83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 343: Creating The Cruiserweight Division

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

On this epic edition of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad take a deep dive into the creation of the WCW cruiserweight division. Eric shares his process moving away from the stigma of the lightweight division and creating something new and exciting for the company. He also discusses the lengths he went to gather all the best in the world to compete for the new championship belt. This is a 3+ hour episode packed with tons of details, stories and facts you won't hear anywhere else from the creator himself. ZBIOTICS - Go to https://zbiotics.com/83WEEKS to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use 83WEEKS at checkout. LUMEN - Take the next step in improving your health, go to https://www.lumen.me/83WEEKS to get 15% off your Lumen.  EARNIN - Download the EarnIn app today. Type in 83 WEEKS under PODCAST when you sign up. EarnIn, the most loved way to get paid as you work. MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order through https://magicspoon.com/83WEEKS , or look for Magic Spoon in your nearest grocery store! MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADOo6mBNOS9rQrvdC12xrAUD0RTNU&gclid=Cj0KCQjw05i4BhDiARIsAB_2wfAGbDtnZO9wsa0cjliySeXtGu6FZwnbXWr-bgCa04NzQNnboAQQ_b8aAjKREALw_wcB.  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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Derek Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? Buddy, I'm doing great. I'm wrapping some things up today. Mrs. B and I and Nikki and my dog are going to jump in the truck because we love our road trips. I'm going to jump in the truck and go to Minneapolis for the weekend. and visit Lloyd's uncle and my brother and my sister. It's her uncle's birthday, and we're going to surprise him showing up. And then I'm going to head down from Minneapolis.

I think it's Highway 51 that goes right along the Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Minnesota. We're going to go down to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where my good buddy Bob Netercorn and his wife live in Holman, Wisconsin. They have their custom butcher shop. I can't wait to get there. The Glyzie King! the glizzy king that's my man yeah you remembered yeah and we're going to hang out with them for a night day and a night have some dinner and because the fall colors right now are pretty good they're not peaked yet but they're close and that that whole trip along the river from minneapolis it's only about

150 miles but that whole trip is one of the more scenic routes you can you can enjoy in the fall so we're going to do that and we're going to go visit a friend of our has a friend of ours has an art gallery in Decorah, Iowa, which is not far from across. We're going to go visit him and see his gallery. And then we're going to boogie on back and be home by Tuesday night or Wednesday. So that's my life. And I'm looking forward to it. I love road trips.

Me, life and the dog. I love it. You know, you've talked about Mr. Neatercorn on the show today or before. Do you think there's any chance he's going to throw one of those glissies on the grill? You know, he may because he knows how much I love my meat. And I love those glissies. I'm just saying hypothetically, if he does, I need you to take a photo, post it to your Twitter of the glizzy on the grill. Or are you holding one before it goes on the grill and write the caption?

You know, I keep that thing on me. Hashtag glizzy. It will go viral, Eric. It will. You know what? I'm going to call Bob and say, hey, Bob, Lori and I were thinking we'd like to have a glizzy dinner Monday night. So let's, and he'll do it. I can't wait.

I just want to give everybody a heads up. Eric and I are recording early on a Wednesday morning. So we are hours before or maybe a day before whatever is headed to South Florida. Obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with whatever has happened. I know this is a weird conversation for me to be having, but I'm sure as you're listening on Friday morning, you're wondering, why aren't they addressing what's happened? We don't know exactly what's happened. What we do know is that this past Wednesday night, Jeff Jarrett and I went live on his YouTube for Hurricane Helene Relief.

We're going to come up with some sort of idea to raise money or awareness for this Milton circumstance. It's a weird time right now in America right now. Is it not Eric? I mean, it feels like we just dealt with this and now, holy shit, there's another one. And, you know, you're just bombarded. I mean, you've got literally rank of World War III going on in the Middle East right now. We're less than 30 days out from an election that is highly contentious, obviously. The disasters that we're experiencing down in North Carolina, the southeast part of the country, Florida,

it's just all happening in once. I don't think I've experienced anything quite like this in my life. It's a weird time. And I know that a lot of times when people have bad things going on in their life, they just want to escape. And hopefully, and I've heard from a lot of folks that our podcast at times serves as an escape and a worthwhile distraction from some challenges or negative aspects of their life. We hope that we can be that escape for you today, but we can't really comment on what has happened in Florida because we're recording ahead of time. But it's certain that it's not lost the severity. I mean, you and I both know people in that part of the world.

Like my father-in-law, I had a conversation with him two days ago that said, Hey, dude, you're getting the hell out of there, right? And thankfully, he went to Las Vegas, and we know that he's okay. And I know your friend, the real life Hulk Hogan, he's in that area. And Mr. Briscoe, and I mean, it is a who's who of people in the wrestling business who live in that part of the world. So we're all sort of connected, and it's times like these where, yes, there's these political conversations that seem like they're dividing us. But we're seeing a lot of what makes America great when we come together in moments like this.

And I hope that if there is a silver lining in all this negativity and this natural disaster and just the tragedies that are happening, it's that maybe we can come a little closer and remember that we got a lot more in common than we don't. that makes sense yeah it sure does and i it's unfortunate that sometimes it takes disasters to galvanize people and bring people together you know we saw it after september 11th um country came together 2001 came together after that disaster and galvanized and then we just all go about our business and pretend or act like none of it ever really happened and until it happens again. And this is a significant enough disaster that let's pray for a silver lining

and that people come together. We're seeing it in North Carolina. We're seeing, you know, what are they called them, the Cajun Navy, people from all over the country coming in, helicopter pilots that are flying helicopters just doing it out of the goodness of their heart, trying to get things to people. Because it's not like a city where, you know, people are densely populated and they're relatively,

Once you can clear the area and get to them, you can get trucks in and out and start bringing supplies in and out and moving stuff out that needs to get moved out. These people in North Carolina, Appalachia, they're living up on the side of a mountain somewhere with nothing but dirt roads. You can't get to those people. It's not as the, and what you're seeing to your point, so many people coming together. And it's an example of what's possible. It's, it's hope. You know, you become hopeful for. or the human race and particularly our country and the people in it

because you see what they're really made of or can be. I want to give a shout out to a friend of the show, Jim Valley too. I know he's not necessarily your biggest fan. He's been a real big critic because he's a big part of what they do over at Wrestling Observer. But, yeah, I've been friends with Jim for a long time. And my man has been looking for a kidney for years. He got one. He got the transplant.

He desperately needed to save his life. it's gone well and he's finally going home today Eric so I don't even know that Jim Valley's on your radar ever has been but man to hear a happy ending like that we need some good news every now and again and Jim Valley getting a kidney transplant

sign me up congrats to him and his wife and the whole family indeed let's jump in our topic today we're going to be talking about the cruiserweight division because you know I think when people think of Nitro, they almost immediately

jumped to conversations about the NWO. But I would think that if you go just one step below that, like after we get the NWO conversation complete, the next most fascinating biggest piece of Nitro to me as a fan

was the cruiser weights. And I know there was a lot of other great content that happened. But the NWO felt new and fresh, and so did the cruiserweight division. That's my perspective as a fan. You were there, creating it. How would you, how would you respond to that? You know, I've had a, I've had about six years to think about that since we started doing this podcast and reviewing old shows.

And, and I've come to the realization that the cruiserweight division is maybe not as responsible for the pop culture kind of phenomenon that Nitro became. game, but damn, it's a close second. The cruiserweight division made Nitro, take the NWO story out, just put it off the side. It made Nitro different than in a very powerful way. And I think it's set the tone for what we're seeing today with a lot of smaller talent, guys that are, you know, like we had Nick Nebuth on the other day. But he says, he's 510, 511, 190 pounds.

That opportunity that Nick has been able to enjoy for the last 15 years, or however long he was in WWE, now he's in T&A and doing incredibly well. And again, I want to thank Nick and his brother for joining us because it was a fun show over at Wise Choices, too. But a lot of your talent that's, you know, under 6'4 and 250 pounds, can thank the guys in the cruiserweight division for making that effort such a powerful, powerful part of Nitro and we're seeing remnants of it today, an extension of it today and all over the country. I think it's one of the things that really made Nitro stand out as being different than Monday Night Raw.

because we just weren't seeing this type of action in WWF wrestling rings back in the day. And in fairness, the cruiserweight division really probably started with the WCW light heavyweight division. And that was during the era of, you know, Jim Hurd and Kip Fry and Bill Watts. When you decided that you wanted to move in this direction, what did you think you wanted to do different? than the way they had, like, what didn't work about WCW's light heavyweight division that did work about the cruiser weight division? A lot of it is timing, and it's funny when the idea started, you know, it's hard to track when did I first start thinking about that idea.

It certainly occurred around the time that I was spending a fair amount of time in Japan, and I don't want to say studying their business, but observing. observing as much as I could the differences between the way New Japan pro wrestling presented their product and the way product was being presented across the board in the United States, including WWE. And we've talked in the past about some of those things, but one of the things that stood out in my mind was that as much as I love watching some of the heavyweight guys in New Japan at the time, they're fun to watch. I love that style of wrestling, always have. But what I got the biggest kick out of, or what interested me the most is a better way to say it, was their light heavyweight division, specifically Jush and Thunder Liger in a lot of the matches he was having. I was watching Eddie Guerrero over there, Black Caps, watching Chris Benoit over there,

Jim Malenko over there. In addition to a lot of the younger, you know, light heavyweight, that's how they refer to him. Japan at the time. And I thought, man, this is part of the answer. And again, much like the NWO, you start thinking about these ideas and you kind of mentally file them, or at least I do. I don't write shit down, which is why I'm so disorganized. But I do keep a pretty good running track of things I'm excited about in my head. And I just kept that idea in my head probably for a year.

I want to figure out a way to do this. I want to create a cruise way. And here's another thing. WCW called it light heavyweight. I didn't want to do that. I specifically thought through that quite a bit and landed on cruiser weight division, which is basically I took out of boxing, right? But light heavyweight had in my mind, at least the potential of being less than heavyweights.

And I knew I didn't want to be less than. So I opted to be different then and referred to it as the cruiserweight division. Referring to it as a cruiserweight division was, look, it's a little tiny idea. It's like throwing a little bit of salt on your stake. It's not a big deal. But it was enough to make people go, hmm, wonder what that is because it's not the light heavyweight division. And what, you know, my thinking at the time and still to the stake is once you get people to lean forward and go, what is this about? you got them. Now your job is to keep them, but if you can get their intention and attention,

make them ask the question, what is this, or how is this going to work, then your job is to really explain it and paint a beautiful picture. And I want, I'm going to ramble just a little bit about this because I'm kind of excited about it. I'm proud of it is what I am. When I finally pulled the trigger and launched the cruise away, announced the cruise away division, my thinking had evolved quite a bit from when I first started thinking about it a year previously in Japan because now I have a two-hour show, which I didn't have in 94. It didn't exist. I had a one-hour show. But now in 95, I've got a two-hour show. I've got a stacked roster of some of the biggest names in the history of the industry at that time and sense between Hogan, Savage and Sting

and Flair and Lugar and on and on and on. And we had so much top talent, but they all, although their characters were different and their stories could be different, their presentation in the ring, what we saw physically with the volume turned down, it was very similar. pace was similar a lot of the moves were similar obviously you still see that today there was a sameness about our top talent not that it was bad but it was just all kind of the same in terms of the visual representation so I thought specifically in terms of format as one of the reasons I always start thinking about like if format is your foundation of your

show if you're going to build a house you've got to have a good foundation and the foundation has to be on solid ground. So I'm thinking about the format and got all this top talent, but everything kind of feels the same. What do I do? How do I fix that? And I went, wait a minute.

The crossover, like if our show started at 8, goes to 10, obviously the beginning of the show is incredibly important because you want to hook the audience, you want to start building anticipation towards the end of the show within the first five minutes

if you're doing your job correctly, Tony and then you want that anticipation to build throughout the hour. That's how you build over the course of an hour or two hours as opposed to watching your lead in come in here and then tanking for the rest of the hour or two. So how do I do that? Because I had that same problem. I was concerned that the audience would fatigue the audience the same presentation, especially when we're going head to head with WW.

We, I couldn't afford them to go, okay, this is kind of cool. But I'm going to go see what they're doing over here, especially at that crossover hour, the 9 o'clock hour. So you've got the beginning of the show, you've got the crossover, as this referred to, and then you've got the end of the show. Those are three key moments to our show. So I decided that I'm going to create this Cruiserweight Division. Now it started taking shape, late 94, early 95, whenever it was.

it started taking shape and I thought what an ideal way to use this Cruiserweight Division so that at 9 o'clock because here's what happens and it still happens to this day. When you go back and you look at whether it's WWAE, AEW, anybody else that you can get the quarter hour ratings on, you'll see that 9 o'clock hour always spikes because people start doing this, right? They start at the top of the hour or the show that they were watching was over, they all start surfing and you'll get an artificial bump for about seven minutes or eight minutes of the top of the hour of people who are just kind of looking for something to do.

And that's why that typically your 915 to 930 quarter, it drops from that crossover. It's kind of an artificial bump in a way, unless you make it work for you so that when those people are passing through and they're seeing fast pace super dynamic you know shit happening in air things that look different than they typically see with our 250 and 300 pound larger than life characters there's a good chance they'll stick around and they did and that was tactically that was a great idea strategically in terms of better than less than different than, it fit perfectly into the equation. And I think it's

an underrated element of nitro and when people go back and look at what made nitro work, take the talent out of it, just look at the show and the production. Curiousway Division was one of the better ideas I've ever had, to be honest. One of the other better ideas you've had is,

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I can actually go ahead and confidently plan on waking up at the crack of dawn to record this podcast or Tonys or Bruce's or Jeff's without worry because I know I was prepared. I had C-Bionics. And we've mentioned the story here before on the show. Eric and I found ourselves at a conference out in Denver. It was a podcast convention. and we were supposed to be meeting with a bunch of different agencies, and we did. We were celebrating with drinks like we do.

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So, Eric, I wanted to talk to you about the sort of the origin, if you will, of the cruiserweight division. And you laid out a lot of your thinking at the time, but I don't know that this was even on your radar. Like before there was a Juschen Liger and a Brian Pilman with the WCW light heavyweight, they actually used to have a title called the NWA Junior Heavyweight title. And I think a lot of people look back to that in the 80s and they say, this is the reason that that belt and that name like heavyweight has always felt less than. At the time, Jim Crockett promotions for all the great they did, they had their junior heavyweight champion be guys like Danny Brown or Gary Royal.

And I think even in Nelson Royal's Western store, the belt is still there. respectfully those guys previously and after were like enhancement guys they weren't necessarily considered contenders or top guys so it felt almost like a consolation prize and i'm wondering if that stigma that was created by jim crockett promotions in the mid-atlantic territory sort of trickled down to wcw and then into i mean i'm seeing pre-you i just wonder is Is that, because I've even heard like Sean Waltman say that he didn't really like the idea of being the light heavyweight champion for the WWF. And when he would get his payoff, he would sort of tongue in cheek, ask J.R. Are you paying me by the pound?

I mean, but when you go back and wonder, hey, why do people feel like this is less than? Because to be clear, once upon a time, even in boxing, and it was all about the heavyweight title. That's what everybody talked about in the Muhammad Ali era. but then you see like Sugar Ray Robinson and Roberto Duran and you see even in a more modern era you see great stuff with with Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather these guys are the mega draws even Connor McGregor these are not larger than life human beings they're not heavy weights they're just really fast well trained well conditioned athletes but wrestling has had that stigma for a while and I think it might be accidentally from Jim Crockett promotions it could have been

you know, because a part of my thinking and in addition to believing I've got to be different than, part of the reason I think I started thinking that way is because I anticipated pushback from talent because I'd heard talent oftentimes suggest to me that light heavy weight is, in their opinion, they're just farther down the food chain. And let's be honest, man. I mean, you don't become a performer. You don't go out there in your underwear and tell your story in a wrestling ring with a physical story, you know, because you don't have an ego. You have an ego, and it's a healthy one because it's inspiring you to be productive and to chase a dream, whether it's being a musician or an actor, actress, whatever, or professional wrestler.

