them, but we had to use them as well whenever they were available. If they weren't available, we could go outside to hire freelancers. But we had to shop first at Turner Broadcasting because that's how they helped offset some of the salaries for Turner Sports, for example, is they would charge WCW to use them. Not only did we not get license fees, Mike or Fulner, we had to pay for the privilege of producing television for them. And we still made a profit.

Oh, my God. But yeah, I think if we would have been able to execute the original idea, that could have gone down as one of the better. cooler ideas in professional wrestling. Well, you want to talk about executing a good idea. Let me just tell you, my wife executed the best idea I've had in a long time. A couple of days ago, I said, hey, thanks for dinner. Dinner was great, but as my father would say, it's left me, hon. What can I eat?

What's in there that I should eat before I go to bed? And she came back with a big old bowl of cereal. I was so pumped because I knew it was magic spoon. You see, it tastes just like the cereal I grew up eating and watching Saturday morning cartoons and WWF superstars, but without all the sugar and instead with a load of protein. I absolutely love it. I know you will too, and if you're already a Magic Spoon fan, boy, do I have big news for you. Magic Spoon has turned their super popular cereal into high protein treats that are light, crispy, and tastes just like those classic crunchy cereal bars. Magic Spoons, brand new treats are so delicious.

They've already become my go-to, but man, I'm going to tell you, just the night before last, she poured me a big old bowl of fruity cereal from Magic Spoon. It's got 13 grams of protein in every serving, zero grams of sugar, and four grams of net carbs. So you can feel good about what you're eating. The most popular flavors are fruity and cocoa, but there's so many more. But man, that fruity, it tasted familiar. Let me just say that. And the treats, man, the brand new treats from MagicSpoon are crispy, crunchy, airy,

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Get $5 off your next order at magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks or look for magic spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks for $5 off. Magic spoon, hold on to the dream. And I know, folks, I just said that Magic Spoon is available on Amazon and it's available in grocery stores, but boy, if you'd order from the website, it sure does help the show if you're appreciating what Eric and I are doing here at 83 weeks. And you like things that taste good and are packed with protein? Look no further than magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks. Conrad, I know

you're talking about the cereal, but I do happen to have my peanut butter bar. Uh-oh. Magic Spoon. So what you're looking at here looks like a dessert. And it's delicious, by the way, textures is phenomenal. The bite, they call it, in the world of culinary arts. But what you're really looking at here is 12 grams of protein, two net carbs, and less than one gram of sugar. That's an amazingly healthy treat. And they are delicious.

And when we're done, I'm going to slam that puppy down. Eat a bite now, by God. Let's see it. But now I'm going to crunch into microcrumbs. That's what I want. Let me hear the crunching. Oh god You know what Mrs. B and I were in a modeling business

in Minneapolis General Mills is there right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd often get called up as a print model or sometimes commercial. And you'd get an audition for what they call a smile and bite. That's when you're taking a taste of food and your photographer's there.

And he's getting you going, oh, it's delicious, you know. That's what we're doing right now. We're doing a smiling bite. But it's real. Delicious. Yeah. You check it out, magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks. Man, I'm going to tell you, those treats, they didn't mess up.

That's a go-to, man. Like, when my buddies come over for football games and stuff now, I'm just lining up the magic spoon. We're going to be proteined out tasting good. There's as much protein. protein right here in this delicious little sucker is there is in two hard-boiled eggs, which is fancy that. Yeah, and how about this? Doing a road trip with your boys, pack those, or give them a bunch of eggs.

Hit the window lock. Come on now. Check it out, magic spoon.com forward slash 83 weeks. There's a thunder on August 19th in Lubbock, Texas. Ray Mysterio gets the biggest pop on the show, and then he drops the cruiserweight belt to Lenny Lane. Do you remember getting any pushback about Lenny Lane and the Lodi portrayal yet? I mean, you were certainly trying some riskier stuff than we'd seen in WCW before, whether any agencies like Glad or something like that, or is it all just internal pressure

from Turner, or is that even on the radar yet? You know, it really wasn't. I don't recall how we're getting any, because if we would have, first of all, if a company or a organization like Glad was going to come after WCW, they wouldn't have. come after WCW, they'd have gone right to Turner Broadcasting because that's how everybody knows. You really get things done. And not just with WCW and Turner, but with any major company, you go right to the people who actually fund the project.

They're the ones that. But I don't remember that. You know, I think the whole, the sensitivity in media with regard to the way characters were portrayed hadn't quite reached. the level it did just a few years later. So I don't recall ever getting any pushback either outside of the company or, for that matter, inside. There's a lot of frustration reports that are making the torch inside of WCW. As many as 10 wrestlers were originally scheduled to be at the pay-per-view, even though they had no scheduled matches.

And they were told by management, you got to be here, you got to be here. And then a few days ahead of time, never mind, you don't have to be here. there's other wrestlers who were frustrated that they're traveling to shows that they don't work and it's a needless expense and not a good use of their time and other folks are upset that hey we're asked to get to the show five hours before bell time so we can be available for creative but then a lot of the folks on the booking committee don't show up until you know the show's about to start and there's easy go ahead that's bullshit. That is bullshit. Now, you had me all the way up until that line, whoever's

report that was, had me, it probably was, could happen all the way up until that point, which then made it clear that this is just more make-believe. But by the way, those same conditions exist today in WWE at this moment, in AEW at this moment. It's a part of the business, you spoiled bitches. That's how TV works. Get over it or get out. That should have been the message. Because it's the truth.

It's a nature of the business. If WWE and I'm not saying they are, but if they are running like a fine-tuned Swiss watch, you're still going to have a bunch of people showing up with nothing to do because you may need them. There could be any number of reasons why. you want to have extra talent around. And I'm not saying it was pre-planned. I'm not making excuses other than, you know what?

Shit happens on live TV. And I want as many mucker fathers here as I can. And I'm paying for it. And they're under contract. And it's their job. So, yeah, piss and moan somewhere else. Should have been the message. Let's talk about DDP here for a minute.

It's written here that he's almost acting as like a motivational speaker at times for you. He wants you to address some of the problems with the company with the troops, and he wants you to lock up some of the mid-card talent to long-term deals and start pushing them up the latter. That's at least the report that's printed in the torch. And Wade even writes, while some think Page has selfish reasons for his recent actions with Bischoff, others feel he truly cares about the company. Anytime I see a report that's praising one of the individual talents like that to the newsletters, I always go, hmm, I wonder how they got. that news. But with DDP, I somehow buy into it. Man, he's trying to help. He's trying to be an advocate for WCW, no? If anybody has any doubts about the veracity of that report, just look at what DDP has done since he got out of the wrestling business. Yes. Just look at the financial

commitments and the number of people he's shared his home with in order to try to help them. and get them out of what in many of these cases has been the lowest part of their lives. So if anybody doubts DDP's intentions back in 1999 or as a result of this report, just take a look at what he's done in the last couple years and then ask yourself whether or not you think he was being selfish or self-serving. Look, Page is a consummate promoter. I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever been around anybody, including Vince McMahon that was as relentless when it comes to promotion.

And in Page's case, self-promotion, which is not a bad thing because he's promoting his own business. But it's, it's, the intentions are, are good. They benefit a lot of people other than Page. Let's talk a little bit about our report that I came out in the tour. Eric Bischoff is now talking about hiring scriptwriters to help with storyline consistencies on WCW television programs. And the observer would say, Dave Thomas, not that Dave Thomas, but a guy who used to write Second City TV out of Canada,

which is the comedy troupe John Candy came from, is a name thrown around as becoming a new script writer. Yeah, talk to me about Dave Thomas. We haven't spent a ton of time talking about that name here on the show. I couldn't tell you, I don't know if I've ever met him. What about the idea of working with script writers? I mean, you've certainly laid that out before in WCW. Yeah, that's not a new concept.

It was probably me, you know, desperately trying to get some kind of a handle on our creative process. It's, you know, one of the great things about having it is somebody that's actually used to writing scripts, which also includes creating a format, which requires a fair amount of attention. to detail, is that you have a fair amount of attention to detail in organization in the formats that you use to produce the television. And when you don't have that attention to detail and that experience in formatting a show, your show looks like shit. Just because you have segments in your show and you name them segment one, segment two,

segment three, segment four, doesn't mean you have a format. Format is more than just a document. that tells you the times of each one of the segments and what happens in it. A really good format is designed to create and manage the emotion you're trying to create over the course of a two-hour show. And it wasn't happening. It had happened. We had done it in Nitro.

