83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 349: Lil Bret On RAW

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

On this episode of 83Weeks, Eric and Conrad take us back to 1997 and the surprise appearance from Bret Hart...well kind of. Eric and Conrad discuss everything happening in '97 between WCW and the WWE as they watch the WWE's attempt at using Nitro's techniques to build anticipation in the show. Eric also share this thought on AEW Dynamite and their ppv event Full Gear. All that plus so much more not this edition of 83Weeks. Monday Night RAW 11.24.1997 Watch along on Peacock, season 5 episode 45 TECOVAS - Get 10% off at https://www.tecovas.com/83WEEKS when you sign up for email and texts. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/.  PRIZE PICKS - Download the app today and use code 83WEEKS to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! PrizePicks. Run Your Game! 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! 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 TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://www.trueclassictees.com/83WEEKS ! #trueclassicpod 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

Save with Conrad.com Hi, I'm Sean Soto. I live near St. Louis, but I listened to a few of the podcasts. Rillen J.R. 83 weeks quite a bit. My wife and I had experienced some issues with credit card debt. I had heard the testimonials of others refinancing and helping alleviate their credit card debt.

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and basically getting nowhere for, I don't know, probably the last five years. And after everything was all said and done, we completely paid off all the credit card debt, and we were saving, after paying those off, we were saving over $300 a month. Oh, I would highly recommend it to anyone that's looking, to save some money because that it was a tremendous help. I've already told my other friends about

it. I'm Sean Soto. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, and I have saved over $300 a month with savewithconrad.com. NMLS number 2129, equal housing lender, savewithconrad.com. Rand Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bish off. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great, man. I've been flying solo for seven days. Mrs. B's been down in Florida, helping out down there. The kids got hit, Garrett and Mary Jane, they got hit.

You know, the hurricane went through there. The house escaped minimal, minimal damage, all landscaping stuff, easy to fix. But they own a commercial property down in Tampa. where they have a business and unfortunately that got hammered and they've been tearing out walls and tearing out floors and rebuilding things so mrs b's been down in florida helping with wayland while they're kind of double team in the studio down there and she's coming home tonight so it'll be kind of back to normal which would be nice well amen to that i didn't know that uh that they had taken any damage so i hope that turns out you know better than they expect sooner than they hope

Well, the good news is, you know, Garrett's in the commercial construction industry. He's a sales rep for a company that handles a lot of building materials primarily for hotels and apartment buildings, condominiums, that type of thing. So he's got access to materials, thank goodness. And he's got, you know, quite a bit of, quite a few friends who were in the business. So he was able to get that thing up and run. In fact, I think they opened yesterday. They reopened. closed down for however many weeks it's been three weeks now or so but they're opening back up

today which will put them way ahead of schedule compared to everybody else in Tampa that's waiting in line for contractors and materials well we're going to have a lot of fun today I um I'd be lying if I said I knew what we were doing because I thought we were doing a nitro watch along but the heading says ask Eric anything and we don't have any show notes so I don't guess we're actually ready to do a show today fellas uh well we could just do a watch long for Monday night raw say season five i don't know maybe episode 45 i don't know what it is okay let's just watch that sounds good season five episode 45 and three that's how we roll here we improvise let's do it three two one play there we go watching a little old school Monday night

raw check it out here we are watching raw with Eric bischoff from way back when how are things going down in your neck of the woods are you in hansville or you're down florida oh no i'm at the lake i'm in gunnersville oh that's right gunnersville i keep forgetting that you moved it's been a long time it has been a long time i haven't even seen your new place shit i've seen pictures especially of you out on the patio or the deck or the pool whatever it is with those beautiful sunsets i'm a sucker for a good sunset shot i can tell i'm getting older because that's what i'm into and i'm into uh alabama absolutely decimating this weekend. I had fun trolling our friend, J.R. I don't know if you're in tune with that. But us

smashing Oklahoma is going to be the real highlight for the weekend. Who did you smash last week? It was like 45 to 7 last time I dropped in last weekend. Mercer, nobody. How does that happen? How does a college like Mercer end up having to face Alabama? They get paid millions of dollars to come get their brains beat in. well right yeah it's called uh enhancement talent eric you used to hire it back in the day hey you know it's funny that we're watching this on season five episode uh 45 on monday night raw because this went down on november 24th 1997 but what's fascinating about this show from Fayetteville north carolina is for some reason they've clipped out a segment that's

not available on peacock and uh i've downloaded the real deal version isn't an interesting to see what they delete what they don't delete from the archives yeah i don't pay close attention to it but what do you have any any idea why what is the deal you know i'm not really sure i mean i don't think there's rhyme or reason on some of the things why they were deleted oh my gosh look at this of course as you recall this is uh fresh on the heels of the montreal screw job and as you may remember rick rude in a show of solidarity he made sure he made sure that he came out on Monday Nitro with different facial hair than what he had worn on a taped episode of Raw that would be airing that night. And now to spoof that, here comes Harvey Whippleman doing his

best Rick Rude. He's got the Halliburton. He's got the dark pinstripe suit. He's got the beard going. What do you think about Harvey Whippleman, downtown Bruno, doing his best Rick Rude? This is fun stuff. It is fun. I mean, what else you're going to do right it was an embarrassing situation for wwe they got stuck between a rock and a hard place and you really got two choices either be pissed off about it or have fun with it and apparently somebody decided to have fun with it don't blame them actually it's uh interesting because if you're watching on peacock and you're listening to the sound they've uh they scrubbed the old rick rude stripper theme from every other show but seemingly

it's here on the show and he's doing the whole fat out of shape routine and he's going to introduce Degeneration X and Sean Michaels is going to have a little fun talking about his old pal Rick Rude

where he says something about Lord knows that was a tough spot to fill of course I think the story is Rick Rude was just on like a per appearance deal for WWE so you guys were able to snag him in WCW is that the way you remember it I don't remember what his contract was. I would have to believe that's true.

Otherwise, he would have been able to make the move as quickly as he did, unencumbered by any legal entanglements, like, you know, non-compete clauses and things that you would typically see and expect to see. They didn't exist. So it sounds to me like, yeah, that was probably true on a night to night, which worked out great for us. And quite honestly, for Rick's. Rick Wood wanted out of there, bad.

he was pissed why did so many wrestlers wear cowboy boots with their suits I don't know but man her mother should have taught them better it just doesn't look good I don't care who you are

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slash 83 weeks when you sign up for email and text. That's 10% off at TECOVAS.com slash 83 weeks. Tocovus.com slash 83 weeks. Seaside for details. Tukovus points your toes west. You know what? I love my Tukovas boots. I live here in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, where boots are a mandatory fashion requirement.

Like, if you live in Wyoming and you're not wearing cowboy boots, people assume you're from out of state. And I've always been a little frustrated with that because why I like the looks of cowboy boots, I've got a wide foot with a high arch, and I've got boots that I've spent way too much money on. I don't even want to admit how much money I spent on boots. It's like top of the line custom handmade stuff from KZ and some of the other really expensive high-end boot makers. And I probably didn't get to wear them three or four times before I just tapped out, couldn't wear them. I got my Toccovis boots in the mail before they became a sponsor because we wanted to try them out, right? I literally took them out of the box, slipped them on, and wore them the rest of the day.

they were automatically broken so comfortable that once I put them on I forget to take them off like Mrs. B gets hot you're out walking around on the property you're walking your dog you wear your boots in the house you're bringing in dust or whatever I just don't take them off man they feel they good they're like slippers and they look great too check it out you'll be glad you did tocovis dot com slash 83 weeks man I love this version of Sean Michaels I think if you go back and you take a look at Sean Michaels from the summer of 97 through when he leaves at the end of March 1998, that to me is swagger personified. I don't know that anybody was ever feeling it and in the zone more than Sean Michaels was

in this stretch. And he's out here cutting a promo, got his Rick Flair Rolex on, and his tights and his Sean Michaels cut off T-shirt and his hair slicked back. This to me is peak Sean Michaels, but it's crazy to think, Eric, just four months after this, he's done. Bad habits will do that to you, right? Well, I don't know if that was a bad habit, right? I mean, that was the back, wasn't it? Was it his back?

It's hard to keep track. I don't know. Yeah, this was the back. He took a big bump on a casket match at the Royal Rumble. And when he came over the top rope, the small of his back hit the corner of the casket. and man he was like crawling he had to miss the February pay-per-view he gutted it out and you could if you go back and you watch his match was shut with Stone Cold and the made event of WrestleMania 14 he is just grimacing and pain the entire time you

there's no fake in that one my goodness but to think that at this point Brett's been gone for you know a couple of weeks and he's only four months away from leaving himself. It's wild times in the WWF. That was a, that was a tough time, right? Yeah. Losing Brett,

just in terms of the goodwill with the company and the fan base because Brett was a very, very well loved character. And to lose him under those circumstances and then to lose Sean, I mean,

that's a double whammy inside of 120 days. That had to sting. Of course, what they're, saying here in the promo, Sean Michaels says that despite what you may have heard, Brett Hart is under contract to this company until November 30th. And I do take full responsibility for what happened at Survivor Series.

But I've contacted Brett, quote unquote, without the knowledge of the internet or underground dirt sheet writers. And tonight in this very ring, we're going to settle things. once and for all. That's a hell of a tease. How about that? Good job. How about that blade mark from hell on a cell right there between his eyebrows?

Isn't that crazy? I just noticed that. Good eye. You can see the business wearing on you visually even. There you see China, European title over one shoulder, world title over the other. Of course, you may recall he actually beat Davy Boy Smith for the year. for the European title at one night only in the UK. And there's our commentators.

We didn't see this version very often. Of course, when people think about commentary in this era, they usually think about J.R. and the King. But now it's J.R. and Cornett. I loved Cornett and J.R. together. What did you think of them as a pair? Really, really fun to listen to. Great chemistry between the two of them.

Look, you can say whatever you want about Jim Cornett. he's certainly no friend of mine. I should say I'm no friend of his. He's whatever. I don't mind Jim. I listen to Jim quite a bit. He's highly, highly entertaining,

very, very quick-witted. And I think the combination of him and JR together was, I preferred it over Jerry Lawler, to be honest with you. Much preferred it. Well, do you prefer this version of LOD?

What we've got here is the Legion of Doom coming to the ring, and they're not wearing shoulder pads. Like the idea that they came to the ring without their spiked shoulder pads even one time was one time too many. It's such a cool part of the presentation. It's hard to imagine them not using it here. I wonder what precipitated that.

Any idea? I don't know if they're trying to freshen it up. I don't know if it's because they're going to do a little post-match story. I don't know if they didn't want to because of what's going to happen. Maybe they just get tired of dragging that shit all over the place. There's a chance that that's here.

Carry on luggage is one thing, but Spike's shoulder pads, you think they're not, you know, they've got to be a pain and he has to drag around. I can't believe this is real, but we're about to watch tag team wrestling history here. Here come the shoulder pads. There you go. It was the damn dirty nothing happening.

