83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 351: Eric Bischoff's Wild Week In Wrestling

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric is back from a rollercoaster ride of a week in professional wrestling. On Tuesday night, Eric appeared and cause a stir in the WWE's NXT roster and build to their PLE. Then Eric took his "One Shot" at running the Major Leagues Of Wrestling promotion in the heart of WWE country. So how did all this start and how does Eric think it went. Will Eric be back on our TV screens sooner than we know? And, how did the ratings do this week between NXT and AEW? All these questions will be answered and so much more on this edition of 83Weeks with Eric Bischoff. LUMEN - Take the next step in improving your health, go to https://www.lumen.me/83WEEKS to get 15% off your Lumen.  MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo 83WEEKS at https://mandopodcast.com/83WEEKS ! #mandopod MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/ .  TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://www.trueclassictees.com/83WEEKS ! #trueclassicpod ROCKEY MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to https://www.rocketmoney.com/83WEEKS 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 TUSHY - Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Save BIG at https://hellotushy.com/83WEEKS 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

In a lesson number 212-9, Equal Housing Lender. Do the holidays have you feeling stressed? Savewithconrad.com can help you pay off all of your high-interest rate credit cards and get a cheaper monthly payment. We're routinely helping listeners save over $1,000 a month. And you can even skip your next two house payments. That's right, no payments until February. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket,

and it just takes about 10 minutes to get started. So don't put Christmas on a credit card. Start saving the day and make this the best Christmas ever at savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with the one and only, the Hall of Famer himself, as seen on TV this week, twice. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you, man? I'm good.

I'm recovering. You know, a week of travel kind of took it out of me. Not used to it, but feeling good now. Happy to be home. Looking forward to the holidays. My daughter's coming in from L.A. and about a week and a half and have Christmas with us. So it's all good, man.

I'm looking forward to the holidays. Well, we are here live with Eric Bischoff at 83 Weeks.com. If you haven't already, what are you waiting for? Hit the subscribe button. Turn on your notifications bell. And when I say live, I mean live, live. welcome to the club here and yes it is indeed Sunday morning and yes we are live normally you hear our podcasts on Fridays but Eric you had one of the craziest weeks in

a while you've had all of a sudden I see you on NXT on Tuesday I think you got to hang out at the performance center a little bit on Wednesday then you find yourself running a show for MLW on Thursday what a crazy week you had take us through your week this week easy yeah it was uh it was it was it was a busy week for sure uh you know left the house monday and ended up in orlando uh did nxte t t t t t t t t and then on wednesday filmed uh an episode for news series on aeney and i got to work with micky james and undertaker and shone walpin and a couple others it was it was a lot of fun i don't want to give away too much it's not my show but it's a It's an interesting concept, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

So that was really fun. And I got up early, no, Wednesday night. I left right after I was done shooting Wednesday in Orlando for WWE, that A&E series, went right to the airport, jumped on a plane, flew to New York, and did the MLW show Thursday night. So it was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. You got to see some people that I haven't seen in a while. David Sahati. I haven't seen David since T&A days. So that was really cool. He hasn't changed a bit. Same guy. Very talented, fun to work with, very positive person. So it was a, it was a fun week for sure.

Unfortunately, I came down with some food poisoning on the way home. Oh, no. I kind of kicked my ass. Yeah, I almost had to call this one off this morning. I got home yesterday and I couldn't move. I fell asleep 20 minutes after I walked through the door about 3 o'clock and didn't really wake up until 4 o'clock this morning. And I woke up and I went, oh, I don't know, but I started moving around. Hey, I may kick out of this thing. And I did. So about 7.30 this morning, I realized, you know what? I'm going to be able to put in the time and the effort to get out of a good show.

I'm glad you're feeling a little better. I'm glad you're with us. what a what a crazy experience you had like this is one of the first times you've been to the performance center right it was the very first time i had you know been hearing about it for so long and i've been anxious for the opportunity to get down and see it because it's you know it's kind of like a wrestling producer's dream come true when you can have you know your training facility and it's an extensive training facility you know the the room that the uh the part of the building that the rings are in or it's very big it's uh it's really nice but you know you've got all the

access to develop talent at every level whether it's in the ring or the gem that they have there or the opportunity to teach people how to do you know in ring promos and behind the scenes things teach them how to do narrative um it's all right there and it's such a badass i mean it's like It's like the PowerPoint, you know, 10.0. It's really, really impressive and really enjoyed meeting, I guess, students is what, trainees, maybe. I was, in fact, if I start thinking about it, I'll still, I'll be shocked still. The quality of talent that is in that performance center and the things that they're capable of

doing with so little time in training is just mind-boggling. I mean, I think we're going to probably start seeing it. We've already seen it with guys like Braun Breaker and others, right? You know that that place works. Bron, I think, is kind of an, he's an exception to any rule, to be honest with you. But the quality of talent that I saw in there are things that they were capable of doing. Some of them, let me give me an example. I was standing there talking to Jeremy Borash.