I'd say it was the best, but we did it and it worked. Became number one because of it because we managed the emotion of the audience during the two-hour window that they were sharing their experience with us, or us, them. And when you don't have a format, you're not paying attention to, you know, where's my high spot in this show? You know, it's no different than laid out a match. You know, you get your heat, you make you come back. I need a hope spot here.

The same elements that go into laying out a really great match, those same elements exist over the course of a two-hour format when it's produced, when it's created properly. and we didn't have that. We went from being able to pull it off with an unsophisticated group of writers because that's what we were. We weren't writers. We were wrestling people

that knew how to produce a wrestling show that got better at learning how to create managed formats. But we weren't experts at it. And then once, I'm not putting myself over as a result of this comment, but once I took my focus off of it, off the project, off the creative part of the project,

And other people who came in that didn't have a sense of that format experience, we lost a lot more than we previously had. And I think bringing in writers was a way to try to get a handle on that. Not because I was looking outside of WCW for somebody to come in with the next big wrestling idea. That's not the reason why you bring in a writer. The reason you bring in a really, really good writer, hopefully that understands the rest of audience give a fuck how much wrestling you've watched on television as a kid as an adult i don't care if you studied it in college if you don't have a feel for the wrestling audience just because you watch it on television doesn't mean you understand the audience it's a really really important

distinction never gets talked about i think the reason at triple h in the wwee team right now are having success that Vince didn't have. It's because Vince lost his feel for the audience. He obviously had it back in the 90s. He's had it forever. And we saw what he did with the business in the early 80s. That was more of elevating the product from the content from a production value point of view.

But by the 90s, when his back was against the wall because I was kicking his balls every week, and he went into the attitude era and went into that type of storytelling. We saw what Vincent Mann was capable of it. He was on his game. But he lost it somewhere along the line. Triple H has it.

Bruce Pritchard has it. And what they have is not saying, oh, I got the greatest idea in the world. They have an instinct, an intuition as to what the audience is going to react to and what they're going to appreciate. And once you understand your audience, it's a lot easier to work backwards and produce the content that's going to motivate

the site that make your content compelling to them. And that's what we had lost. And I think bringing in writers was just a way to try to get some of that back. I want to remind everybody, this is all happening around the same time that we're working on ready to rumble. Like you were supposed to be in that movie allegedly in the Joey Pants role. Not Conan. Canyon is only going to have like three days in order to relocate to Los Angeles to start getting folks ready to rumble on this deal. And at the same time, you've got all the corporate stuff, all the creative stuff, and now a report I don't remember ever reading before.

This is wild. During midweek, there was a ton of talk about Bischoff's position being tenuous, but at this point, the storm seems to have blown over again within the office and a lot of, among the wrestlers, because it's a Turner company, there have been diversity meetings as it regards to race relations. Things are okay in the office until the no-limit soldiers versus the Cowboys angle, because the office is basically made up of country music fans and African Americans, and the angle somehow polarized the office personnel. Two weeks ago, one of Bischoff's secretaries wrote a nasty racial joke on her computer and emailed it to some of her friends, but apparently either pushed the wrong button and emailed it to everyone,

both black and white, in the office by accident, or somehow everyone in the office still read the joke. When she wasn't fired for the joke, there were a lot of complaints about racial harmony that was made out to be a big thing in the company, and by not firing this secretary, it sent a powerful message, boy, this is stuff I didn't think we'd be talking about on a rassling podcast today. What was real and what wasn't? Set the record straight here, Eric.

I can see the response written all over your face. Earlier this podcast, I said within the next 10 days or so over on 83 weeks.com, I'm going to explain to people why I have so much disdain for Jay Meltzer. And I know I've said that. this many times before, and I don't expect that people are going to understand this, because unless you've actually been in the business in a meaningful way, on the business side, that is, you can't possibly have seen what I've seen. You can't possibly relate to or understand why garbage like we've just heard is so harmful in a business environment.

Because if you've never been in the business, you don't realize how the perception from the outside can be so easily swayed with this kind of garbage. And I'm going to give Dave a relative. Dave was one of the first people to cover wrestling in a dirt sheet. He positioned himself because basically journalists and basically humans are lazy. They're going to do the least amount of work for the biggest amount of return they can. That's kind of human nature, by the way. It goes back to one we were a caveman. We go kill the easy shit before we kill the hard shit.

Drag the easy shit home, eat that. I said, I don't want to chase a freaking gazelle. It's too hard. I shoot that big fuck over there and asleep. Drag that home and eat it. It's human nature. So I'm not being critical of that. But it is what it is.

And what it is is whenever there's a new story, and there was a lot of them back in the 80s because of the steroid trial, whenever there's something big going on, high profile going and controversial in particular, and mainstream news wants to cover it, they're going to go to a source. They're going to go find somebody that knows more than they do. They're going to go try to find that one person that can tell them everything they don't know about something

so they don't have to fucking research it. So they don't have to get the other side of the coin. They don't have to do any work. They could just go talk to somebody who's set himself up as an expert not just in wrestling, on anything, and the lazy freaking journalists are going to go, oh, well, this guy said that, well, I'll look at his credentials, oh, it must be true. I'm going to write it. Or I'm going to believe it.

Or if you're an ad sales executive and you're contemplating a $50 million ad buy on a network associated with a wrestling initiative. And all of a sudden, you're hearing things in social media or within your industry. And you go, whom, I better check that out. I'm going to go, I'm going to go see what I can find. find about wrestling and this kind of garbage pops up nobody believes it 100% to be true but it's it's death by a thousand cuts it really is harmful so within the next week or 10 days i'm not going i'm not going to give you my examples anymore i'm going to give you a real time real life current example

from the voice of someone who is dramatic whose life was dramatically affected by it financially and emotionally And at least then when I go off on these, Dave Rants, I didn't want to say his last name anymore. I don't give him any more attention to he's already gotten, even though most of it over the last year has been horrendously bad and deservedly so. But there's a reason for it, and it has nothing to do with my ego or my pride or how I was affected, although I certainly was. I saw firsthand, even before I got into management, the kind of damage a guy like Dave Meltzer could just, Bruce Pritchard has as well. Bruce Pritchard has more experience with it than I do because he's been in the business longer than I have at a higher level than I was over an extended period of time. So, yeah, that's what I think of that statement. More to follow.

Tune in. In the meantime, I do feel like we should talk about Randy Savage. Apparently, he's pretty upset with the direction of his character. He's going to show up at Nassau Coliseum for Nitro. he's going to veto a few ideas according to the torch about how he would be used on the program he agrees to do a little

pre-tape deal in Hogan's locker room the footage that would air on that show of Savage and Gorgeous George was already pre-taped he's agreed to continue to work there first day ticket sale promotions but it's written here that he's extremely frustrated with the lack

of leadership and doesn't want to subject his character to what he calls haphazard booking. His contract is up in January of 2000 and I guess he's just conscious of that. He hasn't been approached about a contract renewal and he wants to be pretty guarded about his

character. I know that you've had these sort of conversations with him before at the prior renewal I guess that would have been 96. What do you remember? You have many different circumstances by the way. Way different. One was in a hotel room in Las Vegas with a bucket of beer and a naked Randy Savage

and this one was the wheels falling completely off of the WCW. So yeah, it was a way different negotiation. What do you remember about Randy in 99 here, you know, not really being on board until he knows what's next? You know, one of the things that I miss about Randy and respected the most

was his, he was so honest. And I don't, I'm just talking about my experience with him. I don't want to suggest that things didn't get just, brother, they did from time to time. But they were always honest. It was never manipulative. There was no gamesmanship. There was a fair amount of intensity on a regular basis.

Whenever we got into those types of conversations. But they were so rare. But what Randy did do during this period of time, he started to withdraw. And I don't mean, you know, mope and pout and whine like a bitch, but I mean, he distanced himself. He didn't engage as much. You could feel him going in his own way, oh, brother, you do your thing, I'll do mine. But he was definitely protecting his character because he was smart. He's old school.