New age outlaws who've stolen their shoulder pads. And this is the debut, I believe, of the, oh, you didn't know and the new age outlaws are about to win the tag titles here think about how strong they're putting over the outlaws we're going to wear your shoulder pads to the ring we're going to make fun of you before the match they were going to beat your ass and become tag team champions and take your title belts this is how you make a tag team even in 1997 right indeed but you know i got to be honest with you i'd love to been backstage listening

to whoever produced this lay it out to hawk an animal because that would have been an interesting conversation to listen to they were the easiest guys sometimes to get along with creatively they had very very strong opinions and we're reluctant to compromise put it that way uh you mean they wanted to win all their matches it's not so much that that's part of it but just you know, stealing their shoulder pads and putting heat on them and then going out and beating them, you know, you can see one or the other, but when you stack them up together, it gets a little rough. They were fun to watch there, were they.

I never forget, Conrad, when I first, no, obviously I watched the Road Warriors in Minneapolis when I was, long before I got into the business, they were a big part of the AWA. I really dug them. But about 1989, maybe 1990, things were really getting financially tough for Vern, and we were looking for new ways to create revenue. That was part of my job. And I was sitting back in a post-production studio at one point with Joe Tupik. We used to call them Polish Joe.

Still do. Did his podcast not too long ago in Minneapolis, the AWA Unleashed podcast. I think is the name of it. And we're just putting our heads together and we're looking around and there's just like stacks and stacks a half inch tape, old one inch tapes before they changed over to the three quarter inch technology

long before digital. We're looking at all these tapes and it's like, wow, you think about all of the people that have come through the AWA territory starting in 1980 through 1989. It was really the who's who of professional wrestling at that point. And we came up with the idea to put together a AWA best of the 80s video.

And part of that was Joe and I would just sit back and just watch thousands of hours of footage looking for the right kind of clips to take out and include in this video. And I was, and this is long before I had, I never even had a conversation with anybody about creative. I wasn't, to be honest, really that interested in the creative process. I was interested in the finished product, but I sat there with Joe, and we watched the beginning of the Road Warriors career, at least in the AWA, until the end.

And you could see this transition happen where all of the baby-face teams, tech teams, or even the baby-face wrestlers, they all came out and they had a certain, there were baby faces. They were pure baby faces. They didn't have much of an edge to them. Heels did.

Guys like Nicky, Bachwinkle did. But your pure baby faces, like at the time, you know, certainly Vern, but Wahoo McDaniel, for example, he was wrestling as a baby face there. You know, you could pretty much predict the tone and tenor of whatever, you know, Wahoo was going to have to say in an interview. But we started watching the Road Warriors. And they came out and they had that kind of baby face vibe to them, but you could just watch them gradually turn into just ass kick in baby faces that were really blurring the lines between baby faces and heels. So you get the Road Warriors are now heels in AWA,

but they have essentially the same kind of presentation that they did initially. And they were getting huge baby face pops, much like the NWO ended up getting, you know, they were brought in as heels, but guess what? They were cool as shit. And then all of a sudden they're getting,

you know, the kind of reaction to baby faces were open. It's pretty interesting watching that transformation, just kind of happening. right before your eyes over the series of you know hundreds of hours of watching their stuff it's interesting to see a tag team made like we're watching here of course we're still watching raw from november 24th nineteen ninety seven if you're watching on peacock along with us this is season five episode 45 we saw an in-ring promo from harvey whippleman dressed as

ravishing rick rude he was interrupted and embarrassed pushed down face first by sean michaels the leader of DX who had triple H in China in tow and then the road warriors came out sands shoulder pads here are the outlaws spoofing them trashing them and now we've got a double down animal gets the hot tag here and the referee mike heota doesn't see it this creates an opportunity for billy gun to go to work on road warrior hawk and if i had to guess there it is big title shot right across the dome from road dog on to hawk Kyoto makes the count oh road warrior hawk kicks out how about that you know this is the tail end of uh legion of doom we're going to see them sort of reimagined in 1998 they're going to be called LOD

2000 they're going to get some airbrushed shoulder pads and they're going to start wearing airbrushed helmets to the ring that match and they've got a new manager no longer paul illering it's going to be the scantily clad tammy sitch do you think in a different era that would have worked or do you always kind of imagine it needs to be paul illering or nothing i look it's what you know it's what you became familiar with first and i think the legion of doom road warriors with paul ellering will always be the best version of the road warriors for me if you go back and watch, and I have within the last six months or so, I don't know why, but I went back and watched some of the Road Warriors in NWA working for Crockett. Those were some

amazing matches. The reaction that these guys got, the intensity of them, I mean, they were really on the cutting edge of the next evolution of professional wrestling and presentation. If you look at the way talent was, especially heels, were presented prior to that, and then post, Road Warriors, they really were a part of a pretty serious pivotal change in direction, at least in terms of presentation. It was awesome. There it is. The new age outlaws, the new tag team champions.

It's crazy to think, you know, it wasn't that long ago. They were the roadie or the real double J and rockabilly. And now they're established. I mean, look at the fans standing in the crowd. They can't believe what they've just seen. Wait. The, the Legion. no doom the road warriors just lost to those guys yes they did you know i know sometimes we say

that you know the man makes the title and other times we say the title makes the man this feels like the titles are sort of establishing that hey these guys are not enhancement talent these guys are players now they just beat the road warriors and they're stealing the titles oh look here but they're jumping into a buickless saber like you know that's funny you would think you know they would have a cool like a big ass truck something kind of representative of their team but no they jumped into a avis you know buickless saber it's pretty cool that was actually dave silver's personal automobile that's the car that he drives and you just shit all over you can tell because the rims are all fucked up right i'm so proud of you oh my gosh listen to you

wow you know the deal you know i want to uh i want to take a pause here uh we're cruising right now as we see moments ago, LOD giving security their big finish. What a big bump that was. I'm going to stop it at 2025, Eric, when you get to 2025, press pause. And we're going to take this time out to tell you guys about our friends at Manscaped. For some people, it's the most wonderful time of the year. But for others, it's just another round of dodging questions about your love life while not trying to look like you just crawled out of a cave.

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Let me. Yes, sir. Ready to go. And three, two, one, play. So finishing that replay, hawked through the guy over the top rope once he closed lined his head off, animals giving chase to anybody trying to clear the ring, breaking metal chairs in the meantime. But we see that replay.

And as the New Age outlaws were trying to escape in Silva's grandma mobile, they to pause for a white stretch limousine and everybody wonders who the heck is this and now we're alive back on the program and we're seeing a shot of the limousine do you take credit for that are you the innovator of the long limousine arrival during a live monday night show it feels like that's your thing god it's funny i was just thinking about that is you know when was that first established and i kind of think nitro was the first time we saw that on a regular basis Yes. A lot of the ideas for Nitro and how we could be different was also shooting in different parts of the arena.

I mean, very seldom prior to Nitro, did action ever take place backstage? Occasionally, I don't want to claim to that. But we really opened up the platform, so to speak, the stage, if you will. So we had so many things going on outside of the arena. just to give the show a different kind of energy and expose fans to a different aspect of what was going on at the venue. Sometimes we overdid it. I think, you know, when you have action, when you have matches,

you know, like a hardcore match, for example, Kevin Sullivan and I think Brian Pillman famously wrestled in Baltimore all the way up into the men's room up in the, you know, public area where there's people all over the place. It's kind of cool in a way. but it really disconnects the audience, even if they're watching it on a monitor, it's not quite the same thing.

And they get really antsy. They don't particularly care to have a lot of the action taking place away from the ring where they all can see it, especially if they bought ringside tickets. So we tried to manage that a little bit, but, you know, infamously the scene down at Disney, MGM Studios, when Kevin Nash lawn darted,

Ray Mysterio, and people in the community called the cops because they thought there was something going on at the soundstage. It can be very, very effective. But I do think Nitro was probably the lead on establishing arrival shots and action that took place away from the room. This is the segment that was edited out here. If you're watching the version I am, Eric, a lot of people who are watching on Peacock are not seeing this. But Nurse Luna has just pushed the artist formerly known as Gold Dust down to the ring.

and he's in a wheelchair. He's got his face painted up in all black, and he's got the gold letters, F.U. And he's holding his hand a certain way, where he's flipping a bird, but it's pointed down. And he's not trying to play the cool heel here. He's the obnoxious heel. He's an awful jerk that you want to boo

when he's asking Michael Cole to help him cross his leg for him. Vader's going to come out and all of this is clipped out. Did you see any of this version of Gold Dust? Are you watching any of the program here in 97 way back when? No. I know. For no other reason, I just didn't really have the time. And we had our own, we were on our own path, so to speak.

We had our own vision for what we wanted to do at this point in time, November, in 1997 we were we left wwee so far behind in terms of ratings and who was watching what that i really wasn't concerned nor would i dedicate the time to watch what they were doing closely this is um pretty out there stuff here comes vader man i was thinking about this the other day I guess we were talking about it with JBL on something to wrestle with John Layfield and we were talking about Vader about man what if you know we had Vader in the WWF during that new generation era so when he was running rough shot over WCW when Vader was at his peak in WCW if that guy was over here

working with Sean Michaels and Razor Ramon and Diesel and Brayette at heart that could have been wild was there was there a time do you think like if vader had hung around wcd would it have worked in an n w o era would he have been on team wcdb and all that would he have been the guy to sort of i mean a vader baby face that feels weird how would you have used vader in the nitro era for with regard to the nw o story i don't know it's hard you know as you know sitting here in an environment like this trying to think about what would we have done if, you know, those hypotheticals are tough, but if you just, you know, you look at Vader in his history in WCW, the great matches he had with Rick Flair, he would

have been, he would have been a very unpredictable ally for WCW. You would have expected him to be a part of the renegade faction that the NWO became, but it would have been more interesting, I think, to see him, see him teaming up with some of the people. people like Rick Flair that he had such incredible matches with for so long. It's kind of where I would lean, I think, is to make him a part of WCW side of the equation versus the NWO side. NWO is coming from the guy that signed 200 people to the NWO. But the NW, especially in 97, didn't need any horsepower.

They had more horsepower than they could use effectively at that time. It's why he kept seeing them all over the place. I don't think it would have made sense to take somebody of Vader's stature and add him to an already super heavyweight type of a faction. Heavyweight in a sense of popularity. Sure. Well, as we just saw there, as Goldust came down and started cutting a promo, he started to punch Dustin, Luna Vashon, who was dressed up as the nurse immediately through the rubbing alcohol in Vader's eye. that allowed the artist formerly known as Gold Dust to get the advantage. And here's what Meltzer wrote about this way back when on the observer.

Gold Dust came out in a wheelchair and said he was a quadriplegic and had a nurse with him named Nurse Goodbody. Vader came out and said he didn't believe it and attacked Gold Dust and the nurse who turned out to be Lunova Sean. He threw alcohol in his eyes. Actually, it took two tries because she missed the first time injuring his eye and he wore an eye patch for the main event later in the show. And as we're going to commercial, and even as we're coming back to commercial, we're still fixated on this white limousine. And you're seeing the in programming sponsorship here from some sponsors, including Snickers,

who are still getting value for that ad by damn near 30 years later. Of course, what's implied here, although they're not hitting us over the head with it, is Sean Michaels promised in that opening promo that Bradhart was going to be here and we were going to settle things in this very ring tonight. So the implication is that it's a. our Canadian hero, Brent Hart, who's holed up in that white limousine. I don't think that's the case, though.

That's going to be interesting that they would have, they would have tried to pull that off because it usually pisses off the audience. Do you remember what the, what the payoff is? Or is this going to be surprised to you? Oh, you're, you're going to be interested to see what the payoff is. We're getting a reminder from what happened last week here on Raw. Sergeant Slaughter was here and he got beat up and then humiliated by DX. He was the commissioner of the company, of course.