again i haven't seen jeremy in forever i was standing in the training facility you know where the rings were and i'm watching there's like eight or ten people in their ring guys and girls and they're running the rubs and dropping down jumping over and doing all kinds of stuff very very fast pace and i looked over to jeremy i said man how long of these kids been training he said four weeks four weeks i mean the just the abilities that these kids have been able to develop over such a short period of time is mind-boggling. But so many of them are like Division I athletes. There are men and women that are being recruited from college athletics, and they're just picking everything up so quick. They look crisp, their attitudes,

they're all coachable. I mean, it really is a trainer's dream come true. I can see why Sean Michaels and Jeremy are so excited about it. And Steve Regal, of course was there he just dropped by he's usually out on the road with raw smackdown but uh matt bloom got got a chance to talk to matt bloom quite a bit and the guys that are hands on training the talent there they have a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to because there's going to be some amazing talent coming out of there in the years to come i can't wait to see it i know that uh you got to catch up with your old buddy x-pac while you were there what a great photo that was uh man he uh he let the internet on

fire last week when he posted that photo of him looking all jacked. I mean, was it like a family reunion with some of those folks that you haven't seen in a long time? You know, what's so cool about it? Um, you know, Booker T was, I got to work with Booker Tee as well. And it's been a long time since I've seen a lot of these guys. But then you're around them for like five minutes and you feel like you, like you around each other every day. It's like almost no time has passed. And I guess that's what I get real friendship is, you know, when you can just be around each other for a few minutes after having not seen

each other for years and still feel like, you know, you're close friends. So it was, it was a lot of fun. I had fun with Booker. He makes me laugh. He's just got such a great sense of humor. I saw you,

uh, take a selfie or have a photo made with, uh, Ethan Page. And I think you called yourself, uh, the dynamite dudes. hanging out that maybe a little indie window there was that your first time hanging out with

Ethan yeah yeah he was outside my dressing room speaking with somebody and uh I had the door open I wasn't getting dressed or anything I was just going in and out of there checking my emails or whatever and he was standing outside the door talking to somebody and whoever he was talking to I don't remember who it was say man you guys should post a picture together it'll drive some people crazy and I'm up come in I'm that guy you know if we could stir it up get all the crazies out there and the internet pissed off let's do it so yeah that was fun he's a classy guy it's uh it's interesting to see you know who all was there of course we showed that picture with you and sean michael's too and i can't help anytime i see a picture of you

and sean michael's but think what if you know in an alternate universe if he would have made the jump to wcw i know you ran into i assume you ran into jeremy borash you spent some time with and T&A and probably a lot of guys you haven't seen in a long time now down at the Performance Center in 2024. Yeah, it was cool seeing Jeremy. You know, he's come so far. I guess he, you know, first showed up in professional wrestling under the Russo regime in WCW after I had left.

And of course, I came back for a short period of time. And I was familiar with, with Jeremy, but I didn't quite honestly, when I came back to to WCW, I wasn't sure what Jeremy did. and of course ran into him again in TNA and Jeremy was doing he was like the jack of all trades you know he was doing announcing he which by the way he was a pretty good announcer you know I really liked working with him he and I we did a color playback play um on I think it was one match or one show and I really enjoyed working with him he should be he thinks he's quick on his feet but you know he got into the production side of things and editing and now

he's he's done very very well for himself and I'm so proud of him not that I had anything to do with it but I'm proud for him I guess it's probably the better way to say it let's do some questions we are indeed live here at 83 weeks dot com Catherine summer says hey Eric love the ending of MLW I've got to say it left me wondering what you were up to and what you had done glad you feel better there have been reports after your experience with MLW on Thursday night that you might actually be doing more MLW in the future. Now, of course, the name of the show was Eric Bischoff one shot. What's next for EZE and MLW there, Eric? What can you tell us? Well, I don't want to spill too much too soon. It's not my promotion, but I will say that Atlanta's kind of a cool place to be in

early February. And rumor has it, there's going to be an MLW show in Atlanta. So, you know, don't be surprised. How about that? I, uh, I, uh, I, I, uh, I, I hope it's at center stage. I know they've ran that venue before. It's such a cool historic venue and old WCW stomping grounds. Eric Bischoff in Atlanta. That could be fun. And that's one thing I am looking forward to.

I don't know how much longer I'm going to be doing these live wrestling shows. It, you know, it takes a lot, you know, because of where I live and everything to get me there and back. So if this is going to be my last live wrestling appearance, it's kind of cool. that I'm going to do it at center stage. It's kind of full circle. So we'll see. I haven't made up my mind for sure yet. But if indeed this, if indeed it will be my last live appearance, and I'm glad I'm doing it

at center stage. It's going to be interesting to, uh, to see what happens with you and MLW. And I don't ever want to hear about the end. And I know that you don't really want to talk about the end. And that's why you stay on top of things like Lumen, Lumen is the world first hand. held metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs. Then it gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, your workouts, your sleep, and even your stress management.

