83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 347: What If?

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss a slew of "What If?" questions from listeners about the world of professional wrestling. What If Austin stayed in WCW? What If the Undertaker joined WCW? What If Eric never returned to wrestling after the AWA? What if Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks joined WWE in 2019? Those "What If" questions and so many more on this edition of 83Weeks with Eric Bischoff. TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://www.trueclassictees.com/83WEEKS ! #trueclassicpod MAGIC SPOON - MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order through https://magicspoon.com/83WEEKS , or look for Magic Spoon in your nearest grocery store! ZBIOTICS - Go to https://zbiotics.com/83WEEKS to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use 83WEEKS at checkout. 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 HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit https://hensonshaving.com/ERIC83 to pick the razor for you and use code ERIC83 and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com/savewitheric/ ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SavewithConrad.com. Eric Ward and Franklin, Tennessee. I first heard about Save for Conrad through a couple wrestling broadcast I listened to. 83 weeks and what happened when with Tony Shibani. And I decided to reach out and I'm so glad that I did. It was an absolute fabulous process. I was in a transition mode. I recently sold a home and I was looking for a mortgage on a new home purchase.

And Diana and the team at Supreme Lending was there to help him. They were absolutely fabulous to work with. They were knowledgeable, responsive, and made the process incredibly smooth. And I'll tell you this, the online portal was an absolute game changer. It provided regular updates at every step, giving me full visibility into where we were at in the process.

And on closing day, everything moved so fast and even my real estate agent was shocked. I'm telling you, I couldn't have been happy with the experience and would highly recommend, say with Conrad, anyone looking for a seamless mortgage process. I'm Eric Bort from Franklin, Tennessee, and I got into my dream home with Save WithConrad.com. NMLS number 2129, Equal Housing Lender, SavewithConrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and we are live at 83 Weeks.com early on a Friday morning.

And, of course, we couldn't do it without the hall of claimer himself, the only man to put Vince McMahon on his ad. It's not once, not twice, but 83 weeks in a row, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you this morning, man? I am good, and I'm so happy to be with you. Had a little bit of hiccup yesterday from a technical point of view, but we're here today, and I'm so glad we're doing it. Well, it's interesting. You're not in your home studio.

I can tell that from looking. And I saw a photo of you earlier this week with Rampage Jackson. What are you doing? Yeah, I came out to do the Jackson. podcast and had an absolute friggin blast. These guys, it was really fun. It was really fun. It was great to see Rampage. We did about a three-hour podcast. I'll be sending a link to it or setting it out as soon as we get it. But it was a good time. I haven't seen Rampage since the T&A day. So we got to catch up quite a bit. Well, we're going to be catching up with

Eric here today. We're doing Ask Eric Anything. So if you've got a question for Eric, drop it live here on YouTube and if you're listening and it's not Friday morning you missed your chance man go right now to hit the subscribe button at 83 weeks.com be sure to turn on that notifications bell so you don't miss the next time we're live but Eric before we get into all the questions I got a question yes what the heck's going on with you and MLW I saw all the sudden like what's happening oh you missed out on all the fun yeah it was really cool I was talking to Paul Walter Hauser doing an interview for wise choices and kind of talking about, we talked about a lot of things, you know, certainly his acting career and all the things

that are going on in his life right now in that regard, but also his passion for professional wrestling and how he's kind of working in reverse, you know, a lot of guys, look at the rock and John Cena, right? They made their name of professional wrestling, and then they went on to Hollywood. Well, Paul's doing it in reverse. He's starting out in Hollywood and working his way back into wrestling. So we talked a lot about that and how cool that is. But then in, you know, in the course of the conversation, Paul was, you know, kind enough to reflect back on WCW and made a comment about, you know, missing some of the stuff that I used to do. And before you know it, he's got cord on the phone and basically talk cord and let me take over MLW for one night.

So we're going to do that on December 5th. And I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be an absolute blast. Let me pull up their website right now. Are tickets on sale for that? Can I go to that? I think they are. I've seen it advertised quite a bit. Yeah.

MLWNYC.com is where you can get your tickets. Eric Bischoff's one shot and Eric Bischoff production. Man, I'm not going to miss this. Holy cow. You know, what's fun is it came up, you know, spontaneously, but started already working with course team, Jared and others and they're just really cool people and that's you know that's the one thing that I'm excited about because not that I don't like just you know making appearances because

it's always fun to get in front of the camera and kind of connect with the audience again and you get that get that live action buzz you know I I like that and I do miss it but what I miss the most is kind of the collaborative creative vibe when you've when you've got a fun team to, you know, that really enjoy working together and kind of complement each other's skills and perspectives. That's a blast. And that's what I'm doing now. So it's, it's just for fun, folks. It's just one night. It's a chance to go in there and leave my fingerprints on the physical product. I'm not just going in to do the general, you know, evil general manager thing anymore. This is a chance to get involved with production, work with David Sahati, who I worked

with it, TNA for a long time. David worked in WW. so it's good. I can't wait. Check it out right now, MLWNYC.com. I'm on the website right now, and I can't believe some of the names that are already announced for this. It does feel it's got a WCW,

Eric Bischoff-era feel. When you've got all this international talent, Suzuki is on this card. Minoro Suzuki is on this card. Kojima is on this card. Mystico, who's one of the biggest draws in the history of Mexico, he's on this card. And how about R&A,

Anderson's son is on this card. There's enough little remnants of WCW, in the ashes here. I'm excited to see this, man, MLWNYC.com. It's going to be here before you know it. It's going down December 5th in Queens, New York.

And if you can't make it there, it's going to be live on YouTube. It's a free show too, Eric, like, man, I want to be in the building, but just to know that you can watch online from anywhere in the world,

that's pretty cool. I didn't know that MLW was doing stuff like this, really. Yeah, there you know it's really uh it's fascinating to see where they're at the world of independent non-aligned wrestling is still very much alive and fun to watch well of course we've got to talk about some of the news and notes this week since you and i have been together uh we saw crown jewel come and go and we know now that cody roads is the crown jewel champion what an absurd belt that you see there for him and live morgan i mean a monstrosity is maybe the only

way to describe that thing and what a surreal visual to see cody in the middle of the ring at a crown jewel event with all the hardware and it was really fun watching this show because it just reminded me what a global opportunity professional wrestling presents i mean to see all of these thousands of folks singing all the theme songs and totally in tune with corners of the world that i'll never be in i mean it's it's crazy to think i know sometimes we think that the pro wrestling bubble is really small and at times it is as far as the internet wrestling community but wrestling fandom knows no language barriers whatsoever and that was on display this past weekend and you know the business end wwe's bringing in another 50 million bucks for that show or something

crazy what an what an opportunity that maybe a generation ago nobody would have ever even imagined no a generation ago if you would have taught i mean a wrestling generation ago like 25, 30 years ago, if you would have talked like this, people would, people would have asked you to seek help and find a way to connect with reality again. It's crazy. It's just, it's absolutely inconceivable. But it's one of the great things about wrestling. And I've talked about this in the past when it comes to international opportunities. Because, you know, unlike comedy, even music, fashion. A lot of it, you know, translates really well.

In fact, a lot of when it comes to fashion and music, you could argue that some of the biggest influences have come from Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. But when it comes to television programming, usually you don't get a lot of cross-culture success with programming just because cultures are different, humor's different, everything's different. But wrestling is the one thing that works.

works in the U.S., it works in Japan, it works in India. You know, the history of professional wrestling in India is quite fascinating. Stephen Regal can take you through a journey of some really cool stuff when it comes to Indian professional wrestling. But it does translate, unlike any other form of entertainment, translates internationally. It's just good, bad guy, bad guy in action, a physical narrative as opposed to the spoken word always works. I wasn't overwhelmed with the show. was a serviceable show for sure it does feel like some of these shows lack consequence and i appreciate that they created some stakes with these new championship titles and of course the rings

that will i assume we're going to see more and more of on programming so we'll see what happens but hey it was a it was a great opportunity for wb and as a fan i appreciated seeing you know just the the reach of pro wrestling so that was fun i also want to ask you about some some news that came out this week. We saw Mark Shapiro say that he had breakfast with Vince McMahon recently. And he clarified that Vince has not sold all of his stock. He's got something crazy like eight million shares. Actually, I think we have a clip of that. I want to play that for you here, Eric, so you can take a listen to what Shapiro said recently. Since we're talking about Vince, one question about Vince, he's not a part of the company anymore. He's sold out. Do you still hear from him at all? I had breakfast with him a few

weeks ago, just to check in. Been a long time. Haven't heard from him at all. Obviously, the series on Netflix came out. I wanted to see kind of where he was. By the way, he couldn't have been more cooperative. He couldn't have been, he couldn't have been nicer. I mean, he was a total pro at breakfast, if you will. It's a one-on-one get-together. But he's out of the business entirely. He doesn't make decisions. He's not on the board. He doesn't opine. We don't consult him. He's got some litigation that he's working through. And frankly, he wants the privacy and the time to work through it, which is great because in the meantime, we're going to keep building TKO and WWE and expanding the horizon, expanding the opportunities. And by the way, he's still a shareholder.

Not the shareholder he once was, but he's still a shareholder. But he's supportive of the direction WWE is going in and is gone. Couldn't have been more positive, but I wasn't asking for his opinion. What did you think of that? I think that sounds about right. You know, Vince isn't going to sell. We know that. You know, are we surprised at Vince, you know, put on a happy face and was completely professional in the words of Shapiro? That doesn't surprise me at all. That's Vince. He's a pro's pro. And he's not going to sell. He could be, he may have wanted to rip Shapiro's throat out. But the only person that'll know that would be Vince. He wouldn't sell it. So now, look, let's, I hope, take it a face value. There's no reason not to take it to face value.

And I hope all of that is true. I hope Vince is chilling, not that he's kicking back, but I hope that he's starting to relax a little bit and is able to focus on the things that are important. And clearly getting rid of this litigation is got to be top of his list. And maybe then we'll see what Vince is all about and where he's going. But good for him, I guess. As good as it can be under the circumstances, sounds like. Have you ever known of anyone, have you ever met anyone personally who's better at compartmentalization?