So that's going to allow him to get eliminated and humiliated by DX at the pay-per-view. And we're going to get a video package here that's going to show some highlights of Sergeant Slaughter. You know, we've never spent any time talking about him here on the program. Did you have any relationship with Sarge? Sure did. Going all the way back to AWA. You know, I've told the story many times about my first interview in AWA with Larry's Bisco. I mean, literally, my very first time holding a microphone and trying to do an interview

was with Larry Zabisco in front of, I don't know, 40 or 50 other wrestlers who all had been flown in to do interviews in that particular day. And it was, you know, just horribly comedic, sad. But I did it. I got through the day. Sarge was one of the guys that stuck around after the fact when everybody else was done. The day was over. um sarge and brad ringens uh stayed and they went back to the studio and they worked with me for about an hour and a half or two hours after a full day in the studio just to try to help get me comfortable and teach me how to do promo so i'll never ever forget that nobody asked him to do it he just did it on his own i thought that was pretty cool

Michael Cole is here standing at the top of the ramp here I think this is interesting that they're going to sort of dust off the Sergeant Slaughter character of course they're trying to get him ready for a singles match with Triple H at the In Your House Degeneration X pay-per-view in December in an alternate universe would he have had a pivotal role in WCW do you think Sergeant Slaughter I mean, we saw so many other legends make the jump.

I'm not suggesting that he would have been an in-ring performer, but, you know, J.J. Dillon served as an on-air commissioner, and he certainly had other representatives behind the scenes like Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham. I mean, Greg Ghan. Yeah, there were lots of quote-unquote old-timers who had a role in WCW. Was there ever any conversation like that with Sarge? Not with me. I don't know if Sarge had, you know, contacts with.

with guys like Rick Flair, for example, others who had been in and out of WWE and back to WCW. So the conversation never got to be, but had it, had Sarge expressed an interest in coming to WCW, not only because of what he did for me in AWA and the impression that that made on me, the wealth of knowledge and experience that he has and the respect that he had backstage, he would have been his shoe in for just about anything he wanted to do backstage creatively I never really got a chance to talk to serge much about creative but I know that he had a ton of respect with talent because he'd been around for so long he would have made a great producer agent backstage no question about it and perhaps even on the creative side

so now he's trying to cut an old school promo he just put the sergeant slaughter hat on you see the American flag on the jumbotron the Titan tron behind him he's talking talking about bayonets and killing people with his bare hands and he's going full blown sergeant slaughter character and when i see this i just can't help but wonder how did hulk not mention his name like seemingly so many others the honky talk man the nasty boys brutus the barber beefcake the former earthquake we saw i mean hacksaw jim dougan the former irs we saw so many of those great talents who were working with uh with holkogen in the w f make the jump to WCW, but we never saw Sargent Slaughter.

I could have totally seen that, you know, in that 94 era. I know that would have been maybe right up against his expiration date, if you will, as an in-ring performer. But, I mean, he wrestled the dude just a couple years prior to a WrestleMania main event. It's interesting to me that Sarge's name never really came up. You know, and I never thought of that until you just mentioned it. But in all the conversations I had with all about talent, and possibilities, you're right.

Sarge's name never came up. And no reason for it. I don't think there was any heat between the two of them. I believe that Hall had a tremendous amount of respect for Sarge. But either because he knew that Sarge didn't want to leave WWE and was more or less protected there financially, perhaps that's the reason. But you're right, his name never came up,

not even in casual conversation. It feels like creative is struggling a little bit at this time for the company because I just can't imagine that this is the highest and best used for Triple H. I get that we're trying to do, you know, DX versus the authority. And it's interesting because when DX is pushing back against the authority figures here in the company, they're heels. But when Stone Cold does it, he's a baby face. context is king is it not eric it is but isn't that really interesting it's i mean again it's kind of going back to what i said about the road warriors they they were like on the tip of the spear as far as the anti-hero i guess is the right way to say it character um yeah they

were heels but damn they were so good at it such badass as you couldn't help but want to be one of them steve austin's character was it was different maybe because it felt more authentic Maybe it's because of the way Steve portrayed that character that made it more believable and less of a storyline. I don't know what the reason was, but there was a definite difference between the two. And you, I mean, you look at Steve. Yeah, yeah, he's, he was the anti-authority figure of them all, really. And I would imagine that probably made it even more difficult for DX to try to get over. Obviously, they did.

But I can imagine it would have made it a little more. challenging. We, uh, we got to talk about what they're trying here also in 1997. They're seeing the success that you guys are enjoying. I mean, we're only like a month removed from arguably the greatest WCW match in history. Eddie Guerrero and Ray Mysterio at Halloween havoc, 1997. I mean, the cruiserweight division has just been on fire for 96 and 97.

So make no mistake, WCW is clearly in the first place, slot, they're leading the industry at this time. They're the top company based on ticket sales, based on merch sales, based on pay-per-view revenue, based on ratings, every metric. WCW's in the lead. So the WWF does what a lot of people do in that case and they play follow the leader. So they create their own light heavyweight championship. And we're about to watch a tournament for the first round of this light heavyweight championship to crown a new light heavyweight championship. to crown a new light heavyweight champion. And it's going to be Brian Christopher,

who's walking to the ring now. And his second is someone who is just a big fan of his, wink, wink, Jerry the King Lawler. And they're going to be taken on, well, Brian is going to be taken on, Flash Flanagan. What do you think that the WWF missed when it came to their light heavyweight division

that you nailed with the cruiserweight division? commitment, taking it seriously. I mean, I don't mean to be critical here, but I'm going to answer the question. Just the fact that just that entrance alone is a joke. It was comical. It was cartoonish. The action in the ring is great.

Don't get me wrong, but the presentation of it wasn't. And I think calling it a light heavyweight division, automatically made it less than before the bell even rang in the first in the first match. That's part of it. But I think, you know, when you're introducing something, especially something like the, we call the Cruiserweight Division, here they're calling it the Light Heavyweight Division. You've got to make it a big deal. You have to make it feel important out of the shoot.

You have to build up to it, create some anticipation for it. And then when you deliver, deliver something that is stellar and outstanding to kick it off. That ring entrance, no offense to Jerry Lawler, but that is about as cartoonish and gimmicky as you can possibly get. Now, I'm going to hear from any number of people saying, but what about Ray Mysterio and the mask and the luchador's and all the crazy stuff they wore to the ring? True that, I acknowledge that. But that was bringing a different culture in. I'm not justifying the difference, but I think we treated the luchadors with more respect, initially at least

and established them as something that was unique and different from Mexico therefore why you see the kind of presentation you did with them we were trying to introduce Lucha Libre to the audience that didn't know what it was and tried to give it some perspective but I think in the case of Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler is just there wasn't a lot of thought put into it

and I think that's what I mean by commitment just think it through and set it up to succeed as opposed to just checking the box. And this felt like from a tactical point of view, this was just checking the box. Oh, they're doing it, so we're going to do it. But they didn't really understand or appreciate why it was working as well as it was working in WCW. Again, this isn't a time when, I mean, Rousseau's booking,

he's watching Monday Nitro. He's bringing some of the things that he's seeing on Nitro to Vince. to try to get Vince to include them in Raw. Because I don't think Vince watched Nitro from beginning to end. He probably saw clips of it or certain matches or segments. But Russo was watching everything we're doing and was trying to integrate as much of our presentation into Raw as he possibly could. These were not original ideas. They were Me Too type ideas.

And because of that just weren't very well thought out. Lord, some of these clotheslines from Flash Flanagan, I'd pick the under on him. Hey, prize picks is the best place to get real money sports action with over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded prizes. Prize picks has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 100x your cash. Run your game all season long on prize picks.

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and Lamar Jackson for more than 250 yards. Boom, you're in the game. That's all it takes. Download the app today. Use the code 83 weeks. you'll get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup one more time download the app today use the code 83 weeks and get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup price picks run your game and price picks is so fun even Tony Chivani's doing it can you believe that you're muted bud ever I think I may start this weekend oh check it out I can't wait you're gonna have fun with this. Hey, speaking, having fun. We're starting hour two. That's the cold open to the show. In this era, as a reminder, you would have one show that was called Raw is War, or I

guess the whole show was called Raw is War. So it was war zone and Raw Zone or some bullshit like that. But the strategy was that way you could claim you had two shows in the top 10 or top 20 or whatever it was, right, Eric? Absolutely. In fact, if you go back, I'm going to try to find this. There was an ad. I've talked about this before.

I think it was in the spring of 98. It was right before the up front. And ABC, which at that time had the rights to NFL football, Monday night football, took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal pointing out that between Nitro and Raw, we had like five of the top 10 hours in all of television, not like did Dave Beltzer Wednesday night special like for the week. We had between Raw and Nitro, we had like five of the top 10 hours or four of the top 10 hours

in all of cable television, including the NBA and the NFL and everything else. And they were pointing out the fact that, you know, they were bemoaning the fact that the advertising was spending too much money in wrestling and not spending enough in traditional sports. It was pretty interesting. I'm going to try to find that full page ad because I had it framed at one point in time. And then when Jason Hervey and I were moving offices,

it ended up getting stores somewhere and I haven't seen it since, but it's still out there. And it was a really, it was an interesting point in time, you know, to see an ABC selling as hard as they were selling, reacting to the fact that professional wrestling was dominating. not only cable television but network television as well it's time for dx to return uh they're going to be out here and hunter wants us to know that he is going to beat sergeant slaughter at the pay per view in your house and he's also planning to have sex with all the women

with his enormous genitalia yeah well if you're going to do that by the way you should Sounds like something Rousse I would come up with. Sounds like a nice transition for our friends at Blue Chew is a unique online service that uses the same active ingredients as Viagra, the Atlas, and the Vietro, but at a fraction of the cost and in a chewable form, the process is simple. Sign up at bluechew.com. Consult with one of the licensed medical providers, and once you're approved, you'll receive your prescription within days. Blue Chew's tablets are made in the USA, prepared and shipped directly to your door, and the best part is it's all done online. means no business to the doctor's office, no awkward conversation, and no waiting in line at the pharmacy.

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where you can try Blue Chew free. Just pay $5 shipping and checkout when you visit bluechew. that's bluechew.com to receive your first month free visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information and we thank bluechew for sponsoring 83 weeks and eric's weiner hey serious and this is me after a week in florida is going to be very happy that blue two is a sponsor trust me when i tell you is your head going to explode i mean do you think uh in a way i'm wow okay well i sound wow all right let's move on. Hey, listen, he's got in a promo here. And of course, he's trying to hype up

his pay-per-view match against Sergeant Slaughter. But Sean is about to introduce Bradhart. Are you excited to see Brett Hart on Monday Night Raw here? I know you think, wait a minute, didn't I have him under WCW contract at this point? Hasn't he been screwed by Vince McMahon at the Montreal screwed job? I mean, how did they get? At this point, I'm thinking to myself right as a much more tolerant, forgiving person than I ever thought he would have been.