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That's L-U-M-E-N dot me slash 83 weeks for 15% off your purchase. Lumen makes a great gift too. And we thank you, Lumen, for sponsor. answering today's episode. So Eric, we got some more questions here. And since you were just at the Performance Center, maybe this one makes sense. Mark 79 is with us here live.

And he says, if you were asked to do more one-off shots in conjunction with WWEID, would you do it? And what would you like to do? I know you just talked about maybe winding down some of these live appearances. But using you strategically with some of the new announcements for WWE ID folks and talent. I like that.

What do you think of that? Is that something, even if it's not for you, you could see WWE doing moving forward? Definitely. You know, look, WWE does it right.

And if that opportunity were to be presented to me, I'd have to give a serious consideration. Honestly, I don't want to make it sound like I'm too good for anything. Because that's not the case at all. For me, it's just very personal in terms of travel. I mean, I say it all the time, and I don't think people really believe me or understand

how committed I am to this, but it's just so hard for me to travel anymore that that's my biggest issue is the travel part. So I guess it depends on where, when, how often, and that type of thing. But look, I'm never going to turn down an opportunity to do anything with WW. Either a class organization, they treat you right, almost always have a great time. So always keep an open mind for sure. and especially something that's kind of groundbreaking as is WWID, you know, to be on the ground floor that would be, yeah, it's something I would be interested in for sure.

Here's one from David Hernandez, who's with us here live at 83weeks.com. Did you come up with the Gravity Gamble match and are you planning to watch it? Hashtag Ask Eric. I did not, you know, all truth be known, I did not come up with that. that was not my idea. And probably will watch it. You know, I got to know Cort and some of the talented at MLW, Jers-St. Loran, I got to meet him in person and work with him.

And I really like working with court at his team. They're nice guys. They work hard. They're smart. They're creative. You know, the format of that show that I did for them was really well put together. I enjoy working with them. So, as I've said before, man, as long as I'm having fun, all bets are off.

Anything could happen. But, yeah, I'll probably check it out. I'm curious as to see how that match plays out. And, you know, me, I'm not a gimmick guy. But the vignette that David Sahadi put together for it really intrigued me, which is the sign of a good vignette. David Sahati is really good at putting those packages. together. So yeah, I'll probably check it out for sure. I don't know that everybody caught this, but on the MLW broadcast, they had a little announcer camera set up on the desk. And you shoehorned

yourself in there in that third spot and couldn't help yourself. You gave away the results of a taped impact show that was airing head to head against the live MLW show referencing, hey, you don't have to change the channel and watch that other tape. show the hardy boys are going to pick up a win in the main event on t and a tonight i just thought that that was fantastic what a uh a great callback to nitro how fun was that you know what i got to tell you conrad i was a little reluctant to do it and there were a couple things that they wanted me to do and some of them i didn't do but that was one where i went oh man do i really want to do that. I mean, I got nothing against impact. You know, that's, I, and then I thought, well, wait a

minute. Last time I did this, a whole bunch of people switched channels and went over to watch them. So maybe I'm doing them a favor. So I talked myself into it and hopefully, hopefully didn't hurt anything. I doubt that it did. Well, by the way, when you said it, I know you weren't watching it backstage. That match had already happened. So you didn't actually spoil anything, but it was, it was a nice fun callback like it had already happened on their program so you didn't hurt anything but I just thought man what a fun callback I really enjoyed that was there anybody that really stood out to you in your MLW experience you'd like to put over I mean you said some nice things about David's a haughty as far as in ring talent that you weren't

familiar with but caught your eye was there anybody who stood out oh I'm gonna hate myself. I'm going to, I'm going to chalk this up to food poisoning because my brain isn't functioning at 100%. But I did a backstage interview with a gentleman from CMLL. Mr. Cow? No, no, it was not Mystico. It was, we, we confront, he confronted me backstage. And you remember, he says, oh, man, I think we should be watching some HLA. And my response was, a politically correct environment, probably not such a good idea. And he said, no, hot lucha action. Oh, I do remember that.

Okay, I got you. Yeah. And I'm so embarrassed that I can't remember his name, but whatever. I'll apologize to him in person next time I see him. But he's really, really talented. I mean, that was one take. He had most of the dialogue, but he's really good. He's really, really, really good.

at what he does. So that was fun. Caesar Duran, I think, is the gimmick. Yes, there we go. Cesar Duran. I'm sorry. Oh, Cesar. Did you see any of his stuff in Lucha Underground back in the day? I didn't. I didn't. And I was informed that, you know, he had a big role there. Yeah. He also

was, uh, he also I think he was a character in a couple seasons of the Mayans episode, which was a spinoff of Sons of Anarchy. So clearly he's a performer and that was apparent the minute we started working to other because he's a lot better than I am man he's really really good well we are live on a sunday morning and they've just announced that Alabama is out of the college football playoff

it's official Eric this new system man these you know we've had a Montreal screw job it feels like today we had a Tuscaloosa screw job I just can't imagine what it's like being in Alabama right now I can't imagine what it's being what it's like to be in Larry Thompson's home right now. Yeah. It's going to be devastating. Yeah. I don't know that, uh, I don't know that my dad's going to get over this anytime soon.