So I think most talent in general have a pretty powerful easy. ego and you don't want to be labeled as no matter how high up on the card you are in your category in this case light heavyweight if you have that belt you're still in your mind at least and in this case it's true because of the nature of the guys that held that title you just don't want to feel like you're not quite as good as everybody else or or there's no hope for you ever reaching that level that became a problem with the cruiserweight division later on. I'm sure we'll get to it. But I knew that calling these guys light heavy weights are junior heavy weights, especially junior. Like, I would never have done that. Nobody wants to be

called junior. Even if you are a junior, you don't want to be called junior. So part of that anticipating oh and sensitivity amongst the talent was one of the reasons I was determined to try to find a different way to do it. And going back to boxing, that's where the cruiserweight idea came to me was not from anything else that was going on anywhere else. But I was really up until MMA started getting really good and competitive and legitimate, not just, you know, tough guy, bar fight bouncer stuff. Once you started seeing the gray seas and the jiu-jitsu and the higher quality martial artists, whether it be karate or kickboxing, taekwondo, whatever, that's when I became more

of an MMA fan. But during that to Sugar Ray Leonard, you know, Tommy, Hurons, man, one of the most fun times I've ever had in wrestling was hanging out with Tommy Hermes in Detroit because I was such a huge fan of him because he was from Detroit and he was an amazing box for just tough as hell. But all, you know, the Mani Pachial and Roberto Durant. I went to the, I think it was it to Roberto Durant, Sugarberry Leonard fight I saw. Oh, but the Cruzeweight title or the name Cruzeuate in my mind. came from boxing.

Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that. I love that name, cruiserweight. It does sound cool. And, you know, there's so many different weight divisions, you know, fly weight, ban them weight. You got all that in boxing. It's like you gain or lose two pounds and you're in another division. But let's go back to sort of the origin, at least in WCW in your era.

This would be back in 1994. The Observer would post, WCW is going to do a cruiserweight division tournament as a vehicle to give Brian Pilman a new push on television, either starting in November or January, with the idea being to bring in wrestlers from Japan and Mexico as his opponents. And a couple of months later, we would see a post back in the news groups. This is old school. After several hints, WCW finally mentioned on TV this past weekend that a cruiserweight title will be established in January 95.

We have to take these things with a huge chunk of salt. but they said that wrestlers from all over the world would be involved. It seems obvious that Brian Pilman and Alex Wright are the two wrestlers and the current batch of stars that will be in the spotlight of this new division. It was originally rumored that the lighter weight division would return this month, with a January rumor quickly following. I guess the word light or junior was a definite no-no, leaving us with the more impressive cruiser.

So this is sort of framed as if it's going to be built around Brian Pilman. Is that the way you remember it? It may have been a factor. I think it was really built around the evolution of the relationship with New Japan and just wanting to get something different on. And let's be clear, other people have done it before me. We saw Japanese talent come across and work in WCW as far back as I could carry. So I wasn't breaking any ground there.

I think what's interesting in this report is I thought in my mind at least that this cruiserweight division involved later on, like in 1995 as a result of the two-hour show. But obviously, we established a cruiser way title category much before that. But I don't think it was for Brian. Obviously, Brian would have been a big part of it. But I think it was an effort to showcase Japanese talent because we want to do something different. and be different and also gives people like Brian something more interesting to do than floating around in the top tier, so to speak,

but not really having any focus as consistently as he could have and should have. So I don't think it was for Brian, but I think it was probably the most beneficial for Brian. Let's talk about Brad Armstrong. Back in the day, he is going to, vacate the light heavyweight title in WCW. That's like fall of 92. And when Brad vacated the title,

he'd been out for over a month with a knee injury, but it's live on the Clash of the Champions, just six days in his in-ring return and 10 days before that match airs on TV. Watts is then going to claim on TV, there's going to be a tournament for the vacant title at the start of the new year, but it never really happens.

and there's been a lot of chatter amongst internet wrestling fans through the years. The Bill Watts was just not a fan of the light heavyweight division and that style. I mean, this is the same guy who band moves off the top rope and things like that. Now, of course, Watts defenders would say he did that so they meant more. So, you know, you could still do it. You just had to do it when the referee wasn't looking or that sort of thing. It was a storytelling device. Do you think Bill Watts enjoyed this style of wrestling?

No way of knowing if he did or didn't. I think if you just look at the patterns and the things that he did as opposed to what he may have said because we know how that goes. I think that's a safe assumption, but I don't know that for sure. I think Watts was a fan of success. But you also have, you know, it's one of the things like the backstory on Watts, banning moves off the top rope and pulling the pads away from the rain, all the other things that were very controversial when Watts did it,

specifically amongst the talent because you're taking about half of their tools out of their toolbox, so to speak. So they weren't happy about it. But I understood, he was, Bill Watts was a lot like Virgania. You know, when Bill Watts, when it was announced that Bill Watts was coming in to take over, the first thing that I did was call Vern Gagne. I didn't know Bill. I didn't know his reputation.

I didn't know anything about him. They didn't know about Mid-South. Not that stuff. I never saw any of it. Didn't have access to it. It didn't exist in my mind during his time. So when Watts came in, I called Vern. And Vern put Bill over.

He said to me, he's tough, but he's a good promoter. And he'll make the right moves. That did not bring me joy. I was not relieved, but I heard that because I saw firsthand just how rigid and stuck in the 70s, 60s and 70s. Vern Gagne was in the 90s. I mean, and I think, you know, Vern only knew what Vern knew. Verne only had the experience that Vern was able to experience during his era. And the formulas that worked in his era in terms of presentation didn't work so well

by the late 80s and early 90s. It doesn't us prove that. Same thing with Jerry Jarrett. Jerry Jarrett was different because he did some off-the-wall stuff. But a lot of the things that worked in the 70s, just like a lot of things that worked for me in the 90s, won't work today. You know, the industry has evolved. The industry is the same.

Audience has evolved. And obviously, television has changed. Culture has changed. So you can't rely on the formulas that were great 25, 35, 35, 45 years ago. And that's what Watts did when he came in. It was like, let's go back to the future, like 50s future, 60s future. in the mid-90s, and I knew that was not going to work. And that's when I started looking for, that's what I told Lori.

I said, I think I'm going to go roll the dice in L.A. And I did because of Bill. But I think Bill's, Bill was honest about it. And some of the psychology behind what Bill did as far as Banning moves off the top rope, wasn't because he didn't like smaller guys who were really good at doing that stuff. He wanted to create stakes. He wanted to create a framework that would allow him to tell a story in a match that would allow his announcers to actually tell a story in the match

as opposed to making comments about what they just saw. I see. That's a big difference. It is. I know, as I just heard myself say that, that is such a powerful difference between what, in my opinion, is great color and play by play versus. what we hear today, including WWE. It's more announcers reacting to what they're seeing

in a way that doesn't necessarily tell you the story. It's one of the reasons why I love Nigel McGinnis so much as a color commentary, because from Nigel's perspective as a wrestler, he can creatively, of course, take us into the mind and tell us what somebody in the ring may be thinking and feeling in that moment. That adds a lot of color to this. Well, unintended.

Actually, not intended, but I'll take it. It adds a lot of color to the story. It's not just a sketch now. We're starting to see color and layers when you can get that kind of perspective. And when you're play-by-play man or person, man or woman, I guess, is... calling the action in a way that if you close your eyes,

you can imagine the match. That is sweet, sweet music. I love when that happens, and it's so rare. It adds a layer or a level of enjoyment. It engages a different part of your sensory... complex mind, you're engaging another part of your brain in a way to bring you different kinds of enjoyment.

You know, I'm not saying that right. Let me give you an example. On Sundays, when the weather's beautiful and football's on, because I still like to watch football. You know, I'm not a huge football fan. I don't gamble on it. I don't fancy football. I don't do that. But, man, I grew up on Sundays in the fall.

on those perfect fall days with the windows open and something cool cooking on the grill or whatever watching football and I still experience that I love that but what I found myself doing more and more and Sean Pendergast is the reason why I started listening to Sean Pendergis now I know Sean now we've become friends but I didn't know him before I only know him because we found each other in social media because I talk about them all the time, but I would literally, instead of sitting in my house, smelling whatever's cooking on the grill, the doors open, the windows open, beautiful weather, watching football, which brings me back to my childhood in many respects, I find myself loading my dog up in my truck and driving around and just listening to radio coverage

of the NFL, Sean Pendergast Show in particular, because, and I still do it to the day. I listen to Odyssey Sports now because the other one I couldn't get infinity. They've changed networks or whatever. But now I listen to Odyssey Sports on Sundays and Saturdays because I love the way they cover college football. I listened to it this past Saturday for the same reason because your play-by-play guys, your announcers in radio have to paint a picture. They can't, they don't have the luxury of knowing the viewer is watching the play and seeing exactly what's going on and they just have to, you know, react to it, right? They have to describe it.

They have to actually make you feel like you're in on the 50-yard line, a seat in the stadium. And the difference between play-by-play that's done for radio and play-by-play that's done for television, even in the NFL, is so different. And I prefer the coverage that I get, the play-by-play I get on the radio. My best case scenario, and I'll probably do this now that I'm saying this is a good idea, I think, probably next time I sit down and watch football, which will be this Sunday with my brother and sister, we'll be watching the Vikings. I'm going to turn down the

television. I'll mute the television and I'll follow along on the radio because I enjoy the coverage so much more. Now, why don't I just spend 15 minutes talking about that? Because the same thing is true in wrestling. If you covered wrestling as a play-by-play person, like you would, and Tony Chivani can do this better than anybody, like he would if he was calling a baseball game on a radio because he's done it about a million times. If you treated play-by-play like that, instead of what we see now, which is essentially a three-man color booth, doesn't make sense to me. You got one traffic cop that's got to keep everybody on time, but it's three color guys is what it is or two.

And it's just not as good. We're missing a whole layer of artful ways of describing and advancing a story. And we're missing out as a result of it, particularly in AEW, because storytelling there is a challenge to start out with. And to not have the right kind of, and it's not that, you know, I'm sure X Calibra, I know Tony Chavani could do it in his sleep, you know, TAS is good. task can be really good. But Nigel McGuinness, they have the talent, so they don't have to go out and hire

anybody. It's just a conscious decision and commitment and discipline, which are relatively rare commodities sometimes, but it's just a commitment to do it. And I think if in particular AEW, because they're the most needy at this point, trying to stop bleeding, so to speak, if they would take that approach and just try it for a few months, It's not going to change it. You know, you can't change everything overnight. You're not going to reverse anybody's fortunes overnight with one move.

But I think if AEW were to take a different approach to color and play by play with the same talent they have, not suggesting anybody get fired or moved or anything like that, same talent, but with different direction, the product itself would improve dramatically because now people would be able to follow along with the story. as opposed to, oh, wow, did you see that? Oh, that had to hurt. Wow, he's crazy. That shit doesn't fly. It doesn't help you connect to the story of the characters.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm off my bad way. You know, I'll be honest, all the times we've talked about all your criticisms of AEW, I think that might be the best one. I mean, I'm friends with all those, I mean, I do podcasts with half of those commentators, but I never really thought about it that way. I mean, there is a lot of play-by-play and calling of the action that you see on the screen. as opposed to the storytelling. And I know that, you know, we can go too far with that.

Once upon a time, like pre-vents, we'll go back, you know, five, six, seven, eight years, whatever you want to do. Man, it felt like Michael Cole would be talking about everything but the match in the ring. Here's what's trending on Twitter and here's our next, you know, plug for this sponsor and that thing and blah, but we're just ignoring the match. And I do think there's a fine line there, right, Eric? Like, you can't go too far with that.

Yeah, we, I went through that with, in WCW. when I was an announcer there, Jim Ross was my boss. And, you know, Jim, you've worked with Jim now actually longer than I did in WCW. But I worked with him pretty closely. And Jim was so good at pre-production.

Like, he spent twice as much time on the pre-production, his role as an announcer, play-by-play guy. He would spend probably more time formatting his play-by-play and how he was going to approach play-by-play, then the producers of the show did in pre-production on the entire show. Jim was bestidious, detail-oriented.

Now, the one issue I had with Jim, it was a creative issue. It was just a philosophical issue, really. But I worked for him, so I didn't, you know, make, get my opinion to myself because that's how I work. If somebody asked me. But one of the things I didn't like about the way Jim handled play-by-play was because he had all of his, here we're going to pitch the magazine here.

Regardless of what was happening in a match, we're going to pitch the magazine here. Now, we're going to pitch the 900 line here. We're going to pitch this here. We're going to pitch that here. And, of course, the office being the office and not thinking about how that impacts the audience or takes away from what's going on in television, for the audience.

It's like, oh, yeah, announce that. Oh, let's promote this. Well, let's promote that. And before you know it, you're listening to an announce tract that is non-compelling, if that's the right way to say it, uncompelling, non-compelling, fucking boring. How's that?

As you can imagine. So it happens. And it happens because of the commercial pressure. You know, sir, we talked before on the show. When you have too many masters to serve, you don't serve any of them. You attempt, but they all suffer. That's what happened. I saw that in WCW, and that's one of, I made, once I got control of creative at least or television,

I took that back. Once I became executive producer and I had some control over the announcers, that's one of the things I stopped doing was we don't have to plug every freaking thing we do because the audience doesn't care about it anyway, tuning in to escape and to watch action. They're not tuning in to learn about WCW magazine. So I made that change as a result of the way Jim, and Jim was doing what he had to do. He was being told, you know, Jim, we got to plug this more.

We got to get the magazine in. We got to get this in. We got to get that in. So Jim was doing his job and serving his boss, who was Jim heard at the time. but too much just suck me into the match just get me into the story let me sit and watch wrestling and be able to close my eyes and know exactly what's going on maybe even describe to me how the arena smells am i smelling popcorn and a lot of people eating popcorn tonight here everybody's excited about what's going on i'm me eric i smell hot dogs and sourcrow about two seats away

just that kind of shit banter silliness even if it's not true it's wrestling come on paint a picture make me feel like i'm sitting right next to you swear to god i'm not going to stand on the soapbox any longer well listen i i appreciate the context and you sharing the insight there because well that's what we do here i mean you live to enlighten and we're going to do that right now when we're talking about our friends at lumen Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know whether you're burning fats or carbs.

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that says that the tournament is going to be delayed because they're trying to get their act as far as bringing in more talent. And one of the things that's communicated, is that you went to Japan for a show at the Tokyo Dome. Of course, that's Russell Kingdom. It's January. And it's expected that you might request some talent from over there, guys like Chris Benoit or Otani.

And it's also written that you had a verbal deal with Antonio Pena from AAA that he's going to send in some wrestlers. Pena was looking to send in Eddie Guerrero and Jerry Estrada. And there's a report. Now, granted, it's not spoken as fact or written as fact. But here's what they've said. I've heard Bischoff didn't want Guerrero. What?

That can't be real, Eric. You're muted. You're muted. That's why you didn't let me make my comments about Lumen. I love that project. Oh, sorry. I didn't hear all. No, that was my fault.

I muted myself because I had to cough and I forgot to undo it. But I actually carry my Lumin around me. Okay, fast forward. Dave Meltzer says I didn't want or wasn't interested in Garero. What a clown. This guy is just a clown. He'll repeat anything. Anybody tells him if it fits his narrative. If it's part of the agenda and the narrative that Dave really wants to get out there, then, and if some knucklehead says something stupid, Dave, we go, oh, well, it must be true. I'm going to say it. That is Dave Meltzer. That is his going to be his legacy.

But it was absolutely not true. And the AAA connection, well, it may have been a handshake deal. I don't think we ever went to an agreement. And I was talking with representatives of Antonio Pena, as well as Antonio, who came to the Disney MGM studios for a taping. It might have been a handshake deal, so I'm not going to call a flag on that. But I didn't need, that sounds horrible. Doing business with AAA had nothing to do with my interest in Eddie Guerrero because it was New Japan that asked me if I would be interested in signing Eddie and Chris and D.

and make them full-time WCW talent so that they didn't have to wrestle independence, meaning it would be a lot easier for New Japan to be able to plan to work with those three if they were under contract with me versus those guys working independent scenes or working for Antonio Pena and have to try to work around those schedules. relationship between myself and Inoki and Masa Sayito and Bajos and the team of people that I worked with, Brad Riggins, and obviously Sunny included, being a part of the team. We had worked out a really good relationship and figured out not just a good personal relationship, but we started being able to plan, okay, where are your big shows, Masa, where are your big shows for the next 12 months? Here's our big shows. How do we schedule this talent that you're interested in

so we can both predictably have access to them on a more regular basis? That's why I signed Chris, Eddie and Ian, Eddie and Dean all at the same time. So I don't know where Dave got. I'm not interested in Eddie Guerrero other than whatever wacky world Dave lives in. I wanted to ask you about the new Japan relationship. because we know these days, New Japan has an affiliation with CMLL in Mexico. I think that started back in like 2009, so it's 15 years old or so. What, if any, was the relationship with New Japan and AAA?