But clearly, I mean, he did to do business. I guess we have a kind of a foggy, fuzzy memory there because I remember him being pretty upset about the screw job for a long time. But this is just two weeks after the screw job and he's back. So they're desperately trying to pop a rating here. The bait and switch, the smell of bait and switch permeates. Where did they shoot the shot? I don't even know. Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Yeah, well, you can feel, you could smell it all the way in South Carolina. You ever spend any time in Fayetteville, North Carolina? Sure. Sure. On purpose? What do you like there? What's going on there? Why do you keep going back?

Well, I don't say I keep going back, but I generally like North Carolina quite a bit as, as a whole. It's a beautiful parts of that state. Now, I got the best part out of Carolina. Let's move it down here in Alabama. Bleeding export from North Carolina. Here it is. No more fooling. Sean Michaels is bringing back Brett the hitman heart live here on Monday Night Raw.

Of course, we know he had that long stretch limousine, that huge white limousine in the back. They're hitting his music right now. Fans are standing. They're on their feet. They're clapping. You can see it. You can see the curtains rustling around.

Somebody's moving back there. we go ladies and gentlemen brett the hit man heart there he is it's a little person wearing a brett heart mask some oshkosh bagash jeans some of dave silver shoes and a little leather jacket oh he just took his glasses off and he gave him to a kid in the front row that was awesome that was a special moment they have fun with this kind of stuff didn't they this is Vince Rousseau special, isn't it? Oh, God, of course it is. Come on.

It's got Vince Rousseau all over it. Taking the jacket off, going to all four corners. Hey, we found one guy laughing. You know, this was, wasn't this right around the time Vince McMahon came out and did this serious promo? Same month. Talking about how we're not going to offend our fan's sensibility and we're going to do this and we're going to do that.

And here we go. here we go yeah yeah here we go what do you make of this like this is not regarded in the same way as like the finger poke of doom and i maybe that's because you know to the victor go the spoils but if wcdb had won do you think shit like this would be talked about in the same way the finger poke of doom was i don't know i think because it was so obviously kind of a fuck you to, to Brett. This was Vince getting the last word. This is Vince Rousseau, you know, doing what Vince Rousseau loved to do.

And the only thing he was really good at was this kind of sophomoric humor. I think the fans recognize it for what it is. Fingerbug of Doom was a storyline. You know, we treated it seriously and then we screwed the audience. This, I'm pretty sure that everybody in that audience, knew that Brett Hart really wasn't going to be there, and we're kind of ready for the gag. And people react differently to a gag they're getting ready for them, anticipating a mass that they thought they were going to get.

So this guy's got much better head of hair than Brett Hart does. So here's what's happening. Sean Michaels has put the little person wearing the Brent Hart mask in a sharpshooter. And Triple H has. grabbed a microphone and he's leaned down like a referee and he's wanting to know do you quit so yeah it is what it is it's no wonder that you guys were kicking their ass well this is actually this is the beginning of the attitude era early in the attitude era yes dx this this isn't as bad as some of the shit that they were doing in 96,

95, 96, early 97. This is actually an improvement because now, like Rousseau, like I said, Rousseau had something to kind of spur ideas, something that, you know, because he does, he's not really good at coming up with original thoughts, but if he see something or hears something that appeals to his nature, he can then, you know, try to include it in whatever he is, attempting to write.

So, I mean, this is actually not as bad as some of the other shit that we've seen. Oh, the WCW, a little tag on the back of the ass. Except for at this time, Vince and Triple H, we were stomping a mud hole in you, teaching you how to produce professional wrestling. So the joke is really on, y'all. Just. How about that? Jim Neidhart comes out and interrupts and threatens to kick their butt.

Sean is instead going to offer him a job being Degeneration X's enforcer because they're looking for one since Rick Groot is now in WCW but he says hey Brett's gone Davey's off having knee surgeries Sean said something like I know all about those phony knee surgeries and Owen is home distraught

so Jim Ninehart is going to take this offer under advisement and he's going to leave so yeah trying to do something here with jim ninehart meanwhile what's happening on over on nitro the show is actually going to open up in sagittal michigan in front of a sellout crowd 5,879 fans paying 111,510 dollars with the NWO coming to the ring and some fans have a sign there that says bischoff owns vince conan and hogan are tickled at that I mean, when you put on your 1997 glasses and you look back and think about the way you were thinking and the way you were operating at the time, how much did it tickle you to show up and come walking down the ramp and see where a fan made a sign that says Bischoff owns Vince? That had to make you feel good inside, didn't it?

Not going to lie. It warmed the cockles of my heart. I love it. And I would come out and I would see those signs. and I would make sure that I got him on camera. I wanted to make sure everybody got a chance to be on national television if they brought an appropriate sign. So, yeah, I'm not going to lie.

I had a ball with it. Because, you know, and I don't know if it was true or not, but I thought anything that I could do to get under Vince's skin would get him off of his game. Anything that I could do to get him angry would probably keep him from putting his mental resources behind creation. So I was fucking with him in any way that I could. I told you the story before.

I took out a billboard right across the street from from WWE headquarters for no other reason that I just wanted Vince to have to look at that every morning when he came to work and every night when he left just to piss him up and to keep him off his game. It's kind of a Sun Tzu art of war kind of thing. The actual matches that happened that night from Saginaw Civic Center in Saginaw, Michigan are the Steiner brothers with Ted DiBiasey in tow picking up a win over disorderly conduct, which is Mean Mike and Tom Tuff. Then we would see Booker T. Get a win over Ming. Chris Benoit would beat Sickboy.

Prince Iakea would beat Alex Wright, who has Queen Deborah in tow. Randy Savage destroys Disco Inferno. Dean Malenko beats Brad Armstrong. Buff Bagwell beats Chris Jericho. Love to see that in AW. in 2025. Ray Trailer beats Kurt Henning by DQ. So Kurt's going to retain the WCW United States Championship. But the main event is the Giant versus Hollywood Hogan. This is pretty well done because Hulk Hogan's challenging anyone backstage for a title match to start Nitro. And

Giant agrees. But JJ says he wouldn't allow it because the Giant had a broken hand. A giant says he'd sign a deal indemnifying WCW for any injuries. And ta-da, there's our main event. The Giant versus Hulk Hogan on Nitro for free. That's a big time pay-per-view level. I mean, it main evented multiple pay-per-views. And now it's just on Nitro. It's no wonder you guys are stomping a mud hole and walking it dry here.

Yeah, yes, I don't. And I don't remember that match, how it was laid out. but clearly it wasn't laid out to be a definitive type pay-per-view match where one story ended and another began. This is probably, it was probably more of an angle than it was an actual match, but it was presented as a main event match. So it's one of the things that made natural work is bringing,

I remember people tell, oh, my God, Bishop was going to kill the business. He's putting pay-per-view quality matches on TV. Oh, my God, is going to ruin the business forever. or cut to 1997 when WWE is essentially doing the same thing or a version of it. It made television better. It made television more interesting. It's not, you know, it was funny even then, and I didn't have the experience then that I do now.

But even then, you know, people that wrote about wrestling, I won't mention names here, it gets old, hearing me say it, but who had never really had any real experience producing wrestling, nor do they really understand the model for wrestling, had such a hard time understanding it's still due to this day, the correlation between viewership and pay-per-view revenue. That matter, as far as understanding the relationship between ratings and revenue, to this day, some of the people that write the most about professional wrestling

and claim to be experts of the business because they study it, just don't understand that as your ratings go down, so do your pay-per-view buyer rates. So does your attendance at live events. Or in some cases like AEW, they don't really have live events anymore other than our television shows and her pay-per-views. But when your television ratings are down,

your pay-per-view revenues are down. When your television ratings are up, your pay-per-view revenues are up. pretty simple formula, really. But I remember a lot of people were concerned about that back in the day. Oh, my God, you're giving away all these matches. We're never going to be able to draw on pay-per-view. Well, we did quite well.

They're teasing right there still to come the wrestling debut of double J. Of course, he came back in October, cut that pretty fiery promo. Now we're going to see his in-ring debut. But before we do, Savio Vegas coming to the ring here. to take on Ken Shamrock. Savio Vega is one of the unsung heroes of the WWE. Guys like Gold Dust would go on to say it didn't really click for him how to work as Gold Dust until he wrestled with Savio Vega.

And I know that John Layfield has been really complimentary of his time with Savio Vega. Even Steve Austin says that, you know, he first got the, the office's attention after good matches with Savio Vega. he's one of the critical pieces of the presentation here but this guy here coming to the ring Eric Ken Shamrock I have argued with Bruce about for years that in 1998 he should have been one of their top stars look at this presentation as he comes out in what looks like a fight robe he's got on the MMA style gloves

stands on the ring steps on the outside punches himself in the face gets the heroes we are welcome here what do you think of the style and presentation i mean he looks like a shoot fighter presents himself like a shoot fighter he has credibility i think they could have done not the exact same thing you guys are going to start doing with goldberg but you get the idea you could have made him an unbeatable shoot fighter killer character he would have been a great opponent for a stone cold steve austin i think god i agree so much i mean look at him we're just watching here take savi He'll go down.

He's very crisp, very aggressive, fast on his feet, an amazing athlete. And as far as his look goes, he looks like he came right out of central casting for an MMA movie. And he's got a great look, great physique, incredibly powerful athlete, fast on his feet. He had everything. Now, I can't honestly say I'm that familiar with his mic work. I don't know if maybe that's what held him back. Sometimes it is.

but if it was, that was the only weak link in his game for sure because he had everything else. I'm going to beat that drum forever, man. I just think he could have been an absolute top guy. I know that J.R. has said that at times reliability was an issue for him. But that's a big thing.

That was a big thing in WWE. Once Vince soured on you because he didn't think that you were committed, it's hard. It was hard. I'm sure for Ken to come back from that once Vince made up his mind about something like that good luck changing it you got to work your ass off to get into change his mind about you we see Savio throwing Ken Shamrock to the outside there what an unsung hero he is oh and look who's coming down

Miguel Perez coming down to interfere here he's catching Ken Shamrock while he's down uh I want another little production note that I'd like to give everybody listening. Please. If you're ever in a position of producing professional wrestling, don't have the talent run down the ramp. You look like a monkey fucking a football. It just looks really stupid when you're trying to run down a ramp.

Have them come from somewhere else, backstage, come through the crowd, do anything. Do not run down the ramp. You could be a world-class Olympic-level sprinter, and you look stupid running down a ramp. Just don't do it. Don't ever do it. If you see it in a format, raise your hand, say, what the fuck is this?

Why in the world are we having, insert wrestler's name here, running down the ramp so he looks like a dope. Just a side note. I like when you get hot about something like that. Well, it's just a little things. Television is nothing more than successfully paying attention to a lot of little details when strung together, create emotion. And his poor bastard looked like a fucking clown running down the ramp.

How am I supposed to take him seriously? He can't run. How can he wrestle? I love you for that. Hey, let's talk about some good news here. This is one of the lead stories in wrestling at the time. To the surprise of virtually nobody, World Championship Wrestling broke its all-time gate record once again on

first day tickets when they went on sale for Hulk Hogan v. in a WCW title match that will headline StarKade 97 on December 28th at the brand new MCI Arena in Washington, D.C. First day sales on November 15th were 11,036 tickets for $389,910. All of the expensive tickets went almost immediately, leaving only $15 dollar tickets remaining in the building, which at this point is being set up right now for 18,975 seat capacity, although that number usually changes slightly once they set up for the pay-per-view and open up more seating. As of the end of business on November 17th, those numbers had increased to 12,501 tickets sold for $423,431. Since the show is still six weeks away, a sellout is a

virtual lock, and the gate is projected to be in the neighborhood of 537K, which would be the largest live wrestling gate ever in the United States by a company other than the World Wrestling Federation. The WCW all-time record will be set on November 24th in Detroit when the company will have its first ever show to top $300,000. And at the end of business on the 17th, the numbers for World War III were 13,882 tickets sold. for $393,520, with 2,200 tickets left remaining.