We may actually have to go to commercial soon just so we can, uh, convales a little bit here. Hey, Major is with us here live and, uh, they want us to know that NXT has the best women's division in wrestling and Major wanted to know, what did you think of Trick Williams? Major's a big fan of Trick Williams. Was this your first time meeting trick? What did you think of him in person? And what do you make of the NXT women's division? I was really impressed.

And I think we're going to be seeing so the training facility, I think it had to be like 50-50 in terms of men and women. And the pool of talent is so impressive that I think for years to come, we're going to be seeing a lot of great women's action in both NXT and clearly, you know, on either raw or Smackdown wants to get ready for that. I'm very, very impressed with the women's division. Trick, what a classy guy. Such a pleasure to work with as well as Ridge.

Ridge is a tough son of a gun, man. 12 years professional rugby player. That's a tough human being. I don't know if you've watched a whole lot of rugby in your life, but I kind of got addicted to it back in 2009 when I was in Australia. and was watching Australia in rules football, man alive, these guys are tough and really impressed with both of them. But Rick Williams is just an amazing young man that has barely begun to scratch the surface

of his potential, and he will get there. And he's a lot bigger than he looks, too. Once I stood next to him, it was like, oh, my God, this guy's huge. He's got long arms, long legs. but a classy, classy guy. And he's going to go far. I'm sure of it.

I, I, for one, I'm a big Trick Williams fan. Can't wait to see what's next. And I know what's next for a lot of the guys in my life. The ultimate stocking stuffer. I'm talking about Mando. Man,

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please support our show and tell them we sent you and don't let the meat sweats get you down this holiday season your family and friends will thank you we got some live questions here a member who's been with us for five months friend of the show James Sorensen here at 83weeks.com wants to know Eric what was your highlight of the week I know it wasn't food poisoning what was it?

Just having a chance to to have conversations with a, you know, Booker and Xbox, Sean Walton and Undertaker I really enjoy speaking with. So, you know, even in WWE when I was working there as talent, I hardly ever got a chance to really sit down and have a conversation with people because you're always, everybody had a job to do. Everybody was working, you know, and distracted with the things that they had to do that day. So I rarely ever got a chance.

to sit down and just have a conversation with Sean Michaels or Undertaker and really had a couple enjoyable conversations with those guys and that that kind of stuff means a lot to me. It is going to be, um, it's going to be interesting to see how wrestling continues to evolve because we're continuing to get questions like this one. And I know we're going to talk a lot about Tony Kahn today. I don't want to, but I know that that's been in the news this week. but aotv productions is with us here live and he says hey eric tony con has shown he's not afraid to spend money on royalties like november rain and final countdown he's talking about

music royalties here do you think that'll come back to bite him i mean is there a way that comes back to bite him i mean essentially the cons have infinite money so it's not like they're running up a oh we're going to run out of cash soon so like if he wants to license the song There's no, I don't understand why a fan would be against them licensing the song. It doesn't affect their enjoyment. But I have seen this sort of comment a lot. What do you make of this? I agree with you.

Money obviously isn't an issue for Tony. He's not under any pressure financially. He's literally funding his own hobby. And there's no limit to, practical limit to the amount of money he has to do it with. So there's no downside. So no, I don't, I just, I don't think there's a downside. You could question whether or not it's a, it's a good use of money. But when you have more money, then you can burn, what difference does it make?

I agree, you know, it, um, it is going to be interesting to see how these narratives continue to get spun. Because this week even, we, there was a lot of discussion. and I know that some of this comes back to, you know, what you say on this program. But there was an interview that Tony Kahn did this week where he made sure he was clear to mention, we will be the longest running wrestling promotion on T&T, which by the way is a factual statement. And when I read it, I laughed out loud, I don't take this sort of stuff too seriously. you've given him the business on the program many times this feels like him needling you back and made me chuckle what did you think yeah if that's his idea of needling me back

it explains a lot when it comes to tony's idea of needling or creative it's just it's a joke like everything else that comes out of a ew and especially tony con's mouth you can't take it seriously you know i mean i don't know between he and dave mouser i don't think think we've seen goalposts being moved as frequently and as far as these two clowns continue to try to move goalposts to make AEW look like something other than an abject fucking failure. Okay. That was not nearly as lighthearted as I was hoping for. Carl Hayes says, while you aren't a gimmick match guy, really, has there ever been an idea for a match type you didn't get to make that you didn't get to make it to the ring for whatever reason. So was there an

idea that you liked, but it never actually happened. Was there a gimmick match that was pitched that never happened? That can't even be, right? No. No, usually it was the other way around. Usually people were pitching gimmick matches and I just kind of shut it down as quickly as I could figure out where they were going. But no, there was never a gimmick match that was pitched that were for some reason I couldn't pull off. AOTV. There was some that were pitched that I wished I wouldn't have pulled off. Like World War III.