I asked because as AW has done forbidden doors, at least at first, there was this, well, we can't have AAA performers wrestling New Japan stars because that's being disloyal to our partner, or CMLL. I get that. I appreciate that loyalty and that stance on business and approach to business. Makes sense. Did you face any similar challenges in WCW? No. Okay. No. And I never had any visibility into the relationship between New Japan and AAA. It just never came up. Didn't even think about it until just now. But as far as, again, as far as New Japan, goes, it was, I don't know, assumed, I guess, on my part, or perhaps it was articulated very early on by Brad, Riggins, who was responsible for helping me bend the fences, because the

fences had been burned down between WCW and New Japan by Bill Watts. There was not just not a relationship. The relationship that existed was really, really bad. And Brad was really instrumental in helping solve that, giving me the opportunity too. But, yeah, those types of conversations never came up other than I just, like I said, assume that if I'm working with New Japan, I won't be working with all Japan. Right. I guess that was just a given. Let's talk a little bit about this trip that you made here to Japan.

This Russell Kingdom show, I believe, would have been Sting versus Antonio Inoki. Were you at the Tokyo Dome for that one? I think so. It feels like a big match. Yeah. I mean, I was, I'm pretty sure that I was. I mean, it was like 30 years ago and I went back and forth a lot. But I think I was there because once we started really connecting relationship-wise,

they were inviting me over as many times of years I wanted to go over, really. But the Tokyo show, the Tokyo Dope show, their New Year's show, was their biggest show of the year. And I pretty consistently got invited to that every year, starting, I guess, in 94, all the way through 98. We should talk a little bit about Starcade that year because Starcade 1994 is kind of interesting. There's a match with Alex Wright and Jean-Paul LeVec, the future Triple H. And on commentary, the announcers are talking about how these guys are going to make two great additions to the new cruiserweight division. that jumps off the page to me

because we know what the cruiserweight division on Nitro is going to eventually look like. And it never would have looked like Alex Wright versus Jean-Paul LeVec. Now, granted, Hunter was a lot smaller back then. He wasn't, you know, the super heavyweight bodybuilder. He's still a bodybuilder, but he probably wasn't 270 pounds or whatever he got.

No, but he was a solid 220, 2.30, I bet. He was a thick boy. Do you think that, you know, we just didn't know what the influence of the luchadors was going to be at this point? I mean, that's fair, right? Of course, yes. And the idea, even as, now, again, I'm not working off memory here. The information you're providing me is kind of kicking me back into that time frame a little bit so I can recall some of these things. I haven't given it any thought for 25 years.

But I don't think the idea of what the cruiserweight division was going to be. And we know what the nitro version was. That was an evolution of a thought process that started back in 1994. That was the culmination of the evolution, of the idea that started way back in early 94, whatever it was. Maybe we should do a light, heavyweight division. Now we can't call that what called the Cruiserweight Division. Oh, I've got a lot of American talent here, i.e. Brian Pilman. That could work with some of the lighter Japanese talent.

Okay, I've got something here. Let's go do that. But the Nigel version of the Cruiserweight Division was much more refined at that point. And that's where, no, I don't know that I ever gave it. I don't think we ever announced a weight limit because we felt. like we might paint ourselves into a creative corner if we did that. It was the initial plan. I think it was going to be under 220 or under 205 or something was going to be the weight

division. But by the time Crucial Weight Division Nitro showed up, that concept was more fully fleshed out. Maybe not fully fleshed out, but it was much more fully fleshed out than it was in 1994 when we were seeing it or hearing about it. It's fascinating to take a look at the way we all perceived this division looking and then what it really wound up looking like. We even hear an interview that Rick Flair did in the media around this same time,

and he's talking about the work rate. The idea being that he's happy with the improvement that WCW has made, but he feels like there's still a lot of room to improve the in-ring product, and he's really excited about the cruiserweight division. And I think some old school listeners might be surprised to hear that. But as a reminder, once upon a time, people who were watching Rick Flair and Ricky the Dragonsteen boat, who most everyone listening to this considers one of the best trilogies in wrestling.

There were old-timers at the time who said, oh, it's fainty, it's fake, it's phony, it's too fast, they need to slow down, blah, blah, blah. Rick was a part of that wrestling evolution once upon a time even though we don't really remember that or think about it that way now. But I find it interesting that he's doing interviews

here that's saying, hey, the in ring can really improve with this cruiserweight division for WCW. He saw it. Maybe he didn't know exactly what it was going to become, but he respected it, right? Who respected athleticism? And he still does to this day. I mean, Rick is one of the biggest sports fans that I think

I've ever met in my life. Yes. And he's a little bit like In some respects, Sean Pendergast. And I just get excited being around people that get that excited about sports. It just makes it more fun, right? It's a different level of energy or vibration if you want to get spacey about it. But I think that's what Rick saw. And it certainly did bring that higher athletic ability,

that more precise kind of offense and defense, precision looking versus powerful looking. That's a great way to describe it. It did bring it. I think, well, like you said, Rick may have not have known why he liked it, but he knew he liked it. We know eventually we're going to wind up with, you know, names like Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero, and hell, even Sabu was on Nitro. But this is before Nitro. And we're starting to make overtures about this cruiserweight division.

And I can't believe this is real, but here it is from January 95. lots of talk about Coco Beware coming in for the Cruiserweight tournament, which has no start date, and as anyone can tell, no plans have ever been made to bring in foreign talent for any specific dates or any specific foreign talent for that matter. I'd scoff at the rumors that Cocoa Ware was there to put over Pilman, but stranger things have happened. And then the torch would come back and say Cocoa Beware and Tito Santana

are slated for the cruiserweight tournament. What? Like, I mean, I know neither one of these things happened. But to hear that this is the way people perceive, hey, maybe it's going to be, maybe it's going to be Jean-Paul Lavec and maybe it's going to be co-aware. That's because of dirt sheet writers that are just throwing ideas around because somebody knows a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy that knows a girl that works in catering and that's what they heard.

Oh, cool. Let's go with that. I mean, or, or, you know, in a case of talent, it could have been something, you know, talent A, you know, calling Kevin Sullivan, because again, I wasn't booking at the time, right? Could have been calling Kevin Sullivan and saying, hey, if you need anybody for this Cruiserweight Division, I'm available and then Cocoa beware or somebody else, you know, letting the word out that, you know, he's been in contact with WCW because you want to kind of create some demand for yourself, right? You want to try to stay relevant as a talent. You want to get booked if you're not booked.

So, oh, yeah, if you can suggest that there's interest in WCW, well, maybe I can get booked over here instead. And how do I get that out there? Oh, I know. I'll call Dave Meltzer. He'll put it in anything. Anything I tell them, he'll put in there. That's how that stuff starts.

Well, what's interesting, though, is Eric, not just one company or one newsletter. I mean, a lot of people were reporting that even like this super brawl 95 card, they would suggest, hey, it's going to be Hulk Hogan and Vader. I mean, they nail most of the card. But then the last one that's listed, Cocoa Beware versus Tito Santana, cruiserweight tournament match. Wow.

I mean, it makes me think somebody somewhere, at least had this conversation. And by the way, they would not have, they would not have, especially in late 1995. It's not a possible. It's January 95.

That would have been February. Yeah, January, February. It's still just, you know, Coco Beware, hitting that drop kick on Tito Santana in WCW would make my mind melt. It's like, wait, I don't remember this happening. Of course, it didn't happen. But just Cocoa Beware in WCW just stands out to me. I don't know why it does.

I don't know that I never had a conversation with him. Again, Kevin Sullivan, the late Kevin Sullivan may have. Or it could have been Terry Taylor. It could have been any number. It could have been Mike Graham. Anybody could have had a conversation with them. but having a conversation with somebody in the booking committee or team doesn't mean that there was a match ever going to happen.

But that's, again, what dirt sheet writers. And, you know, we had Wade Keller on the show the other day, and I want to thank him again. It was a great, great interview, nothing but respect for Wade. But early on, you know, when Wade started it, even into the mid-90s, late 90s, Wade's coverage was not unlike Dave Meltzer on speculation side of things. I don't think Wade ever lied like Dave Meltzer does to try to force his agenda down people's throats. But Wade was, he was pretty loose with facts and heavy on rumors. But none of those things happen.

But by the way, Wade Keller's turned his shit around. He's got a great site. I'm doing a show. I don't know if you know this or not. I haven't talked to you about this exclusively for our members over at 83weeks.com. Um, once a day, I started doing this, this past week, uh, along with some other things I'm doing exclusively for 83 weeks.com members, I do a news kind of review show. I'm not breaking any news. I'm reacting to some of the really interesting stuff, some of the more bizarre stuff,

and then stuff I'm calling out the shit that I just think is make believe type Meltzer type bullshit. But I go to PW. Torch often for legitimate current coverage because Wade is doing a great job and I encourage anybody go to pwtorch.com. I think there's a promo code flying around somewhere. Conrad 24 is your promo code. Try your first month for a dollar. You get all those archives for just one dollar. Absolutely. So go check it out. But I, you know, I'll cover wrestling ink, Brandon Thurston, wrestlingomics. Certainly my buddy's over at PW Insider, Mike Johnson, Shear also do a great job. So there's, you know, you hear me

busting balls on dirt sheets and I kind of throw it out there as a general term. It doesn't apply to everybody. You know, I, like I said, PW Insider, Shear, Mike Johnson, absolutely. They post it. I'm buying it. I believe it.

Same with Keller and his team over Torch. Sean Ross Sapp. He's controversial. He's crazy. He's wacky as fuck. And I love him for it. But when he posts stuff, I pay attention because he does a decent job. And there's others.

But unfortunately, there's a few that are just slinging blood and trying to force their agenda down people's throats. And they've become very obvious over time. But yeah, I'm doing that every day. Once a day. Sometimes there's three minutes. Sometimes they're 20 minutes. Cover some chit. Go check it out, 83 weeks.com.

All kinds of fun stuff. the cruiser way tournament is being discussed even in February and it's mentioned here in the observer that Chris Benoit had been contacted but Dave says it looks like Benoit is happy just working ECW in New Japan in 1995 and it's no secret that Benoit was in pretty regular communication with Meltzer for a long time so it does stand a reason that he would have communicated this directly to him you know if you had to go back in your wayback machine and think about January, we'll call it, of 1995, what would be, I mean, this is a different WCW. It's a pre-Nitro WCW, but it is a Hulk Hogan WCW. It is a Dungeon of Doom, WCW. So as much as people might want to poke holes in that and say, why would he just want to work ECW in New Japan, is it feasible that maybe Benoit thought, man, the timing is not right for me, what I'm doing might not fit with what they're doing right now. What I'm good at, they might not see value in.

They're presenting a totally different style. I could see it Benoit thinking that, but at the same time, there's the business brain which goes, but it's probably a lot more money. So we've got to at least be receptive to the conversation. What do you make of this report? Do you remember there being any hesitation from Benoit about WCW at all? I don't remember when I actually. brought Chris in what makes me suspect about this report a little bit not denying it but it's

just it doesn't quite make sense is because my very first conversation with Chris Benoit was Chris Dean and Eddie and I and I presented them all with the same opportunity simultaneously so that I just not like I met with Chris and then I met with Eddie three weeks later and And then I met with Dean over here. Once I wanted to make them an offer, Kevin Sullivan was probably the one that coordinated it with Jenny Engle. I flew all three of them in and sat down with all three of them and made the offer. I don't think I made an offer to Chris in January.

I think that offer came later on in the year. But I could be wrong about that. Well, he doesn't actually come in until October of 95. Okay, then I did not offer him a deal. And there's no way I offered Chris a deal. He turned me down and then I went back to him. I'm not suggesting that you turned him down. I'm wondering, do you think maybe Kevin Sullivan or somebody got on the horn and said,

hey, would you be interested in a cruiser way? I think that would be likely. Yeah. Because Kevin was watching ECW pretty closely. To be clear, Benoit had been in WCW in 93. And I don't think a lot of people even think about that. but it's because he almost never won. Like when he's leaving in 1993,

he's working all the house shows putting over Eric Watts. So I'm sure, you know, with all due respect, Chris Benoit felt like, I'm better than Eric Watts. Like they just don't get me and they're choosing to push him. 1993 too.

So that's sort of, you know, Watts is easing out of here and Eric's here, but it's still happening. I could see how he would say, been there, done that. Well, let me add some context to the meeting that I did have with Chris and Dean and Eddie, my first meeting, my first offer.

They all three walked in to that meeting completely uncomfortable. I don't think any of them were excited to sit down and talk about the opportunity. I think they did, and I think they did partly because of their loyalty to New Japan and Masa Saido. And again, I was getting a lot of support, encouragement from New Japan to make the deal happened because we'd worked out the math and it was a way that I could bring those three guys in and based on the day rate that New Japan was paying for them pretty much covered their entire contract for WCW came real close so it was a little bit like the Randy Savage deal because I was doing a lot of those very creative deals where I could get a talent and ultimately somebody else is

paying for it that was the case with those three that's why I brought them all three all three at the same time because I knew the formula that I'd worked out with New Japan in advance wouldn't have worked if only one of them wanted to come or only two of them wanted to come. So, but when they walked into the room and so I had the office over at the CNN Center

and sat down. I was excited. I have a fair amount of confidence in my ability to sell things. And I was convinced that this idea was going to be, you know, one of the more exciting things that they've heard. and I was prepared to write a check. But, man, they walked in a room when it was a cold chill. So I can only imagine that what you're suggesting was probably running through at least

Chris Benoit's mind. Wait a minute. Last time I, first of all, I don't know this Bischoff cat. I've never met him before. If I did, he was a potted plant standing in the corner with a microphone like him. He had a bad experience with Watts, as you pointed out. Didn't know me. He's probably looking around at the roster and the talent and going,

I don't think they get me. And I don't want to come back here and get meet again every week. He used to put other people over. I would be shocked if that's not what he was thinking based on what you just told. But it warmed up. And I think when we explained, I explained the relationship with New Japan, the commitment to those guys to keep them strong,

because bringing them, you know, signing them to WCW and then beat the dog shit out of them every week on TV isn't going to make the New Japan part of this equation work. That wouldn't have flown. And I think once I explain the context of that, you could just, everybody started sitting up a little straighter, rise got a little bigger, or two of them started leaning forward and asking, you know, you can tell when people ask questions, is this a bullshit question as they're just trying to make conversation, or are they really interested in what I have to say?

I started getting the lean forward and ask smart questions patterns. So it warmed up eventually, but like I said, when I walked in a room, it was chilly. Chili. There's another report from tidbits that says WCW brought Tom Zink back into the fold. Tom Zink quit all Japan because his pay raise was squashed. despite enjoying some success in WCW, his run with the company, saw nothing more than work as a glorified jobber.

I wonder if he'll be used in the cruiserweight division. Now, this is not true. Tom Zink does not come back. I can tell you that. He does finish up in 1994 on the way out, putting over guys like Tommy Rich and Ron Simmons and Bunkhouse Buck and the Z-man and Shanghai Pierce and Michael Hayes. So we know that he's not coming.

back. But this does go to show that perhaps the narrative that WCW doesn't have enough support here to make this division work is true. And if you're looking for a little support, let me remind you that life doesn't happen biweekly. So why should payday? The money you earn can be in your hands today with Earnin. Earnin is an app that gives you access to your pay as you work up to $100 per day or up to $750 per pay period. Just download the Earn-In app and verify your paycheck, then access up to $100 a day as you work, and even leave an optional tip. Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck. And this is awesome if you need a special night out, or maybe a last-minute gift for a loved one.