He knew he could see the writing of the wall. I wasn't necessarily sharing details with him or any other talent for that matter, other than probably Kevin Nash and DDP to a degree. but you can see the ready. He knew what was going on. Let's talk about Raven, the follow-up here. He is going to officially get his release from you on August 26th. As we know, he shows up on ECW at the Elks Lodge to beat the Dudley Boys

for the tag titles in ECW the very next day on the 27th. So he's immediately one day after with ECW. Of course, Raven had hoped to receive a full release, which would have allowed him to work for the WWF. You denied that, and I guess you tried to reach out to Raven and said something like, hey, the ball's in your court, sort of insinuating, hey, you're still welcome here at WCW. It's written that DDP actually had dinner with Raven on the 25th, and he's trying as a latched his effort to save Raven and keep him as a part of WCW.

But Raven really wants to work with Paul Heyman. And he says that, hey, if Bischoff would have asked me to stay, that's different. But the way I was asked if I wanted my release, As a matter of pride, I think I got to go now. And according to the report here in The Torch, you actually met with Raven in the office and told him that you gained his respect or he gained your respect. Well, I'll get it right. When he said, hey, I'm out. I'll take that release that you felt like, hey, man, I got a newfound respect for Raven for standing up for what he believed in.

and you shook hands with him and said something like, I look forward to having the opportunity to work with you again when you're contractually able to do so, which would be August one year later in 2000. Tell us what really happened. Do you remember that meeting with Raven where you said, hey, I respect you walking out? I don't remember the meeting, to be honest.

But it sounds like, you know, I let this slide earlier because we got caught up in another topic. But, you know, when you mentioned Billy Kidman, on the report, which was accurate, by the way, that we met in the bar and I gave him his full release. It was because he wasn't, it was just being honest. Yeah. And he wasn't being hurt.

He wasn't trying to hurt the company. He wasn't pissing and moaning in public. He just wasn't jumping on radio shows and pleading his case and social media and all kinds of bitchy shit like that. He was just straightforward and honest. And I respected that and gave him his full release. Yeah. There's a difference between, again, what Levy did and what Kedman's state of mind was.

I do believe, you know, I did. He did. When Levy stuck to his guns, because I fully expected he wouldn't. But when he did, how do you not respect that? I still wasn't going to let him go to WWE, but I respected him for wanting to do it. So, and I would have, because it's, you know, I've demonstrated this in the past. you have an issue with somebody, you resolve the issue, you move on and just wait for another day. And if the opportunity is there to work together again and you both are honest about it and it benefits both of you, then yeah, doors always open.

I didn't have any animosity, personal animosity towards Scottie Levy. I had professional anger at him, but it wasn't personal. So once we agreed, we were going to part company, I would have absolutely. engaged in a conversation about bringing them back again. Let's talk about the other talent. We know now that Billy Kidman and Ray Mysterio are going to remain as a part of WCW once it was revealed that the terms of Ravens contract were, you're free to go, but not to the WWF.

Well, those guys decide, I think I'll just stick with WCW. And meanwhile, Conan, Sandman, and Public Enemy. they've all reached out to ECW and said they would seek their release from WCW if Paul Heyman was interested. And Paul apparently said, thanks but no thanks to all of them.

According to the torch, Heyman is said to have turned down Conan because of his high salary and reputation as being a locker room menace. And I guess Hayman's upset that hack and public enemy left the company without giving notice and then badmouthed ECW once they were gone.

Heyman's also upset that Sandus man sued ECW for money he felt like he was owed and how dare Sandman actually want to get paid for the work he did so Heyman there's no thanks to those guys meanwhile smackdown is going to come out and it's going to be on UPN and it's going to be head to head with thunder and the result is the worst rating ever in the history of thunder it's pre-taped and there's no emphasis nothing done special to sort of counter program UPN are you just tapping out at this point like, hey, I don't have the bandwidth for all this, I give. I tapped out long before this point.

Yeah. It would be a matter of weeks before I was fishing at this point. We're talking about the middle of August. I was gone on September 10th. So this is like two and a half weeks before I was out the door. Yeah, I had, but I had checked out long before that. There's a report in the torts that there's some heat on Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham, who made the call to take those tag straps off of Harlem heat and put them on the Wyndums.

And I guess the feeling amongst a lot of the town in the locker room is, hey, the Wyndham's aren't over. They've got to be getting this opportunity because they're friends with Sullivan and Graham going back to the Florida days. And there's even a narrative growing in the torch that, quote, Barry Windham has looked at as a stooge by the other wrestlers

because he's always hanging out in the office and has snitched on Bobby Duncan, Jr. several times for minor infractions. Do you remember ever hearing that that there was heat on Sullivan and Graham for the Wyndham win and maybe Barry's a stooge? I hadn't heard that before. All this stuff is stuff I've never heard before.

I've never been anybody that didn't have the utmost respect for Barry Wyndham. Some people may like them more than others, but Stoge, that's ridiculous. Ridiculous. And I don't, you know, the belt thing, you know, who knows? I just told you I was checked out, and I was. And so I don't really know for sure, but let me just posit this, if I may. Your Booker, your job is to get talent over.

Well, if the Harlem Heat were already over and your job is to get talent over and you've got these, what they call them, Rednecks, Texas Rednecks? Yeah, West Texas Rednecks. Yeah, and oh yeah, they got a record out there. It's getting national airplay, because we just talked about that. So we've got some traction over here with these two guys.

They're not as over as these two guys. God, I don't know. Let me throw just a wild ass idea out there. Since these guys are getting some national record airplay and these guys are over, why don't we use these guys that are over to help get these guys even more over so that we've got two tag teams that are both over and we can do more stuff with. I don't know. It's probably a fucking wacky idea.

Forget I said it. Just a wacky idea. Let's talk about something else wacky. You guys put tickets on sale for fall brawl and Winston-Salem and you barely sold 2,000 tickets. It's a huge disappointment. Of course, this was a monster pay-per-view for you guys in 96 and 97 and 98. Now, maybe not so much here in 99. And, of course, hardcore Crockett fans would say,

oh, they killed the town with 1997 when they had the NWO turn and Kerr-Henning slammed the cage door on Rick Flair's head. I don't know if I know about that. But I know that when this moves barely 2,000 tickets, it takes the torch to say that maybe your future as the head of WCW is on shaky ground. Some are saying he'll be lucky to make it beyond January of 2000. And they're saying some of this may be because of deals that you've cut,

such as a video production deal involving Jason Hervey and Mandalay, which some believe could have been done cheaper in-house by Turner. And this is a narrative that I've heard a few times out there, Eric, that you were double-dipping using your power inside of WCW to Greenlight projects that you were also going to be compensated on. So you would award those contracts to Jason Herb. and his team of which you were a part of. That's the narrative.

I want to give you a chance to sort of respond to some of those reports. Yeah, kind of like the movie that we're just talking about that was a record-breaking movie at Turner Broadcasting in the Turner Library, like 12 years since anybody did as well that I brought in through Jason Hervey and my relationship with him, which, by the way, I didn't get paid a nickel on. I didn't even get a credit on that one. How about that? Didn't even get a credit.

So I'm throwing a bullshit flag on that. Look, it's an easy story to write. It's an easy narrative to create because it could be true, but nothing is farther from the truth. Do you think? Let me give me an example. Nitro Bar and Grill. It's a flashback. When the group that financed that project came to me and people,

pitch the idea of opening up a nitro bar and grill in Las Vegas. Part of their pitch to be is that I would be part owner. 10%, 12%. Potentially meaningful, but 99 times out of 100, it's a courtesy. Especially in a restaurant business. That's 10% of net profit, right? Come on. in Vegas.

But nonetheless, that opportunity was afforded to me. Now, the guys that came to me, I think were from New Jersey. I don't mean to cast any shade, but there's a way East Coast people do business, and there's a way you do business out west. And it's all a little kabuki-ish from time to time or has the potential to be. And there's always ways to work around potential conflicts and challenges. if you choose to. Made it clear to those guys

that I would not even present it the way they presented it to me because I wouldn't want the perception of me being involved in something like that. Now that's never been out there publicly. I'm sharing that for the first time here because quite frankly I forgot about it until just now. But for that kind of, for people to,

whether it's Wade Keller who did it or Meltzer who continues to do it, that's the kind of hurtful bullshit that cost people jobs and affects people's reputations. It didn't mind, by the way. I had been, just for the record, as I've talked about this previously, there was a point in time early on in the merger where there was a Time Warner executive, a very high-ranking executive who came to a WCW show, was on his way back to his hotel room and happened to get into an elevator with a gentleman who was wearing a WCW crew shirt. And this executive, who was part of this newly formed, you know, merger between these two behemoths, media, started asking a couple of questions. And the person that he was talking to fabricated a whole bunch of garbage that this individual high-ranking Turner, or Time Warner executive heard and went, wait a minute, aren't we buying that? Maybe we should look into that.