Like World War III. That would be one. I went, oh, okay. I mean, it wasn't my idea, but I was way too supportive of it and got way too excited about it. And there might have been somebody who tried to talk me out of it. And I just didn't let them, but I wished I would have. Do you think, you know, with the benefit of hindsight that World War III

is one of those that just looks really good on paper but not good in execution like hey it's just the royal rumble just bigger absolutely yeah absolutely it looked great i mean the concept on paper was like wow 60 guys three rings even the name world war three kind of worked there's a lot of reasons on paper to to go with it and clearly i did but didn't think it through enough and by the what? You asked me about talent that I was impressed with. Tom Lawler, MLW, Matt Riddle. I was really looking forward to working with Matt Riddle, and I only got to work with him a little bit, but he is one really interesting dude. I like being around him, and he's amazingly talented. I mean, what he's capable of doing in the ring and he does it so effortlessly. He's really, really impressive. I don't know what

went wrong with him in WWE. I don't pay attention to that shit, but he's got such a unique character that I, and I had fun just cutting a promo with him and Tom Lala. Those are two pretty cool guys. Yeah, listen, they had a lot of fun. And speaking of having fun, it felt like you had a little bit last week. I, uh, I was at the beach with my family. I was unplugged a little bit. And my phone started blowing up. Oh, your boys added again. You were on the Ariel Hawani show stirring up all kinds of shit and somebody was saying is he at a Denny's

how did this come to be where you were on Aero Hawani show what'd you think of the reaction to it and were you at a Denny's what in the world? No I was at the restaurant at the Billings Logan International Airport on my way to Orlando

so no I mean the interview was scheduled and I really wanted to do it I mean anytime you get an opportunity to do Ariel's show. I'm going to do it no matter what I'm doing or where I'm at. I would have preferred to be here in my studio, of course, or something that was more locked down. But all I had was me and my phone. And I had to look for the most quiet place in the airport because they're constantly making announcements, flight announcements, gate announcements, all that kind of crap.

And it gets really obnoxious. So I tried to find the most remote portion of that airport. And of course, I'm holding my phones so it looked pretty unstable, but still had fun doing you. Ariel is doing a really great job. Yeah, Ariel Hohani is, or Ariel Helwani, I'll get it right, is the man. I just saw he won some award for Best MMA Journalists of the year. They should just rename that the Ariel Helwani Award. Like, he should get that every year. He's the only guy who's willing to challenge the UFC and everybody in between.

We got another question here from James 1701. He's been a member here at 83 Weeks.com for about half a year now. he asked that you elaborate on your tweet about the minute to minute ratings for nxte versus a ewe this week and then we saw other people congratulating you i guess that means technically you had a better rating than mercedes mona am i reading that right i don't know to be honest with you and i never saw the minute by me ratings i was just fucking with people I did see the quarter hour ratings, though. And my appearance covered two quarter hours, the beginning of one and a full one afterwards.

And they were two of the highest rated in the demo quarters. So there's that, which, look, people, everybody that's so focused on quarter hours. That's why through the minute-by-minute thing in there, because nobody ever talks about that. anymore. But, look, nobody was going to tune into NXT because Eric Bischoff was there. Nobody was going to tune out of NXT because Eric Bischoff was there. They were going to tune into that show. And if I was there, somebody appreciated it's like having garnish on the plate. If not, no big deal. But I just had to have some fun with it and make light of it. You know, I did see people pointing out. I don't know if you saw this,

but there's a whole contingent of AEW haters. I'm sorry. Eric Bischoff haters. And these Eric Bischoff haters were saying, oh, Eric Bischoff was on NXT and then they had their lowest rating of the year, their lowest rating in a while or whatever it may be. And I just thought, boy,

that's interesting that they decided to point that out. And then I think when the ratings came out for A. I could be mistaken. But I think NXT still wound up with a stronger rating than AEW. It's a weird thing. This tribalism that has now, man, on the internet wrestling community between yourself and Dave Meltzer and the AEW diehards

and the WW diehards. What do you make of that back and forth about ratings for your appearance? Like what? It's just a reflection. You know, I made a comment. We'll probably cover it a little in a little bit about, you know,

just when you think you've hit rock bottom when it comes to the delusional AEW fan base, you realize that, you know, there's a basement. Clueless has a basement, I think, is what I said. And the people that are responding, let me make this really clear. I'm sure there are a lot of, I'm sure there are some fans, viewers who watch AEW that aren't a part of this silly, you know, Twitter bullshit.