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and that'll really help the show. That's 83 weeks under podcast. Earn-in is a financial technology company, not a bank, subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period, max, and location. See urn-in.com slash TOS for details. Bank products are issued by Evolved Bank and Trust member FDIC. So let's talk about, you know, as we get closer into May, we start to see there's, or I guess it's in March, we start to see there's going to be reports of a taping in March

in Dothan, where we're finally going to kick off this tournament. And there's lots of speculation that has turned into a political thing behind the scenes. because besides having Brian Pellman is sort of the centerpiece, we're going to have to bring in a bunch of outsiders. And allegedly, according to the observer, Paul Heyman didn't really want any ECW talent appearing on WCW programming. No surprise there. But that means guys like Sabu or Chris Benoit or Dean Malenko or two cold Scorpio.

Well, if they're going to work with ECW or if he has them under contract, which you may not have, maybe that's not as big of an option. So you'd have to sign those guys instead. of just bringing him in as a one-off. But it's being discussed as if it's all going to get started at this WCW Pro television taping in Dothan, Alabama, which is crazy. And we even hear in the following weeks, as we get closer to that tournament, that you guys are making a heavy play for Sabu.

And we've talked about Sabu a little bit before here on the show. We do know that he makes a handful of appearances, but he's not long for WCW. I felt like he was, and maybe still to this day, doesn't get the credit he deserves. A real innovator, way ahead of his time, and arguably the biggest draw that ECW had. Because he had enough buzz before people, before the internet was what it is, he went viral with wrestling fans. And the tape trading community and things like this, it was, hey man, you got to see this guy. He's flying through tables.

I mean, as silly as it is, tape trading compilations of him just breaking. breaking tables were blowing up at the time. How and when did Sabu get on your radar, or is that all Kevin Sullivan's influence? Truly, all Kevin. I wasn't necessarily a fan of his work. It's just not my style. And in my opinion, his style, which was interesting to see occasionally, like a couple times a year.

But on a weekly basis, I didn't see it being sustainable. partly because there weren't a lot of people that I felt top players, top guys, who could have great matches with him. So I just wasn't on my radar at all. Kevin Sullivan did push pretty hard. There was probably more than two or three occasions when Kevin would bring up Sabu's name and he would get a predictable response. I mean, I wasn't like, yeah, never or anything like that.

Now, it was always, eh, next. Something else, please. What about Jerry Estrada? There's a lot of reports in the newsletters that Jerry Estrada is going to be a big part of the WCW Cruiserweight Division, including Latin Lover. And we know that we're going to see a little bit of that. But Jerry Estrada is a name that we don't hear a lot. Are you a fan of his work? Are you familiar with his game?

I'm not clicking. I mean, the name is familiar, but I can't come up with the image. I couldn't tell you, man. He was a AAA luchador who dressed a little bit like Dominic Mysterio and that he had tights, a sleeveless top, and tassels. But he did have some off-the-field issues and challenges, if you will. But it is a name that, you know, if you're a lucha fan, you're very familiar with, we know it never really happened in WCW.

But what did happen is at Superbrall. We would have Paul Orndorff pick up a win over Brad Armstrong in three minutes and 45 seconds. and you're in the announcer position for this show and you note that right Armstrong can't wait for the upcoming cruiserweight tournament and then he gets beaten less than four minutes probably not the best way to kick off I was just saying oh is my old mind

as you're telling me what I said I'm going to know you dumb oh goodness if we can't laugh at ourselves who can we laugh at hey you know what we've got a live studio audience here from ad-freeshows.com. Greatly appreciate you guys coming and hanging out with us.

And they've been patiently waiting. We've got a lot of different questions here. We're going to take a pause right now and get some of those questions. Michael Stutler wants to know, since the cruiser weights were so unique for US TV at the time, did you ever receive pressure to reduce their exposure on TV from those who didn't get it? And I know that sounds silly now in 2024,

but I remember once upon a time watching, I forget exactly what it was. Maybe it was Kevin Nash and Ray Mysterio. I mean, I think I was in high school at the time. And my dad was like, are you serious? This guy's going to fight that guy. That guy would kill this guy. That's stupid.

Then, of course, well, Ray got the win because that's wrestling and storytelling. You know, David. And why did your dad react when Ray got the win? This is bullshit. I was going to say, I bet he said, this is bullshit. When your dad says bullshit, it creates a certain amount of pressure in the room. It does. You know, because when he says,

boo. It's like, he's serious. Did you ever hear from people in the Turner organization who were like my dad who thought, what is this? No, not Turner corporate. I never heard from them anyway.

Not until towards the end when they were wanting tickets to shit. But no, never from the corporate side. I did hear a lot of it from the locker room, though. How do we follow that? yeah what are you doing what are we supposed to do now because they knew it was fun to watch and a lot of guys that were going well i'm going to go out and try to do what i do after they just did what they just did oh fuck some people said it to me said it to my face and we discussed

it. The majority of them just set it to each other and to themselves and kept it inside because they didn't want the heat necessarily. They wanted the check not the heat. So they checked themselves. But I got a lot of it. I got a lot

of that. We should mention when we talked about your commentary at the Super Brawl that Brad Armstrong's looking forward to the Cruiserweight tournament. So he don't get his ass kicked up here with the big boys. I mean I'm so sorry

Brad you know I here's a thing too Brad for everyone listening to this they know he's one of the best wrestlers that ever lived you know

I mean just unbelievable in ring performer but he never really became a star he was always sort of in the enhancement role and that's what he's doing here so for the people

who are fearful of man I don't want to be this generation's no disrespect Denny Brown I don't want to be the NW. a junior heavyweight champion.

I don't want to do that. I could see why they would take a look at Brad's treatment here. Hey, he's going to be a big part of this cruiserweight tournament. Yeah, he's going to get beaten three and a half minutes here by Paul Orndorff on the pre-show. I mean, I even heard some guys back in the day refer to this as the jobber weight title. Have you heard that before? No. But, you know, when you go back and you look at the origins, I could see why they think that.

And so there's a report in late April, I guess it comes out in May in the Observer, that you did meet with Sabu, and he had concerns. I guess, according to the recap that we read in the Observer, when you met with Sabu, you were offering something like, you know, we want you to be Brian Pilman's opponent. Like that would be what we're, if we're building the thing around that, Brian Pilman's going to be the baby face, you're going to be the heel, that sort of deal. And allegedly, Sabu, who was in communication with the newslet,

letters, or this information was at least back channeled through Heyman, if you will. He didn't want to be typecast as a cruiserweight. And he felt like if I'm given that title, it's going to be hard to shake off. I don't want to be enhancement. And he allegedly made a pitch for the U.S. title. Okay, after I do this with Brian Pilman, can I work on the U.S. title? Does any of that ring a bell? Do you remember having these conversations?

I would have never had those conversations in 1994. Kevin may have. This is 95, but yeah. Oh, this is 95. was it pre-nitro or post-nitro? It's pre. We're in April or May of 95. Yeah, no, I wouldn't have been in that.

This is not a conversation I would have ever had. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to, but I'm a macro manager, always have been. Sometimes it really works in my favor, sometimes not so much. But in this case, I stayed away from booking, really until Nitro came along and I was more or less forced to insert myself. I didn't.

I was happy to delegate that. I really didn't. I was uncomfortable in it. Zero confidence. And look, I've always known, this has been consistent about the way I've worked my whole life. If I don't feel like I'm making the right contribution to the team, I don't want to be on the team.

If I don't feel like I'm really all that welcome at a party, but somebody feels like they should invite me because they should, I don't fucking want to be there. I'd rather stay home. I'd rather do what I'm good at doing or be where I want to be than force myself into a situation that I know I'm not really contributing in. That's the way I felt about getting involved with creative, which is why when I had control of everything,

you know, it was like McFlare, Dusty Roads first, Henry Flair, then Kevin Sullivan. I could have easily, if I wanted to beat that guy, plug myself into that job and just taking it over if I wanted to, I went the other way until I had to. I would not have had that level of conversation. I may have said, hey, Sabu, how are you? But that would have been a Kevin and Sabu conversation, not an Eric and Sabu conversation. I don't care who told who what. It does feel like, you know, just the context of that conversation or the content of that conversation, it sounds like a wrestler conversation. So I guess what I'm

suggesting is that conversation maybe happened, but between Sabu and Kevin Sullivan, where they could just confide in each other through wrestler insecurities that this is what their concerns are. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes, well, you take your job seriously. And when you get in the nuances of, I don't want to be perceived as this or that, you might not have that conversation with the guy cutting the check, but rather someone who's been in the ring and maybe understands all that nuance. But I do think there's something to it. here's why. Because they gave New Japan the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight title. He wins in 16 and a half minutes over in New Japan and a dome show. He does an Arabian moonsault, wins the damn thing.

He's a bloody mass. But it's a huge deal when the New Japan president gets in the ring and presents Sabu with the title belt and a big trophy. Sabu gets the microphone, announces he doesn't want to be a heavyweight or he doesn't want to be a junior heavyweight he wants to be a heavy weight and he breaks the trophy and throws the belt down now allegedly this is not part of the plan saboo went into business for himself that's at least what's reported and he he wants nothing to do with this cruiser weight junior heavyweight maybe he feels like that's going to cap his income do you think that's it i don't know it sounds like one of those old school things that he probably would have picked up from his dad, that era.

But if that didn't, if being identified as a cruiserweight, if he thought that was going to cap your income. So would embarrassing the Japanese in a manner like you described. Yeah, they're not happy. That could that be a career killer? Yeah. Did they ever book them after that? I wonder. They did.

They booked him in tag matches. And I guess he did a few singles. But yeah, he's never going to get a sustained push after that. If that's a real report, that's probably the end of that. I have a hard time buying it. That was real. That's why I asked you if they booked him again, because that would be the ultimate sign of disrespect. Yes.

And people, I don't know what it's like in Japan now. I haven't been back there in a couple of years. Last time I was there was sunny for Masa Sayito's event memorial three years ago. But one of the, I mean, that culture is so different. It's so different. And respect, both self-respected for others, is like one of the highest priorities in society. so respectful and it's ingrained so deeply in all aspects of their culture that unless there was a conversation had beforehand, I just don't see anybody coming back from that.

So I kind of smell of work, to be honest, because otherwise they wouldn't have booked them. They didn't need them. It's not like he was, you know, Paul Kogan or Rick Flair. He was just fun to watch, but they didn't need him. Well, we find out just a week later that, you know what, all plans are off for the cruiserweight division. We've been trying to build this thing for six months. We're just going to pump the brakes. It's dead.

When was that? That was beginning of June of 95. And then, of course, two weeks later, hey, it's back on. And now it's Brian Pillman and Alex Wright. It does feel like we're, I mean, do you remember, I just want to give context, because I I'm sure this is confusing for some folks who are listening. This is pre-Nitro, but not by much. We're just a few months away from Nitro.

And I can't imagine all the things you're trying to get straight. Because this is the era where, oh, by the way, Vader's getting a fight with Paul Orndorff at center stage. There's going to be a whole bunch of issues with that. You're now going to have live programming head-to-head with Monday Night Raw. You're going to be two hours. I mean, there's a lot at play here. and a lot of new endeavors and a lot more pressure.

And you've got to be feeling the scrutiny because, and we never talk about this, but of all the great what ifs in wrestling, what if the initial nitro was a flop? What if nitro wasn't successful? What if nitro got buried? I mean, it's one thing when it's on the weekend in the middle of the afternoon or it's early morning syndicated, whatever. it's another thing when it's on T&T and it's prime time and it fucking fails in prime time.

Now you're talking about big dollars on a big network, on the A. I mean, this is like prime real estate in the television landscape. So if this thing fails, man, it's not just devastating for your career or WCW, but the whole wrestling industry. And nobody talks about that now. Everybody's, well, of course it's going to be successful. I don't know about that. no in fact it was the opposite

everybody that was talking about it after it was announced was this is not going to work yeah bitch that doesn't know what he's doing WCW can't compete against WWE head to head I mean nobody thought we had an ice cube's chance in hell including you know possibly me

but here's an interesting thing comment everything that you said feeling that you described all of them was absolutely correct on the money with the volume turned up a little bit more. But at this point in 1995, I don't think I've had that meeting with Ted yet.

Wait, in the summer? You hadn't had a conversation in the summer. Are we in April right now? June. June? It's fucking close. Because we only had about 60 days to figure out nitro. Well, that's what I'm suggesting is.

Maybe you're trying to get this light, this cruiserweight division going. When the nitro thing gets dumped in your lap, you're like, Fuck it. We'll come back to that. I know we've been focusing on it, but this has to be the priority now, Nitro, not the cruise rates. It could have been. Yeah. But it's close.

That's so funny because I'm thinking the only way I would be able to figure that out if there's not any accurate reporting, and I doubt there is, maybe I can backtrack from it from the first announcement that there's going to be a show called Nitro, head to head. From that first announcement, if I back that up about two weeks, that's probably around the that I had the meeting with Ted. Because the word got out fairly quickly. But it's a possibility, yeah, that it was like, whoop, hit the brakes.

I got shit to do. Well, here's what I mean. Like, I do think Nitro causes you to just downshift. Here's what I mean. We're originally having conversations about this cruiserweight division by saying, we're going to bring in other people from other organizations. And we'll work with AAA and we'll work with New Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get all that. But at the same time, it was like, they're going to keep working there. We're just going to bring them in and we're going to work together. Now that you know you've got Nitro, you're going to make a concerted effort to go after and actually sign. Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero, Sabu, Juschen, Liger. You get all these guys back on WCW. And certainly Liger was here as a co-promotion with New Japan. But Benoit, Malenko, and Guerrero, and we were even hearing reports at the time that Al Snow was in play.

instead of just, hey, we're going to come in and have you work some of this tournament. Now it's like, no, we're live. We've got to be different than. This is when you really double down on. We're going to take this as an idea of maybe having a cruiserweight tournament. And now it's like, no, we need them for nitro. I mean, that's the way it feels to me when I read it back. And I think, you know, we're connecting dots here because the timeline is kind of murky for us, for me especially.

But, you know, the dots are, they're aligned in such a way that it's pretty. easy to connect them to suggest what you're saying is true just because of the timing of it. And I remember so specifically explaining to Chris and Eddie and Dean what I saw in my head and why I saw it that I think that you're probably right because it's what, you know, we said we're kind of backing our way into what we said earlier. now it's making more sense is I knew I love the cruiserweight division I've been thinking about it for a while I love the style of the action boom boom boom now I need it previously I wanted it because I liked it look fun different than a little bit but by nitro pre-nitro that idea went

from, oh, that sounds like fun to, oh, no, I need that for my crossover. I need that to present something different because one of my biggest fears concerns was audience fatigue. Remember, now the first show was an hour, first couple of shows were an hour, but that was a scheduling issue. It was always designed to be two hours. My thing was, oh, my God, I have a hard time holding their attention for 60 minutes. How am I going to hold their attention for 120? That was like a real thing. That kept me up at night until I went, ah, I think I got it.

Or at least perhaps I have it. So that's why I think this timing that you're suggesting is pretty spot on. It makes sense. Let me take you back to October 16th, 1995. Eric is six weeks into Nitro. And he's told Tony Chivani to keep his overweight ass at home. He's going to do, he's going to run the show. show himself. And Eric says this on commentary. You can go back and check out the captions on the

WW Network if you question this, but it's Chris Benoit's debut back with WCW and he's going to be taking on Eddie Guerrero. Think about that. Now remember, people look back at WrestleMania 20 so fondly, you know, you got all the confetti falling and these two guys are world champions. Here they are against Monday Night Raw, live head to head in 19. 1995, nine years before that moment that everybody celebrated in WCW. And here's what Eric said. I'll tell you what, you know, a lot of people are talking about it. Rumor has it, WCW, the International Committee is considering establishing a cruiserweight division,

which is one of the reasons, some of the names like Guerrero, Malenko, Benoit, have now made it to the shores of WCW because they would love nothing more than to hold the title in the greatest, most-watched wrestling organization anywhere in the world. Let me tell you, you just saw it right there. You get those cruiser weights together, and what a match you're going to see. That's Eric Bischoff's words in 1995. Now, I know that there is a contingent out there who say, oh, Eric's opinions are outdated and he didn't know shit.