And that conversation, which was completely nonsense, by the way, with an absolutely non-credible individual who didn't even really work for it. didn't work, not didn't, didn't really work, had no relationship with WCW. He wanted to have a relationship and he wanted to be on the ring crew. I think he got as far as a shirt. And nonetheless, that launched an internal investigation. I found out about it after it was over. When I got called to Harvey Schiller's office, which very rarely happened. And when it did, it was usually a pleasurable experience.

there was an attorney along with him, and I can't think of his name now, but he was the chief, he was the, he was the, he was the attorney. He was the corporate attorney for Turner. It was a part of the corporate team. He was general counsel for Turner Broadcast. It was in the room when I got called up there. And I thought, well, this is that. I knew the individual. I had a great relationship with it. We'd say hi to each other. We'd see each other in the food court, that kind of happy shit. But now I'm getting called up to Harvey's office and he's sitting there and I'm thinking, well, this is bizarre. And they sat me down and explained to me, Eric, we just want you to know.

We call you up here to let you know that despite some rumors that we had heard, we launched an internal audit. And we want you to know the results of that audit is that you've done absolutely nothing wrong. This is the first I'm hearing about it. And I'm being told that I have nothing to worry about because I've already been investigated and I'm clean as a whistle. But they wanted me to know in case the word got back after the investigation was over that it took place and they wanted to be the first ones to tell me.

And I understand that. But that's the kind of damage. And you can't possibly even relate or understand how that could, are you kidding me? How some goof in a locker room or in an elevator could make a couple of ridiculous comments with no basis to them, and that could launch an investigation? Yes, it can. And yes, it did. And that's why I think when people decide they're going to cover the industry,

look, criticize it all you want. It's your prerogative. It's you should. If you're, and do, by the way, find a way to be entertaining. That's what you're going to do. At least try to be. And always be, give us a reason why. Cool enough.

But when you start representing that you have inside information, and it's sexy and it's like half sleazy kind of dirty kind of cool kind of create some heat maybe these two guys really don't like you can create that kind of drum all you want but when you give the illusion that you or the perception that you have some insight and backstage connections and observations that can not just piss people off but affect their livelihoods should be really careful about that. So I'm not going to go off on any more Jay Meltzer tangents. I promise.

We've been doing this show for nearly three and a half hours. I spent more time talking about that piece of human garbage that I never thought I wanted to. But I appreciate the opportunity to make these points because sometimes I say shit and people can't figure out. Why is he so upset about this stuff? Why doesn't he give it up? Why does he even care? So I care about the people that are in the business whose lives are affected. I want to ask you a little bit about a story that's run here in the torch.

And you teased it earlier, you laid out the plans, we don't have to run through it all, this whole New Year's Evil opportunity. You're supposed to be running December 19th. You're supposed to run a Starcade pay-per-view. You also have a January pay-per-view, and then you're going to run this New Year's Eve show. So you might have three pay-per-views in like a five-week stretch here. It's going to be a tough deal, and apparently a lot of production people aren't so sure about it. and even some wrestlers are griping about it because I guess they wanted the time off or what have you.

But here's what's written here. There's talk amongst the wrestlers of staging a massive walkout if WCW management insists they take part in the New Year's Eve pay-per-view. Industry sources indicate that WCW has already committed to the date and would face a stiff financial penalty from pay-per-view companies if they were to pull out of the deal. If the outcry by wrestlers and staffers is strong enough, Bischoff may be backed into a corner and have to make appearing at the paper view voluntary and incentive base for wrestlers and other employees. So let's just time out right there. I have to admit, all the times we've talked about this,

I never knew that there was even a rumor, and I'm not saying it was actually the case, but this is the report from the torch. There's discussion of a walkout. Had you heard that before? No. And again, like, Wade was no different than Ben. than Dave Meltzer on many occasions back then.

I think Wade's really cleaned up his business, bottle sense. But Wade was inclined to listen to wrestlers who would bitch and moan to him because the wrestlers knew that if they bitch and moan it would end up in the dirt sheets and some executive may see it. Rick Flair did it. Hogan did it. Everybody's done it from time to time. You use the dirt sheets.

They are useful idiots. That's the only reason anybody from inside a wrestling company is going to talk to them is because they're useful idiots and you can use them to achieve whatever perception you may want to achieve out in the public domain, hoping that an executive or somebody in power is going to see it. It's the only reason Dave Meltzer should exist. And that's what this sounds like. Now, I don't know. We've been spending a lot of part of this show, long part of the show, talking about how I gave everybody an opportunity to walk out. Take their release.

Nobody did it. So now we're supposed to believe there was going to be a massive talent walkout. It's just people were bitching. And guys like Dave Belser, and in this case, Wade Keller would, ooh, good, something to write about. Blown out of proportion completely. And by the way, it wasn't the, and I didn't complete this thought earlier, it wasn't my staff that were bitching about doing a show.

on New Year's Eve because they were fearful, planes were following, and they weren't the only ones, by the way. A lot of people, a lot of smart people, were really concerned that there was going to be some kind of crash at the turn of the century that would affect computers, for example. So there were people, the media had generated a legitimate fear in the minds of a lot of highly educated, intelligent, successful people. and it was Turner broadcasting,

it was Turner sports production people that were the ones that went to Turner corporate and said, we're not doing it. We don't want to go. That was the reason I did pull the plug under Years Evil. That was the reason why the Kiss co-branded merchandise and characters and storylines never took place.

It was a critical part of the plan. and it got undermined by Turner Broadcasting because people are scared. It's fascinating to me to think about how unhinged WCW got so quickly, you know, and one of the other things that's discussed a lot here is not delivering on what's been advertised. And if you ask some old school wrestling people who were around WCW at the time, They would say that this is ultimately one of the things that killed WCW. For instance, you had a lot of house shows that were promoting Rick Flair versus Sting. But Rick Flair has been out for weeks with a back injury.

We're still continuing to advertise him. Sting is going to ask and receive time off from you because he's got to get ready to film a movie. So instead, they asked Goldberg to replace Sting. And Goldberg says, I've already made plans this week. boss, I can't do it. So you charter planes for Brett Hart, who had another appearance he was supposed to be at in Vancouver

and for Hulk Hogan to make these dates and they're going to be in Pensacola and Tallahassee. And so those folks get Brett Hart versus Holkogen at any non-televised live event as a last-minute substitution

but with the added expense of using dates from both of those guys and the a travel expense, even if they're $250,000 gate house shows, they're money losers. I mean, there's a lot of inefficiency here, but I appreciate that you're trying to still deliver a big-time card if you can't deliver what was originally advertised. But this is like the story of WCW, as we say in the South, like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing, right?

This is the story of WCW in 1999, not the story of WCW as a whole, but I know what you're saying. You know, at this point in time, who's ever in charge, you know, Gary Jester, local promoter, handled a lot of, you know, Zane handled the bigger venues and the bigger markets, but Gary Jester had this, you know, that would have been Gary Jester's responsibility. But Gary Jester couldn't have executed his job if he wasn't being communicated to by Kevin Sullivan or me or whoever was in charge of creative at that time. Well, creative doesn't know if legal doesn't know and legal doesn't know if they're not in contact with the talent.

There's an injury. So the breakdown in communication happens all. It works its way up, or I should say it works its way down. But the end result is in 1999, the right hand didn't even know if there was a left hand. Forget about knowing what I was doing. It wasn't even sure there was one. Well, let's talk about another report here from Wade, and I can't believe this is real,

but here's exactly what he wrote back then. It's become more and more difficult to find anyone within WCW with confidence and Bischoff's ability to turn around WCW. The head coach has lost the confidence of his players, and if it were up to a vote among WCW employees, Bischoff would likely be ousted by an overwhelmingly majority vote. How do you respond to that? I mean, does that track for you?

People were frustrated just as you were to? Probably true. I mean, I don't know what the sentiment was. You know, obviously the people close to me didn't feel that way. And there were quite a few people, despite the narrative that people like to push, pretty strong relationship with majority of the people that I interfaced with. Not all, for sure, but most. But I didn't have any confidence of my own ability to turn things around.