They're not the most vocal ones, but the most vocal ones are absolutely exposing themselves for being as clueless as I accused them to be. In fact, even more so. But it starts with Tony Kahn all the way back to when they launched AEW. Everything was about shitting all over WWE. Tony Kahn and Dave Meltzer created it. Dave Meltzer perpetuates it by continuing to make excuses and spin bullshit and just say the dumbest shit in the world while defending AEW.

And the more Dave Meltzer does it, the more people turn against the brand. I think Dave Meltzer is probably the worst thing that could be associated with that brand because he continues to say the dumbest shit, which all it does is stir people up to be even more anti. He probably does a better job of turning people off to AEW than any of my comments do because he's so transparently stupid and trying so hard to make it look like Tony Kahn is a success. The show is an embarrassment to the genre

and Dave Meltzer does everything he can to try to spin it and every time he, I mean, I don't know how much more credibility one person could lose. But, you know, it's fun. I love fucking with him. They're easy. It's really easy to, you know,

If I need to be entertained, like if I'm in between catching flights, which is usually what it happens is if I'm in between something and I'm bored. I'm just going to fuck with some people on Twitter because that's always fun. And it's so easy. It's like taking candy from a baby for crying out loud. And when they react, it's everything I cues them of being clueless. And clearly, Dave is the most clueless of them all. Franklin D. Bluth is with us here live.

And he says, based EZE, W. Uh, you pointed out on Aeroni show that, uh, Thanksgiving Eve for AEW last year, they did 845,000 viewers. This year they were down to 536. And I think you referred to, uh, AEW in a not so nice manner after that. You made a reference that I've never heard before. And then you said as your prediction that they'll fall under 500,000 viewers in mid April to May. Yeah. And, and, and I disagree. with that. I don't think that'll be the case, but I am curious. Why do you think that that'll be the

case? Will it be? Because is that WrestleMania season? Is it sweeps? Is there something else? Why April May? Eric? Well, their, they're there. AEW for the past three years has been losing anywhere between 20 and 25% of their audience every year for the last three years. I didn't go all the way back to 2019. I just went back three years. And I actually only used 20%. I didn't use the 25%, but I probably could have. Wanted to be a little conservative in my approach.

And I just did the math. And when I did that math, it suggested that AEW would be consistently under 500,000 this year, or 2025. But I think because of the NBA playoffs, because starting around April, May, NBA playoffs, the weather starts getting nice. Fewer people are using televisions. It's called hut levels, households using television. Fewer people will be indoors watching TV and finding other things to do in parts of the country where the weather is cold in the winter time. So I think the combination of the NBA playoffs, the time of year, again, hot levels, and the fact that AEW has been losing 20 to 25% of their viewing audience consistently for

three years, I'm, I'm 95% sure I'm right that before May 15th, there are going going to be AEW numbers that are going to come in under 400,000 or in the 400s. Under 500. Under 500, right. I mean, that would be just a couple of months before all in. I just don't see that happening in there. Okay. We'll see, though.

Maybe I'm wrong. It's possible. It's rare. I'm always right when it comes to the shit. I don't think you can point to anything that I've ever said or a prediction I've ever made. that was wrong. I'm almost always right. I could probably give you a list of all the things I predicted that became true

and nobody thought they would, but I predicted it, but they do because I kind of know this shit. It's not that hard. It's really not that hard. 82% of folks watching live right now at 83 weeks.com believe Eric that AEW will be in the 400s by May. Lord, I hope that's not true.

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but I don't think I mean the thing is like I think what's misconstrued is you don't hate AEW you just feel like there's mistakes that they're making that need to be corrected because AEW doing strong business is good for the wrestling business it's good for everyone involved if anything you're not pulling for AEW to fail you're pulling for AEW to succeed you just think they're making mistakes in real time right you know it's funny. I was listening to John Pollock and Brandon Thurston yesterday on my way home at the airport. I just dropped in on something they had posted. And I have a lot of respect for Brandon Thurston. He does a really good job, in my opinion, of compiling data and presenting it in a way that's, for the

most part, pretty digestible for non-data analytics types like me. But part of what they we're talking about is, you know, Brandon came out, said, you know, I don't really agree with Eric Bischoff and his assertion that, you know, the stories, there's now enough stories in AEW where the stories aren't very good. But there's something wrong. Well, and again, I don't mean to be disrespectful to Brandon because I do respect what he does. And I've had him on my podcast Wise Choices, excuse me, strictly business in the past with John Alba. And I've always really enjoy speaking with him. But look, you cannot look at the trajectory. Let's call it a spiral because that's what it is. You can't look at the downward spiral in both ratings, which, look,

I agree. Ratings don't mean everything. But when you're dependent on television rights fees for 80% of your revenue, they kind of fucking do. So when you look at this death spiral that ratings have been in and continue to spiral, when you look at the fact that ticket sales are spiraling just as fast, if it's not creative, what is it? It's certainly not the talent. There's a wealth of talent in that company, proven commodities. Young talent, established talent.