I got you. But some of your favorite wrestlers' favorite wrestlers were guys that Eric Bischoff gave a contract and put on TV and then said those words on his bet of his lifetime. Who has the balls to go head to head with Vince McMahon and signed talent that Vince McMahon would never

put on TV and to make them stars and then nine years later they become stars for Vince and everybody throws him a fucking ticker tape parade. Eric Bischoff did it in 95. Kudos for you, Eric. Oh, shucks, Conrad. But thank you very much.

Just saying. I mean, Paul Colson, what I said, I know you don't like when I brag on, you can give you your flowers. But, dude, you were way ahead of the curve here. I think Nitro was way ahead of the curve in so many respects. And this is a perfect example. And you know what it all goes back to? Format. It's boring because most people don't understand what it means.

It doesn't sound exciting. And there's no blood. And it's not a hot angle. Nobody gets thrown off of the top of the cage. But format, the blueprint of how to. produce a quality show and produce the emotion and the anticipation and the payoff and the commitment to tune in next week. Creating those emotions requires a good format. And the Cruiserweight Division and the talent that made it work, example, Chris and Eddie, Ray, so many others,

that's why I'm so proud of the format. We're talking about the talent, talking about the timing. the format is king and that's what I'm most proud of and that's what we talked about earlier on in the show we're coming right back as to why Chris Benoit won that match with a dragon suplex

in eight and a half minutes Meltzer gave it four stars who was actually rating television matches back then and he called it a fantastic match but he had this to say there was little crowd reaction for the wrestlers

but they seemed to react to the moves Eric Bischoff was really trying to call the match but he still doesn't know the name of half the moves these guys do, and neither he nor Bobby Heenan nor Steve McMichael have any idea what to call

it. Timeout right there. I think it's interesting that he's sort of poking holes and saying, oh, Eric doesn't even know the names of the moves. Eric put him on TV. Eric booked him. Eric signed him. Eric's promoting them. So he's a fan

of their work. But no, he may not know all the moves because he's never seen half of these moves and neither has the audience, which you just said. the crowd didn't get any reaction to the wrestlers and why would they? They don't know who Crispin Juan, Eddie Guerrero are.

They let their work speak for themselves and you even wrote, the fans are reacting to the moves. Well, so was Eric. He's never seen that shit either. I just thought it was fascinating. And he even said in the breakdown of this match, he being Dave,

unfortunately, then Bischoff started talking about the Cruiserweight tournament for these guys, which, unless done right, will doom them as far as getting over. The whole idea of introducing a new style is to get new fans, for the most part, and a lot of people won't want to hear this, but new fans are generally going to have to be teenagers or younger. I love that because I think he's right. I think today, like we got a lot of dudes who look like me watching wrestling.

We need younger kids to watch wrestling. And I think that's the reason WWE is experiencing the growth they're having. and I think Cody Rhodes is a big piece of that because he's leading the charge with little kids. Like I was a little Hulk a maniac. And I do think that, you know, hey, he's right, that you need something that's going to attract kids and teenagers. And this style of wrestler could do that.

Like, this is 1995 where the word extreme is getting popular in the X games. And, you know, you got that Dan, whatever his name was on MTV, doing all the skateboard tricks and blah, blah. blah, blah. I totally buy into this is the way to attract a younger audience. Was that part of your initiative? Did you think that, hey, the cruiser weights might bring in younger fans? You didn't think it would bring in older wrestling fans, right? I mean, it's the opposite. It's going younger. Dave spends way too much time and so does everybody else that talks about and writes about professional wrestling when it comes to demos. The target for me, when I was told I was going to

do this show was clearly defined is 18 to 49, clearly defined, 18 to 49. Not kids. I didn't fucking want kids. I know. Sorry, Garrett. Didn't want them. Sorry, Garrett. Sorry, Montana.

Not that. I knew, because I am a fairly analytical person in my own way, but I, I, I am a fairly analytical person in my own way. but I'm looking at what WWE does well and they dominated kids teens and preteens is the actual demo or at least it was back then teens and preteens is the demo and there's no way not only did I want it there's no way even if I did I could get it I went 18 to 49 that was my target not Dave's kids and teens now at even I yes that was my Target. Yes, I brought in the Cruiserweight's. Those two things didn't have anything to do with each other.

I brought in the cruiser weights simply not from a demographic perspective of which audience. And Dave's wrong because he's never produced television. So he can't hit his ass with both hands and a compass when it comes to talking about how to produce television. He's clueless. Trust me. The idea was from a visual presentation, I wanted to hold on to my existing audience. My job was to start with five viewers at the beginning of the show and end up with 25 viewers at the end of the show because I'm in a head-to-head environment for the same audience. So my job is to attract them and hold them and hopefully grow them.

But the hopefully grow them wasn't from, let's bring in little kids, teenagers. It was, how can I present action that is different, substantively different, than the rest of the action throughout the show. So I eliminate the sameness quality that I feel when I watch my own show. How do I do that? Cruiser weights, because I've seen that fast shit over in Japan, and I love it. And it's different than what we're going to. going to see at the end of the show. And it's kind of new. And other than ECW, nobody does it

and nobody's watching ECW at the time anyway, so it didn't really count. So I'm thinking this is a way to present something new and exciting and have an international kind of vibe to it, which was important to Turner Broadcasting, but also a unique selling proposition with regard to the comparison between WWE and WCW at the time, brand differentiation. So it served those purposes, whether it was going to bring in kiddies and teens never even occurred to me because it would have been a dumb idea to think that way.

Dave. Well, listen, I think we all think about wrestling, at least I do. I think one of the reasons I still watch it is because of the nostalgia. I mean, I remember the way it made me feel as a kid. I don't watch wrestling the same way, but I think this weekend,

I might actually pretend like I'm a kid again. I'll plop down in front of the TV, Watch Little Wrestling with a big bowl of cereal from our friends at Magic Spoon. You see, as a kid, I loved eating cereal, but as an adult, you realize, man, this is full of sugar. I don't need that in the morning. I need protein. But then my wife found Magic Spoon. It's a nostalgically delicious cereal that tastes just like our childhood favorites, but without the sugar and with a ton of protein.

And here's a little pro tip, if you're already a Magic Spoon fan, I got big news for you. Magic Spoon has turned their super popular season. cereal into high-protein treats that are light, crispy, and taste just like those classic crunchy cereal bars. Magic Spoon's brand-new treats are so delicious, they've become my go-to late-night snack. My wife uses it as a pre-workout. And the cereal, by the way, if you've never had it for Magic Spoon, is unbelievable. It has 13 grams of protein, zero grams of sugar, and four grams of net carbs, so you can feel good about what you're eating. Most popular flavors are fruity and cocoa, and there's many more.

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You need something that you can feel good about eating. He reaches into his glove box and grabs a few treats from Magic Spoon. Get $5 off your next order at MagicSpoon.com slash 83 weeks. Or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or even in your nearest grocery store. store that's magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks for $5 off magic spoon hold on to the dream and yes you can get it in grocery stores oh look at look at him right there but i've got one right here now this is a marshmallow flavor that's a good that's good one gram of sugar one gram of sugar is like like literally a grain of sugar you found oh my gosh i'll have a gram of sugar

two net carbs almost the same thing 12 grams of protein now that's cool cool, this is delicious. Show the product up to the camera as close as you can't. See, that's the top, but look at the bottom, Eric. Flip it over. Yeah, come on. That's the goodness right there. That's the goodness right there.

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Hey, so let's talk about some more of your commentary. And I don't know why it tickles me so much, but it does because we're going to see Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit have a rematch on Nitro. A month later, or a few weeks later, it's November 6th. And on November 6th, here's what Eric's saying about Benoit and Eddie Guerrero as the commentator of Nitro. Look at that snap suplex. The velocity that Benoit can get on a snap suplex is mind-boggling. And I'll tell you what, these guys are fighting for the attention of promoters worldwide. Because the WCW Championship Committee is talking right now about when and where to have the cruiserweight matchups.

They're talking about the cruiserweight division. We'll have more information on the Cruiserweight Championship here in WCWCW. the weeks to come. But here are two guys that came to play where the big boys play because they want that piece of gold. So you're at least talking a little bit about this tournament and crowning a new champion. And you also shoot a pretty rare pre-taped nitro for the following week.

And that's an interesting one because we get Benoit and Sasaki, Guerrero and Bad, and Sting versus Malenko. So it's rare that we had to tape Nitro. But man, look at the talent. Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko. They're all on display here on November 13th. We might not have announced an official championship or anything like that. But boy, Sting versus Malenko, I forgot that even happened.

I got to go watch that. Yeah, I don't remember it either. But this sounds like a really exciting time. We'll go back and check it out. The WWF won. It's not a huge difference, but they won. Raw got a 2.6 rating. WCW got a 2.

2.0 for all that night had things like Razor Ramon and Sid for the Intercontinental title but man this is a a departure you know from from the way wcd used to be I want to run through some of those matches again Eddie Guerrero versus johnny be bad sting versus dean malinko benoit versus sasaki like this approach to television wrestling is changing and you're sort of leading the charge on that who else behind the scenes in WCW was a big advocate for the cruiser waits and were there any was there anybody who was reluctant or hesitant to to see it the same way you did. Kevin Sullivan was more excited about it than I was.

He really saw it. And I think it's understandable why, right? Kevin was always a smaller guy and the idea of a division for guys who were like Kevin, It was a great performer. But to have a cruiserweight division was something that it didn't take a lot of time explaining to Kevin. He saw the picture immediately. That was about it. I mean, nobody was vocal against it.

Nobody was about to speak up against it at that point. But you can tell when somebody's on board with an idea or not, just by body language and energy level. I think everybody else was at best neutral oh we're just going to give this a shot and see what happens and there were some like I don't want to name names

because they may not have felt the way I interpreted them but there was just a lot of this is not a good idea because again they knew the talent we're going to kick back or pushback

some of the bigger talent that have this thought of oh great how am I going to follow that so a lot of the people on the creative team were also de facto agents or agents by default and they anticipated the reaction so they were just less than enthusiastic except for Kevin Kevin was Kevin was the head cheerleader I find this I just want to remind everybody these matches that I've talking about I know on some level in the context of 2024 it doesn't sound like a big deal but Sasaki was the guy who beat Sting for the

U.S. title, and Benoit beats him. And, you know, Johnny B. Bad, no matter what you think of the character, he's a television champion, and he goes to a draw with Eddie Guerrero. So the TV champ doesn't beat Eddie Guerrero. They go to a draw. And then in the main event, that's right, the main event, it's Sting versus Malinko. And respectfully, once upon a time, the size difference would have dictated that Sting was going to eat him up.

That's not the case here. Sting gets a win, but barely. I mean, he escapes with a win. I mean, it was a back and forth affair. So, yes, Malenko loses, but it's treated like it's a fair fight. And Sting inked out a win. This is a major statement, I think, Eric, on a tape nitro, that, hey, the way everyone in the industry has perceived this division and what these guys are going to be used for, think again. Because I don't think a lot of people would have had it on their bingo card.

Again, this is 95. This isn't Dean Malenko in 97 or 98 or 99 once he was established to this audience. He's a relative newcomer here and Sting, the franchise of WCW in the main event and he doesn't just eat him up. You're sending a message here with this, I think, Eric. Yeah, and I don't think it was the intention. I think the message was just there. But it was just a commitment. It was what I talked about earlier with regard to Tom.

Con and AEW is make a decision, make a commitment to that decision, and then discipline yourself to be able to execute properly. It's really that simple. And the commitment was clear, as evidenced by the way we did it. You know, it wasn't even for me. Now, Kevin, Kevin may have a different, if he was with us, would have had a different, perhaps recall of the details of this. Because, again, I didn't layout finishes.

I would have been highly involved in who was going to win and who was going to lose. But how they got there was not my thing. Even at this time, it was nitro. That part has never been my thing. Story, yes, mass layout. Absolutely not. Won't go near it. But the commitment was 100% there.

And I think, Kevin, knowing that the commitment was 100% there, executed properly. and used his best judgment to execute it the way it should have been executed. As best I can tell, Chris Pinawa only had one television cruiserweight title match. I know he had a house show match with Ray Mysterio in 99, and I know that back when he was Wild Pegasus in 96, you know, which is his New Japan moniker, there was a tournament, and he lost in the finals of that tournament. I get all that. but I think Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit and Biloxi in 97 is the only time we saw

Benoit really challenging on TV for the cruiserweight title and I'm bringing this up to you because we've sort of thrown his name around a lot here as if he was going to be a part of the cruiserweight division and we do that based on his size and stature but for whatever reason he was seemingly always positioned as a heavyweight I'm wondering how and where and why do you sort of draw the line on okay, we're not going to really use him in that regard, but we are this guy, this guy, this guy.

Because he certainly checked all the boxes as far as actual pounds on a scale. It would make sense that he would be there. What was it about Benoit's game that you didn't want to use him in that way? I don't think it was whether we wanted to or not. I think it organically

probably came from the fact that Chris more than the rest of the cruiser weights that you might throw in there with him. Chris was the one that could, he was right out of the line. He was big enough visually. Now, wait, wise, you're right. He was probably my height. I don't think he was more than 5'10, to be honest. If that.

I'm 5.10 and a half. He may, he may have been 5.10. But I think he's 5.9. Huh? I think he's 5.9. But he looked because of the way he was built like he was six foot three. Okay. He looked so big that even though he wasn't, he looked big enough to be believable against a heavyweight.

Whereas many of the rest at this point in time, it would have been a stretch. It would have taken a story to get there. So because Chris Benoit was right on the bubble, so to speak, it was a lot easier to move him back and forth. I didn't want, and this is ultimately one of the things that really made the Cruiserweight Division a challenge, I didn't want talent going back and forth. It's one of my big bitches in TNA when they called the X Division. What the fuck is it? I don't know. We're just going to call it the Exhibition.

What are the rules? Well, there are no rules. Oh, you mean, that sounds like the other Thursday night. But Chris was the one guy that could play in both categories. and it was, I don't know if it was just by osmosis or whatever, we just made a decision to kind of keep him out of the Cruiserweight Division. So he was available to us and I wouldn't have to have somebody going back and forth. If you're wondering, hey, what happened with this great cruiserweight tournament in WCW?

Well, it kind of didn't happen. You know, we've got Otani and Wild Pegasus that we mentioned. That's going to happen in New Japan. That happens in late March. I guess it's March 20th. but it's a one-match tournament. So we're using some creative license here. And then on Nitro, we would actually see a couple of weeks later.

You're doing a show at Anderson, South Carolina, and you make some sort of comment that Benoit had been eliminated from the tournament by Otani in Japan. But they had already crowned Otani the champion. So the tournament's over, but you're not really saying that. Five days later, they air Chris Benoit versus Alex Wright. And they announced that whoever wins this is going to go to Japan for a right to challenge for the title. But it airs in reverse order.

So, I mean, this is clearly a continuity or quality control or WCW was missing something here to not allow an error or to allow an error like this to air on television, right? Was this the tape show? Yes. Do you remember this? No, but the scenario as you're described. driving it kind of makes sense to me how it exactly how it happened but how it could have happened

just because of timing and poor communication. No, because of poor communication and timing I can see how it happened. But here's the other part. It's just the truth, brother. I really didn't give a fuck. Okay, there you go.

Nobody was watching New Japan. Nobody was tracking it except for Dave Meltzer in a bunch of fucking bathroom our basement dwelling geeks sitting down there with a bowl of fucking Captain Crust, jerking off watching porn and talking about wrestling. That's who knew that.

Eric, you just described my weekend. I'm going to be jerking off eating Magic Spoon watching wrestling. Not Captain Crunch, Magic Spoon, but otherwise it's my Saturday, brother. Calm down. Let's talk about it. We see Dean Malenko capture the Cruiserweight title from Otani

at the Disney tapings on May 2nd. Now, I just want to take a timeout right there. We know it's going to air on worldwide on May 18th. But I do think this is interesting because we're not having this happen on a Nitro. And clearly we think highly of Malenko. By God, he's

main eventing against Sting on Nitro. But the title switch is going to happen here on Worldwide. And I've always wanted to ask you, do you think that having a champion bring the belt over from New Japan, like Otani is here? Does that

give credibility to the WCW title? in your opinion, is that the reason we started with the New Japan competitors being the first champion to lend that credibility? Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, it was credibility was important, obviously.