Up until the recent Havoc show, no WCW event had ever topped a quarter million. The all-time record for Jim Crockett promotions, the predecessor for the current WCW was StarC886 at the Omni in Atlanta, headlined by Flair and Koloff, which drew about $380,000. And the Starcate at the Omni main event the previous year, Flair versus Roads, did nearly the same similar fit. figure. The famous Rick Flair, Carrie von Erick show at the Texas Stadium in 1984 drew $402,000, while all of the half a million dollar gates in North American history,

which is around 15 at this point, were major events, mostly WWF WrestleMania's. So the WWF has been the leader, but you just finally passed 300,000, just a couple of days prior to this at um for the pre-sale for world war three and you're clearly going to go past it for uh the main event the real big time show star k 97 i mean this has to be just the one of the more enjoyable runs for you within turn or corporate i know wrestling fans look back with rose-colored glasses but seeing how wrestling had always been treated almost like a second class citizen within the Turner organization having record sellouts doing record business hitting record ratings you got to be strutting that ass around the office like

nobody's business right you would think that but I don't I mean if I carried myself that way if that was the impression that I gave people I'm that's unfortunate because I didn't feel that way and part of it was because the treadmill we were on was so fast I at least didn't have time to sit back and go, wow, I'm pretty good. Or, wow, WCW is really different now than it used to be. Even though it was, and even though the perception of WCW within Turner Broadcasting had changed dramatically, I never really gave myself permission to bask in the glow of it, maybe as much as I should have.

Maybe if I would have slowed down and enjoyed it a little bit more, things could have been a little different. But, man, I never had time to think about those things. Like other people would get excited about it. Oh, look at the rock coming up. how about that the rock is here he's still carrying the intercontinental champion uh well you know he's not really the champion but he's got the title and he's claiming to be the people's champion what's last time you wear a fanny pack i wear one i wear one almost every day i i wear one when

i go to the gym what do you see you and my wife you and my wife and my daughter my daughter cringes when she sees me wearing a fanny pack where i mean do you do you do you have wear your cell phone on a clip on your belt no i don't know that's why i have a fanny pack because when i go to the gym i like to have my earbuds in my in my in my pack i like to have my phone in my pack as opposed to leaving it in my bag and hoping that the connection between that and my earbuds stay strong so i just keep and every once in all i get an important phone call if i'm in a gym working out or doing something if i'm outside with a dog i'd have to be reaching in my pocket trying to dig out my phone motherfucking phone's a size of

small computer nowadays. It's like walking around on a small sink in your pocket. It's very uncomfortable, especially when you got big balls like I do when you sit down. It's like, ah, fuck. Oh, God. So I just put my shit in my backpack. I don't have to wear my fanny packs.

I don't have to worry about it. I don't care what it looks like. I don't give a fuck if I look like a throwback from the 70s show. I don't care. I aim to please me. I intend to be comfortable. Then wear this next year for Halloween. just get your Canadian tuxedo on be denim head to toe get your Tocovus boots on get you a gold chain a gold watch a gold bracelet shave you up some goofy sideburns

we'll get you a intercontinental title to throw over your shoulder you've got your own a fanny pack and I'm sure since you have a fanny pack that when we get a wide shot of the rock you'll notice what is just to the right of his fanny pack that's a beeper you still got a beeper Eric you rocking a beeper in 20204 too thinking about getting one I think you should make beepers do they even make them any more probably not I'm sure they do I mean I don't know if you've seen the news this past year but it's worth a Google we're not going to talk about it but beepers made some headlines this year ha ha ha ha ha yeah maybe I won't so hey here's what's happening this is a fun little segment he's out here

with the nation of domination they're all wearing leather he's calling himself the people's champ his microphone starts to cut out the lights start blinking somebody's shooting him with a laser pointer the jumbotron the titan trine starts saying rocky sucks and the crowd starts chanting so he's going to dispatch the nation to go take care of these technical problems backstage and then we're going to see in the truck that it's actually stone cold steve austin who's playing around in the truck to make all this happen and austin is going to cut a promo on the rock where he says i'm going to get you rock when you're walking around the airport or somewhere else in public and your beeper goes off with three one six just know

that your ass is in trouble and then of course rock's going to check his beeper it's going to say three one six on it and austin's going to wear his ass out it turns out what we're seeing on the screen right here with austin being in the production truck is pre-taped he's actually in the arena ready to kick rock's ass i know it's a little silly it's a little uh b movie but it really worked at the time you know we want to see stone cold come in and kick people's ass and whatever winding twisty road we got to take to get there fans can't get enough what do you think of this presentation here i think it's pretty cool i you know i i i like it i was just about to say it's very wc wish but i like it i like it

Again, you're opening up the stage, right? You're using different parts of the venue. People at home are seeing things that they don't normally see in a wrestling show. And I think any time you can do that in a stunt like this is a very cool idea. I liked it. Man, the way, did you watch, did you watch dynamite last night? No. No?

No. I watched for the first, I don't know, maybe half hour or so. I got to say, hats off to at least attempting. interesting open. I'm not going to say it was great, but they at least made an attempt to do something different. And the opening match,

again, wasn't great, but at least they tried to do something different. And from what I saw, and I actually, I started to get sick to my stomach when I saw the Adam Cole, who's that cat he was in the ring with? No, you didn't watch it.

I can't remember the guy's name. It cut a promo in the middle of the ring. A guy came to the ring looking like, literally looking like he was the janitor at Taco, Taco Bell, and they cut a promo on each other. And it was so horrible that I just couldn't continue to watch it any longer. Are you talking about Kyle O'Reilly? Huh?

Are you talking about Kyle O'Reilly? Yeah, maybe. I mean, a guy looked, I mean, if you put 100 people in a room and ask the average person on street pick out which one of these is a wrestler, he would be the last one you would pick. I mean, that's how much this cat did not look like a professional wrestler. in any way, shape, or form. But they at least made an attempt to kind of bring us up to speed. And that's what I liked about the open.

They essentially told us what we should be watching for for the rest of the show. And I think using that cold open to set up your show is such an important part of the format that I was actually excited to see AEW doing it. I don't think if they'll continue to do it or hopefully get a little better at it, but at least they made the, attempt i thought that was pretty cool uh you see uh steve austin wearing a shirt and the shirt says on the front other side jackass would you wear a shirt that says other side jackass yeah depending on where i was going and who i was with let me ask you a question how come when kyle o' riley wears a t-shirt to the ring he looks like a janitor and when stone cold wears a t-shirt he looked like he bought it it it looked like something you'd get at the

dollar store there was no attitude there was no there was nothing about it that it looked like something a 12 year old kid would wear let me ask you this what if instead that's a good criticism what if instead right before he went out he went over to somebody in the go position or the the dusty position whatever they call it in a w and they said hey man if i will you hold this and then I'll just stand in front of you and spin around and I'll cover myself and toilet paper head to toe if I did that and then walk slowly down the ramp

and tried to butt fuck the guy in the ring then maybe Eric Bischoff wouldn't think that this is a terrible idea because well I wouldn't be wearing a t-shirt it would be more serious I'd be wearing toilet paper like the Yette or I could cut off half of my hair and paint shark teeth on my face

or I could paint myself just stripes of black and white and come out and go yes no yes no i mean there's so many wrestle crap ideas that happen in wc w and we're taking issue with a dude wearing a t-shirt who fucking cares dude yeah a dude that looks like he's basically bopping the floors after hours at taco bell and couldn't cut a promo to save his life and you're giving them center stage right in the middle of the ring i don't know if it was three minutes, five minutes, whatever it was, because I couldn't hang for much more than a minute and a half. It was so horrible. Adam Cole, the only person that looked less like a wrestler

than that other cat, can't even remember his name. That's what the impression, what an impression he made on me. Not only, the only person in that arena that looked less like a wrestler than the kid wearing the shirt that looked like he was working at Taco Bell was Adam Cole. I mean, it's, presentation is everything. And one of the reasons I got excited about the opening match is because at least everybody came wearing wardrobe they look like they should be on a professional a primetime professional wrestling show they didn't come to the ring wearing their fucking wife beaters and holes in their shoes and it just but there's a different yeah I mean there's a lot of stupid wrestle crap ideas that took place and you know the whole dungeon

of doom collectively was wrestle crap it had its place but we did to give to guys to each of them a mic in the center of the ring and neither one of them, neither one of them should be out there doing a promo by themselves. Neither one of them are fractionally close to being able to carry that without hurting their characters. And that's what happened with that. Adam Cole and the other cat, Kyle Riley, whatever's name is, absolutely hurt their own characters.

It made me turn off. but hey if other people enjoy it have had it man well we're seeing what a real professional wrestler should dress like right here it's supposed to be the in ring debut of the aztec warrior jeff charrett he's admitted that they handed him this this was not his idea but he's complaining that he did not have his contractual demands met tonight so he's not wrestling they've been teasing this was the wrestling debut but it's not they are not going to let him wrestle because they have not met his demands so that's the character sort of like he wouldn't sing in his last iteration can't make him wrestle here it's not in his contract so

here's what we got we got crush out here who just rode his bike to the ring and i'm sure he's pooping his pants because here comes vader i'm sorry not vader cane that read threw me off but my goodness what a presentation this is for kane as a reminder he's only been with the company like six weeks he debuted the prior month that in your house bad blood and the entire screen and ring is now drenched in this red light cool presentation from a production standpoint i'm sure you like this eric i don't hate it i don't know that i'm overly excited about it but it well he's not wearing a goddamn t-shirt no it doesn't look like he should be mopping a florida fucking taco bell there's a lot to be said for that how do you know when you see

someone, that person should be mopping a Florida Taco Bell. How can you tell? What are the tell-tale signs, Eric? Sloppy. No regard for their appearance. Just want to show up and do whatever they have to do to get a check.

Go home. You know, someone that doesn't appear enthused about the opportunity in front of them. So that's a tell-tale sign. it just tickles me that here I am doing a podcast with a guy who changed wrestling with an angle where everyone wore t-shirts to the ring and that's how you join the gang and you're a part of a fucking t-shirt t-shirts are fine as long as it doesn't look like it came off the 50-cent rack at dollar store just give a shit give a little bit of a shit

about your appearance. You're on national television. Like, I dress like a fucking bum. If you saw me running around in my natural environment here in Cody, Wyoming, shit, I got,

I'm wearing jeans now that are 12 years old. I bought this shirt for $4.99 at a local store, local t-shirt shop. It's not like I'm a fashion fucking plate for crying out loud, but I'm not on national television either.