In fact, I was absolutely convinced I couldn't. I still tried, but I didn't have any confidence. So why would anybody expect anybody around me would? So that part I 100% agree with because I know it's true. I felt it. A vote, I don't know, because then you make a vote like that, theoretically. What are you going to get in return? devil you know and devil you don't keep in mind wcw had been through a lot of devils in the past so you know i don't

know that's a theoretical kind of proposition we'll never get the answer to but um we'd find out a few short weeks later that indeed i was at the end of my rope and i i took that ride thank god another ride you've been taking is one with lumen lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach is a device that measures your metabolism through your breath and on the app. It lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs, then it gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, your workouts, your sleep, and even your stress management. All you got to do is breathe into your Lumen first thing in the morning and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. Then Lumen will give you a

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We should at least mention Billy Kidman. He's going to do an interview with Mike Mooneyham, who's going to quote Kidman from a radio show. Basically, where we're at today, there will be no release. I've been told that I could work anywhere except the WWF. It wouldn't have been an unconditional release, so I didn't really want it. I have no choice but to hang in there now. I wouldn't mind going to ECW, but three years is a long. time to be there. Being I just re-signed a three-year deal, I wouldn't be able to work for Vince

for three more years under the release I would have been given. If I'd been given a year or a year and a half off, I probably would have just left and stuck it out at ECW for a little while. As of now, I'm going to be here for the next three years unless something changes. I just hope they do the right thing. We were calling his bluff when we wanted to leave. We may have expected Raven to walk out, but I don't think he expected anyone else wanting to leave. I think the way he looks at it just because he's paying us a lot of money. But we need a complete overhaul from the leader to the production to everybody who's on top.

We need to overhaul everything because the formula we have is not working. Everybody can see we need a change. Yet Eric keeps looking to the top guys. And of course, they don't want to change because they don't want to be in their spot anymore. Let's talk about that. You know, do you think WCW, I mean, I think most people would say WCW needed a total overhaul. Is there anything that could have happened in your mind that made WCW better?

I'm not saying it changed anything. We all know ultimately it was going to go out of business. But could 2000 have been better had a change been made here and what change could have been made that would have made 2000 better? Or was it just not possible? Ironically, the same thing that could change things as we discussed nearly three hours ago with regard to AEW and stopping the hemorrhaging. Because WCW, when I speak of hemorrhaging, I know of which I speak.

Because in August of 99 that we're covering here this particular week, WCW was hemorrhaging so I know what it feels like and the only thing that could have turned it around theoretically as practically it would not have been possible because of everything

else that was going around was to get the ridiculous amount of pressure that was on creative off creative so that creative could function in a more normal environment and effectively create compelling storylines because our storylines weren't compelling.

We had the Texas rednecks who had record that was getting national airplay. And we couldn't come up with a compelling way to use them or a compelling story, I should say. And there's a difference between compelling and C-Spot Run, as we've discussed, or white-maid's girl. That's it. the only thing that could have theoretically changed anything was for somehow somebody could wave a magic wand and get us back to a 1996 kind of morale and creative horsepower and energy

and formula. Lacking that, nothing. And look, I have a ton of respect for it. I see Billy whenever I show up at a WWE event, which is only a couple times a year now, but great relationship with Billy. Billy was very young at the time, and like 99.9% of the wrestling talent who bitches and moans about wrestling and the wrestling business,

they know nothing about the business of the wrestling business. They know more than I'll ever know, or Vince McMahon could ever know, or anybody else we ever want to put in that position. You know, wrestlers who are in that reign, who reach at the highest level, the undertakers, the players, the Pipers, the Hoggins, the Savages, the Raman Range, the Cinas, you name them.

Those people have developed an instinct and ability to manipulate in a good way. The audience, much like a good writer, manipulates a reader and creates emotion with words. And wrestlers can to create that emotion with a physical dialogue in the ring. And that truly is an art form that anybody who's never been able to. and at the highest level can never understand to relate to. Same can be said for the business side of the wrestling business. And all too often, especially younger wrestlers, think they understand the wrestling business

but are absolutely more clueless, or at least as clueless as the people that are selling Diet Coke and a concession stand at the arenas that they perform in. Unless you've ever been in the business of the wrestling business, you can't possibly understand the situation that WCW and Turner Broadcasting, not just WCW, every division of Turner was under the same amount of pressure. It affected them all differently, obviously, but they were all under the same pressure.

So unless you're in, unless you understand that, it's easy to make statements like, oh, we just need top tomorrow, get rid of the executives, get rid of the product, get rid of the production, give me a break, and replace them with what? it's so easy to make those kind of statements. And when a talent makes it, because talent is front-facing, they're the connectivity to the audience. More so than the office, right? The creative team, even if the creative team is a public figure like I was,

or Vince was, or Paul Heyman was. It's so easy to say those things, and it's so easy for wrestling fans who like to live on that kind, of drama and backstage drama so easy for them just accepted a face value without really understanding that it's just kind of pissing and moaned at a higher level let me ask you about another idea here uh there's a match that happens on tv a real barn burner between al green and barry horowitz and sid's going to give the match a mercy killing and tony shivani is going to use this match really as an excuse to just push a new contest w c

W's doing, well, you're going to give away a million dollars. And we're saying it's never been done before in wrestling. Of course, the WWF has tried this before, but still, Tony Chivani remembers this being just an absolutely miserable time. And he says a lot of that is because not only is the stuff he's being asked to call, not very good, not very logical, but you're at the height of your frustration. Hey, I trained him for what he's doing now for Christ. out loud. He should be grateful to me.

Well, I gave him a foundation to work off of 20 years later. He would say, he's the best in the business at it. He would say eating fruit. I had to grab it. This million dollar thing is

something that Tony used to tell a story on his podcast. Where he said that you were critical of his work in this era. You would say things like, you maybe the ratings wouldn't be in the toilet if you'd lose some fucking weight, which is great. So he does that.

Did I say those exact words or did I apply that? Pretty close. Pretty close. Okay. It's a visual business, Tony. It's television. We can see you. Lose some weight, you fat ass. Something like that.

Now, he says he does it. But you're sort of explaining to him, Hey, are you on board? Are you engaged? I mean, can you not get excited about us giving away a million dollars? I mean, I need to see some excitement. I mean, it's a million fucking dollars, Tony. Can you get excited about anything? So that's sort of the thing you say to him before he goes on the air.

And Tony Chivani has said on our show, he was so pissed off about that that he made it a point to go over the top about literally anything. about this million dollars. Like, they could be in the middle of something great happening. Hey, that was a great move, but not as great as if you won this million dollars. I mean, that sort of level, I'm just hitting you over the head with it. And he did it to the point where he was thinking he's being an asshole and he's ready as soon as he comes back through the curtain to get blasted because he was so sarcastically hammering the million dollars over and over and over.

And to hear Tony say it, instead, when he's... he comes through the curtain, you point and say, God damn it, that's how it's doing. That's what I'm looking for. And Tony was like, I was out there fucking with him the whole time. And he's like, he's nailing it. It's a great job.

What do you make of that story? It's fucking awesome. I love that story. I love Tony. And by the way, it was great to see Tony at Kevin Sullivan's Memorial a couple weeks ago. And he, Tony, Tony's like Benjamin Buttman.

He keeps getting younger every time I see him. crazy. But yeah, probably true. I don't remember it, but it sounds like something I would have done or said at the time. Well, talk to us about this million dollar idea. How does this come to be? What can you tell us about that initiative? You're going to give away a million dollars. Well, we were giving away an annuity is what we were real. So it wasn't really a million bucks, but it was a lot of money.

I mean, it cost us money to do it. But it's one of those deals where you get X amount of money every year for 20 years or something like that. So it's a little different. um yeah desperation promotional tactic it's been done before on other shows a million times it was just a way of kind of taking an idea that has worked in other forms of television promotion and and try to figure out a way to weave it into our format make it work but at its core desperation not an idea that I'm proud of or it's not even an original idea just desperation and saying, well, maybe this will work.

Maybe this will get some attention. Creatively. Maybe I can give my second cousin all the information he or she needs and pick up that million dollars to put in my own pocket, you know, because I like to grease my own skids. Listen to you. So listen, creatively, we're really struggling and we're trying to get to, hey, is there a magic formula? We decide to make Hogan, Sting, and Goldberg taking on Sill,

Dallas Page and Scott Steiner into a war games match historically we do that on the September pay-per-view but they're not going to do that this year so we just do it on TV not exactly a huge success but we're trying things something else we're going to try to do is get the budget under control

here's the report from the observer several wrestlers were laid off last week we don't have a complete list but confirmed to Scott Putzky 4x4 Swole Chase Tatum, Damien, Ciclope, Mikey Whiprek, and Super Callow. Callow can be really good, but he's been injured for a long time, and nobody knows what he has left. There's been some heat since Damien and Ciclope both hurt themselves doing that junkyard Battle Royal and were canned. Whiprek hurt himself in the same match.