But keep in mind that a big part, aside from the dynamic presentation and the difference between everybody else on the card or on the show, that was a huge part of it because that's television. It was the vision part of television. that made that make sense to me. But right below that as a priority was, again, differentiating WCW and Nitro from WWE and Raw by showcasing more international talent in our commitment and discipline to providing a broader range of international talent than the average viewer could find

over on Monday Night Raw. That would also give more credibility to the brand. So credibility was a big part of it, partly because of the Cruiserweight Division, but the credibility to Nitro as being the largest in the world, the most successful organization in the world, which we eventually became in some respects, not all respects, not financially.

Even when we were stomping a mud hole in WWE in terms of television ratings and attendance, They were probably still equal to or outperforming us for a good portion of that time when it came to total revenue because they were a much more mature business model. Now I've gone off into the weeds and it's fucking boring. So let me get back to the business at hand. Business at hand was I want to create the Cruiserweight Division. Yes, I wanted to have credibility.

But the reason I want all that is because I want Nitro to be different then. That was it. let's talk about the reason it may have been on worldwide because I was sort of scratching my head why would they do it there and not nitro when you're really trying to compete and then it clicked hey maybe this was sweeps do you think that that was part of it like you needed something you needed a shot in the arm respectfully nitro is now the a show and Saturday night is the B show and then it kind of falls off a cliff and then there's pro and worldwide, you do need something on those shows, especially in sweeps, right?

I don't think sweeps would have factored into it. Okay. I didn't do things for sweeps. I was really, I did things for the pay-per-view. And if, oh, by the way, sweeps happened to fall in an important part of that, that works too, I guess. But I never made decisions creatively specifically for sweeps, but I'm trying to figure out why, like you, like, why would you do that?

Because Nitro was the Holy Grail. Nitro was, going back to some of your descriptions of what I might have been going through in the summer of 95, I, figuratively speaking, had a gun to the back of my head. I mean, this is as high profile as you could get. I'm either going to be a hero, or I'll be packing my shit and heading out to L.A. soon. So why would I give away something big like that on syndicated show that in the big scheme of things didn't really matter? I mean, it kind of did as a part of a whole. Like, you know, we had WCW Worldwide, we had WCW Pro, we had WCW main event, might have had a different one in there. We had three shows in syndication.

But the syndication side of the business model was an aggregate number. meaning we combined nitro ratings with our syndication ratings. That number is what was sold for a period of time to advertisers. It was an aggregate number. So there would have been no real reason to put something that high profile on a syndicated show that was nothing more than an ancillary part of an aggregate number. Because that's all it was. It didn't get, worldwide was our most successful syndicated.

show at the time. But even at that level, its percentage related to the total, the aggregate number was. So there had to be another reason. And I don't know off the top of my head what it was. It could have been scheduling because Nitro was live. The syndicated show was taped well in advance.

Well in advance at this point in time, I think we were doing Disney then. So this might have been. Yeah, this is Disney. Scheduling solution. I wanted to ask you about those Disney tapings because, you know, Malenko's not just going to do this one match at these Disney tapings. He wins the belt here, but in the tapings that, you know, he's on in the future

that are filmed at this same time, he never comes out with the belt again. So he wins the belt that day, but he never comes back with it. And I know that this is an era where things are getting crazy. because, as a reminder, again, this is May of 96. Some pretty big stuff happened in May of 96 in WCW. But was there a time that you remember saying, okay, this book in six weeks and eight weeks and 12 weeks and 16 weeks of TV in advance is challenging from a continuity standpoint.

How do I film something and know they're not going to get hurt looking at my crystal ball? They'll still be here in three weeks. I mean, I get why that's challenging. But was there a practice where you said, just don't bring the fucking belts out more? Yeah. It was like, do no harm. Yes. Like, if I'm going to get criticized for being kind of sloppy and having a continuity issue or being an absolute idiot, I'll take the heat for the continuity.

I mean, it's like you're not going to win. There's going to be something, whether it's an injury, an act of God, you know, a contractual dispute. divorce, whatever. There's a million things that could go wrong six weeks from now or eight weeks from now. Or in the case of those syndicated tapings, I think we were doing 12 or 14 weeks in advance.

So, yeah, well, how do we mitigate it? How do we make it so it doesn't hurt so bad? We say somewhat generic. That was more than likely the issue. Let's talk a little bit about Otani. You know, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about him. I know that like Eddie Kingston, friend of the show, man, he loves Otani. And I actually got to see Eddie wrestle Otani on the independence like five or six years ago.

And I knew how much it meant to him. But what's interesting is, I think this is the last match that Otani has in WCW. And he's had strong performances. Do you think he just didn't like America or WCW? Was there something else to play? Why didn't we see more Otani in WCW? Any idea? I don't.

you know, Sunny would have a great insight into that. Sunny probably still talks to it. Sunny would have great insight into that, but I don't think I've ever had the conversation. I don't think I've ever had a conversation with Otani. And if I did, it was courtesy, polite, general business, but nothing personal. Let's talk a little bit about Dean Malenko.

You know, we've talked about all these new signings that you're bringing into the company, you know, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko. Why was Dean the right guy as a WCW talent? Because we know Otani is under New Japan contract. What was it about Dean that you said, that's my guy? That's where I want to be the first champ. Everything.

I just like Dean as a pro. I like Dean. As a person I really, really, really like Dean. to this day have nothing but ultimate respect for you as a human being but as a performer it just represented everything that i personally light in a performer is believable it was understated and i think that's what really it's now that you ask this question because i've never really thought through it why do i like somebody as much as i like him i don't usually think about it just like i do and i do and there's nothing to think about it.

up. But if I think about Dean and what it was about his character, because you could suggest that, well, God, he was the shortest of the ball, other than Ray, and he was the least likely to succeed. If you just looked at a picture, a bunch of wrestlers standing next to each other, right, just based on his size. But there was a layer of intensity that was understated that made his intensity even more powerful to me. When he walked through that curtain, he's rubbing his wrists. Yep. He's looking around and the camera sees his eyes. You look in Dean's eyes and you could allow yourself to believe Dean Maliko's getting ready for a fight. Might not think it consciously, but subconsciously as you're watching because you're watching to escape, watching to get sucked into the characters, want to believe it's real. you're volunteering to believe it's real

as long as the people that you're watching give you a half-ass reason to believe it is that's called performing for all of you Dave Meltzer fans. Dean had that in spades. He was just to me for my personal taste. And then once he got into the ring, he was six foot five in my eyes.

He could do whatever. He was so good. it what he did and he did it in such a believable way and he told his story in the ring and brought me into his action even more it allowed me

to believe that he was as good as his character said he was and that was the guy to me he was the hood ornament he would be like if the guy that created the first Mercedes Benz and decided he was going to call it a Mercedes and woke up one day and go

fuck, I need a hood ornament. Oh, I love that that Mercedes Ben's hood. That's going to be the brand. This is going to be the standard. Everybody else is going to try to live up to the standard. This is going to be the standard in the industry. To me, that's what Dean Malenko represented

with regard to the Cruzeweight Division. Let's talk briefly about Great American Bash here in 1996. But before we do, let me remind you that it's the best time of year for me right now. Football's back. We're talking NFL Sundays, college football Saturdays, and that glorious grind

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83 weeks. Stay on top of your grooming game and be ready for anything the season throws your way. Eric, we talked a little bit about Dean Malenko. And now we know he's our champ. and we're getting ready for the Great American Bash Paperview. This is going to be in June, in Baltimore.

You're going to take a little bit of a ride with a tough crash landing that day. But the match that everybody's going to be talking about when it's over, sure, they're talking about Kevin Nash, Powerbomb, and you. But the match is Ray Mysterio and Dean Malenko. And here's what's written here. This is in The Observer. The Cruiserweight match wasn't a done. deal and on paper it should easily be the best match on the show, but it's stupid booking.

Mysterio Jr. is a total unknown except amongst Hispanic fans who aren't going to buy this pay-per-view and hardcore fans who are going to buy it whether he's on the show or not. Rather than beat a guy who could be the American answer to the original Tiger Mask or Juschen Liger right off the bat would cut off his potential to be something other than a small guy with good moves who nobody takes seriously and neither sells tickets nor merchandise. They should set the guy on fire, protect him as New Japan did when it first created Tiger Mask and Liger, and see how far he can go because he's tailor-made for the young kids' audience and they buy the most merchandise and then make people not be able to

want to see him again against quality opponents rather than kill him right off. Now, listen, we all know that you putting Ray Mysterio on the program, is a big deal and he is going to be a force that is going to change wrestling forever but Diamond Dallas Page has even wondered

and said on his podcast back in the day who the fuck is Ray Mysterio and why is he on the paper review? This guy's a kid he doesn't belong in here is he even old enough to be back here

that sort of thing and then he took a look at what's happening and he's like shit he's better than me what am I saying like he is a force and I'm wondering

Eric, with the benefit of hindsight, why would you debut on pay-per-view? It does feel like you would have did it on TV. Were you trying to prove a point? Or is there something else at play that I'm missing? No, there's a lot else. And it's not about proving points. That's an ego driven kind of thing. And there was nothing about proving a point is not a concept that's ever popped into my head with regard to, you know, producing a

television show. The thinking was more, first of all, I wasn't trying to get any one individual over. I was trying to get a division over. Because until people understood what the division was, what it represented in contrast to what they were used to seeing in WCW, until I developed a fan base for the division, it would be even harder to get. any individual talent over in that division. And I know that's not going to make sense to some people creatively because they've never been in a creative role before or been judged by their success or failure in a

creative endeavor. So I understand that. I don't mean that to sound like I'm taking a shot at anybody. You know, there's a lot of shit that I, you know, I can't talk about technology very long either before I reveal the fact that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. So I'd just stay away from it. But the decision was to brand the division, and then once the division was established, start developing talent.

Number one, or getting talent over. For Dave, and he reflected how fucking ignorant he was at the time, and still is, when he says, oh, he'll get over with kids. That wasn't the target audience. And if it would have been my target audience, Dave, if I would have taken you, Your advice, like some people do, Tony, I would have cratered Nitro. If I would have listened to Dave Meltzer's philosophy on how wrestling should and shouldn't be booked for television, Nitro would have nosedived.

And this commentary by Dave at that time is a perfect example of why. He was going after an audience that he never could have or I couldn't have. or probably Steven Spielberg at the time if he would have jumped on board, couldn't have taken away from WWE. It was the shift to the 18 to 49-year-old demographic, Dave, dumb shit, that changed the course of the industry, not just for WCW and Nitro, but for WWE and your favorite promoter, Tony Kahn, two-time promoter of the year, exactly, according to.

Dave Meltzer. Tony should stop listening to you now, Dave, the same way if I would have listened to you back then, I would have cratered my company. Take a look around you. Okay, no, let's move on here. We'll talk about Slambury and Baton Rouge. That's where we see Dean Malenko pick up a win over Brad Armstrong.

he's going to retain the WCWCruiserweight title. We also see Conan retain the U.S. title pinning Jusian Thunder Liger. I know that I don't know shit about wrestling. I'll admit that. But when I see these matches, I'm just wondering, why wouldn't you switch that? Why wouldn't you have Brad Armstrong wrestle Conan? And why wouldn't you have, like Brad challenged Conan for the U.S. title, and Jusian Liger and Dean Malenko hookup for the cruiserweight?

I don't have a good answer for that. And I would agree with you, by the way. And I don't even have a response as to why that decision was made, either by me or anybody else. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to poke holes in what was happening. I mean, clearly, those were good matches. I'm not arguing that. But it just feels like, hey, Dean Malenko, Jusian Liger,

boy, I can get excited about that. And Brad Armstrong and Conan are probably going to be more similar inside. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking. And maybe, and I'm speculating here, Conrad, I'm not trying to make an excuse because I may or may not have been involved in that decision at that point. Likely not, but possibly. It also could have been, because it's such an obvious matchup that, yes, everybody would want to see. Perhaps it was, let's say that in build for it at some point, as opposed to throwing it up against the wall and seeing if it sticks.

That could have been part of it. When it comes time for the big match that we're all looking forward to in June, it's a Great American Bash, and it's Dean Malenko and Ray Mysterio. Dave gives it four stars. Wade gives it three and a quarter stars. Dave would actually say the best wrestling match on the show in an excellent technical match, but it wasn't the right match to do in that it was a great Malenko-style wrestling match. Mysterio Jr. showed he was versatile enough as a worker to be put in a position

where he's not doing Mexican style and still have an excellent match. I want to time out there because I do agree, like, when you see Ray at his best, it's when he's, in my opinion, with other luchadors and everybody's flying around together. Man, what a spectacle that becomes. But I do believe that the old UFC adage, styles make fights, hey, that's true too. I like and I love Halloween Havoc 96. I know everybody talks about Halloween Havoc 97 with Ray and Eddie. no doubt that is a fantastic match

but you and I've discussed before we think WCW's best pay-per-view when you were at your peak as far as feeling good about things and I was probably at my peak fandom is Halloween Havoc 96 and Dean Malenko and Ray Mysterio is on that show too and I just don't think they've ever had a bad match

but I do think if you're really trying to showcase what Ray can do working a more ground style is probably not best for Ray but do you think in this circumstance it's a function of Ray the newcomer, Dean is the veteran, if you will, of WCW, and he's the champ, and he's winning, so we're going to work more of his style.

Do you think the agents and WCW as a whole really got Mysterio immediately, or do we need to see it a few times before we're like, oh, now we really know what we got here and we need to pivot a little bit? I think the latter would make sense. Yes, right? Because Ray was so unique, so different than, like so different than, that from a creative point of view, I can only imagine if I was an agent or on a creative team, I would have a hard time figuring out what to do with the guy that I didn't understand or didn't fully

appreciate. I'm not going to hit his, I'm not going to help him hit his groove if I don't understand his groove. I think that was the case with Ray. I know it was for me. I mean, I knew he was great. I knew it was fun to watch his, you know, because I looked at the tapes before I brought him in. I knew what I was getting. I wasn't surprised when he showed up. But you don't fully appreciate it. And if you don't fully appreciate it, you can't fully expand the ideas in terms of what to do with it. You don't know what you have. And I think as far as Dean dominating, I was committed to Dean's character at the time. Not Dean personally, but I was committed to Dean as a character in that role to establish the credibility of the brand for all the reasons I talked

about a few minutes ago. Do you remember anybody once they saw Ray's style and presentation? I get that people, you and I know this, there's a lot of negativity and infighting and undermining and shit talking, whatever you want to call it in wrestling. Like everybody gossips and shits on everybody. I don't know why that happens in wrestling more than almost anywhere else, but it does. So I'm sure that Ray was getting a lot of snickers and that sort of thing before the match. But once people really see what he can do and he sort of proves his value and his worth and earns his stripes in the eyes of most, are there any people who are still sort of with their arms folded like, I'm not too sure about this.

Maybe a little too old school and they're thinking who were those folks, not to shit on them, because I'm sure eventually he won everybody over. I'm not going to name names, but not because I'm not because I'm going to protect anybody, but because honestly, I don't want to suggest somebody. had a feeling that they really didn't have. It wasn't so apparent. I wasn't having conversations with people. I wasn't hearing from people's lawyers and agents and shit like that. That would be memorable, right? It was more passing comments.

And sometimes what people didn't say versus what they did say. It was very nuanced. 90% of the time. There were few people that were like, now what the fuck. Again, how do I follow that? They didn't say it that way. That's exactly what the resistance was.

It was like, it was the same thing that I experienced with the NWO when the heels started getting over to baby faces all the time, over and over and over again. Guys that were coming to, including people that I really respected, like Singh going, Eric, we've never learned how to do this where the heels constantly get over. on us and we can't even make a comeback. Can you give us a clue? Which I didn't have. You know, I was winging it. Learning on the job. But

there were a number of people. I'm 75% sure I can remember who went from whatever. This is not going to work to. What the fuck, Eric? Yeah.