Well, don't worry. I want to be a, character dressed like a character you want to dress like somebody in the audience as jimmy heart says that's where you're going to end up that's what i was hoping you were going to say because for christmas sylva and i've gone in together we're getting you an airbrushed blazer by the same guy he used to do jimmy hart and on the back it's got dave melzer tony con all your favorites they're right there coming up next sean michaels versus v vader and I know what you're thinking to yourself self

didn't Sean already kill Vader off in 1996 he did and he's here to finish the job now in 1997 and now before we go to the break here's Jim the Anvil Knightheart stroking that old goatee wondering do I take Sean's offer

and come be an enforcer for DX God he was a beast wasn't he? Man I mean look at the traps on that man he just looked courage invaders too I mean he's a two massive individuals. Yeah, I've never had this thought before, but I really miss Vader.

I don't mean personally, but I miss a character like Vader, somebody that was so massive, so powerful, such an intimidating character. I mean, he's about as believable as believable can be in the world of professional wrestling. And I miss characters like that. what incredible performer he was i'm such a big vader fan i'm so glad that uh you know we're all recognizing and appreciating how misused he was in the w w f if you're maybe not on the vader bandwagon i want to encourage you go out of your way to watch some of his stuff he

did over in japan or really almost anything he did in wcd i just can't help but get excited and think about what a version of of vader in the new generation era looks like or you know Vader if he you know had an opportunity to run through the nitro era it could have been interesting to see even Vader imagine if if Vader made some one-off appearances in ECW what that could have looked like he's one of those what-ifs to me I think definitely I mean timing is everything and I think the timing was just some of it was Vader's fault Vader had a he was tough to work with at times. He was like, there was two Vaders. There was the nicest, sweetest, most gentle

giant in the world. And there was the most obnoxious, aggressive bully. And you never knew for sure which one you were going to get. You just didn't know. I saw him treat people with so much disrespect. I'm talking about cameramen and, you know, grips and production assistants to people that you just don't treat people that way. You don't treat anybody that way. But I also saw him when he was just the kindest, gentlest guy you'd ever want to be around. He just never knew which one it was going to be.

But I think if Vader would have had a little bit more control over the way he conducted himself backstage, and if the timing would have been slightly different, like if the incident wouldn't have happened between Paul Orndorff and Vader, and if I had it fired him, when I did, because that was right, like right before Nitro started, I believe. In fact, I think Vader came to the Mall of America to try to have a meeting with me the day before Nitro, because I remember walking through the hotel, and there he was.

He flew himself in. We didn't fly him in. And, you know, he tried to make things better, and I just had made up my mind. I wasn't going to have that conversation with him. So I just told him that and kept going to go on that. about my business, but had that incident not happened with Orndorf, had Vader managed himself differently, slightly differently, wouldn't have taken a great deal. It's a little bit of an effort.

It could have been an entirely different story. It's bad timing. It's interesting to see what we're watching here. Vader all of a sudden has the upper hand against Sean Michaels. Of course, it's not going to last in our main event here. They're only going to go two minutes and 42 seconds. The real story is, right before Sean Michaels made his way down the ramp, it's revealed that Jim Knighthart, the gun for hire, he's accepted the offer.

He's going to become the new enforcer for Degeneration X. God, I wonder how hard that was for Jim. And obviously, the proximity to Brat in a situation. I mean, Rick Rood called me the night of the month. Montreal screw job from the building. I don't mean to cut you off, Eric, but it's not going to last through the end of the match. No.

Okay. But I just, I mean, even beyond his role in there, it had to be hard for Jim under the circumstances, given everything that it went down and his proximity to Brett, relationship with Brett. It had to be hard for him to show up to work. I mean, it's,

it's an interesting time, you know, and I do feel bad for guys like Owen Hart, like Davey Boy Smith, like Jim Knightheart, on some level, and I know that a lot of our listeners think that everyone who they've ever seen on television is an independently wealthy multimillionaire. The reality is that is not the case. A lot of these guys are making roughly what you do, maybe a few dollars more, but for great sacrifice they're away from their family the bumps and bruises boy they take their toll the time away you'll never get that back in your kids childhood and things like that and now owen and davy and jim find themselves on the one hand they want to be loyal to their family member even if it is

by marriage brett heart but at the same time hey man i got bills to pay for my family so if i stand up for you and do what's right by my family? Is it really wrong by my family? Because now I can't pay the bills. So you see images like what we see here. Jim Knightheart asked to come out here and join DX and raise his arms with Triple H and Sean Michaels and wait for China to hit him right in the ball bag. And, you know, another dimension to what you just said is the fact that even back, whether it's WCW or WW, I'm going to use WWE because things were a little different in WCW. We paid for hotels in many cases.

You've got talent that, let's say Jim, I don't know what Jim was making in WWE, but let's say it was 600 grand a year. That's a lot of money. But by the time you pay taxes on that 600 a year and then you pay expense, actually reverse that. By the time you pay all of your expenses, out of that $600,000 a year, and then pay taxes on what's left. Yeah, you're still looking at a lot of money to $300,000 a year.

But where would a Jim Knightheart or anybody else in that category? I'm not picking on Jim or singling out, Jim. But where are anybody that's been a professional wrestler that's making that much money, which means they've spent the majority of their adult life in this profession, if you decide you're going to walk away from it, what are you going to replace it with? Now, it's great if you've been on top for three, four, five, ten, 15 years, and you're a rock or you're John Cena or Stone Cold Steve Austin

or Rick Flair or Hulk Hogan, whatever, and you've got plenty of money in the bank. But what if you're a guy that's just kind of working his way up or a woman who's working your way up that roster and yeah you're making great money but it's not like you're going to give up professional wrestling and go be an architect right you know what are you going to do so you you kind of become a victim of your own success in a way financially and and are forced to do things that you probably resent having to do but don't have a choice and I'm sure that's part of the way Jim felt at this point in time and Owen what else are they going to do Well, I know what we got to do.

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You're going to get to Munchies. You know, better to reach for some Magic Spoon than a giant bag of Doritos. Trust me when I tell you. I'm going to be getting the Munchies this weekend because Alabama is going to be playing Oklahoma. And then we've got AEW full gear. And AEW seemingly always delivers on pay-per-view. They're going to have a handful of great matches that just know it. I'm looking forward to MJF and Roger Strong. I'm looking forward to figuring out how the hell they do the Swarf Strickland Bobby Lashley match. Like, I can't believe we're seeing that one so quickly.

I don't know. I can't call that one. The main event, of course, is Orange Cassidy and John Moxley. But what most people think is going to steal the show is Will Osprey and Kyle Fletcher, what are you most excited about this week? He had at AEW full gear, Eric. Not watching it. What? Yeah, no, I'm not going to watch that one.

I've just, I can't, until AEW does something differently, I just can't get myself to watch it. You know, we talked about it before this. Should we do it watch long? Should we cover the show?

And I really don't want to be negative. I know it's hard for people to believe that, because of my reactions, of things, but I'd rather not watch it than force myself to watch it and be further disappointed. So I decided I'm going to do the healthy thing and just step away from it. And if I hear that there's going to be changes or something, there's a new vision or a different direction, I'm going to jump back in again because I'm hopeful. But, you know, after watching a little bit last night, the week before I watched the whole show,

it was just the drizzly shits. it was horrible last night i don't know how the whole show ended up i can only watch it up to that adam cole disaster in the ring um and maybe it got better so hopefully it did but i think i'm going to sit this one out well listen i know you're not going to fork over uh the handful of dollars for full gear i am but i know you're not can i at least get you to watch the zero hour because they're paying off something pretty big let's take a look And that's who I am. I bring the doom and I will give you a slam.

I bring the doom. I doom all over the place. I bring the doom. And I will mess up your face. Every single match, it's your boy QT. And I'm dropping the doom on your entire family. I drop the doom so hard your ass, I will be kicking. I'll crush your stupid chocolate cookie, then I'll bake you like a chicken.

I have abs, white teeth, and even if he tried, AJ will get destroyed, and justice denied. I bring the moves in style when I enter the ring, and I hurt you till that bell goes ding, ding, ding. I bring the doom, and that's who I am. I bring the doom, and I will give you a slam. I bring the doom. I doom all over the place.

I bring the doom, and I will mess up your face. Anyone who wrestles me I'll show them no mercy I'll make them scream and cry Then I'll head back to New Jersey I never shop in bulk It doesn't give me a thrill And I don't buy paper towels

Because I never spill I am strong like a bull And smooth like peanut butter But I'll drop every Costco guy With my diamond cut I work out every day My life's not in a spiral I've never made a TikTok

Because I'm already viral I bring the dude And that's who I am. I bring the drool. And I will give you a slam. I bring the doo-loom. I do them all over the place. I bring the do-doo.

And I will mess up your face. I'll bring the do-Doo. AJ, I'm more of a BJ's guy anyway. And at full gear, I'm going to embarrass you in front of your entire family, your friends, and the entire state of New Jersey. that's how it's done right there boys this wrestle rock 2.0 is 2024 come on now you love that Eric know the truth I didn't hate it of course not it's awesome I didn't hate it because it's intended to be lighthearted and funny yes it's not intended to be serious the things that I don't like are the things that are intended to be serious but are really a joke but if you've

got something like this, an angle like this, or characters like this, that are tongue and cheek and they go out there knowing that this is a comedic effort, a lighthearted effort to just bring general entertainment to the property, I don't hate it. Now, I will tell you the first 20 seconds or so, you may not have ever seen this, Conrad. You may have to Google this, look it up but the AWA did a something very similar called Russell rap

I thought it was the Russell Rock rumble or you're right you're right is the Russell Rock rumble but it was a rap yes it was hip hop inspired right yes and it was so bad it was entertaining

that's what they're going for Eric that was their intent in this they're trying to channel their wrestle rock vibes for this well then they succeeded I think it's fun. Yeah, I'll watch the pregame show, whatever it's called. Well, listen, let's just inquiring lines want to know.

How would you book the Rizzler? You know, we got, we got Big Justice, we got A.J. We got the chicken bake and the chocolate to talk cookie. But now the Rizler's going to be there. Like, what are you doing with the Rizler? He's the third man. How do you counteract the Rizler? I don't know.

I don't know. I haven't watched enough of it to have a feel for it. I don't know. Don't ask me how I'd book anything. I don't. If I'm watching it, I'm tuned in every week. I'll probably have some ideas.

I can spit off the top of you. But I'm literally trying to watch this stuff, but I just can't get myself to do it. You know what I think that match needs? If we can throw that graphic back up of the Costco guys, because this is, listen, I know that there's some hardcore wrestling fans who don't get it.

Buddy, this is not for you. this is for people who aren't in the internet wrestling community bubble to check out AEW. I know this sounds made up, but there are people in real life outside of your house who do not watch wrestling. And they are going to watch this because these guys are on it. I know you don't believe that. But it's true.

I've been asked. Not only they're going to watch it and be entertained by it, then they're going to be stuck watching Orange Cassidy going out and getting his ass kick and just like kicking people in his shins. and that is supposed to be serious. This is supposed to be lighthearted and funny. I've got news for you. Orange Cassidy is more comedic than these guys are from my perspective. Yeah, and it's supposed to be.

Yep. I just, I think it's hilarious that people are taking issue with this. We talked about it last week. These guys got on a Tonight Show. Like when you're trying to grow your company, you're trying to court attention at all costs. and my understanding is this is probably not costing an arm and a leg, but you want to talk about a return on investment?