Vince McMahon no yeah you know I used to think my wife was pretty good at it you know she talked a lot about that when we first you know got to know each other about how she handled certain situations stress and all of it and she talked a lot about that something that she learned how to do um you know in a positive way um but i think Vince probably is an example of so many diverse but intensely unique characteristics that being one of them. I can't help but draw some parallels to him and some other famous people who had a big week this week. You mentioned the litigation that might be looming. I think a lot of people believe with the news that we got on Tuesday and then the announcement that about

believe followed on either Wednesday or Thursday that Linda McMahon is going to be a big part of the new administration here in the United States. Do you think that has any effect? I mean, I think all common sense would say that's probably not bad for Vince. Obviously, neither you nor I are in that lane, but do you have an immediate knee-jerk reaction to that? my first one really had to do with linda in that role and look people can say whatever they want to say about trump i'm not here to change anybody's mind or convert anybody into any way of thinking especially mine i have a hard time managing it myself i wouldn't wouldn't want to share this burden with anybody trust me but if loyalty is in

important characteristic to someone, I think you have to look at Trump and recognize that for him, possibly, I don't know him, but just based on what you see and hear and observe in this case with Linda, he's a very loyal guy because it takes a different kind of commitment to commit to someone, for Trump to commit to someone like Linda, put her in such a high profile position when the world knows what's going on in her personal life at least a part of it a good part of it the uncomfortable part of it and you know that would have been an easy decision would have been an easy conversation for someone on trump's on trump's team to have the limit and say you know linda the president would love to have you in this role but you know obviously under the

circumstances the timing isn't right can we wave blah blah blah no damn the torpedoes and he's loyal to the to him. And I, like I said, no matter what you think of them, that is a loyalty and integrity is a characteristic that I think doesn't get enough attention. And I think Trump is showing that. So good, good for Linda. I'm sure this is making her very happy and fulfilled in her career. And we'll see what it does, if anything, for Vince. Stay tuned. That's going to be an interesting Q1 next year, I think. Let's talk a little bit about what happened on Wednesday night. We saw nxte take on a ew and we want to hear from you guys if you watch that show or either of those shows i

can't wait to hear your feedback drop those questions below but it was an interesting show because we had for the first time in a while a w on a wednesday night now we've seen i'm sorry w w s nxte on a wednesday night we've seen dynamite go to t a few times for preemptions but this time it was wwee's turn and they pulled out all the stops they did a live broadcast from the old ECW Arena. WWE there is just a crazy thought to me. And they sprinkled some ECW nostalgia throughout it. We saw Rob Van Dam and we saw Bully Ray and Devon and we saw Nunzio and Tony Mommeluke

and we saw Rhino, lots of cool sort of tip of the cap to ECW and the history in that building with Francine and Don Marie and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but it was a fun nostalgia show. And man, it really did a number. number relative to what AEW did. NXT, the big winner on the overnight ratings. Did you get a chance to catch either show and were you surprised that an NXT show on a different night in the ECW arena beat AEW in the ratings?

I'll take the latter part first. No, I'm not surprised when I read the ratings at all. NXT is a hotter brand. Just that simple. So I wasn't surprised at the outcome in terms of ratings. I didn't know much about it creatively going in. And I wasn't able to see it because I was actually traveling here to Los Angeles on Wednesday. So I did not get a chance to see it. But heard a lot about it, read a lot about it. Congratulations to NXT. Somebody that

I know predicted that this was going to happen like, I don't know, a year ago. Everybody thought he was crazy. What was that cast name? I can't remember. He's like fucking right all the time, though. I do know that about what I've heard about him. He's like almost always right. I don't know we'll figure it up well here's what I know I absolutely loved seeing the w.U show in the ECW arena I love that we got bubarae inviting divan down because they couldn't find the table it was a really fun little moment especially if we know their history and their history with WWE and all back again in the ECW arena it was just classic stuff speaking of classics how about true classics just in time for the

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a w's doing right now they've they've started to do a bit of a pivot in the way they're marketing their live events we've started to see them announced matches more in advance so we know who's wrestling who a week from now two weeks from now three weeks from now so there are some matches announced ahead of time almost a page out of the way live events were advertised for years and years with both WWF and WCW. So we would start to promote here's the matches you're going to see

either at a house show or even as a dark match. So we don't really know where the TV is going to take us. I'm talking back in the raw and nitro days. But the dark match, we would get out on radio and television far in advance. They've started to do some of that with AEW now and they've even

started to offer a discount. They have a promotion going right now, Eric, called November to remember. of course, that's an old ECW phrase, an old ECW pay-per-view. I love that they called it that the same night WWE was running the ECW arena, but they're offering a discount sale

for 40% off the tickets. And Eric, you have been in a time in WCW where you couldn't damn give tickets away at Center Stage. You've talked about it before here on the show. And then you've been there other times where it would be, you know, hey, we sold out the very first day we went on sale. And that was even more impressive back then because people weren't buying tickets online.

They weren't buying tickets, you know, through an app on their phone. They had to go stand in line at a box office or call an 800 number until they could get through and give a credit card to an operator and get tickets in the mail. I mean, that feels like 100 years ago.

But you were there when you couldn't give them away and then when you just sold out immediately. And I wonder, what do you think of this? Let's advertise matches in advance and let people know what they're going to see well in advance, at least a match or two. And let's couple that with a 40% discount. What do you think of that right now, Eric?

Well, on the surface, it's a good idea, right? They're doing something. They're addressing an issue. So I think anytime you wake up in the morning and you go, hmm, I have an issue. Let's figure out how to address it. That's at least the beginning of a good day. It likely won't be enough because unless there's meeting behind the matches,

that they advertise in advance unless the audience is emotionally connected to the product and is excited about being there because of that emotional connection, whether they announce the match in advance or not really won't matter. Now, if they are connected

and there is a story or there are characters that people are genuinely motivated to go out of their way to not only part with cash, that's part of it, but to block out the time and make the commitment to physically be at the venue to watch this. That takes in a commitment beyond just, oh, it happens to be on television,

but now they're in my hometown, so I'm going to go check it out. That won't work, and that's what they've been doing. There's just not enough, there's not enough meat on the bone when it comes to the characters and the stories for people to go out of their way to watch it. Now, if they can reduce the ticket price, that's a good idea, especially this time of year, right? People are, you know, cash is tight. It is what it is.

So if you can address that by offering a 40% off in this case, start talking about matches in advance. But if they can, if they can fill the other hole, which is make it mean something, make it important. If they can do that, perhaps this could be a pretty interesting fourth quarter for them. If they don't do that, it's just it is what it is. You know, the average ticket price for WWB this time last year was around $95. This is what I read recently from Brandon Thurston.

And now I think it's like 127. So ticket prices are on the rise for WWB and their at capacity or near capacity for a lot of their events these days. AW is not having that same success packing those buildings and their tickets are already more affordable. I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sold on the fact that a 40% of, discount or a 60% discount. I don't think there is a discount out there that gets the arena's full. I mean, I know that once upon a time,

you know, you guys would in T&A just give away the tickets and maybe that kills you. It is a slippery slope, I feel like Eric, you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't. It doesn't feel like there is a magic bullet.

Like if they could just pull this one lever, everything changes. I don't think that exists right now. No, no. Well, there is. It does. But it all comes down to the quality of the product and whether people are genuinely connected to it or not. Not some dirt sheet, Reddit guy, you know, posting for cage match, cage match rankings attention.

But I'm talking about, you know, the average semi-regular wrestling fan that just loves to be entertained by professional wrestling. you know, 98.9% of them of the audience. We'll see. You know, that's the one thing that they could do. And I just don't think that Tony's capable. Number one, I don't think he's capable himself. It's just not a skill that he was born with. He has probably been born with the other skills that I don't have and you don't have.

And he should be focusing on the things that he's really good at and let go of the things that he's not. But he's not going to do that. I can't wait to see what's next for AEW. It does feel like they're going to have to start shifting it in a high gear because they've got this big stadium event coming up next year in Texas. And that's going to be a real interesting test for AEW because we've seen them sort of rise to the occasion internationally. And now they're going to try to do that domestically.

And that actually brings up a question that we got from our live studio audience here today. Michael Stuttler says, I'm sorry, my apologies. Lucas Kinzer says, what nation or nations do you think are an untapped or underserved market for a big show similar to what WWE has done

in Saudi or Australia? Well, we know AEW is going to try their hand in Australia in the first quarter next year. Is there another international opportunity that you think could be exciting for AW? For AEW, you know, I don't know what kind of television they have internationally.

Look, Australia is cool because it's so much like the U.S. in terms of the culture and the way the culture responds to promotion and advertising. It's very, very similar to the U.S. audience in that regard. If I was Tony Kahn, I would be focusing on India. and nobody's really quite figured it out yet, at least not to the extent that the market potential should dictate.

It's the big market. I read somewhere that there's 350 million people in the United States, right? Men, women, and children, according to census, close to it. 350 million people in the U.S. There are 350 million active WWFEs in India. So I don't know that WWE's quite figured it out. Certainly, AEW hasn't probably been around long enough to attempt it to figure it out. But somebody's going to figure out that market and figure out the combination of things that work.

Figure out how to tap into the native Indian culture and understand what excites them and motivates them. I was talking to Barat, San Dresen, the other day. And, you know, he and I are working on this, we call it bumps and stumps, you know, bumps for wrestling and stumps for cricket, where it's kind of combined cricket professional wrestling show targeted for the Indian audience, really. And we're just playing around with the format and things like that. But I've learned a lot, you know, in talking to Barat about cricket, but also he's a massive wrestling fan and is very familiar with, you know, the history of professional wrestling. in the India and the evolution of television and wrestling on television in India and the timing. But, you know, he pointed out to me that, you know, a lot of times like Jr. Mahal, for example,

he comes in as, you know, a caricature of almost a silly Bollywood parody. And, of course, the Indians in India don't really dig that. You know, it's not interesting to them. It's kind of silly to them. so if you could really figure out what kind of a character do indians respond to because we're all different culturally you know that matters but figure out how to really tap into the psychology of the indian audience and give them what they want it would be awesome it really interesting that's what i would focus on about as tony do the research man figure it out you could change your world overnight kind of it's crazy to think what a you know we just started the show talking about crown jewel and what a huge opportunity wrestling represents just globally it's going to be interesting to see is there another country out there that you know these wrestling companies can see massive success and i know that they're always looking for the next big thing coach rosy's with us here live today and he says eric what do you think about the new wwe ed training program uh as we're recording this i think just last night. Booker T's reality of wrestling had some, some talent that was revealed and announced. And it's interesting that WWE is taking an interest in independence. I, um, I'm curious to hear

your thoughts on this. What do you think of this idea and opportunity for WWE or the performers on the independence right now? I think the focus on the independent scene is natural. I think it's exciting. I think it's only going to continue to feed the interest. interest in and commitment to independent wrestling around the country. More and more people are going to want to do it. That's great. It's a very interesting scene in the fact that WWE is looking to the independent scene and the marketplace for talent and developing talent.