It's not a talent issue. It's certainly not a network issue. It's a creative issue. Tony Kahn is clueless and stubborn. And a horribly poor leader. But of all those things, I would say it's the creative, I was thinking, man, I want to call Brandon and say, okay, Brandon, maybe you're right. Maybe it's not the fact that the stories are not compelling.

I mean, you can say there's a story there if you choose to and, you know, some people can pull up to a stop sign and think that that's a story, good for you. We'll call it compelling story that creates emotion, that gets people to come back, which gets them to talk about the product. So, God forbid, you actually have an increase in rating. over more than one episode. It's a creative issue. And what amazes me profoundly is that the Dave Meltzers of the world

and the cage match ranking geeks and that that cult subculture of wrestling fans can't acknowledge it or refuse to acknowledge it. And why Tony Khan himself doesn't acknowledge it. He's supposedly a data analyst. Does he not look at his own data and go, oh, this must not be working? Like, I don't know, man. It's just, it just fascinates me why people just refuse to accept the fact that the

creative sucks. Like I said, if it's not the creative, what else is it? What can we imagine would have the impact that we've, seen on AEW if it's not creative. It's a mystery to me. I wanted to get your take on something that, man, it feels like everybody's had an opinion on. This past week, we saw Ray Phoenix take to Twitter and maybe he posted a cryptic message.

That's the way a lot of people perceived it. He wrote, no one stays in a place where they received inhumane treatment. and he replied to another tweet later and said that one day he'll tell his story and over the weekend we saw pentagon appear in front of a triple a crowd and say that he's going to be taking some time away to make his next career decision so i'm sure fans of his were really excited to see him in a triple eight show but or triple a show i'll get it right phoenix this tweet inhumane treatment the rumor and innuendo is that he missed some time because I think he had a broken forearm and Tony con added that time back to his contract as I understand it Pentagon is no longer listed on the AEW website's roster so it feels like his time in AEW is complete but Ray Phoenix he's uh with AEW and not being used I saw Cody's sister teal reference this as warehousing talent on social media a week or so ago what do you think of that is this I see I've heard

arguments both ways. Hey, they signed the contract. They've got to honor their contract. Tony's being asked to do that. They've got to. And others say, nah, if they're not going to use them, let them go. You were on both sides of this in WCW. Where do you land on this? Probably going to surprise a lot of people. But if I had to, you know, look, every case is individual. You have to have some latitude and allow yourself some latitude. to make exceptions where appropriate. But for the most part, I would agree with Tony. He's got a business to protect.

And when you invest a lot of money in talent and the talent isn't able to perform because of an injury, to me, it makes sense that you would add that time. Now, if there's no plan to, use, and this is where the exception comes in, if there's no plan to use Phoenix and no plan to re-up his agreement, that's when Tony should let him go. Because what happens, and I've been on both sides of it, I get it. But what is inevitably going to happen is that there is a lot of talent, a lot of talent in AEW that want out, that aren't happy there.

And when you get that large, no, if it's just one person or two people, it's manageable. But when you get a significant portion of your roster that you're not using and you're paying them and they want out and you don't let them out, it only gets worse. it only gets worse. And I'm going to go way back to probably 2020 when Tony was stacking just talent after talent after talent and big names too. I made the point that Tony needs to be careful

because it's one thing to aggregate all that talent, to collect talent like you're collecting action figures. And a lot of that talent will initially be optimistic, because, hey, they've been successful in the past. This is an opportunity to do something different on television. And, oh, by the way, they're making a lot of money. In some cases, more money than they've ever made. And that's cool for a while.

But when you get talent that's really driven to perform, they will all of a sudden start becoming very used to that money. It's no longer a big deal for them. It happens. I guess human nature. And once they can no longer say to themselves, well, it doesn't matter. I'm not being used. At least I'm getting a big check every two weeks.

Once that, at least I'm getting a big check every two weeks starts wearing off. Now you've got a bunch of unhappy sons of bitches. And rightfully so. So if Tony's not going to use someone, now, again, if he plans on using him, great. I would defend Tony's position. But if he's not going to use them and just warehouse them because he's scared to death of them going to WWE and looking like he's, you know, not managing talent well, which he's clearly not, but you don't want it to be obvious.

He doesn't want another Cody Rhodes example. He doesn't want another CM Punk example. Those are two big, big. Those are, you know, those are Stone Cold Steve Austin level losses. You don't want any more of that than necessary, which is fine if you're going to keep them and use them, but if all you're going to do is punish them, and pay them, that's stupid. That is clearly stupid.

And it's going to come back to bite them in a yes. Trust me. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to understand. How is it going to bite them in the ass? It'll get ugly. People will start talking. It'll make its way to the public domain.