This is one of the best ROIs that AEW's probably ever had. And I, for one, am looking forward to it. And I think the only way, the only person who can really connect with the wrestling fan and just the hearts and minds of the casual and maybe new AEW fans. We can show that image again, Silver. There's only one man who can get this over. and make an indelible mark on all of our hearts and minds. There's only one man who can sing beautiful lyrics to the sweet music that AJ and Big Justice and the Rizzler bring this weekend at full gear.

And it's the voice of professional wrestling himself, Jim Ross. I for one, him for it. I need Jim Ross to do commentary on this match. That's how you seal the deal, Eric, co-sign with me. And he's got, you know, look, they're entertaining as hell. they clearly, they broke it through pop culture, they made it to the tonight show, whatever. People are talking about them outside of wrestling. I agree with you 100%.

The way you grow your audience is the same way a preacher tries to grow the congregation and has to bring people from outside of the church into the church. Now, these guys are bringing people in to check out AEW that have never even heard of AEW before. This is your opportunity, Tony Kahn, to do something to get back some of the the audience that has circled the drain for the last couple of years, but it's only going to work. Tony, listen to me, it's only going to work. I'm going into my Joe Biden thing. It's only going to work if you give them credibility. And the only person that can give them any credibility is

Jim Ross. Jim Ross, you know how to win a game. You've watched college football. You've supported at Oklahoma from the sidelines. You were the broadcast voice for the Atlanta freaking falcons for a while on WSB. I think it was. I can't remember what the fuck difference does it make anyway. But now is your time, Jim, to stand up and be the company man that we all know you can be that deep down inside you want to be. Call this match.

Give these young men the credibility they deserve and provide an entree to success that up until this point has been elusive for AEW. I want to know the hard-hitting details. What's the Rizzler's athletic background? Has he has, has, has Big Justice lettered in middle school? Like,

what are we dealing with? Only J.R. can bring that sort of nuance to the screen. And I need that photo op. I need them celebrating and like, maybe they can, you know, toast chocolate chunk cookies,

the Rizler and J.R. Like, let's see if we can get the Rizler sitting on J.R.'s lap. Let's dress him up. like Santa Claus. Let's make this the heartwarming holiday season moment that we need in AEW. Let's get their goddamn Rizzler together with J.R. I'm for it. I am too. And you know, we're going into the Thanksgiving Christmas, the holiday season in general. People are looking for that warm, comfortable, familial type of environment. J.R., I agree with, with Conrad

here. I can just see the photo with you guys sitting around enjoying a Thanksgiving, you know, dinner in catering, for example, at AEW, been to catering in AEW, by the way. Pretty good. I know my catering. It ain't good. But we could have this set up so that we're having almost a home away from home kind of Thanksgiving experience.

I think it's a great idea. You should, you should give Tony a call and see if he'll let you book this. I say we do one. If you'll, he'll jump on board because I think it's a great idea. Especially after, you know, we're just going to be moments removed.

from Alabama beating Oklahoma at that point. He's going to need a lighthearted moment. He'll need just to pick me up. And I think the Rizler's got exactly what he's looking for. Let's get that hashtag going. Hashtag give J.R. the Rizler. I mean, that's what we want this holiday season. It's what J.R. really wants most of all is to call the QT. Marshall big justice match.

Which, by the way, I don't care what anybody says. I hear's a prediction if they put that clip on YouTube it'll be the most watched clip on YouTube for AEW in the month of November you disagree with that that's a no that's a low hanging fruit right there but go I'm not gonna think I'm just I agree with you 100% it's a dumb deal I'll perform Orange Cassidy from last night for sure man you got a hard on for Orange Cassidy what's your what's your heat with OC I don't have a hard on for him personally I don't know him personally I do you think that presentation it was kind of cool and interesting in a beginning but it's just

gotten to the point now it's done to death it looks fucking ridiculous it's stupid do you think we're about to transition the character i hope so for fuck's sake i see i i liked it the way it was now they're giving it an edge he's in a title shot he's in the main event i don't want it to evolve but i'm afraid it's about to speaking of evolving uh the rumor in innuendo is you're evolving a little bit. You're still doing this MLW show? This is a real thing. Yeah, we just had a, we had a creative call yesterday and going through the format and

had some discussion about the open of the show because I feel strongly about the open of the show, some conversation about backstage interviews and how they're being done and maybe some ideas, how to do them a little differently, as well as some of the other things that go on inside of the show. So yeah, I'm doing it. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a blast. It's been announced. Tickets are on sale now. MLW NYC. It's going down December 5th in Queens at the Melrose ballroom. It's live on YouTube, but you want to be in the building when wrestling history is made. It's Eric Bischoff's one shot. MLWNYC.com already announced our Matt Riddle versus Donovan DiJack. We got Mystico versus Trevor Lee, Cojima,

versus Ultimo Guerrera. How about Akira versus Minoro Suzuki? A CMLL match in Magnus versus Titan. And the Andersons are going to be taken on Matthew Justice and a mystery partner. And it's a who's who over there. And tickets are on sale now.

They start at just $15. At MLWNYC.com. Doors open at 5.30. And there's a special bell time at 7 p.m. Normally they go a little later, but this is going to be a short time. where you get more than your money's worth, wouldn't you think, Eric? Yeah, I think there's, I don't know this for a fact, but there's been some discussion

about a meet and greet afterwards. So it's going to be a great time. I'm looking forward to it. It's been a lot of fun. Court and his team are a great, great group of guys. It's been fun collaborating with them. That's one thing I do miss about wrestling is the creative kind of collaboration, a part of it. You know, somebody throws out an idea, and it's like a half good idea. And then by the time you pass it around the room, it turns into a great idea and that's it's fun being a part of that kind of discussion so I'm having fun doing that but I know that once I get there it's going to be a blast beat up front of people again it's been a minute since I've done

that check it out MLW NYC dot com ticket started just $15 and it's going down in Queens New York on December 5th hey in the rearview mirror right now Eric I got to at least get your take on this this past weekend we saw John Jones retire steep that's it for him and then he uh in his post match post fight interview said something like i've decided not to retire or maybe i won't retire i got to go talk to uncle dana and uncle hunter to see what they want to do next and that makes me think hmm what are we going to see what does that mean of course the ufc is now a part of tk o alongside w but uncle hunter and Triple H and Stephanie were at the UFC.

And, of course, the day before we saw Mike Tyson share the ring with Jake Paul. I don't want to say fight. But they were both there in the center, you know, the midfield line for the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and 70 some odd thousand people there. Tens of millions of people watching from around the world. And the postmatch, maybe that's the right phrase to use there. Mike Tyson said he didn't know what it was next, but he's not going to retire. Maybe Logan Paul. And Logan Paul, of course, is under contract with WWE.

And it makes me wonder, hmm, do you think there's a chance we see Mike Tyson or John Jones involved in action at WrestleMania in Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world? Gee, I don't know for sure. How about that? It would be harder to imagine not having one or both of them a part of WWE. So yeah, absolutely. John Jones,

what a great character. What a, well, he's such a lovable guy. I mean, baddest man on the planet, but soft spoken, um,

sincere, relatable. You haven't been watching MMA a long time, have you? Huh? You haven't been watching UFC. like a long time, right? I mean, I dip in and out of it.

I'm not like a hardcore passionate fan that tunes into every one of them, but if there's something interesting, I watch. He's playing a character. He's a huge heel. Really? Huge heel.

Now I love him. It's worth a Google. I'm not going to make any, I'm not going to say that maybe someone showed up to drug test him and he sprinted away from the guy. I'm not going to say that, he's done a hit and run or i'm not going to say any of those things i'm not none i'm not you mean he actually ran somebody over and left the scene i'm not saying he did that

i don't know what he did or didn't do but i know when you're over here saying he seems like a great guy i'm like oh uh i don't know i'm personally i just know the guy that i saw on television the guy that i saw on television the guy that won the fight is a badass the guy that did the post match interview i loved it all like a nice guy it's a pro wrestling character well that's awesome now i really love i knew you would i knew that would make you like him more because i used to love as a kid when hollywood hogan would get the shit kicked out of him on a sunday night but then he'd show up at nitro i'm up the floor with him brother like that was great stuff and that is john jones he is like a true classic pro wrestling fan hey speaking of true classic it's here

just in time for the holidays and eric and i love it and eric maybe suggests that some of the A.EW roster, go check out trueclassic.com because I'm telling you. We should do a GoFundMe. We should do a giant true classic go fund me page so that wrestling fans from all over the country that love AEW can donate money so we can supply the entire company with wardrobe and true classic t-shirts because it would elevate the prestige of the company twofold. Here's what I'm saying though. You don't need a go fund me for true classic.com slash 83 weeks because you get I'm talking about premium products at an affordable price.

And you can get almost like in bulk. What about the best selling t-shirts, hoodies, jeans, and more in three, six, and even nine packs? We've all had like a favorite shirt or a favorite pair of pants or a favorite hoodie that we wear all the time to the point that, well, let's be honest, we wear it out and maybe our spouse wishes we'd stop wearing it. But when you get the right fit, man, you just can't get enough. Well, that's what True Classic knows.

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slash 83 weeks to save. that's trueclassic.com slash 83 weeks. Please support our show and let them know that we sent you. It's the end of the year with holiday cheer. Thanks to True Classic. And boys, And we have lost him completely. And we have lost Eric Bischoff just in time to announce that next week,

we're doing, ask Eric anything. Oh, thought you bailed on me. Eric, I'm putting your ass over. I was moving a cup and I hit the mouse and the mouse disconnected me. A fucking mouse. Killed that some bitch. Was it wearing a slovenly t-shirt? Huh?

Was it wearing a slovenly t-shirt? Did it do some baby kicks to your shin? What specifically did it do that? I just bumped it. The mouse got in my way. So you do what you always do with bice that step in your way. You kick them. I was going to say that that mouse is supposed to be like Taz's a non-bumper.

That's what's been taking bumps. Hey, I'm looking forward to full gear this weekend. I'm also looking forward to Alabama or creaming the Oklahoma Sooners. That will be close. But before we go, I wanted to ask you, you recently asked on Twitter something, and I wanted to save it for the end. Someone asked you about comparing Tony Conn and Dixie Carter. And I don't see a lot of similarities, but I wanted to give you a chance to add some context to your tweet.

Well, I think the question was, who is a better booker? And although Dixie didn't aspire to be perceived to be the head booker of TNA, she at least knew what she didn't know and brought people in to do that for her. that's why I think she's a better booker than Tony Kahn because she recognized what her weaknesses were and tried to surround herself at various times with various people to operate in that world whereas Tony thinks he's a good booker and clearly is not and Tony Kahn doesn't know what he doesn't know and despite the obvious data and being that Tony is a data analyst from what I've been told,

you would think one would simply look at the numbers and go, okay, well, this sucks, it's not working, so I'm going to do something different. Dixie would have done something different. Tony's not doing anything different. Ergo, I think Dixie, in retrospect, was a better booker. If you look at the quality, I mean, you can argue about TNA and you can be people laugh at T&A a lot now or used to, but I think AEW would love to have the quality of content that T&A had for a long time before I got there and even while I was there and afterwards. DNA gets a bad rap in a lot of ways and some of it they deserve. A lot of it they don't.