It's good for everybody, man. It's good for the for the talent themselves because there's an increased opportunity to be noticed. And that's what it comes down to. And there's a little bit of a structure. in a process if you're in one of these schools where you can get a little bit of exposure that you would otherwise not get. It's great for the fans on the independent scene because they're going and they're watching

these young kids and women as they're developing. And, you know, you wonder, are they going to be the next big, you know, professional wrestling superstar, whether it's in WWE or AEW or MLW or anywhere else? You get to watch some, it's kind of like, you know, AAA ball clubs and farm teams and shit like that. so i think it's really cool i think everybody wins and i think wwee ultimately by keeping a closer eye and maybe just being a little more connected to the indie scene we'll probably get first looks at some pretty interesting talent that'll just help them feed the machine for the future

i want to follow up on that in two ways one i want to ask you know i know there was some negativity when this was first announced, because years ago, WWE tried to do something with independence over in the UK, and folks over there would say, boy, WWE just wrecked the European,

uh, independents scene, just totally ravaged it. Uh, and, and what was left behind was not the booming business that it was at first. I would say, if I'm,

if I'm trying to be the delusional optimist that Jeff Jarrett calls me sometimes, perhaps it was, that was the old regime. That was a Vince McMahon-led WWB. This is a whole new ballgame now with TKO and Triple H. Would you agree with that? 100%.

Yeah. 100%. They look at the world completely different. You heard one of those things that I noticed that Shapiro would say is he kept harping on it. And he harps out it every time I hear him in an interview or read something and he wrote. Or read something that he said. They're going to expand opportunities. that's what he's focused on growing the business and I it's a much different company

with it with a different philosophy and that's what makes it fun to watch where's it going to go I totally agree I'm going to be optimistic I'm going to I'm going to hang in there and try to see the positive in it and be hopeful but I also wanted to ask you know from a wrestler perspective is this something you would advise you know for a to sign a WWE contract, an ID contract like this. I guess what I'm saying is. Go ahead. No, I guess, you know, how restrictive are those contracts? You know, if it's really not that restrictive and these young talents still have an

opportunity to go out and learn and try and get the reps, wherever they want to get the reps without a lot of conditions or limitations, and hell yeah, sign that deal. but if they start telling you where and when and how when you're so young in just learning I think that could be that could come back to bite you and the ass you know respectfully I think we've seen a lot of talent through the years now I don't know what the circumstance has been in WWE under a triple H regime but back in the day

when a talent came in on an NXT contract it was usually for not a great sum of money and they had to sort of work up to their big first main roster contract and then even that might be okay but they were working towards that second contract on the main roster and that's certainly what we've seen in say professional football you get your rookie contract out of the way and you make all your money once you've sort of proven that you got the goods the second contract is where you can really make a lot of money and my concern from the individual performer standpoint is almost everyone who's wrestling on the independence not everyone but almost everyone

on the independence grew up wanting to be a WWE superstar their grandmother and their aunt used to give them action figures for Christmas or their birthdays it's been their dream to be the rock or Stone Cold or John Cinar or what have you I don't think there are a lot of kids who said when I grow up I want to be the face of the challenger brand that's never been the thing everybody wanted the main event WrestleMania that was the goal now along the way do those goals change sure I mean AEW didn't exist back then I'm not dunking on then I'm just saying that was the dream and so I wonder will a lot of these talent get a contract opportunity and it says wwee on the letterhead and oh my god this is the dream come true and then realize later

man by signing that I lost any leverage I had at better money or different creative or because if they're sort of getting first ride of refusal it makes me wonder do you toil away on the independence and and you're doing well but you could be doing better and you get this offer from AEW for instance or TNA or New Japan or whoever and you're excited about it because oh my gosh this is what I've really been wanting and you if the nature of the contract and I don't know I'm just speculating if the nature of the contract is you got to show it to WWE first you sort of eliminate any leverage that you have as a performer at that time right yeah and that's what I mean you just you you want to keep your options open and

It's a balancing act, right? Because, I mean, you get that W.W.E. ID agreement, whatever that represents. Again, it's hard to really have this conversation without knowing what's contracts look like. But I think it's safe to assume because it's WWE. There's going to be some restrictions in it or at least language that will kind of keep you between certain rails, so to speak. You don't want to say, I don't really think I want to do that. But at the same time, you really don't want to do. that if if it's restrictive and that's you know we'll find out that information will start to leak

eventually i suspect it won't be too restrictive keep in mind w w we got spanked by court bower nonetheless um legally regarding some you know monopoly type 20 million dollars who yeah right so and for you know for for tk oh that's yeah that hurt but they actually have insurance for that kind of thing more than likely um so aside from the financial impact it's kind of like okay now there's a precedent now you're on notice be more careful so i would imagine the agreements are going to be pretty loose and they'll probably be more favorable to the talent than we would assume under the previous regime that want to control everything, including your dreams.

I think they'll probably be pretty loose just for that reason alone that I was talking about with MLW. They want to avoid any look of controlling the marketplace beyond what they already do. And you also have an issue of, you know, we're talking about, and this is a totally separate issue, and it raises its ugly head about once every eight years, 10 years, but the whole independent contractor issue. Now, if those agreements with WWID are too restrictive, now you're putting these people who really aren't even really being paid by you, or if they are minimal amounts of money and telling them what they can and can't do

and where they can't do it, and where they can't do it, that puts your whole independent contractor status at least on the table for conversation again. And you don't want that, you don't want that conversation too regularly because it's just a matter of time before it gets too much attention i totally agree those are great points eric i i'll be honest i hadn't ever really considered the independent contractor discussion but that is going to become part of the discussion much like eating too much sugar he is which is why i started eating magic spoon listen as a kid we all sat down with a big bowl of cereal and enjoyed our saturday morning wrestling but then as an adult you realize hey i probably don't need to be eating all that sugar

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the show and save you some dough magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks hey I wanted to ask you one more thing before we move on to some of the questions that we got from fans I don't know if you saw last week because I know you're not a college football junkie like I am but there's college football there's game day that everybody watches on ESPN but there's another sort of countdown show in the morning on the SEC network. This is called SEC Nation. And last weekend, Georgia played Florida. And to my surprise, Florida hung around.

Florida's icon, of course, is Tim Tebow. And he's one of the talking heads on SEC Nation. And if he, of course, had the big Florida Gators belt over his shoulder. And that's an item that fanatic sells. So Michael Rubin's getting money left and right. Here we go. And then here comes Bill Goldberg to represent the Georgia Bulldogs for that matchup. And he too has one of those fanatics, Georgia Bulldog belts on his shoulder.

I don't know that this was intentional. Maybe it was. It doesn't seem like WWE's been promoting it. But Goldberg, in a conversation there, says, yeah, I'm having my retirement match next year. And they show a clip of him and his jaw jacking with Gunther that you and I saw at that pay-per-view a few weeks ago and we discussed. And he said, and if you're seeing that, you can probably guess who my opponent might be. and when you take a look at next year,

you can't help but wonder, WrestleMania, two nights, one of those matches being Goldberg's last match. I mean, Rick Flair had one of the greatest WrestleMania retirement send-offs of all time. Do you think we're going to see Goldberg retire at WrestleMania next year?

What do you think of that? I hope we do. I hope Bill gets that opportunity. I think with Triple H and the team, in place at the helm it'll probably turn out to be pretty good pretty entertaining um it sounds exciting you know it it sounds like a fun thing to be a part of russomania we'll see bill's also been known to step out over his skis a couple times in interviews okay maybe maybe he's kind of forcing the issue and planting seeds like with a jackhammer planting seeds um but but it sounds like

But, you know, and that set up between him and Gunther, that was a little too well executed to not be something that at least had been in discussion. So I expect to see it. Well, you never know what to expect to see in WWE, but, you know, you and I are doing this live on Friday morning. And as we're talking this morning about international opportunities for WWV and AEW, WW sends out a press release that the Rogers Center in Toronto is getting the 2025 elimination chamber match. It's going to be set for March 1st, 2025. That's pretty wild to think another stadium show. You know, we know now that WrestleMania is going to be a couple of weeks into April.

So the March show, which is normally a lame duck show, if you will, it's now a stadium show in Toronto, the elimination chamber. You know, there's going to be a lot of stakes in that show for what we see at WrestleMania. It seems like everything WWE is touching starting to gold right now, doesn't it? Yeah, and that event's going to be off the charge. The crowd in, you know,

Toronto, Montreal, the crowd is just so intense, and that's going to make whatever they do in the ring even better. You know, the crowd and the reaction from the crowd, when it comes to the people who are watching at home who can't be there,

it adds a factor of about 50% or 80% to your enjoyment. If the crowd's really into it, whatever it is you're watching feels a whole lot more exciting than it might be if the crowd wasn't as excited as they are. So it'll be fun. You got to think Hulk Hogan's going to be at that event too. I mean, Canada obviously loves their Hulkomania. And my first memory of the Skydome,

which is now the Rogers Center, is WrestleMania 6 with Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. I mean, it's such a big time main event for a little kid fan like myself at the time. You never know where Hulk Hogan's

going to pop up these days, though. Of all places, he's in Huntsville, Alabama today. He's in my hometown today at like five different locations promoting the real American beer. And it's reached so far that even my mom and dad hit me up.

They saw it. It was all over the news here. Hey, are you going to be hanging out with Hulk Hogan tomorrow? It's like, no, mom, he's working. I've always wanted to meet him. And I'm like, well, he's going to be at Liquor Express tomorrow from one to two things.

Go see him, mom. That's right down the street from the house. But if your mom wants to go see him or your dad or you, just let me know. I'll text him and he'll take the time to give your mom a hug. Sneak your mom in the back door. It's so, I don't know if we need to say that again on the year. Uh, it's so wild to me that Hulk Hogan, after sort of being almost a recluse for a few years, we just didn't see him at all.