He debuted with a really hot match with Kidman, and he was never given a chance after that. Four by four, Swole and Tatum were signed to contracts worth far more than they were worth by current wrestling stand. standards, and the company is facing a possibility of breaking even or worse, so budget cuts to keep the red ink are happening. That's something that's written about here that it looks like in 1999, WCW is on course to break even. I know that, you know, there's a lot of fuzzy math. We've discussed that a lot here on the program, and certainly in the Nitro book, and even

the death of WCW laid that out. Do you think 99 would have been a break-even year for WCW? We know 98 was the high water. mark for profit and total gross. But in 99, do you think it was a break-even proposition? Could have been. Yeah. If the decisions that, if the, if the budget and the business plan that was approved

in 98, if we would have been able to stick to that budget and that plan, absolutely. We would have been profitable. If you would have thrown the New Year's evil pay-per-view in there that got basically the plug pulled on it after I made a commitment to it by Turner Broadcasting, if that pay-per-view would have happened, we would have been profitable, significantly profitable. Not 98-level profitable or 97-level profitable necessarily, but we would have been very profitable in 1999. dismal results were the immediate impact of a complete overhaul of our budget at the end of the first quarter of 1999. We went in with $100 in the bank on January 1st. By the end of the first quarter, we had 50 cents to work with.

Oh! And keep producing that primetime show that we're not going to pay you for. So let's talk about some of the other names that were released oh chastity she was with hack once upon a time on camera she's going to get released and there's even a report in the torch that says one of the luchadors is trying to rally witnesses he wants to file a racial discrimination lawsuit I don't think any luchadors wound up signing up for that lawsuit but we know that Sonny Ono does lead a lawsuit in 1999 but that's November once you're gone. Raven was really against Vince Rousseau. Raven is, go ahead. Go ahead, I'm sorry. No, no, no. Let's talk about it.

I mean, if you want to talk about the Sonny Ono lawsuit, I'm. No, no, I don't want to talk about it, but I don't want to make it clear that Sonny's issue. Because there were some Hispanics involved in that. I don't know. I can't remember I'll tell my head who they were. But that was a direct result of Vince Rousseau and some of the things that he said and did, not anything that's happening during the time that we're talking about right here. Do you remember one of the conditions of Raven's release being that he can't speak negatively about WCW after the release?

Does that sound far for course for the Turner release? It sounds plausible because that's pretty common language. It is. And a separation agreement, non-dischargement. So I would have to assume that that would be accurate. Let's talk about where we are. here as far as some of the other pieces of the

business. Like, I can't imagine you're up for dealing with this, but there's representatives from Tommy Boy Records who were backstage at the New York Nitro, and they're complaining that you've stalled their project by not returning their phone calls. I guess this

is going to be WCW Mayhem the music. It's an album that comes out two months later. But what do you remember, if anything, about dealing with Tommy Boy Records? Tommy Boy was a label that, again, through Mandalay Sports Entertainment and my relationship with Jason Hervey, was an opportunity. It was a compilation opportunity with the major record label that was going to assure us major distribution.

It was an interesting piece of business. It wasn't a game changer from a financial perspective. It would have been a nice ancillary source of revenue. I recall entering to deal with them. I don't recall the nature of the complaint here or the friction at this point. But again, that was another deal that was brought in through Jason Hervey and my relationship with him and primarily Mandalay Sports and Entertainment because that's who Tommy Boy was working. And Tommy Boy, you know, you can Google it.

Tommy Boy at one point was, you know, it was a fairly significant record label. And this was before the downturn in the music business and the shift to digital and all that. this is when record labels still mattered. Let's talk a little bit about the end. You wrote in your book. I said to myself, there's no one above me who wants this company to succeed. The limitations they're putting on us,

make it impossible for us to pull the nose up. They're rejecting every opportunity to turn it around. I thought back to the meeting a year before when I'd been told to stop using the Leno jokes. I told myself I should have quit back then. I should have drawn the line in the sand when I had more leverage. Now I had no leverage. I had zero support.

I was surrounded by people who were job-scared and obsessed with their stock option packages. Thursday night, September 9th, 1999, I called Harvey from home and told him I was miserable. I'd had it. I wanted out. I was going to do what I should have done a year before. Harvey taught me out of it. He said I was just under a lot of stress. He was trying to be a friend and a leader, though in my mind I didn't want to hear it.

In the end, I agreed with him reluctantly. I was driving to work the next morning, and Harvey called me on my cell phone. What's up? I asked, meet me in my office. What's up? Just meet me in my office. I knew right then what was up. I was gone. But the reality of it, and Harvey's sudden turnaround still surprised me. Here's what I think happened. For calling Harvey at home, I talked with Bill Bush in my office.

I confided him, telling him how frustrated I was. I told him I was pretty sure I was going to throw in the towel. Bill gave me the impression he was trying to talk me out of it. He feigned support. In doing so, what I think he was doing was trying to get me to open up and give him information that he could take to others above me, including Vicki Miller. I didn't realize it at the time, but Bill actually wanted my job. He was a slippery little snake and he blindsided me.

He was an accountant, good adding and subtracting. He wasn't a strategic guy. he didn't have a creative strand of DNA in his entire body and he didn't really understand wrestling but he was good at navigating the finance side of the business as a result he'd become a confidant of mind i had no idea that he and a handful of others saw my unraveling as an opportunity to do what was best for them i don't know for sure what bill did that night but someone called the top people on the financial side of turner someone shared information on where my head was at and what I planned on telling Harvey.

There was a high-level conference call, either late that night or early the next morning, which is why Harvey had to call me and asked me to come in to see him. It's only my impression, but I think Harvey was told to do, was told what to do by Vicki Miller. Harvey told me I had to go home. Not that I was fired, I just had to go home. He was really uncomfortable, and I could tell he didn't want to do what he was doing. How can I go home, Harvey? have a pay-per-view this Sunday. Not this Sunday, you don't. Harvey was very careful in what he said.

He didn't say I was not coming back, just that I had to go home. He didn't fire me. I had two and a half years left on my contract. As much as I was disappointed with Harvey for not standing up for WCW earlier, I still trusted him and still do to this day. He's an honest person, sometimes painfully so. There may be a lot of political DNA in Harvey, but I don't think there's a disowness bone in his body. When he said, look, Eric, just go home. I took it at face value. I got in my car. I drove home. It was 10.30 or 11 o'clock on a Friday morning by the time I got home. I sat with my wife and told her what had happened. She was more relieved than anything. I was eerily relieved as well. We talked for maybe an hour or two. I decided to go fly to Wyoming and go

trout fishing. By three o'clock that afternoon, I'd filed my flight plan and clearance from air traffic control and was rolling down the runway headed west. Man, this is quite a story that you lay out in your book. Controversy creates cash. It's still available now in a handful of places. Certainly, Eric has some of some appearances and so forth. But, man, you spill your guts to Bill Bush. You wrote this book years ago.

Do you still feel that way? Have you had any chance to reflect on all of this with the benefit of hindsight and come up with a different answer, or is that still the way you believed it all went down? I believe it more so today. Again, with a lot of the information, I've subsequently learned. You know, when I read Guy Evans' book, Incredible Nitro, The Incredible Rise and inevitable fall of Ted Turner's WCW Nitro, it's a title. You know the book. I learned so much in that book that I didn't know.

Guy Evans interviewed people that were so far above me in the food chain that I rarely ever communicated with them. And all of them, many of them. had a significant amount of influence over WCW, whether it be Dick Cheatham or Bill Burke, Stu Snyder, many of the others. And when you listen to their side of the story, I think it's become more clear, at least to me, what happened.

And I'm more convinced than ever that Bill Bush, and look, I still have zero respect for Bill Bush. I'm not angry at them or anything like that. I don't carry grudges, really. There's just people that I have respect for and people that I don't. People that I have affection for to one degree. Bill is the guy that I just don't have any respect for. I did think I was confiding in front.