If you look at, go back and just watch some of those shows. There were some great stories, some great actions, some top. talent in there. And you have top talent in AEW as well. This is not, AEW's issue is not a talent issue. It's a Tony Kahn issue. But Dixie understood that. And she didn't try to be the booker. She, she, she wanted to be perceived to be the, the female Vince McMahon, so to speak, of the wrestling industry. There's nothing wrong with that. That was a lofty goal for her. Tony Kahn wants the same thing, but he's not willing to surround himself

or listen to the people that he is surrounded by to help him achieve it. So there you go. Well, I'm sure we'll be talking more about AEW next week as we cover the fallout from full gear. I wanted to ask you, you know, what you make of the announcement that AEW is going to be running some smaller venues.

It looks like they've booked quite a few, including I guess there's three. now at Hammerstein Ballroom, which is obviously a pretty favorite ECW memory or venue for those people who were around in that era. You were actually there for some of the one-night stands for the WW ECW initiative. What do you think about them right-sizing the arenas? I mean, one of the reports we saw from Brian Alvarez was they had a huge lighting rig that wouldn't work in some of the smaller arenas.

I guess they've they've remedied that with a new investment. What do you think? Will smaller arenas make a difference in the way the show feels? Yes, without question. It's going to be hard. I don't want to sound like I don't have an opinion on this, but here's what you gain, here's what you lose.

What you gain is financial relief. because you're not booking a 10,000 or 15,000-seat arena that you have to curtain off because you can only sell 2,000 tickets. That's not smart. What you're going to gain with a smaller, more intimate audience, intimate just being more compact and in and around the ring is a different level of energy, right, because people aren't spread out through an arena. So they tend to, you know, emotion is catchy.

in a way. So I think when you've got everybody kind of confined in a smaller area, once the audience gets excited, it'll be easier to generate enthusiasm through the entire audience. I mean, last night, if you go back and watch the show, at least the parts that I watch, the fucking audience did not care. It was deader than dead.

They might as well not even been there. So I think reducing, you know, compacting, if you will, the audience is going to help that in a way, that's what you gain. What you're going to lose, though, is the ambiance of a bigger arena, the credibility of a bigger arena. And that's, you know, just funny talking about T&A and the comparison between Dixie and Tony.

That was the fact that TNA wouldn't fully commit to taking their show on the road is one of the reasons why TNA never grew. It was never perceived by the home viewer, by the television audience. audience, which is critical to the success of any wrestling organization. I don't care what the fuck anybody says about how people change watching TV or whatever. It still all starts with a television product. And I did it. I mean, I think I was maybe one of the first ones that attempted this to shoot your shows regularly,

that is, on a soundstage. It has inherent advantages from an economic point of view. There are some economies of scale, as they're referred to, in smaller venues. But to the viewer at home, it just feels less than, particularly when you're the challenger brand and keep drawing attention to yourself as challenging the WWE and comparing yourself to WWE. Well, now viewers are going to have another opportunity to really compare the two side by side. And when you look at any wrestling company, not just AEW, whether it was T&A, EW or Conrad Thompson's new wrestling company, if you're wrestling in front of 1,500 people, 1,800 people in that small arena, it just doesn't have the energy to the home view. The people in the building are going to have probably more fun because it does feel more like you're at a party as opposed to standing on the curb watching something happen across the street.

So people in the arena are probably going to enjoy the experience more, my guess. But the people at home are going to be asking themselves why they're investing two hours of their time to watch something that isn't really that credible. It's not really a big event. Yeah, it's live, but who cares? So it'll be interesting to see how they manage it. You know, the production values are going to deteriorating. It just is what it is.

even less night if you go back and watch the show and you look you know they got a boom camera right that does a big sweep of the crowd and it's great for making the crowd in the venue look bigger than it actually is get rid of those and if you do try it it's going to look cheesy as fuck so you'd be better off not even trying to make it look bigger than it is but the production values are going to take a big hit which is going to affect the viewing experience at home but the people in the venue are probably going to have more fun so maybe it's a wash? I don't know. We'll find out, but I would be disappointed. I would have taken a different approach. I would have asked myself, what do I need to do to put more people in these seats? How do I

grow my business? How do I stop the bleeding? Why is my audience circling the drain? I would have rather tried to fix that than just throwing in the towel and going to smaller venues. I don't know why, but I love when you get on your soapbox. It makes me smile because I know you've still got a passion for it. And I know that it comes from a place where you really care. And I know that people are critical of that and they think that, you know, that's not the case. But I want to repeat what Eric said at the top of this. You know, we did a string of AEW pay-per-view reaction shows and they did quite well financially.

And Eric said, I don't want to do it. It's just negative. I don't want to be painted to be. negative. That's not who I am. I don't want to do that. In real life, we've got a little heads up right now. If you're a wrestling fan on the Tampa area and you're looking to purchase a home, why not work with the tag team champions of home buying? W.B. Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff will be your personal mortgage advisor. Eric can help you determine their buying power, talk through your interest rates and your monthly payments, even get you pre-approved. And once you're

pre-approved, legendary announcer Dave Penzer, can be your personal real estate agent. helping you find a dream home that's too sweet to find out more. Go right now to nitrohouseparty.com. And how fun is this? You know, it's an unintended consequence. I kind of didn't think all those years ago when you were getting your mortgage license. There's actually people in the wrestling space who were realtors that you've worked with years ago,

like Dave Pinser. That's pretty cool. It's full circle. And I love working with people on your mortgages. is, you know, you can, anytime you get a chance to sit down and talk to people and show them how you can save them money when they didn't realize it was even possible, or especially going into the holiday season, you know, your home is such an important part of your life, you know, if you're a young family, you know, growing up, you're taking pictures of your kids in front of the Christmas tree or the, you know, the Hanukkah lights or whatever it may be in Thanksgiving pictures. I mean, your home is such an important part of your life. To be able to team up with Dave Pinser and help people get their very first home, especially as difficult as it can be sometimes, it's a very, very rewarding feeling.

Or somebody who's pulling their hair out because they can't seem to figure out a way to keep up with the credit card payments that they've racked up over the last two years like everybody else in this country and to be able to show them how they can dig out of it. it's a very, it's very rewarding and I'm grateful for the opportunity, especially to work with your team because you have such a great team. I mean, whatever it is, you've got a great team of people that are not only helping me, but you and everybody else in your company. And teamwork makes a difference. It really does. So check it out. It's not like going to a bank. No. And sitting down with a banker, someone that doesn't know you, you don't know them. And you're just

a number to them. You've got a great team of people that make you feel and actually do care about trying to help you reach your goals. And that's really what it's about. You know, we're going to ask you some questions. Hey, what are your goals? What are your short term and long term goals? Lay them out. And then we're going to help you get a plan to reach those goals. And if you're in the Tampa area looking to buy a house, man, step one is go right now to nitrohouse party.com. But if you're listening to my voice and you're already in a home and you're wondering, hey man how am i going to pay for this holiday season i mean for listen for a lot of us the guys the dads this is a stressful time of year you know you got thanksgiving you got christmas and then

the new year and well here come all those credit card bills don't put christmas on a credit card go to save with eric.com right now how's this for starters no house payments until february you won't have to make your december or your january payment and come february you're going to have a cheaper monthly payment we're routinely helping our podcast listeners save a boatload of cash. Earlier this week, I talked to a family who's saving more than $1,000 a month. And it's free to find out how much money you can save right now at save witherick.com. And you heard Eric talking about it. You're not treated like a loan number. You're treated like a human being. We want to hear what your goals are. And even if you don't

qualify right now, we're going to get you a plan so you will qualify. But lots of folks who've been turned down at their bank or credit union don't realize that there's something called a credit overlay. Where some banks and credit unions, and say, if you don't have a 720 score, we won't even talk to you. We just say, sorry, you don't qualify and send you a single sheet in the mail, and it's left to you to just figure it out. They're not here to solve your problems. They're here to make money off of you.

We want to be your mortgage advisor for life. Tell us what your immediate needs are, and what are your long-term goals? We can put together a plan, a path to get you there. Maybe you want to knock out that credit card debt. Maybe you want to pay your house off before you retire. Have you even thought about that? how many years do you have left on your home loan i bet you don't immediately know but yet somehow you know how many car payments you have left make that make sense the banks have decided to create

this product called a mortgage which is actually latin for pledge until death you don't know this but the banks decided to create what's known as a debt to income ratio you may have heard of that and they trained you to come in when you got ready to buy a house and say what's the most i qualify for well said differently what you asked that banker was hey can you make me poor i'd like to give you 29% of my gross monthly income every month until i die these evil bankers they get paid on what's called under management we don't do that at save with eric.com we're here to get you out of debt and i know that sounds like the exact opposite of what you think it would be but there is a smarter cheaper, faster way to pay it back. And here's a spoiler. The faster way is not to pay Discover

28%. The faster way is not to pay American Express 31%. The faster way is to get a cheaper interest rate and a greater tax deduction with a cheaper monthly payment but a shorter term. What does the end of your loan look like? If you're 50 years old and you go into your bank today and you sign up for a 30 year loan, they'll hook you up. Now here's my question. Who's paying your house payments for you when you're 79 and 80. That's not thinking about the full picture. And they're going to convince you to say, oh, we'll refinance you again and no closing costs.

Just start all over again with 30 years. What does the end of your loan look like? If you've got credit card debt, if you've got a second mortgage, or you're not sure when your house is going to be paid off and how that affects you and your household expenses, you need to go to save with Eric.com right now. Eric was oblivious to some of these things, too. we helped his family showed him how easy it was and he's like dude how do i do this and now he's here and he's been doing it for years and he wants to share with you and your family what we did

for his family we make it fast we make it easy what are you waiting for you've got a friend of the mortgage business and his name is eric bischoff yes the holler famer eric bischoff is going to work with you to save you some cash right now at save with eric.com how did i do eric you did pretty great but you know one of the things you did pretty great listen to me you did awesome thank you very much but the other thing i was thinking about the other day too is you know we're hearing about interest rates starting to creep down just a little bit and we're all anticipating you know hopefully things turning around after the first of the year in 2025 get pre-qualified there's going to be a mad rush at some point in time there is going to be a rush because people haven't been able to buy houses

refinanced for a long time, but that's hopefully going to change in 2025. Why not get pre-qualified? So when that dam starts to break or when things start loosening up just a little bit and you feel like it's right for you, you are pre-qualified. You can walk into a home that's for sale and the buyer, potential buyer, will know that they're talking to somebody that's already qualified. They don't have to wait and see if this potential buyer can actually get a mortgage, which gives you a little bit of leverage in the conversation.

Plan ahead. Work the plan. Plan the work. Get prequalified and be ready to go when you're ready to go. Let's get out of debt. Let's save some money. Let's go to save witherick.com. And then next week, we're going to grill Eric's ass. It's ask Eric anything. And if you got a question, we want to hear from you. We're going to be doing it live at 83 weeks.com next week. You'll be able to join us live and interact with Eric and ask questions. So set it up. Set your alarm. Go right now and hit the bell. at 83 weeks.com. That's what you want to do. You want to hit the subscribe button.

You want to turn on the notifications bell. You don't want to miss us when we're live. And if you've got a question, find us on social media. That's easy to do. It's at 83 weeks everywhere you enjoy social media, whether that's Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. And that'll do it for us this week, Eric. I never know what to expect when we sit down and click record,

but I had fun today. And I'm looking forward to ask Eric anything next week right here. Me too, brother. I look forward to it. So long, everybody. Hope you'll have a great Thanksgiving, and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson.

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