I mean, he made very rare appearances. Now my man's out there making towns. He's doing rallies and, and meet and greets. I think he's got five stops in Huntsville today, Eric. And yesterday he was in like Fair Hope, Alabama down on the south end of the state. He had three or four. Like, this dude's burning the candle at both ends right now. it's amazing i you know i talked to him a week or so ago and he kind of gave me his

schedule i said dude you're having fun again because it's hard to get hulk to travel he's been around a lot and it's really hard to get him to get on a plane and to travel but he's he is burned into both ends you know his beer he's he's doing he's doing incredibly well with it across the country i mean i would not be surprised if one of the bigger beer brands, Miller Coors, same company, Miller Coors, Budweiser, somebody's going to pick up that brand. And it's because of the hard work he and his team are doing. He's really committed to it.

What a crazy world we live in. We're going to get right into our topic today. But before we do, I want to mention that one of the highlights at last years or earlier this year's Top Guy Weekend was when we had Jason Hervey come in and chat with you was the first time you caught you guys caught up in a long time and i can't believe this is real but we're about to have a clip here of of jason hervey sitting down with the top guys from ad free shows dot com like this is a bona fide megastar i mean who who is an icon his family is an icon in hollywood and he's sitting down taking questions just like we're sitting here right now let's roll that

footage. LWO and Latino World Order, it was really kind of like coming from a place where Eddie, may he rest in peace, who was, he was always so nice to me. I love that guy. He was really great and fun to work with. And, you know, he was a good man to me and to all my interactions that I had with him. You know, he was pretty unhappy with where he was at in the card at that time. So it was in a way kind of like him challenging the establishment, him kind of saying, hey, I can do this too. And it was just kind of set up perfectly with the NWO already being established. So Eric when I, we were sitting at a bar, of course. And I told him, I said, hey, you know how we talked about Eddie recently. And just kind of the cruiser and Lucha Division, he was like, yeah. And I

just, I pitched to Eric. And I said we could call it the, you know, the Latino world order the LWO. And if it works, we can sell a bunch of merch. And Eric was like, that's really good. He's like, Eddie can cut one hell of a promo to kind of kick this thing off. He's like, yeah, I'm going to do it. Let's do it. So that's really how it happened.

All these behind the scenes stories, you can't hear anywhere else at ad-free shows.com. There's over 100,000 hours like that of exclusive content with the Godfather, Tully Blanchard, Lex Lugar, David Crockett, and so many more right now at ad free shows.com and right now because you listen to 83 weeks, if you use our promo code Eric 25, you'll get 25% off your first month. Go try it right now. That's code Eric 25 at checkout and you'll get 25% off your first month at ad free shows.com. By the way, it starts at just $9 a month. What are you waiting for? Give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

I didn't know that story about the LWO. That's a fun story. Yeah, I think the only part that I remember differently is I think we were in a restaurant, not a bar, but, but I do remember the in fact, it was an Italian restaurant, a famous one in L.A. Not a big one, not like a, like a Han famous. Not that, but like a local neighborhood family owned Italian restaurant that everybody loved. That I do remember because everything comes back to food for me. If there's, if there's a memory and I can associate it with food, I got it. If I can't attach food to it, it doesn't last long. But yeah, well, that was, that was the case. I remember it well. And I remember I didn't have to think about it long. It was like, oh, LWO, Tina World Order. Very cool. I like that.

Still exists, right? They're still selling T-shirts. Yeah, they're still doing it. Yeah, it's still a thing. Let's talk about today's topic. Today's topic is a little different than ask Eric anything, but you can still ask Eric anything. Just hit the subscribe button. Keep those questions coming. We'll get to you. But today is about what ifs, Eric. oh i love that life liberty the pursuit of happiness but the level of what ifs has come up a lot in professional wrestling and recently you did a top five on youtube over here at 83 weeks com where this proposition was brought to you what if you didn't have medusa throw the wf women's title in the trash how different is the montreal screw job

and now we're going to run through some of the what ifs and ask you for your perspective on them the first one comes from us all the way from huntsville alabama there's a fellow up there named conrad thompson who wants to know what if sting showed up tan at starcate 1997 what then yeah i mean i'm a descriptor but would it have changed anything yeah yeah it would have made my life a whole lot freaking easier and i wouldn't have to bear the burden of being the guy that screwed this shit up for the rest of my life that part would have been better for sure but no i think if if look i was in the room i felt what was going wrong and i'm confident when i say that if sting would have walked into that room

confident ready to go prepared mentally and physically it would have been an entirely different night and i don't take pleasure in saying that i'm not offending myself in any way i'm not saying it for that reason. I'm not defending Hulk Hogan, not making excuses. Just be very honest. You know, it's when you walked into that room, it was dark. It was life, the energy changed and not in a good way. I think had the energy been there and the commitment, the excitement been there, would have been a different light. Let's do another question here. This comes to us from Justin. He's over on Twitter at Cohiba 40. He says, what if Hogan backed out of being the third man and Sting did get that spot? Does the NWO get as big as it did? Or does it get

fed to Hogan quickly since he had the ultimate tan? Oh, I look, it would have worked. That was the original plan before Hogan, before Halk threw his name in the hat called me out to California while he was locked down on location and said I want to be the third man before that night it was going to be sting you know the question of whether it would have been it would have gotten as big or lasted as long who knows right that's such a hypothetical and there's certain variables that you just can't you can't measure you can't quantify would it have been a big enough shock for sting to turn heel sting wasn't as big of a character as Hulk Hogan was.

He didn't have the time at the top of the national spotlight that Hogan did, but he was an intense character. And perhaps that turn may have launched him into another stratosphere. We will never know. My gut tells me it would have been a very successful story. It would have been a very successful angle.

But it wouldn't have had the legs. And more importantly, if Sting would have been the third man, we would have never had the crow character, which I think is so much better for Sting ultimately. So one of those that are hard to say. I think it would have been successful. I just don't think the angle would have lasted as long or been as enduring, quite frankly, as it currently is. I saw someone recently on Twitter, and it was tagged to me and you. I don't have the tweet right in front of me. I'd love to give them some credit and a shout out.

But someone suggested, hey, it should have never been Sting as a backup. It should have been Lex Lugar because Lex was sort of the first guy to jump ship from the WWF over to WCW on the very first Nitro. So maybe you could have positioned it like he was the first to infiltrate WCW and then bring Kevin Nash and Scott Hall along because the stories are similar in that you've established before here. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall played Vinnie Vegas and Diamond Stud and they felt disrespected and passed over and what have you in WCW so they went to the WWF and now they're back to extract some revenge Lex Lugar had a similar circumstance he starts in WCW goes to the WVF comes back Lex Lugar being the third man could have actually worked and I know we stretchered him off but if that

changes in the course of the match that might have worked It could have, but that would have been more obvious. You know what I mean? Because it makes sense on paper, because of Lex's association with WWE and the parallels with him and Scott and WCW, for all the reasons that I agree with that make a very interesting backstory, it also makes it a little bit predictable, which doesn't mean it wouldn't have worked? No, it would have worked. Lex would have made perfectly good sense.

but I just can't imagine too many people if they think about it would think that Lex even though it made tremendous sense would have had the same impact as the shock and awe of Hogan turning heel because nobody expected that one Ed Burkine over on Twitter he jokingly says what if Mabel was the third man I mean I know that that has become a gag here years ago on the show but if Mabel had a spot in WCW, I mean, he was a

natural fit for the Dungeon of Doom, wasn't he? Yeah, maybe. Kevin Sullivan would have loved to work with him. Yeah, for sure. Tigers at the Aquarium at Aquarium Tigers over on Twitter. He wants to know, Eric, what if Sean Michaels had been the one to leave the WWF instead of Brett? Yeah, another interesting one.

You know, I don't know where Sean was at in terms of his personal challenges in 90s when did brett come over 97 he's gone from w to be four months later so there's your answer yeah um yeah i would have rather not had that experience at that time you know now sean healthy much like you know when scott hall was clean and sober and really out his game probably amazing to be around and a wealth of knowledge and creativity but during that period of time i i didn't need any more stress than I already had. It would have been pretty crazy to think that there was at least in an alternate universe

a match on Nitro with Ada Guerrero versus Sean Michaels. Wow. I would have been that out. Sean Michaels with Ultima Dragon versus Sean Michaels with Sting versus Sean Michaels. Like there's a whole lot of fun what ifs of Sean Michaels in WCW. Is there one match that you think just as a wrestling fan? hey that would be a great match and then is there a story that you think boy that could have really worked i know i'm putting you on the spot but yeah the story i can't pull a story

you know out of my hat so to speak but um i mean when you said eddie grero shan michaels just you saying that created an image in my head that was pretty exciting for a brief moment that would have been i just don't even know how cool that would have been it's hard to imagine how great that match could have been. Ray Mysterio, not quite as much. I think I would have preferred Eddie of the two, Eddie. Oh, for sure. Would have been my kind of match, much more so than Ray.

But yeah, pretty cool. It's interesting to think, too, if you recall, based on the rumor and innuendo, when Vince McMahon really wanted the macho man to move out of the ring and get behind the announced desk. He still wanted to wrestle. And allegedly, he was really eyeing a feud with Sean Michaels. And that was way back in 94.

So to think in 98, when Sean had already been established as a top guy, now instead of macho trying to bring him up, the idea that we saw a 1998 macho man against Sean Michaels, that could have been fun. I mean, 98 Sean Michaels versus Rick Flair could have been fun. There's a lot of fun what ifs, man. Yeah. but you would have had to pull it up with Sean Michaels.

That's true. It was already challenging. So that's kind of like saying, man, what if I would have just been walking by that convenience store that just happened to sell that $500 million lottery ticket? What if I just happened to walk in and buy a bottle of water and some Doritos and bought a lottery ticket instead of that guy or that woman? Sure.