It was some of that. Not a lot. Two or three people probably. Let's talk about the response and the torch. I love this report. WCW officials loved Ray Mysterio Jr. Both at the World Wrestling Peace Festival and at the bash, they're trying to lock him up full time. The observer would say WCW is looking to sign Ray Mysterio Jr. to a contract,

and they've signed Conan to a one-year deal. And then later report, the Rock and Roll Express, Psychosis, Ray Mysterio, and the Parker are all scheduled for the Disney tapings in July. Boy, 96, we're gaining some real sales. steam and real momentum here, chat me up. When you think about with the benefit of hindsight, how, I mean, I've always been led to believe that Conan was like the consigliary for so many of these luchin doors. Are you able to lock up Ray Mysterio and a lot of this cruiserweight division without

Conan? See the secret sauce of this? Yep. He was the linchpin. Had there been no Conan in place with the contract, it would have been no Ray Mysterio conversations. That could I have signed him without him. There wouldn't have been a conversation.

So, yeah, Conan, again, and I've said it. You know, we've talked about it here. I've talked with Conan. I do his show once a quarter at least, no more. I will always give a ton of credit to Conan. Not only for what he brought creatively in terms of his vibe, his character, credibility, street credit, if you will, as it relates to what we were doing on camera because he was he was legit i mean that was conan's lifestyle he was that

guy and he brought it with him it was believable that's as a talent on the business side of things now this was not an easy road to travel because we often went into the ditch or ended up teaboning each other in intersections we were chasing each other around in our cars There were some rough times between Conan and I, but the cruiserweight division, first of all, I don't think Night Show would have been as successful as it was from a pop culture perspective without the cruiserweight division and the people in it. And I don't think there would have been the people in it to the extent there was without Conan. So when people look back and put other people over for work that some people have done,

And oftentimes they get credit for work they haven't done, including me, by the way. I get credit for a lot of things that other people have actually done. Taking some heat for shit that I probably shouldn't have to take. But it's all part of the game. But Conan, for better or worse or how difficult it was, was largely responsible for the quality of the talent that we were able to put under contract.

and because we were able to put them under contract, Nigel became as successful as it did in no small part to Conan and his efforts. So you've got to give credit where credit is due. We got to give credit where credit is due. Shout out to Conan and shout out to Blue Chew. Blue Chew is a day one advertiser and sponsor here on the show. They've been with us from day one.

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And we've got a special deal for our listeners try Blue Chew free when you use our promo code 83 weeks at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com. The promo code is 83 weeks to receive your first. month free visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information and we thank bluechew for sponsoring today's podcast and erx weiner hey so let's talk about class i'll say clash of the champions bash at the beach because listen we know some big stuff happened at bash at the beach 96 and it's going to overshadow everything else but here's what dave had to say and i thought

this was fantastic the hogan turned totally overshadowed the best match on a w TVW pay-review show in years. Ray Mysterio versus psychosis opener, which was described by one reader as being the first great match of the 21st century. The two combined pulling out there expected daredevil and intricate

precision high spots with strong amount wrestling and more selling and psychology than they would do in Mexico, Japan, or even ECW. I'd rate this match only behind Mysterio and Huvitude from Philadelphia as the best match in the United States and all of 1996. They go

15 minutes and 18 seconds, and I realize that the picture that's over Eric's shoulder is what everybody talks about about Bash at the Beach. But I want to encourage you, if you haven't seen this match in a long time, go watch it today. Ray and Psychosis light it up, and Dave absolutely loves it. He gives it four and three quarter stars. Wade was pretty high on it too. He gave it four and a quarter stars. And it's not even the only Cruiserweight match on the card. We also get Dean Malenko and Disco Inferno. which, believe it or not, here's what Dave Meltzer wrote about Disco Inferno challenging for the cruiserweight title. Shockingly, this was the second best match on the show.

I love it. He gave it three and a quarter stars. And Wade even pointed out that after the match, Disko said something like, that's the one move I couldn't get out of. Of course, he's talking about the Texas Clover Leaf. I just think that's a genius line from Disco to say, that's the only hold I wasn't prepared for. get out of the Texas clove relief.

But psychosis and Ray Mysterio, man, we saw it in ECW and it was magic, but only a handful of people saw that. Being on a big stage like this, this is a coming out party for Ray Mysterio and psychosis, isn't it? It is. And this is nitpicking a little bit, and I'm not even really picking on Dave,

because this is kind of a general thing, I think, with most people talk about wrestling. Is Dave says, well, that was a second, discos match was the second. best match on the card. Completely discounting the Hogan turn as a match. That match changed the course of wrestling history. Not in a hyperbolic way, the way Tony Con or Dixie Carter tend to say things.

I'm talking about in a legitimate, historical, data-driven, undeniable way, that match changed the course of the wrestling product to this day. people are still trying to recreate that magic and nobody's been able to do it yet no matter how hard they try. That's no brag. That's just fact. But in Dave's mind,

that match was, damn it, it overshadowed these two much better matches. So here's the question, here's the point. What's a good match? A good match is whatever you think it is. A good match for me,

me creates revenue. Good match for me grows the business. Good match for me absolutely satisfies the audience to the maximum extent. Good match for me allows me to further telling stories that get even bigger than the one I just told. But that's just me. For Dave, a good match is specifically the style of match that takes place within the ring that's simply a physical exhibition. Dave was saying, oh, yes, but there's story in the match. Well, in Dave's mind there is, perhaps, or his taste. There's story there.

Enough to satisfy Dave, and that's cool. But the tribalism that Dave and Tony Khan like to complain about so much, but yet fuel and perpetuate with bizarre shit, that's what gets lost in when I look at the arguments online. Because I thought, you know, it's almost like an intellectual curiosity, just trying to figure out what makes people think the way they think or better yet because I'm still a wrestling guy at heart. what makes them react emotionally because they're not thinking guys like dave don't think they react

emotionally so what makes them react the way they react and i think there's like there's two tribes that's what they are they're silly wrestling tribes that identify like their team people they feel most like and most like them so therefore that's where they're the most comfortable, believe that a good, a good match represents high-flying, deathifying, super violent, blood fucking thumbtacks, light bulbs, Christmas trees, a pie pan or two. Hey, you got a wheelbarrow? Bring it on in. It's a good match to them or a version of that. For me, and people like me, and I think the vast majority of the audience, to one level or another, or maybe not to the extent that I think through this shit

because I'm always thinking about the wrestling, the business of the wrestling business as opposed to the wrestling of the wrestling business. Well, a good match to me is great storytelling, a character that stronger than when he or she started the story by the end of the story. Again, something that at least suggest strongly that I'm printing money,

like the Bloodline storyline. I called it what we did our recap the other day. it's like a frickin money tree that just keeps growing bigger and bigger and faster and faster and just dropping money all over the ground. That's a good match to me. So why everybody's arguing over good matches or bad matches or whether Dave's, you know, a dumb shit, which he is, or a dumb shit or whether he's wrong for liking the side. He's not wrong for liking what he likes. He's just wrong.

And this is where I have like issue with Dave in conflating what he likes with what works on television. He doesn't know anything about television. He knows a lot about the history of professional wrestling. If I ever wanted to know factually, you know, about what happened in 1952, Japan, my first stop would be Dave Belser. He's really good at that. He's really good at, and I know this sounds almost like a knock, and I don't mean it to be. I respect it.

He's very good at write at eulogies. They're heartfelt. And they bring a story to life. He's amazing at that. He's amazing at the things he's amazing at. His flaw and what exposes him is when he takes what he likes and suggests that because he likes it, everybody else will too. That's my bitch.

So when people say good, match, bad match, I just go, eh, whatever. By what standard? I know I'm splitting here. But Dave doesn't write eulogies. He writes obituaries. But yeah, same thing. I get what you're saying.

He's not publicly speaking, but the observer gives a lot of context and detail when someone passes away. And he does a great job at that. A true wrestling historian. We know that history is going to be made on Nitro from the Disney Studios on July 8th. Now, this is 1996. So while Kurt Angle is in Atlanta winning an Olympic gold medal with a broken freaking neck, WCW is taping outdoors in Orlando and Disney. and that's where we see Ray Mysterio win the cruiserweight title from Dean Malinko.

It gets four and a quarter stars in The Observer, and Dave says it's probably the best of the three matches that he and Dean have had in WCW, and it's probably the best match since Nitro debuted. When you think back on this match, I mean, we're less than a year into the history of Nitro, but Dave thinks at this point, Ray Mysterio and Dean Malenko, is probably the best match in Nitro up to that point. I know you don't have all the data in front of you, but do you feel pretty good about that?

Would you agree with that? I felt like it far exceeded any expectations I had of what the Cruiserweight division could be because of their performances, their abilities, and really overdelivered to the extent that they did on the original vision of give me something that feels, here's what I told those guys, When they've been going back now to the first meeting I had with them in Atlanta, when they walked in the room and the temperature dropped 17 degrees the minute the door closed

because of the chill they brought with him. Once I kind of got through the formalities and the niceties and got into my pitch, so to speak, I looked each one of them in the eye and said, I want you. I got my larger-than-life characters. I got my Hogan's. I got my savages. I need a human car crash. You guys are my human car crashes.

I want to see you flying around the ring. I want to see you bringing an entirely different presentation to the ring than these other guys present. And they got that. To the extent that I described that vision, these guys took that vision and just drenched it with steroids. figuratively, not literally. They literally just pumped it full of nuclear rocket fuel and over-delivered and established the Cruiserweight Division. And honestly, created a platform

were probably 60 or 70% of the new talent that you see, certainly in AEW, and a lot of the talent that you see in NXC or WW. This feels like if I were to ask wrestling fans, hey man, when you think of the WCW Cruiserweight Division, who do you think of? I would think most people would say Ray Mysterio first.

Would you agree with that if you had to guess? Yeah. I mean, Ray, again, you know, business-wise, there's not even a conversation. There's nobody that comes close to the amount of revenue as a talent that Ray Mysterio has with, regard to the Cruiserweight Division or probably almost anywhere else outside of it. There are exceptions, obviously, but Ray is right up there at the top.

I think this is when people really think about the Cruiserweight Division. It's with Ray as the champ. This feels like the launching pad and when it really takes off July of 96, you know, I don't know why, and I want to ask you this. I know we're going long today, and I apologize for that. We will start winding down. But psychosis, I mean, he had such an incredible match. to open the show,

Bash at the Beach with Ray Mysterio. And I don't know that a lot of the luchadors get there just desserts, but like people continue to heat praise on Ray Mysterio and Hovintude. But it doesn't feel like psychosis gets nearly as much love as he probably deserves. But the benefit of hindsight, now that you're not running a million miles an hour, trying to figure out what the hell the NWO is going to do next week, I get that was the A story of the whole shooting.

match at this point. Was there more money to be made? Was there more opportunity with psychosis that we weren't able to capitalize on? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not even a question. I thought you were going to ask, could we have done better Ruth, the cruiserweight division as a whole than we did?

And the answer to that was going to be absolutely. But with regard to psychosis individually, no question about it. Keep in mind, though, keep in mind, availability was an issue. Yes. The ability to speak English was an issue. Because if you can't do interviews, now, yes, you can have a manager, but guess what? Comes down a couple of notches. It does.

When a manager is speaking for the talent, it makes it a much steeper hill to climb, right? It's not the same. And then you had the availability issues because this guy was going back and forth a lot. And even if he was under an exclusive contract, like many of the luchadors were, or some of them were, they'd work under the table anyway when they weren't supposed to. So it was a constant challenge. And I'm not saying that was it for psychosis, but it's just one of those things that sometimes made it harder to capitalize,

even if we were thinking that far ahead. And with regard to psychosis, we might not have been. I wanted to ask you a little bit about, you know, when we're talking about Disney and we're talking about this Ray Wynn, Chivani says on commentary right before or right as the match is starting with Dean Malenko and Ray Mysterio where Ray becomes Cruiserweight champ for the first time. Shivani says something like Ray Mysterio Jr. is revolutionizing the sport of professional wrestling. Was that Shivani just from the hip or was that something that you guys wanted to sort of push that narrative? Hey, let's make sure that everybody knows we're behind this and he's revolutionary.

organizing wrestling, and this is what you can expect more of in the future with Nitro. Is that a top-down initiative or is Sivani just calling it like he sees it like everybody else? I think it's somewhere in between. I think Tony understood what the goal in them, because I worked pretty closely with Tony. It's not like Tony worked in a bubble. He was a part of the team. You'd have to ask Tony, but if I remember correctly, he was in and out of the creative team

quite a bit. It was a part of the process. So Tony clearly understood what the goals were and then reacted naturally, knowing that he could put Ray over to that extent. And it would be consistent with generally speaking what we all were pushing towards for the Cruiserweight Division. It was mostly Tony just recognizing what we're doing and doing the best job possible to bring it home to the audience. With the success that Ray Mysterio is going to have in WCW, it certainly creates an opportunity for a lot of other luchadors, guys like psychosis, guy like Supercalo, guys like Hovintu Guerrera. I mean, this division continues to grow and thrive.

And even to this day, people still talk about the cruiser weights and their impact on wrestling. I don't know that they give WCW enough credit. So I want to sort of, as we wind this down, we got a handful of questions from our live studio audio. audience, what do you think that you, Kevin Sullivan, and the rest of the WCW team in 1996, what did you do different than, or perhaps let's just call it like it is, better than Jim Crockett and Dusty Roads, or Jim Hurd and Bill Watts, or even Vince McMahon and his entire empire? Because they never really captured the cruiser weights or the light heavy weights,

no matter whatever you want to call them. none of them had the success that your team did. What was different about your approach that made it successful where so many others weren't before or since? I'm really grateful for that question. And Park is this is a really good question. It makes me think. And also because it ties right back into what we talked about

very early on in this show. I had a vision. I'm not sure anybody else had a vision. They saw an opportunity to have some matches that were a little unique. They brought the Japanese over. If they brought, they didn't really bring Mexicans over when I was in WCW. But yeah, you had a little bit of an international back and forth. But I had a very clear vision.

Literally in my head, I could see it like a movie. Whenever I, someone tell, whenever anybody shares a really good idea with me, I can literally see it visually in my head. Like if I close my eyes when they were talking to me, it's almost like a snapshot of what they're talking about. When an idea is so clear and resonates with me that I can see it, I know it's a good idea. If I have a hard time picturing it, even though I want to,

I want to picture your idea. I want to see if I can understand this. The harder it is for me to understand, the less confidence I have in your idea. Now, sometimes it's me. Sometimes I'm not hearing it correctly or I'm just not listening from the right angle. That sounds weird. Usually you look at things from angles, but sometimes I listen to things from certain angles. And sometimes that's a mistake on my part or naturally it just happens.

But when I hear a good idea or if I have a good idea, it literally plays out like a movie in my head. Not like the drama and all that, but I mean, visually, I could see it, literally see it. And I had a vision

for the Cruiserweight division. It had a purpose. It had a definition. It had a goal. And I was fortunate enough because of relationships, first with Brad Riggins, then with Sonny Ono,

to reestablish a relationship that had been burned to the ground by my predecessor. And then I had the good fortune of doing business with Conan who was able to to execute, help execute by bringing in talent. I would not have otherwise been able to bring in. It's just pure and simple. Ray right at the top of the list.

No way Ray Mysterio would have ever done a deal with Eric Bischoff, WCW, Ted Turner, or the entire Turner corporate board without Conan. So some of this stuff was I had a vision, I had a commitment, and I executed. But without Brad, Briggins and Sonny to a degree, without Conan, no matter how great of a vision I had or how much I wanted it, I wouldn't have been able to execute it. So part of it was just having a great vision. I don't think man ever did because Vince loved the bigger, larger than life, you know, monsters, right? That was his idea of wrestling nirvana. So he just would have never seen the same movie that I saw in my head.

Or Opportunity, place movie with Opportunity. Dusty Road, same thing. Just is what it is. And probably a product of the timing. Had I not been faced with a two-hour show and felt like I really, really, really, really needed a crossover. The only way to do that is to have a vision for the cruise away to vision. Beyond His Whole, let's have a tournament so we can have some dream matches. Sorry.

Now it had a purpose. It had a why. That's the biggest reason. It had a why. I don't think with Dusty or Vince or Crockett, that division had much of a why. It probably had a why, but it was a meaningless why. It wasn't a compelling why. I had one and I had the right people around me to make it work.