We had developed a pretty cool relationship. Bill lived down the street for me right around the corner from GDP and I. I threw Bill on my plane one Sunday afternoon and took him out to lunch in Charleston. Just flew there for the fun of it and hung out together. He was that close. So when I shared, kind of vented, really, it wasn't sharing what I was planning necessarily, although I probably did say I was going to pull the plug the next day because he did spend time trying to talk me out of that. But I think Bill absolutely went running right to Vicky Miller.

Keep in mind. And this is where I have a little bit of grace when it comes to this situation. I understand it. I still have no respect for Bill, but at least I understand it. Bill didn't report to me. Bill reported to Vicki Miller. That was his boss. So as much as I lost respect for Bill because I felt like he,

violated, I guess, is kind of a strong word. But, you know, when you think someone's your friend and you're sharing something that is hard or emotional, you, I guess, assume if you're an idiot like I was that people kind of keep that shit to themselves. You have that relationship. Had I been talking to someone I only had a business relationship with, I would have shared that information, right? So I allowed myself to get way too comfortable with someone that I should not have gotten comfortable with. And I'm more convinced than ever that Bill went to Vicky and Vicki because Vicki's the only person that could, well, Ted could have, obviously, but Vicki Miller was the only one that could have made that call. If indeed I'm right, and I think I was, just Harvey said thinking, you know, I didn't cover it in the book, but Harvey made it pretty clear to me. He did everything but give me a wink and a nod when he said, go home.

And I think Harvey really wanted to try to figure out a way to work around it to resolve the issue. But I think Bill went to Vicky, laid out a doomsday scenario, Vicky, who is one of the Turner executives, in my opinion, who aggressively wanted to pull the plug on WCW, long before I got into management, heard that opportunity, called Harvey. more or less forced him to make the call. He could have fought. Harvey could have fought it, but that would have been engaging Ted, and Ted was a little consumed at the time. Ted, what really wasn't even in control at the time?

So I'm more convinced than ever that it was Bill who shared a private conversation with Vicki Miller and Vicki Miller who picked up the phone and took advantage of the opportunity. That of shit happens every day. What can you tell us about Vicki Miller? Nothing. Nothing.

I mean, I never, I mean, I knew who she was. I was in meetings with her, large groups of, you know, meetings of large groups. I guess I'd recognize her if I walked past her in an atrium of CNN Center from time to time. But there was no, you know, there was no need for her and I to communicate on a regular basis. She communicated to Bill Bush or an individual or Dick Cheatham. Dick Cheatham would have been first. Bill Bush would have been in there. And there was another accountant by the name of Don Edwards.

also in WCW's offices, who reported to accounting, by the way, not to me, down the line. But I didn't really know her. I knew of her. I knew her reputation, but I didn't know her. We should remind everybody, Bill Bush winds up taking over for Eric.

And WCW finishes their downward descent. It is interesting to think this was 20. 25 years ago. Have you and Mrs. B. has been any time talking about this? Yeah. No, in fact, if it wasn't for this show, I, you know, I used to. And only because it's my favorite time of year and the fishing is so awesome here in September. And I often go, oh, man, it's around September 10th. Oh, yeah, that's when I got fired. And I flew out here in my plane.

I caught fish like a movie star, like a TV fishing star. I literally, Conrad, I think I maybe had been fly fishing twice in my life previous to this day. I took a couple of lessons with the local fishing guide here in Cody. And I'm half blind anyway, so the idea of me tying flies and all that kind of shit is kind of funny anyway to begin with. But I came out here and no fishing guide, went and bought some flies, took my fly rod, drove out to the river by myself, right outside of Yosso National Park. I found the sweetest little, like, river runs through it spot, like in the movie. nobody around the leaves are turning it's about 65 degrees and sunny not a hint of a breeze the grasshoppers because the grasshoppers are breeding at that point they're going crazy

in september and the truck love grasshoppers like eat the shit out of those grasshoppers they're like sushi for trout anyway i'm out there fishing i find this in a hole i get my tie I get my fly on the end of my rod, and I'm doing my river runs through. I drop that fly right where I want it. Like right where I want it. Boom, big ass brown trout hits it. Holy crap.

Brown trout, they're the best eating anyway. I reel that thing in and go, man, this is exciting. All of a sudden, while I'm reeling in the one fish, I'm looking around me and fish are hitting the surface, They're hitting the grasshoppers all around me. It was like it was hailing. You know, it was like, spot. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

I could get that fish off my hook fast enough. Through the fish behind me over towards a truck, grabbed another flash, bam, boom, another one. I caught like seven fish in less than 10 minutes. That's unheard of. And while I was doing it, I was thinking, you know what? I don't need wrestling anymore. Right.

I'm going to do a fly fishing show because this shit is not that hard. hard. I can do this. I have a natural gift for fly fishing. I kept hearing about how hard it was and how you got to study the flies and learn how to tie your own flies, learn how to read the river and all this other voodoo fishing horse shit. And I'm thinking that's nonsense. Look at me. I'm out here in my truck by myself. Just learn how to tie a knot and I'm catching fish like a muck or further. I haven't caught a fish on a fly rod since. No, I have. I think maybe one or two. But, yeah, it was a magic moment. I think about it every time of this year.

But I don't think about it in really relation to all of this. I guess because I've talked about it so much and wrote about it in the book and all that. It's just kind of, yeah, one of those things I went through. Do you think I'm not trying to be all religious on you, but I know that we all, I hope all of us have some level of spirituality in our life. Do you think there was some sort of spiritual message when you start catching all these fish immediately after your WCW departure? I am a Christian, I'm a very spiritual person,

and try to become a better one every single day. And more I think about my relationship with Christ and God and what I go through every day and what I've gone through in my life and the way I think about the future, I am absolutely convinced that there was guidance in what form I don't know, spiritual, yes, but that was a situation that had to happen for me to be where I am today.

I'm grateful that I didn't find a way to stick it out. I'm grateful that Harvey made. Vicki Miller made the decision of Vicki Miller made. Despite the fact I lost respect for Bill Bush, I'm grateful that he did what he did. Because had he not, I would have stuck it out because I hate saying I quit. I just don't want to say I quit. To me, that's the ultimate failure, is to quit. And I wouldn't have, because I thought about it.

I thought about it in late 98, thought about it throughout 99, definitely was thinking about it on September 9th, 1999, about 7 o'clock p.m. Eastern time. I can guarantee them freaking to you I was thinking about it then. But ultimately, I don't think I would have done it because it's just antithetical to my nature. sure. Jim and Buffalo is with us here. He's a member of our ad-freeshows.com community. And he says, Eric, once the dust settled in the days and weeks after you were sent home, does you think your time in WCW was done? Or was there a part of you that thought they'll be begging to have me come back? That's interesting. I initially, like when I came out here to go fishing and I called my wife, I said, come out here with me. Fly your mom from

Phoenix to Atlanta so that you can fly out here to Cody and hang out with me and get fish. That's all I was thinking about initially, like for the first few weeks, because again, not to be a dick, but I had two and a half years. I had over a million dollars coming my way. I was not really worried all that much. You know, I had a house in Atlanta at the time of a $180,000 house and yeah, I just built the house here in Wyoming. But financially, there's no stress on me whatsoever. And I was, so I wasn't, I didn't feel any pressure in that regard. it wasn't until and yes I did

I did think I was done with wrestling I wanted to be not did I think I was done I desperately wanted to be done with wrestling but I didn't know what that next phase of my life was outside of creating a fishing show but I didn't give it a lot of thought

until Super Bowl maybe a couple of days after I might have been the Monday after Super Bowl when I'm sitting in a Chili's restaurant with my wife for TGI Friday's one of the two in Minneapolis and my wife and I were ready to

we had flown in to Minneapolis, dropped my brother and sister off and we were ready to jump in my plane and fly to Atlanta the next day fly home. So we spent the night in Minneapolis and I'm sitting in this Chili's restaurant. I look at it and I see Perry Saturday

and Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko and whoever up on Monday Night Raw. I can see it over. Lori and I were talking right. I couldn't hear the TV, but I could see it. I had to squint a little bit to see what's going on, but I'm looking. I'm going, what in the hell? It's so weird. And I looked at Lori and I said, within a couple weeks, I'll be getting a phone call. I'll never forget it. And she went, yeah, right, like you're going to answer that phone call. And literally two weeks later,

two, three weeks later, maybe not even that. Maybe a week or two later, I'm sitting in my daughter's room in Atlanta. I was sitting at her desk doing something, cleaning something up or doing something in the phone rings. And it's Brad Siegel. And now, it was not a big house. It was an 1800 square foot house at the time. And Lori's walking by.