You can go down that rabbit hole if you want. But for me, it was like, could I tolerate whatever? out what could I add another layer of chaos into an already chaotic situation with some of the talent I had at the time no thank you I barely survived what I did it would be interesting to think because if Sean comes over in 97 that would have been before you showed Sean Waltman the door so you would have kind of had the click back together and if they were all a part of the NWO the NWO just becomes the click that yeah that's pretty cool yeah where were you when I needed you i might have tolerated sean i might have found a way to deal with it imagine if they split off

at that point and the nw o black and white is hogan and savage and you know the giant and things like that you've got you've got some great you know if you've got some meat on the bone backstory you could go a number of different ways with that too that's fun because then the wolf pack becomes the click so now you've got sort of the old guard versus the wolf pack you know we don't need staying in there anymore or lex luger it could just be the click first version kind of a fun what if here on 83 weeks today we can have a lot of fun in this rabbit hole what we need to do is we need to break out some cocktails and do like a boozy 83 weeks where we talk about these what ifs and maybe we have some special guests but before we do

that i know you and i are reaching for our zbiotics we are big believers in this product eric actually put me on this years ago i think we were in Denver it may have been before that but I know for sure that we were at a podcast conference, and we had to be on stage, bright and early, first thing the next morning, but we had just had a great day talking about our podcast with the different agencies out there. And Eric said, hey, let's go belly up to the bar

and have a few drinks. And then he reached down in his bag, and he pulled out ZBionics. And it's a game-changing product that we're using now before a night out with drinks. And let's just be honest. After a night out with drinks, we don't bounce back the next day.

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What if you left, the AWA and never entered the business again, what do you think your life would have looked like? Like if I saw another what if said, hey, what if Vern didn't go for the ninja star's opportunity? Like if that was it, do you think you still would have pursued wrestling or would you have pursued? Yeah. No, I mean, wrestling was not anything that I'd ever. I never once in my life for even a brief moment, even fantasizing as a kid. at the peak of my wrestling fandom, which I would pin at about 15 or 16 years old in Minnesota,

watching the AWA. Not even then did it ever cross my mind. And I've always been a hustler. I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always been looking for that next really cool opportunity, something that excites me to get up in the morning and attack the day. That's what I live for, right? And the hunt.

I love the hunt. I love to chase. But at no point during the peak of my hunting and chasing and gathering inclinations, did I ever think about stepping foot inside of the professional wrestling business in any way, shape, or form. As a radio, it was never big enough. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't any potential for a character in the ring. So I never saw myself as that. And I didn't know enough about the business side of it to even consider it.

So no, I would have ended up in sales of some kind. I was a sales manager for a food processor. I had at any one time, he usually had about 12 to 16, 18 salespeople working for me. I hired them. I trained them. I worked with them, you know, to develop their skills. And I did that for a couple of years and it was pretty good at it.

You know, a lot of the salespeople I hired were older salespeople from different, you know, corporate sales functions and I really was able to teach them a lot and become productive and I love that process. It's like developing talent. It's no different than I think directing talent backstage in terms of the satisfaction that I was getting out of that. So I think I probably would have definitely would have stayed in some kind of a sales capacity. It's just a question of what, you know, who knows what I would have been selling. Friend of the show, Florida man, at Dave and the HSV on Twitter. to know what if only one of either hall or nashd jumped over to wcw instead of both what would

the direction have been for just one outsider i don't know i i what could it have been you know we could have possibly figured out another angle to create the n w story it would have been different than, you know, wait until my big buddy shows up next week. There wasn't much of a tease or a mystery when it came to Kevin. There was about a week's worth or two weeks worth at the most. So it wasn't a mystery kind of play, which means we could have done something else and maybe set up the NWO without Kevin Nash. It would have been not nearly as good, clearly.

And it was powerful, but I think we still could have. Beyond that, I don't know, man. We'd have that, that, that one requires a long show. and a couple beers before I can shift into that gear and just start spit that idea off the top of my head. Median 5 on Twitter wants to know, what if Hogan didn't join WCW in 94? Boy, that changes everything, doesn't it?

Yeah, it sure does. It sure does. If Hogan would have passed, would Ted Turner have been, is determined to go head to head with WWE without Hogan? That's my point. I think Nitro doesn't exist without Hogan. Yeah, that's what I was going to try to back into. And I think you're absolutely right.

I agree with you. That's fascinating to me to think about. Hey, here's a great question. Aldo Manuel Banda says, what if instead of going to WCW, Eric went to the UFC after leaving the AWA? Now, the timeline doesn't exactly line up. But let's pretend that the AWA goes out of business. You're trying to work some sales gimmicks and do your thing and making ends meet

as you've discussed before on the show and then the UFC comes on and man it's a force and knowing you're fighting background and I mean you fought you're in karate tournaments on ESPN or kickboxing tournaments whatever the point is that feels like that would have been right up your alley more so than even professional wrestling in an alternate universe I could have seen you being a part of the early UFC team pre-even Dana White coming aboard right you know it's It's funny when I was doing the Jackson podcast, that's J-A-X-O-N. They make some badass jewelry, too, by the way. These guys are so fascinating.

They're a big jewelry company, lifestyle company, but they've created a podcast and they've built a MMA gem. They've got boxing trainers in there. It's just this whole lifestyle brand and they decided they wanted to create a podcast to support it and they're just killing it. They're doing so great. But when I was talking to to Rampage in that interview, I think he asked me or somebody else asked me the other host, Bear, do I think I would have gotten into MMA had it been around while I was training in martial arts? And I think the question, I would certainly been interested in it because I was wrestling Greco-Roman in AAU, which is the amateur athletic union.

I was wrestling in, you know, Greco-Roman tournaments and freestyle wrestling tournaments and doing martial arts. So I think I probably would have been interested. And it would have been really cool to learn Jiu-Jitsu back then when I was active in training and things like that. So I'm sure I would have ended up in it. It could have been, you know, I actually did color commentary for a guy by name of Ishi Kanjo. He had his own kickboxing promotion in Tokyo. And I actually went over there and did Sonny and I did it together. I actually did it with Bruce Lee's daughter.

She did color commentary on one of the shows. It was K1 promotions, was the name of the promotion. And that was fun. I think I could have seen myself at some point doing color commentary or play by play in MMA. But, you know, that ship has sailed at this point, too. A lot of ships have sailed lately.

Sean Brown is with us on Twitter. And he says, What if Vince did want to fight Eric after he called him? Would they try to make a singular paper view out of it? Would it have been a work or a shoot? Or would it have just been a schmaws with the boys coming in to hold everyone back? Like, I know that you were in a different state of mind back then that you all now. That is such a nice way to see it.

Well, I just know. I mean, let's just be honest. Eric then has handled things a lot differently than Eric now would. And I can't help but think Eric now would think, hey, is there? chance that we could actually agree to disagree and do a joint pay-per-view and split the pro like it does feel like a big

opportunity if you could have at the height of the Monday night warrants in 1998 work together right? I mean theoretically yeah but practically it wasn't going to happen I mean not just because of me I mean Vince would have never

done it and had there been had he showed up and there had been a fight it would have been a fight it would have been a work who knows how it would have turned out i have my own opinions about that but it doesn't matter because it's silly at this point but it would have without any question it would have been hugely successful and it would have been fun no matter how badly i got my ass kicked it still would have been fun and it would have been great tv and by the way i wouldn't have got my ass kick anyway it's so fun to think about you know

what if like this um frankie lopez says what if fader didn't get fired due to his attitude and won against hogan for the big gold like think about that if we had vader through nitro he doesn't jump ship he's there for the monday night war he's there for the n w o he's there for the rise of austin on the other channel that's a great idea i mean w w e respectfully did not do much at all with fader I mean by September of 96 it was over for him so you're talking about like a year he had like a year and that includes time he was off with the shoulder surgery and all that it was just never the same would Vader have fit in WCW at their peak you know that is so fascinating Conrad and as that question began to unfold and I knew where it was going it's like I don't you know

I've said this before. I don't regret anything. I think regret it's just such a waste of time and energy and emotion. But if I look back and think, what if, like we're doing here, what if I would have been better at managing talent? Because let's face it, some of these, some talents require a whole lot more attention and management than others. And they all need it for different reasons and you have to learn how to deal with their issues, particularly as they get higher up on the card, which means you're more and more dependent upon them. You have to become closer to them and understand how to get the best out of them, most out of them. I was never good at that, ever, ever good at that. I'm just not. But had I been better at it and was able to manage Vader,

better and get more out of him, get him to be a team player, get him to lose the tendencies to kind of be a bully and demand attention backstage and things like that. Had he been more of a pro, frankly, it could have made a world a difference. Vader was incredible. He was believable. The stuff he did in the ring was intense.

I mean, he was such a larger-than-life, amazing athlete that had he been the pro he was capable of being consistently he could he could have provided a lot of great story with hogan and everybody else including goldberg come on please what if that would have been awesome i mean think about you know he was this unstoppable monster and you mentioned goldberg i thought of diamond dallas page you want to talk about getting the diamond cutter over nobody beats vader vader's bullying everybody and then he finally loses but it's to a diamond cutter like that could have been crazy too let's uh let's do another one here Craig Marshall says

what if Brett joins WCW in October of 96 where does he fit in the hero to beat Hulk or aligned with NWO for shock factor of course as a reminder we know that there was the big decision that was revealed in October of 96 a Monday night raw that red heart was staying put he was signing a 20 year contract with the wf we know that lasted less than a year before events told him ah sorry can't honor it but if he came over in october of 96 that's the same month where you're going to debut rowdy roddy piper at halloween havoc just moments after the randy savage holke hoag had made event at mjim grand slim jim's Halloween havoc it's a big night you've said here you probably

felt you were at the top of your game, and that's one of your happiest moments of your run in WCW, that particular pay-per-view. In an alternate universe, how does Brett Hart fit into all of that? If he comes over in October of 96, is he in the Piper spot? Or would you have still done Piper and Hogan,

and where would that leave Brett? Hard to say, I have to give that quite a bit of thought, to come up with anything that sounded reasonable, but let me start off by saying, I would have loved to have Brett in 96. I think Brett in 96 was a different Brett than Brett in 98, following the Montreal screwdrob and certainly, you know,

events that happened afterwards, including losing his brother. That Brett Hart was not the same Brett Hart as the Brett Hart that I sat down and had conversations with in 96. That Brett Hart, I think we could have probably ended up focusing longer term Hogan Breit. at where Brett would have gone before he got to Hogan, hard to say just sitting here right now. But Brett and Hogan in 96 definitely would have been a conversation. Brett and Hogan 98 was a little more difficult. It's so fascinating to think about, you know,

these what-ifs because it's hard for me to imagine Brett Hart being a bad guy in October of 96. But we know he's going to be on a tear just six months after that. I mean, as an incredible heel, it's just interesting to think, like, you think he's got to come in and save WCW, but Brett Hart's saving WCW seems weird. I don't know. It's interesting to think about how it does, it does, but that's where the storytelling comes in. You know, Rick Flair, saving WCW makes a tremendous amount of sense in an elevator in a 30-second pitch, right? Yes, where it comes in, saves WC, who does Rick Flair go to when this, when a deck is stacked against

them, WCW is struggling, you know, to make a tag, so to speak. Who does Rick Flair reach out to? His old buddy, Brett Hart. Tagging Brett. I mean, there's a way. You know, you could tell that story. You can talk about the fact that Brett and Rick Flair saw the wrestling business much the same way.