One more thing. One more thing. cruise away division yes a lot of people owe a lot of thanks to yours truly to nitro to ted turner for giving me the opportunity to do it yeah yeah yeah yeah they really need to be thankful for and i'm talking about any luchadors or luchador esk anybody representing that style of wrestling really need to thank is ray yeah eddie dean chris every one of the Japanese and the luchadors that came through WCW and Nitro

because they created the opportunity for those guys that we're seeing today. I created an opportunity for them. They created an opportunity for everybody else because you would not be seeing it if it wasn't for the Ray Mysterios and the Eddie Gros and the Dean Millen goes into Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho early on.

That's off to those guys. You said a few minutes ago when we were talking about it was psychosis, you thought maybe I was going to ask, could we have done more with the cruiserweight division? And thinking about that and that you said that, you said that just a few minutes after you said, hey, you guys are going to be my car crash. Do you think in your mind at the time, if you can take yourself back to that time when you were thinking that,

do you think because in your mind you compartmentalize them to be the car crash, that that was kind of where you saw them? Like you accidentally, when you call them their car crash as a way to make sure that you're getting them on TV, do you sort of accidentally put a glass ceiling on them a little bit? I think they felt that way. I didn't, not consciously, perhaps subconsciously. If I ever meet a shrink out for dinner, I'll have them walk me through my mind and tell me if that was the case or not. Not intentionally at all. I'm not thinking you did it intentionally. You just said in hindsight you thought you could have done more.

So I think here's here's why, no, I don't, I think I'm almost certain that the talent felt like, oh, we're in this box, we're never going to get out. That was a comfortable box to be in. They were making more money than they've ever made. They're on national television. They're getting more exposure than they've ever had in their lives. They're traveling all over the world. They're living a pretty good, freaking life, right? So it was not like the most uncomfortable box.

however like all boxes people get used to them and they want more room in their box they want more toys in their box and they want more attention from being in their box and they want to feel better about themselves for the box that they're in it's natural it's human nature so what started out with and this is the part that I could have done better if I would have seen what was developing before it started developing, because once it starts developing, you're kind of lose control of it. But had I had the 2020 hindsight that I have today or the experience that I didn't have then, I would have managed, I would have managed that differently. I would have managed the Cruiserweight Division and the way I presented it

internally and externally, I would have handled it. Because I did unintentionally make a lot of those guys feel like that's it. You're never going to wrestle in the main event at a pay-per-view for the heavyweight championship. I never said that. But because of the way I positioned them internally and externally, I'm sure they felt that way. Now, here's why that's a problem. After everybody got comfortable in their box, because it was new and it was more shit in it than they've ever had before and it was security and they could actually pay their mortgages

and, you know, plan on taking a vacation sometime and all that because consistent money. You get used to money. Money's not the end-all-be-all. Even if you think it is, it's not. Because once you get used to having it, it doesn't mean as much to you. And that's kind of what happened. Once the talent got here, they got used to getting that check every two weeks, they turned and broadcasting on and they could cash it anywhere they wanted to.

life was pretty freaking good for those guys until they got bored and then it's like well why can't I wrestle in a made of a heavyweight championship I'm as talented as that guy I'm more talented than that guy I'm getting over listen to the crowd look at my quarter hours check by minute by minutes by the way oh my god I'm over why can't I do that and it wasn't that overt was never expressed to be exactly like that. But it was communicated to me. And then once that set in and the Cruiserweight Division, much like we talked about early on,

it's like, oh, I'm that, that's all I'm ever going to be. That same feeling began to exist in a Cruiserweight Division. And guess what I did? Started compromising. Started mitigating a little bit. And that's what eventually killed. The Cruiserweight Division was no longer special. We stopped making it feel special in the hopes of trying to mitigate the fact that a lot of the top talent in it, like Chris Cherokee, for example, was the most obvious and first issue.

Chris didn't want to be a Cruiserweight anymore. Chris wanted to Russell Goldberg. Chris want to wrestle Hogan. Chris Ronna Russell the main event on a pay-per-view. for the heavyweight title, not for the cruiserweight title. Once that started, it trickled down, and it just lost its, the division lost its own passion. I wanted to ask you, you know, we know that, you know, the business and the industry just evolved. And now you see guys who would have once upon a time been called a cruiserweight main eventing pay-per-views.

You're going to see one this weekend. But I'm wondering back then, you know, when you said we could have done more with the cruiserweight division, maybe it was too soon to have those guys in a in a main event, Hulk Hogan, Sting, I get it. Maybe the timing wasn't right. But don't you wish with the benefit of hindsight, much like, I don't know, 10 years ago, we did the women's evolution pay-per-view and it was an all-women's card. Can you imagine if WCW put together an all-cruiserweight pay-per-view in like 97, 98? would have been bananas, wouldn't it? And it would have been hugely successful. Yes.

Because again, if 2020 hindsight, but if I would have seen what was happening with Jericho and others like him, it wasn't just Chris, but if I would have seen that happening before it happened and managed it appropriately and continue to grow the Cruiserweight Division, who the hell knows what could have happened? They could have had their own show because there were a lot more guns. guys available on the open market that were in that under 200 pound category, especially internationally, then there were guys that were 6 foot 5 and 300 pounds. So you had a broader talent pool, which means the odds of finding someone special increases dramatically. More

people you have in a room, the more likely it is you're going to find two or three. They're going to have the potential of being superstars. You get 5,000 people in a room. Now you're going have 25 people that could be superstars. And that was kind of the deal is there's just so much great talent out there to choose from that it could have grown. It should have. It's unfortunate. But hey, I'm, you know, I hate, I fucking hate missed opportunities.

And not growing the Cruiserweight Division or helping it to become what it had the potential becoming is definitely a miss for me personally. Well. But I'm so proud of what we accomplished. I still know what I know, and I know that it's what made Nitro a better show than Raw. It's what allowed us to win over 100 weeks, but 83 weeks in a row, hence the name. I know what it accomplished. I know that the Cruiserweight Division probably has had as much impact on the current day product

is almost anything else that Nitro accomplished other than going live week to week and putting on high quality matches every week in terms of brand names and so forth. Those are all the things that we did that have influenced the business and changed the industry as we know it today. And I'm proud as fuck of that.

However, I'd have been a lot more proud if we would have been able to grow that cruise weight division and really take it to the extent that it could have. In fairness, Eric, if anything, you were a victim of your own success,

the NWO was such a huge success. success. It overshadowed everything else. It required all attention. It changed the industry. And I know that long term, the success of the cruiser weights wound up having more success. But I just want to double down that NWO road for just a second. And I know we've gone way long today, but this is a fun topic. Let's say Hogan doesn't turn at Bash at the Beach. He's got cold feet. He changes his mind. Sting's going to be in there. You've even said yourself, it would have been fine, but it just would have been another angle. It wouldn't have had the legs and the life that it did.

Hogan's red and yellow stuff just gets tired. His contract finishes. He goes back and does some one-offs with Vince and whatever. But the NWO sort of fizzles out, and now WCW is looking for success in the wrestling space without a heelhole Kogan, without an A storyline of the NWO, without Crow Sting sitting in the rafters. He's just back to being sting. after this NWO angle is finished.

I do think if the NWO would have been a short-term, just not the massive, earth-moving success that it was with Hogan, I tend to believe that there would have been a bigger chance or a bigger opportunity for the cruiser waits to have been the A story and move up and advance and be a bigger part of WCW. But when you've got something as big and successful as the NWO, you've got to feed the beast.

Right. I mean, that's just the nature of it. It's the nature of it. You know, it's what have you done for me yesterday? I don't give a fuck what you did for me last month. What did you do for me today? And building the NWO and topping previous records and increasing revenues and selling more merchandise and getting more opportunities was all. That was my day.

That was a list of shit that I had to do every day. But let's play what if, again, just for a second. But had the NWO for whatever reason missed, the mark. Hogan decided I'm done. I turned heel. It didn't work. I'm off. We're going to make a movie or whatever. We're just retired. By that time,

their cruiserways were really starting to get over. I mean, there was enough steam behind these guys that it would have been a lot easier to tell a story with them because their performances, their characters were now over. because of the product presentation and whatever booking went into it, they would have been hot enough in that scenario to take a run with. They were the hottest thing on the show with the exception of the NWO.

So if the NWO wasn't there, by default, what are you going to do next? Or instead, you're going to do the next best thing. And that would have been the Cruiserweight Division. Those guys possibly could have had those opportunities. It's fascinating to look back and think about what if. And real quick, what if you got to skip your next two house payments? What if you didn't have to worry about paying any more credit card debt? What if you could get a cheaper monthly payment?

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And now Eric, he's joined the evil empire, baby. It's saved with Eric.com. AnimalS number 21, 29, equal housing lender. You don't need perfect credit. You don't need money out of your pocket. And it's not a matter of if Eric can save you money. It really is a matter of how much. And if you're wondering, yes, you really talk to Eric Bischoff. Yes, Eric Bischoff is really licensed to help you save money. Yes, I'm talking to you. Why wouldn't you do this? If you've got credit card debt and you can hear my voice, let us run the numbers. And I got to be honest, I've been hearing from some folks lately who say, well, you know, I'm rate conscious. I got a great rate back in the day and I want to hang on to that. I get that. But if you've since gone out

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Eric, we're going to put a button on it. And I got to say, I just got to put a button on that. I have so much fun. Like you said, I've been doing this now for a license for three years. Obviously,

things have slowed down a little bit over the last year or so. But before all that happened, man, I had so much fun helping people see and save money. I mean,

there were, you know, mortgages I've been able to, to get, help people get that saved them $600, $1,200, $1,500, $1,500 a month. That's like getting a huge raise. It's, and it's really fun, and I appreciate the opportunity. And I look forward to helping anybody out there that was, you know, Mrs. B and I were

in a tight spot for a couple of years, you know, TV business went south and IRS checks or bills came in and all of a sudden, wow, are we going to be able to hang on to this, this house was like our, this is our dream home, built this house in 1997, fully intending that we're going to pass this down to our kids when we're gone. This is where everybody came on the 4th of July, for birthdays, for Christmas, for holidays, took pictures, friends, family. Everybody came out here and it still does. And we were faced with a situation. It was like, man, I don't know if we're going to be able to hold out of this. It was the most important thing to us. And it got to the point where we just weren't sure. And timing is everything, brother. I've said that a

million times and it's always true. But you got to start working with you and talk to you about our situation. And, you know, I'm a smart guy. I've been in business. I understand mortgages, you know, as a consumer. But as a consumer, you don't understand as much as you think you do. And wow, you showed me some things that really helped me make some really good choices and decisions. And not only, you know, hang on to our dream home, but, you know, we ended up in a very, very good financial situation at the end of it all and have more freedom and flexibility and just comfort and relief. And thanks to you and your team and thanks to that same team for teaching me what I know and I love helping people. So give a shout. Check it out, save witheric.com. You'll be

glad you did. And by the way, if you want to check the reviews, go right now to conradreviews.com. You'll see we've got over 1,200 reviews. Our average rating is 4.72 stars. We're routinely getting five-star reviews. We just got one yesterday, actually two yesterday. Earlier in the week, we got one from Tennessee that says Diane was very knowledgeable and extremely responsive. Also, the portal was fabulous and shortened the time at closing. We got another one from Texas. The team was so responsive and knowledgeable. They took time to understand my personal situation and come up with solutions that work for me. Such a great experience. And I want to be clear, this is not for people who have, who just have bad credit. We've got the best rates in the game. If you've got an

offer from your personal banker or your mortgage company, send us the offer. We will beat it. We've got the most competitive products and pricing in the entire industry, but we also know how to treat people like more than just a doggone loan number. Down at most of the banks or credit unions, man, if you don't have a 720 credit score, they put you an old file 13. That's the round folder that sits under their desk known as a wastebasket. We don't do that. You're not a loan number. You're more than that. We want to be your mortgage advisor for life. And you're going to develop a relationship with Eric. So if you've got a question about credit or interest rates or credit cards or any of that stuff, Eric's going to be your mortgage guy for life. Go right now.

To savewitheric.com, you'll be glad you did. Eric, we've got a few questions. Then we'll put a button on this one. Donovius Mac wants to know, why do you think the WWE's 205 live initiative to showcase the Cruiserweight Division wasn't as successful as the Cruiserweight Division in WCW? Oh, that's a really good question, Janoveus. I don't have the answer to it. I remember the 205 live. I remember watching it and being interested in it because of the way I feel about the cruise weights

and that style of wrestling. But I don't think I watched it enough to know what they really put into it in terms of commitment and execution or making it feel special beyond just, wow, what's these guys wrestle? They're smaller and they're faster. Might not have had the heart it needed

to feel special. and perhaps that's the answer, but honestly, I didn't watch enough of it to give it analysis. We got another question here from Eric Jones. Was there ever any talent that demanded to not follow the cruiser weights? You mentioned a minute ago that it would be, hey, man, go follow that.

Was there anybody who said, nope, don't put me on after that? No, no. That never happened. Now, I can imagine some people were thinking about something like that, but nobody ever did. to me. Now, maybe to Kevin Sullivan, maybe to one of the agents, but not to me. Well, here's what people are saying. Isaac Riston is here with us live. And he says, five stars for me. First family did a great job when I purchased a home in 2020. How about

that? Even got some folks who were not only ad-free shows.com family members, but also got hooked up and are saving some money. We'd love to help you too. Check it out right now. Save with Eric. By the way, and Isaac is a Grammy award-winning musician. There he is. Not some Tom Dick and Harry. Eric, we had a great time talking about the cruiserweight division, just creating the cruiserweight division. This was an excellent use of our time. I greatly appreciated this episode of 83 weeks.

We gave the AEW talk a little bit of a break this week, talked about some nostalgia. It felt familiar. It felt comfortable. It felt like 83 weeks. But this weekend is a big AEW pay-per-view. It's Russell Dream. And in the main event, it's Brian Danielson defending the AEW championship

against the former Dean Ambrose. We knew him these days as John Moxley, there's been a lot of speculation that this is it for Brian Danielson as an in-ring wrestler full-time. He, of course, has come out and said on television when he loses this title, that's it. And a lot of people think that's it.

Moxley's walking out with some gold this weekend. We're not going to be doing a normal reaction show because Eric is going to be on the road traveling, as you heard at the top of the program. He'll be in Minnesota. So I want to get your prediction right now. now, Eric, do you think this Saturday night, tomorrow night, as folks are listening, this is going to be the last time we see Brian Danielson for a while?

I hope so, because I think he needs some time away for no other reason than absence makes the heart grow fonder. Let's let the absence makes the heart grow fonder factor kick in. So Brian can come back and end his career on a high note, not on the type of note that we saw Wednesday night or Tuesday night. I encourage everybody to go out of your way to see it. If it is indeed, Brian Danielson's last match for quite a while, it's going to be real wrestling history.

And as far as looking at the rest of the car, I'd offer one and pump for Darby Allen and Brody King. We'll be talking about it sooner rather than later, I'm sure. But our thoughts and prayers right now are with what's happening this evening. Of course, Eric and I are recording on Wednesday night, but we all know that, man, there's a hell of a storm. Like a storm of almost biblical proportions is the way it's being spoken about right now. And, man, I sure hope that they got it wrong.

And I hope that everything's okay. Man, I don't know what to think about all these back-to-back hurricanes. I mean, this is a one-two punch that America did not need right now, Eric. Did not. And hopefully hurricane season will be over soon. And we've seen the last of it. Give everybody a break they need it. We'll give you a break.

And we'll be back next Friday and every Friday. In the meantime, if you just can't get enough Eric Bischoff, can I recommend 83 Weeks.com? That's your home for all. all things easy e it's totally free go hit the subscribe button turn on the notifications bell eric's going live all the time and you never know when he's going to be live again and consider becoming a member you heard eric teasing it he's going up with videos every single day or seemingly it feels like he's talking about the latest and greatest and they're short bursts and you get to

interact with them they're live it's 83 weeks dot com hit the subscribe button turn on the notifications bell and be sure to tune in next week we're talking all things wrestling right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. What would you do with two house payments? Tony Schiavani here to tell you about savewithconrad.com. When you refinance with Save With Conrad, you can do so with confidence, knowing not only will you get a great rate, but you will get to skip two house payments. You don't need perfect credit, and there's no money out of your pocket.

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