So she's listening to my conversation with Brad and she could tell by the conversation where it was going. Brad was basically asking me what it was going to take for me to come back. And I got done with Brad. I don't think I made a commitment at all other than to talk again, but I hung up and I turned around and she said, you're going back, aren't you? I said, yep, but I wasn't surprised.

I didn't see it coming, but I wasn't surprised that it happened. Well, I'm not surprised that we're doing another get-together for ad-free shows. It's Top Guy Rumble and wrestling dreams are becoming a reality this January, Eric, because ad-free shows is headed down to Alabama for Top Guy Rumble, which is going to feature not one, not two, but three incredible wrestling experiences. How about a wrestling fantasy camp? You're going to step between the ropes.

Yes, you. You're going to get in a wrestling ring and get trained by the same man who trained Kurt Engel and the Rock. Dr. Tom Pritchard is here. He's going to help you figure out how to run the ropes, take bumps, and learn firsthand what it is to be a professional wrestler. What about Top Guy Tustle? Yeah, you're going to put your booking hat on

and you're going to help us book and take part in our own private wrestling show. Here's your chance to be a manager, a ring announcer, a timekeeper, a referee, and more, and then sit back and watch the show that you helped book. And as if that's not enough, what about the Royal Rumble Watch Party? On Saturday, February 1st, Top Guys will come together to watch the 2025 Royal Rumble. We're going to have games and prizes. with our pal Ephron. Last year's Top Guy Rumble saw Top Guy Dave McLeigh take home $1,000 in cold, hard cash.

It's a weekend that wrestling fans dream about, and it becomes a reality this January for ad-free shows, top guy members, become a top guy today at ad-free shows.com, and you'll be eligible to attend the Top Guy Rumble. And I know our pal James Sorensen, he's going to be there. He's got a question for us, Eric. I know 1999 WCW was basically a dumpster fire on wheels, but is there, and I know I'm reaching by a huge long shot, but was there anything that you're proud of from 1999 WCW?

Just the amount of fish I call out on September 11th. Pretty proud of that. No, I can't, you know, there was nothing to be proud of. Absolutely not. I mean, how hard as I might try, I don't think there's anything you could look back to it. You know, that was actually a really pretty good idea. Well, let me say, it's not all terrible. I liked the idea that, you know, DDP wins his first world title, I think, in 1999.

That was pretty cool. Paul Kogan came back in the red and yellow. That was pretty cool. I mean, there are some cool things that happened in 99, but boy, you really got to look for them. A friend of the show, James Sorensen, also says, and this is an interesting question, if there was a movie ever made about you, Eric, who would you like to see play Eric Bischoff?

No, I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I don't know, Tom Cruise, because he's got black hair, and I had black pair back then. We were about the same size, I guess. So, yeah, I guess that, but I don't know. It's hard to think about. We'll finish with this one.

Eric Jones says, after the ending being a negative finish. How long did it take for you to realize the galactic and legendary footprint and change you made in wrestling and take pride in that? I don't know about galactic and all that or legendary, but I do know for a fact.

You know, if my time on Earth ended, you know, this afternoon, I would know that as much as anybody other than Vince McMahon, I have had a positive impact on the industry as we know it today because of the things that we innovated at WCW because of the risks that I took because of the paradigm and the wrestling model that I was willing to shatter in order to try to be different than. all of those things are the reason in part, not totally, in part where the decisions and choices and innovations I brought that forced WWE to change and in doing so allowed WWE helped WWE to position themselves as the juggernaut that they are today. And I know that's a little bit like, oh man, you got to go a long way down a trail to find

that rock, you know what I mean? Did those things really affect the business that much? But if you look at the business of the wrestling business and the timeline associated with it and the growth of it, I don't think WWE would have gone public had it not been for Nitro, had it not been for the Monday Night Wars. And had WWE not going to public initially, I don't think that they would be around in order to be acquired by TKO recently.

And certainly wouldn't be worth a $9 billion price tag. So I'm pretty comfortable with, with what I've contributed to the industry, but honestly, didn't start thinking about that from that perspective, really until we started doing the show. I mean, I knew it was true in my gut.

I knew I did a lot of really cool shit that changed everything. It was different than anybody else had ever done before me and still exist today, but I didn't think about it in that respect. I didn't ever think about what would have happened

if Nitro would have never come along. And when you really are honest, if you can be, if you don't have vested interest in your final outcome of your thought process, man, those dominoes had to fall almost perfectly to be where we are today. And I think the dominoes that I helped create and dropped in the beginning, we're at least partially responsible for what we see today. That's enough for me, man. I'm good with that.

That's a pretty impressive, for me, I'm impressed with that for my own personal list of achievements in life. And despite, you know, 99 and all the shit that I'm not proud of. Well, I'm proud of this episode. This is our longest episode of 83 weeks ever by Country Mile, and we're not done. We'll be back next week talking about Fall Brawl 1993. It's the first time that show was ever called Fall Brawl. It's got Rick Flair, challenging Rick Rude, the Shockmaster making his in-ring debut,

Sting and the debut, along with Dustin Rhodes, being a part of, of the superpowers. It's going to be a fun show, but what I'm really looking forward to most of all next week is on Wednesday. We're going live. Eric Bischoff and I will be with you at 83weeks.com. It's going to be 5 o'clock Eastern on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, on Saturday, on Sunday, on Monday. There are six episodes of this Mr. McMahon documentary on Netflix, and Eric and I are not going to

binge all of them on day one and then do a little recap, we're going to go episodically show by show and break them down. We're going to have some special guests join us, including an attorney friend of ours who's going to tackle the legal possibilities and ramifications from this event and a whole lot more. This is going to be the talk of the wrestling business next week, and we want you to know that we're not putting something in the can. We're doing it live and hopefully with you, interactive at 83 weeks.com. So without further ado, I want to encourage you right now while you're thinking about it. Go on over to 83 weeks.com.

So they're going to forward you to our YouTube. Hit the subscribe button. It's totally free. Turn on the notifications bell so you don't miss us when we're live. And every single day, starting next Wednesday at 5 p.m. Eastern, we'll break down a new episode until we're complete. special guests along the way. Eric, this is going to be one of the biggest things

that happens in wrestling this year, I think. This whole, because there's so many people who are going to see this who aren't wrestling fans, like non- Wrestling fans are going to be talking about this story. Maybe for the first time in a long time, this is going to be big stuff next week.

I'm looking forward to Wednesday. I am too. It'll be fun to cover. It'll be fun to see the reaction, but what I'm mostly interested in seeing is the outside of the wrestling universe response and reaction in mainstream media. That's going to be really fascinating because that's a head scratcher for me, man. Why is Netflix doing this?

Why is WWE doing? Why is TKO doing this? And what is the outcome going to be? And we're going to find out before along. It's going to be a blast. Join us live next week at 83 weeks.com. And hey, if you're wondering, yes, you heard correctly. The feds just cut rates by a half a point and that means it's time to take another look if you've been on the fence about consolidating your debt about getting a lower monthly payment about buying a house, I'm your hookup at save withconrad.com. You've got a friend in the mortgage business. Why not hit me up?

Give me a call toll free at 888-4250105. Drop me an email Conrad at savewithconrad.com or get yourself a quick quote. Even check out our reviews at Conradreviews.com. what you're going to find is we're all about experience we want to over deliver we want to help you and we want to be your mortgage advisor for life but right now interest rates have improved like three quarters of a point over the last couple of weeks this could be your chance to get rid of all that credit card debt once and for all just like that we're routinely helping our podcast listeners say five six seven even 800 bucks a month how much can you save find out right now for free and you don't need perfect credit you don't need money out of your pocket and if we can't

help you save some cash we won't waste your time get yourself a quick quote right now at save with conrad dot com and take advantage of these rates while we still got them and make plans to join us next week here at 83 weeks dot com eric we went nearly four and a half hours this is a record for us here but i guess if we're talking about the end of you in wcw this is as good as episode as any to go along. Well, a lot of great research went into this episode. Thank you, Derek Sabato. And it was an interesting show.

We got some good questions. And thanks for hanging in there with me, Conrad and Dave Silva. It's four hours, four and a half hours of listening to me drone. Oh, my God. Well, I can't wait to do it again. We'll be live next Wednesday. Join us at 83 weeks.com this Wednesday at 5 p.m. Eastern 83 weeks.com.

And we'll see you next Friday and everywhere. at 83 weeks.com.