Yeah, they've taken different paths. Yeah, they're different characters. But deep down inside because of the respect that Rick Flair has for Stu Hart. and the heart family tradition and what that represents to the industry all of a sudden now you've got an emotional story between brett and rick and you can make it make sense it's not that hard if you try drew man 89 over on twitter wants to know what if the undertaker had defected to wcw he said he was growing frustrated with creative back then i think everybody was i i mean i think we kind of got to see what that might look like in oh two when he was

he did the whole American badass thing because it's not like he could bring the name the Undertaker over or anything similar or anything confusingly similar yeah but he could have done the American badass thing I mean he could have ridden a motorcycle down he's all right I'm on a Harley I got the bandana I got leather and denim and all that stuff trying to be me like the Undertaker was trying to be me no Mark Mark was yeah he saw me we you know come out with the leather jacket and the NWO he's found me on my Harley and he just like stole my gimmick.

Take her, I get it. You know, you got to, whatever well you need to go to to come out with the water you need at any moment in time. It's fine with me, man. It's cool. You're welcome, by the way. He would have had a blast at Hogwild.

I mean, we know that for sure. You know, I've never had any heat with, with Undertaker, but probably I'm going to have some now. That's awesome. I don't think you have any now. I mean, first of all, he copied your style on the motorcycle. That's been well established.

And he's copying the jean jacket. That's well established. And now he's even got a podcast. I mean, if he starts, I'm going to stop. Is it ever going to stop? It's going to stop when you get damn tombstoneed when you see him at

WrestleMania. Hey, this is a fun idea to think about, though, you know, the idea of the undertaker in WCW. view i don't think the american badass thing as much as i preferred it to the dead man gimmick i know i'm in the minority i know that the undertaker being the phenom and the music and the mood lighting

and i mean it was all such a fantastic presentation it guaranteed success and a in a lifelong following and and he pulled it off brilliantly i mean he he is the undertaker it's hard to imagine anybody else making the undead zombie character known as the undertaker work for a year, much less multiple decades. But the American badass, would that have really hit in WCW? Do you think that could have been different enough to be a huge success for WCW? Yeah. I mean, that was, again, timing.

And that's what I was thinking about, you know, the timing. That character could have worked because it was the reality that we were really striving for in some, many, if not all, not all, but a lot of our characters and stories were intentionally designed to appeal to an older male demo. And I think that American badass character definitely would have played into the target audience we had at the time. particularly because it was a fresh it was a fresh idea it was relevant at that time there was kid rock had an album out called american badass i think there was that point in time it's almost like where hip hop and a rap and rock kind of converged more so than it had previously more and more um of that type of music that kid rock style of music that kind of merges hip-hop and rock was becoming more prevalent i think movies kind of were characters were leaning in

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Let's do another one here. Um, Chris, the nice guy who finished his last green. Well, wants to know, what if he kept Steve Austin? Now, that's interesting to think about because we know he's ultimately going to be the star that tips the scales in the WW East favor. If he had hung around through the NWO, do you think that he is a part of WCW and that makes him a baby face? Is he going to do the NWO thing? Is there an opportunity for him to do his, for lack of a better word? were Austin Stick on Nitro.

Could he have done middle fingers and beers and all that? Does that success exist in WCW or did it have to be WWE for it to happen? Wow. Who asked that question? Chris, the nice guy who finishes last green. Man, that's a really good question, Chris. Thank you for that. A couple of different answers because there was a lot packed into that question.

What if I was able to hold on to Steve Austin and he never made the transition to WWE? That means it would have been no McMahon, Austin, Tyson moment, which I think was the pivotal moment in WWE's trajectory and turning their business around. That one storyline, that angle, the creation of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon, the storyline that it followed. And everything that came about as a result of that story, I think was the, was the seismic shift in the beginning of it for WWE and turning the fortune around. He said, what if Steve never went to WWE? That means there's no Mr. McMahon character, not likely, perhaps, but wouldn't have got us over quite as well, right? there would have been no Stone Cold Steve Austin at WWE. I think from a brand positioning point of view as a defensive maneuver,

had I had the foresight, first of all, to hold on to Steve, just to keep him away from WWE, I think the answer is pretty obvious. I wouldn't have had nearly the competition that I ended up having as a result of Steve Austin becoming Stone Gold Steve Austin in WWE. Now, do I think that his character could have gotten over in WCW? Absolutely. Do I see him on in the NWO or fighting against the NWO? Absolutely fighting against.

Again, now you're looking at Rick Flair, Stokel, Steve Austin, and Brett Hart, from a traditional wrestling perspective at that time. These guys, these guys, I hate when I say that, these individuals, Brett, Rick, Austin, properly presented would represent the old school version of professional wrestling. They would have appealed to the older side of the 18 to 49 year old demo. And then you would have shored that audience up with the halls, the Nash, this Xbox, the Konans, the Hogan, obviously, you know, that's the cooler, younger kind of aspirational portion of your audience, as opposed to the older side, which are kind of like nostalgic almost, that's a perfect combination.

And I think it would have worked out great. Now, the one issue he would have had, I think we could have gotten away with beer, pretty sure of that. But flipping people off, that would have not flown at tournament brossey. I would have had an issue with that one. You could argue that I may have won, but I would have had to have had to have many conversations. about that obviously drake roberts wouldn't have been there so he wouldn't have cut the promo but do you think standards and practices would have allowed austin 316 oh i think so my gut says probably don't know for sure obviously but i think i think here's what

would happen we would have done it they wouldn't have noticed it they wouldn't have thought about it until they got a couple phone calls from somebody who was complaining about it. And then it would work its way through the process, end up in HR. I'd have gotten an email or a phone call. And they would have addressed the situation with me. And then going forward, I would have had to have been more careful about that type of thing. So it's one of those I would have asked for forgiveness before I ask for permission issues. But like, no, heads were going to roll because of it how big of an issue did they have with you guys saying damn ass or hell that wasn't an issue now it became one towards the end for me i think when

terry tingle got inserted his standards and practices and her new you know job description included sanitizing wcw that was her job what a horrible job that would have been but i think she was a little she looked she was new she didn't know what she was dealing with this professional wrestling thing was so far outside of her wheelhouse she probably never spent two minutes watching it and now she's in charge of trying to harness this animal that lives on the edge of saying inappropriate things because that's kind of the essence of what we do we say things that people get angry about and then we fight more often than that we cheat why we're fighting and we use garbage cans and sinks and pipes and shovels and all kinds of accoutheromal so yeah it's a little silly business anyway

and for somebody that knows nothing about it to come in and try to control it she was in over her head and i think she overcompensated the beginning so i think towards the end when she was really trying to prove that she should have that job it got a little crazy it's so fascinating to me to think about these what ifs because the idea of stone cold drinking beer on nitro and stunning the whole NWO that's pretty exciting i could get behind it i could see it could have been magic god if i just would have known if i just would have had the foresight to know that steve williams the hollywood blonde was going to go on to become stone cold steve austin and actually turn the entire wwee around and put it on a profitable path had i had the

foresight to know that I could have just kept him under contract. None of that would have happened. Oh, well. Rebecca Meow. I'm about that. I got a lady listening says, what if Vince Russo was never hired by WCW? And instead,

the position was given to Bobby Heenan. I feel like that could have been fun. You know, we all know what a great performer he was in the ring, as a manager, as a commentator, just as a personality. in wrestling, but I'm sure he knew a thing or two about the business.

How would he have done creatively or managing all these different crazy personalities in the wrestling world? Could he have done it? Maybe when he was younger, but the Bobby Heenan that I worked with and got to know wouldn't a less at five minutes. He had, Bobby Heenan forgot more on a Tuesday than most people. people who work in the wrestling business today will ever know. I mean, Bobby Heiden was,

he was the man. But Bobby Heenan would not have dealt with talent, at least the Bobby Heenan that I worked with. Now, maybe when he was younger and he had more tolerance and patience and energy and focus, maybe it would have been different. But the Bobby Heena that I know, I knew and worked with, he had zero tolerance for stupid shit. Zero. And then, Unfortunately, when you're dealing with talent, you end up having to deal with stupid shit sometimes. And you have to have patience. It goes back to talent management. Like we were talking about moments ago with regard to Vader.

You have to be able to learn how to manage talent, which means you have to learn how to compromise. You have to learn to listen and kind of nurture people through their nonsense and trying to get them where they need to be. That takes patience. Bobby had zero when it came to that. But if you could get Bobby on a team, keep him properly motivated. And again, at that time, I don't think Bobby wanted to, to dig into the business that much. I think he was very content to make a good living as an announcer, working with Gene O'Kle and his buddy, being around the business for, you know, a night or two at a time.

But, you know, full-time creative, not the Bobby Heena and I knew, let's put it that way. Brian Wiseman says, what if he, he's talking about you, joined WWE at the start of the invasion storyline, and they came in as the NWO attacking WWE. So we know the invasion was a giant fumble, but in an alternate universe, Paul Kogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Eric Bischoff, they show up to start the invasion angle.

How different does the wrestling look now, do you think? I think the angle would have worked. I think the timing of it, the shock value of it, things that we saw that did already work. You know, when I came in and was made general manager, the shock value kind of worked for a couple of years. Yeah. That would have still been there, maybe even more intensely and with, frankly, a better story. There was no real story. Well, there was.

There was an excuse. There was a setup for bringing me in, but it wasn't really a great story. was just set up there's a difference but i think had had i been able to come in as part of the invasion and there would have been a decent story behind it the impact would have been pretty good and who knows what would have been different um certainly the n w o storyline would have been a lot different because that was stupid uh the way the n w o was introduced made zero sense I don't know who convinced Vince or Vince convinced himself to, you know, be the one that revealed that he's bringing in the NWO to destroy his own company, but about as dumb of an idea as I've

heard in a while at that point, but could have worked. Let's talk a little bit about, and I'm trying not to be negative here. I don't want you to be negative here. I want you to try to find a way to do that because I know it's going to be easy to do that. but Michael says what if the pandemic never happened would we be seeing the boom w w is currently on or would the momentum have shifted to a eW like the pandemic changed a lot of wrestling changed a lot of the world but the benefit of hindsight you can't help but think that that probably seriously hurt AEW I mean they start in October I think

their first TV show was October of 19 and by March of 2020 so you're less than six months in you can't run shows in front of life crowds anymore in an alternate universe without the pandemic what do you think WWE and AEW look like today same as they do now okay to the pandemic hurt WWE as much as it hurt AEW and I get your point AEW is a new company But AEW was a new company with a tremendous amount of goodwill. And that goodwill stuck with AEW all the way through the pandemic. AEW didn't start losing their audience and the goodwill of the audience. And now it's very loud and it's everywhere.

But that didn't start happening until about eight months or a year ago. I mean, it's been happening, but it started really getting bad over the last six or ten months. And it has to do with the quality or lack thereof of the show. It just does. And in the beginning, people forgave Tony. Yeah, it's a new company. It's the alternative.

And it's what people wanted. But as time goes on, we're seeing less and less people, you know, standing up for the property and expressing support of it. And you're hearing more and more people dumping on it. It's got nothing to do with the pandemic or the late start in the game. it has everything to do with the quality of the show or lack they're up. It's interesting to think what if on the pandemic thing. I'm not trying to be that guy,

but I do have another AEW question here. And it's about Leland Patterson. He says, what if Vince isn't forced out? Does AEW still lose ratings and ticket sales? I think what Leland's getting at is, maybe pro wrestling fans once upon a time, was so turned off by Vince's approach to wrestling.

They sort of did not enjoy the creative or the way the show was shot or produced or put together or structured or whatever. And he's still there, running things, the Vince way. We don't see this sort of Renaissance era, I think is what Cody Rhodes called it, of the Triple H era and regime change, if you will. Do you think that WWE getting hot

has negatively affected AEW. No, I don't. And I understand why people who are holding on so hard to AEW and not making excuses for it, but trying to understand why this thing is crashing and burning as badly and quickly as it is. Well, hang on now, Eric. I get what you're going at there.

But I just want to say, it was always positioned as the alternative. When people look for an alternative when the main course is not good. So when it's less than ideal, we're going to do something else. No, I think, again, it's a Dave Meltzer kind of angle

or perspective of the situation. The argument would be that there's a finite number of wrestling fans and let's say it's two million. And typically, WWE gets 1.5 million, AEW gets 500,000. So there's typically our 2 million. But all of a sudden, if WWE starts getting hot, the melt or math people out there would say, oh, well, that means a certain portion of this 500,000,

are going to watch Monday Night Raw instead of watching AEW, even though they're on different nights. Does that make any sense at all? I don't think so. I think what happens is when WWE gets hot, more people who are former viewers, casual viewers like me, quite honestly, that tune in and out seasonally in terms of watching it for entertainment. Yes, I watch it for different reasons sometimes. But typically, if I'm going to consume professional wrestling as something I just want to do to escape for an hour or two, it's seasonal. It'll happen probably more in a wintertime than it does in the summer or the fall because I'm outdoors.

doing shit like most people during that period of time but it's not it's not a zero-sum game i think the wwee audience will grow based on the buzz based on the quality of the storytelling whatever we're seeing out there in pop culture that audience will grow because people that formerly watch w w we possibly don't as much anymore will come back and check it out it's not like they have to rely on stealing them or taking them from AEW. That's a zero-sum game melts from math mentality, and it doesn't exist in television. And I think that people are trying to justify why AEW is as bad as it is. And by saying, well, it's just because W-W is hot.

No, it's not. It's because AEW isn't. And it's because the creative isn't. That's the only reason. It's not the competition. It's not which way the wind's blow. it's not politics it's not who's watching news it's not the WNBA it's how what's the quality of the product if it's good people are watching it's not they won't well I um I know what

you're saying about well if it's on a different night it's not really competitive and all that sort of thing but I will say this I think there's a lot of married folks who watch wrestling and it's usually a compromise there's pretty much no way i'm going to be able to sell at my house we're going to watch wrestling on monday night and then on tuesday night then on wednesday night then on thursday night then on friday night then on saturday night because there's wrestling on all of those nights so i do think there's a lot of husbands out there who like wrestling and their wife tolerates it but she doesn't want all of their televiewing watching time because a lot of times

moms and dads man they're out working running kids around them all practice and get into the grocery store and cut the grass and now we're going to eat supper and we're going to watch TV together. A lot of people's sort of family time together is gathered around the living room watching TV. That's just what it is. And if only one person in the house, maybe dad, maybe the son wants to watch wrestling and we're going to do this as a family, you probably do have to pick your poison. You can't watch it six days in a row like the rest of the household is going to revolt, right? Maybe. I'm sure. there are some families like that i know my i mean if i sat and look i'm i could justify it i could

say but honey i talk about wrestling on my podcast and wise choices and i should be doing more content and i mean i could justify watching wrestling you know six days a week um it doesn't mean my wife would buy it i could justify it but she won't buy it i may be i may get one night a week in prime time where she would say okay i'll read a book while you're watching whatever you're watching, but not like two hours, three hours, two, three, four nights a week. That would never happen to my house. So I agree with you. But what, what percentage is that? We're talking about such a small number of people that may fit into that category that are watching WWE because they only get to watch one hour a week or two hours a week based on your

scenario and mine in real life. Yeah, I'm going to pick the one that's most entertaining. If it's AEW, I'm going to pick that. If it's WWE, I'm going to pick that. It still comes down to which one's more entertaining. If you've only got a limited amount of time, that means your time is very valuable. Where do you want to spend that resource on something that's really not that interesting or entertaining or something that is? Well, that's what I was getting to is when WWE is strong like it is right now, I feel like more people pick WWE. It's more compelling television.

But if WWE was just not watchable and it's not that long ago, it was. was not very enjoyable. I do feel like AEW probably lost some market share when WW started doing really well creatively again. I say that because I know you said it's a, I mean, how many people are we talking about it? It's such a small, but if I was to ask you, hey, what is the real demo of your average WWE fan? How old do you think the average WWE fan based on Nielsen Media ratings are?

I think we would both agree. It probably fits into that married watching TV with a wife. demo 40 up yeah so i know there's single dudes out there over 40 i know a few of them but most of my friends in their 40s or 50s they're watching tv with a woman who probably respectfully she'd rather watch netflix but here's what i know for sure you know we're all gonna agree to disagree on what wrestling is better but there's no disagreeing that hinson shaving makes the best razor you've ever held in your hand here's what i mean if you were born after after 1970, there's a very good chance your first razor was a multi-blade razor.

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is a quality product that will last you a lifetime. We've been talking about them for years here on the show because we really believe it. I've got everybody I know, even people who had subscriptions from the other guys, converted. Even my barber is now using the Henson. It's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime. Visit Hensonshaving.com slash Eric 83 to pick the razor for you and use our code Eric 83 to get a free shave cream with your razor. Just be sure to add it to your cart. That's a free Henson's shave cream when you head on over to H-E-N-S-O-N-S-H-E. Try it again. H-E-N-S-O-N-S-H-A-V-I-N-G.com slash Eric 83 and use the code Eric 83. That's Hensonshaving.com

slash Eric 83. One more time. Hensonshaving.com slash Eric 83 and the promo code is Eric 83. How about that, Eric? I love that shayered, by the way. I like, it's like the Resto Mod.

You know what a Resto Mod is? I do indeed. You know more about cars than I do, but I really like Resto Mons because I like the old school look. yes high tech design and that's what the henson razor is to i mean it's heavy it actually feels like set a piece of plastic that you paid $39 for it in a drugstore with two little blades in it this is a meaty hefty man-sized fistful of just precision guided razor i love it and it looks old

school but it works in new school it's cool go check it out you're going to love your henson raiser. Hey, Greg DePosquale has got a great question. What I've never even thought about. What if Eric hadn't been sent home in 99? Would the Benoit, Saturn, Malenko, Guerrero release ever happened? I don't think so. No, no. That would have never, for sure that wouldn't happen. Anything else, hard to say, but, you know, I'm, I don't know that I would have made it. I was ready to go. I mean, that's what precipitated. I sat on September 9th, on a Thursday, night. I was sitting in my office and I had convinced myself out loud with Bill Bush sitting in the office with me that I was going to call Harvey that night and resign. And then Bill ran to Vicki

Miller with that said info, allegedly, my opinion, but I believe it strongly. Bill Bush, my quote-unquote friend, rather than listening to me vent my spleen while he was pretending to talk me out of it, took that info. And, you know, I guess I understand it. It was his job. she was his boss he probably thought i was going to quit but when he went to vicky miller with everything he had just heard vicky miller preempted called harvey and said move him on so what if i wouldn't have had that conversation with bill bush what if i wouldn't have been sent home that night or that morning friday morning that's september 10 oh man i wasn't in the i wasn't i wasn't in the frame of mind

to figure out how to pull anything up, you know, how to pull the business up and out of the direction it was going in. That's why I was in the position I was in and why I was frustrated as I was. Because internally, I could not win the fight I was fighting internally at WCW. That was the source of my frustration. So had I just stuck around it, would have just got worse.

That's what would have happened. But I would not have let those guys go. That I wouldn't have done. uh sammy has a great question here what if kenny and the young bucks signed with wwee back in 2019 i don't know that everybody listening to this recalls but keny omega cody roads and the young bucks all had offers from wb and ultimately they wind up sticking together deciding not to take the wb offer and go on this a eW journey or experiment whatever it was at the time together but in an alternate universe what

if kenny and the bucks signed with wwee what would that look like the answer to that better than i do because i don't know tony and i think you probably know him a little better than me but would tony have stepped up to launch a w without those three individuals i i would say probably not i would agree isn't that crazy to think yeah and and for them not only financially but obviously for Cody it was absolutely the best move yes much like it was Steve Austin's best move to leave WCW well I helped but to end up in WWE eventually after spending a minute in ECW it was just the right move at the right time for the right guy clearly that's the case with Cody no Kenny got got got

a big check, bucks got big checks career wise. Aside from the financial part, can we honestly say that their career has moved forward in a positive way? I guess that depends on your perspective and certainly their perspective is the only one that matters. They're making a lot of money, but are they happy with where they're at in their careers at this point in those careers? I can't imagine they would be unless they only care about the money. isn't it interesting the way the narrative is flipped i mean for years and years the idea was hey if you go to w w you'll make a bunch of money but you're not going to be happy you won't be in charge of your control uh in control of your career don't be in charge of

creative you won't have a say on who you wrestle or when you wrestle or how you wrestle and it's going to be a grind but you're going to make a bunch of money and you'll be a bigger star worldwide you'll be able to hit the autograph circuit even if you never really made main events. There's a whole lot of guys out there who were making a six figure income 35 years later off of things they did in the WWE. And they never were the world champion or made of an event of pay-per-view or anything like that. So that was sort of the path that a lot of people knew was the trade-off. Hey, on the Indies, you know, they have to fly me in first class and I get to pick my opponent and I get to pick whether I win or lose. They have much more

control on the independence. But when you go to work for the WWE, You'll make a much more money, but maybe you won't have as much fun. And it feels like when AEW came along, you know, it was like, hey, now you can make the same money and have a little more influence, have a bigger voice, maybe be more fulfilled creatively. But now enough time has passed and you hear people who are frustrated with their lack of camera time or being frustrated that they're stuck in catering. And it almost feels like you're reading things now that people used to

read about WWV back in the day. I think it's interesting the way that's all flipped because from a career perspective, if we're just talking about dollars and cents, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks absolutely made the right call. Creatively, I'm not so sure. Before Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks went, the Young Bucks were heralded before AEW started as being these true rebels who made it on their own.

They got their damn shirts in Hot Topic. They had LJN action figures. They sold a sponsorship to Cracker Barrel for the first pay-per-view. I mean, these guys were piercing through what we knew and expected from independence and taking it to new heights. I mean, all in was the proof in the pudding in more than one way. Kenny Omega was regarded as being the best wrestler in the world. He was the best bout machine.

And I don't know that anybody really thinks about either of those parties now, the same way that they did in 2019. But man, they're making so much more money. I guess my follow-up to that would be, would you be what would you say the odds are that before they hang it up and they're done that we see one at least one keney omega or young bucks match in w i don't know you know i think kennie's got you know where is he had physically you know i know he's he's he's had about with diverticulitis and by the way i'm pretty familiar with that one

spent a little time with that one myself a few years ago almost died as a result of it so i mean it's a serious condition that by the way doesn't ever go away diverticulitis is not something that's curable it's somewhat manageable but it's not curable once you have it you have it so how does that affect uh kenny going forward in terms of him being cleared to compete and what he can do and can't do i don't know i don't know uh if he's not a hundred percent clear and he's not a hundred I mean, we haven't seen him in a ring a long time. What's he looked like in the ring today versus what he looked like in the ring last time we saw? Again, don't know.

We'll find out. Here's what I mean, though, with regard to what happens, what can happen to your career. And yes, Kenny Box, definitely, from a financial perspective, definitely made the right move. Cody was able to leverage it. I don't think he went into it with this idea, but was able to, as it turned out, leverage that time in AEW to come back in a much more powerful way than he left. Good on him. It worked for him too. But creatively, as your brand is considered, does anybody feel like they have more value in equity in the marketplace today than they did before they came to AEW? And I'm not

talking about people that he had never wrestled before. But I'm talking about the Moxleys. I'm talking about, you know, Edge or Adam Copeland. I'm talking about Christian, you know, Mercedes Monet, you know, all this talent that came over. And from a career perspective, a brand perspective, we're on the largest stage in the world, more people, more eyeballs on them than anybody before them or after them, you know, at least in WW. And now they're moving over to AEW where, quite frankly, I think Mercedes-Mameh's character has just taken a giant hit. Her brand has been severely damaged as a result of being involved with AEW television. Now, here's the really funky part. It used to be, yeah, but you're going to go to WWE, you're not going to have any

control, you're not going to know who you're going to wrestle, you don't have any say in blah, blah, all of which was true. But now you get to go to AEW, and in a Mercedes case, she's got creative control and her own personal writer, who I happen to know and respect. And she not only is able to do whatever she wants to do, she's got a right over and she's still losing ground as a brand. So when you talk about Kenny and you talk about where the young bucks are today, I think their perceived value was much greater before going to,

to AEW than it is now because of being an AEW. The entire brand of AEW takes the talent down with it and in terms of perception. So I hope they're making a lot of money. Do I think we'll see them in WWE? I really don't because of what I just said. I think the perception of them has been taken down enough that it's just probably not as attractive to wwe as it would have been three or four years ago would you like to bet your hair on it no you're not doing that to me again you think you think you're just going to slide those in and because you know how spontaneous i am and i don't think before i talk and i jump out in front of the shit but not that time

would be really surprised if one day i'm not saying they're going to be there forever but i'd be really surprised because never seems like such a rare thing in wrestling i'd be really surprised if neither the young bucks nor can you omega ever have another match in w w w yeah maybe it's a you know a nice way to but never mind i'm not going to say it's too negative go ahead let's keep well listen we've got a lot of fun questions that we didn't get a chance to get to we've already reached the two hour mark maybe we'll do more of these as a bonus right here at 83 weeks.com we're going to be live so if you haven't already hit the subscribe button turn on your notifications bell you don't want to miss us the next time we're live next week know what ifs

we're talking about the disco inferno the good the bad and the ugly that's going to be fun but before we do one last question james wants to know what if eric passed up on doing this podcast what does he think he'd be doing with his time instead man i don't know i mean i've i've actually started getting a little busy over the last six months i'm getting involved in things i never thought i would get involved in again i'm interested in things i didn't think i would be interested in again getting opportunities that i never thought were going to come my way again and none of that would be happening if I wouldn't have done this podcast

with you, Conrad. So crazy. And the team. So I can't even imagine that because of all the things that I have going on in my life that I'm having a blast with, almost all of them are connected

in one way, shape, or form to this podcast. So when I say thank you for listening to this podcast and supporting this podcast and when I thank Conrad and Dave Silva and everybody else who's on this team, Dave Green, Taylor, everybody who's on this team, I really freaking mean it. Because I can't even imagine what I'd be doing without it.

That's the truth. Well, I know because of this podcast, you're helping people save money at save witherick.com. I don't know if you guys saw what happened this week, but the Dow went crazy, up 1,500 points at a single day. The Fed almost immediately cut rates another quarter point. There's more optimism in the American economy right now

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paying just like that and here's the thing about that credit card debt not only is it like 28 or 31% crazy high but it's also not tax deductible the interest you pay on those credit cards hey man that's just the cost of doing business but the interest you pay on your mortgage, we can write that off. You get a statement at the end of the year. So if you could get a much better rate and a greater tax deduction, and you don't have to make any payments until February of next year, well, what's left?

A cheaper monthly payment. We're routinely helping our podcast listeners save a boatload of cash. Just this week, I talked to a guy who's saving over $1,200 a month. He didn't save $1,200 one time. He saved $1,200 this month, next month the month after that and you can do that too think about that that dude just gave himself a huge raise he's not working any extra hours he's not clipping any coupons his quality of life is through the roof and it's all because he spent a few minutes with us and who better to show

you how to do that than a guy who did it himself eric was in those same shoes so when you're talking to eric and you really will be talking to eric bischoff he's been licensed and doing this for more than two years now we just kept it a secret because we didn't want anyone to think that this is some sort of fly by night operation if you're curious what our experience is like go right now to conradreviews.com what you'll see is over 1600 reviews we don't delete reviews there's some bad ones in there but we got a 4.73 average the overwhelming majority is giving us five stars stick that in your pipe and smoke it I wonder what we'd get in the Tokyo dome I guess we have to

work to see we can save you money it's all about customer service. We're not going to treat you like a loan number. You don't have to pay a credit report fee or an application fee. Man, let us run the numbers for you. We're just going to put a pencil to it. Old school. And we're going to see, is there a way to restructure this debt to save these folks' money? And if there is, man, you're going to be thrilled. What if you could save an extra $1,200 a month? Find out how much money you can save for free right now. And by the way, at save witherick.com, we don't say no. We say not yet, but here's how. If you've had some credit challenges. Maybe you fell behind once upon a time. Maybe you had a bankruptcy. Maybe you had a

repossession or foreclosure. You may be thinking, well, I've got to sit on the sidelines and just sort of, I made that one mistake once and now my life is over. That's not true. Even if you had a bankruptcy two years ago, you could have a damn near perfect credit score today. You just got to know what to do. We know what to do. Eric has the knowledge now. He wants to help you and be your mortgage advisor for life. We have a passion for helping people. You'll know it when you talk to us. Go get yourself a quick quote right now at save witheric.com. And I challenge you if you're thinking, well, I don't have bad credit. And I think I've got a pretty good interest rate, but it would be good if I got

rid of that credit card debt. We can hook you up. And by the way, we don't do subprime loans. That's not even a thing. I know there's a narrative out there that, oh, they're taking advantage of poor people with bad credit. Buddy, we're helping people. People who feel like they've got nowhere else to look.

People who also are just looking for a better deal. I live in Huntsville, Alabama, the engineer capital of the United States. My county leads the country in PhDs per capita. I'm running spreadsheets and excels all day and day long trying to show you the math on how we really can help you save money. So if you've got maybe a less than perfect credit score or a perfect credit score, we can help you. My point is we're going to treat you like a human being.

Maybe you're a human being who had a better lot in life, had some better luck. maybe you just need a little friend with the knowledge maybe you need a friend in the mortgage business Eric Bischoff can be your huckleberry at save witherick.com Eric this was a blast today thanks for all the time I love doing these kind of shows we should do that more often it's fun to connect with the audience and just kind of see where the where the questions take us but thank you all very much thank you guys for checking us out and stay tuned next week I can't believe this is real we're going to be talking about Disco Inferno, the good, the bad, the ugly.

It's on deck right here at 83 Weeks.com. I'm disco dancing. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcast every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple.

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