And then it takes out a life of its own. I went through it with Conan. I went through it with Scott Levy. I mean, I've gone through it. I know what's going to happen. It starts out guys in a locker room, bitching and complaining to each other, which is nothing new.

That happens every day. But then it'll reach a certain level where it starts spilling out into the public domain and then it takes on a life of its own. And it's a much, much bigger problem than just should I let Ray Phoenix go or not. Do you think we see any of these names that we've been hearing about? think we see any of them pop up oh i don't know around royal rumble time somewhere else could be could be i'm not close enough to any of it to know but well makes royal rumble exciting of nothing else it keeps uh everybody wondering about royal rumble it is going to be interesting

to see you know because it does feel like they're the company when when you take a look at a w it feels like even creatively like they're trying to they're trying new things I saw Kyle Fletcher doing media for Chicago. And Kyle Fletcher is a name that is not necessarily a household name to a lot of wrestling fans. But man, he's been getting the push of a lifetime and getting wins over guys like Will Osprey. Like, do you think that, because I know that when Paul Heyman was taking a look at T&A once upon a time, allegedly, if he would have gotten his hands on it, one of the things he wanted to do was get rid of everyone over 40. he wanted really young talent maybe you'd have one guy in that Terry Funk role in ECW but he

really wanted young talent and you see that parroted a lot by even Dave Meltzer who a few months ago was pretty critical about the use of Shelton Benjamin and AEW saying hey this guy's been on he even kind of doubled down on that last week do you think that youth and new might be the answer because it feels like they've collected a lot of the legacy performers, whether it was punk or Cody or Daniel Bryan, none of which are doing anything with AEW now, but all the others, you know, the Moxleys and the Miroes and the Bobby Lashleys and the Edging Christians and Malachi Blacks and there's been Keith Lee, there's been a lot of WWE talent that appeared on AEW programming.

Do you think the new key to growth is new? People we've never seen before and you've got to watch them, you got to watch AW if you want to see that guy, whoever the. next big it thing is or is there a magic bullet out there we don't know about there's no magic bullet anywhere and this is why it always comes back to creative and i think mercedes won a is going to be the best example for me to respond to in this one mercedes mona is not old she's relatively young she was a massive star in wwe massive and she came to a ew and it's been an unmitigated disaster her because of her creative

and because Tony doesn't know how to produce her. In WWE, she was protected because people there understood what her strengths were, but more importantly, understood what her weaknesses were, and they produced her accordingly. But because Tony Kahn is clueless, and he has zero experience

and no feel or instinct whatsoever for the television industry, he brought this megastar in from WWE who's not over the hill in old who was an established superstar and again abject failure it's the creative stupid not you obviously Conrad or not the people listening but it's just the creative so if Dave Meltzer again who has never produced two minutes of television in his miserable life is of the assumption or belief that well all you need to do to fix this is bring in younger talent. That's not over. Look at Will Osprey. He's not over. He's over to Tony. He's over to the five or six hundred thousand people that watch

AEW, I guess. But over means you're growing your business. You're selling more tickets. You're getting increased ratings. Every other metric in your business model is improving because you have a talent that is successful and adding to your to your to your to your to your product none of the people that are in aew are accomplishing that and it's not their fault it's the creative in tony's inability to produce compelling television so it doesn't matter i mean you bring in some young 25 year old 28 year old that supposedly according to the cage match rankings the next big star and nobody knows who they are, that's the huge disconnect for me between the, as I referred to them this past weekend, you know, the dirt sheet cage match ranking nerds is they have no clue what

makes the business actually work. To get rid of all your over 40 talent, I don't know anybody's ages. And then bringing in a bunch of people that nobody fucking knows except for the cage match ranking geeks and you think you're going to build a company on that, that is a reflection of just how clueless and disconnected people like Dave Meltzer and those who follow him or believe what he says. And Tony Con are. They're absolutely disconnected from reality. Well, if you don't want to be disconnected from reality, can I recommend true classic? Man, it's exactly what every dude wants just in time for the holiday.

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If you haven't already, be sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on your notifications bell. You don't want to miss the next time we're live. I'm trying to keep up with these live questions as they come in. But let me see if I can find

one in particular. Someone, I forget who it was if I could find it. here took issue with me saying hey uh it feels like Kyle Fletcher's in for the push of a lifetime with his win over Will Osprey and someone was like what that's the push of a lifetime of Kyle Fletcher's lifetime you dumb shit what's your other big signature win in his career if it's not beating the recognized top guy I mean listen if we got to do simple fucking math on this show for you we will you ignorant son of a bitch welcome see now you're becoming like me

Well, I'm just saying, like, you know, I've got all this, first of all, we're doing a fucking show here, guys. So when Eric is healing on AEW, I'm going to defend it. Here's a reason why. I'm friends with Tony Kahn, make no secret about it. I also do shows, maybe you've heard of these guys with Jeff Jarrett, Jim Ross, and Tony Shivani. I also have a lot of friends who work there and are all making six-figure jobs. I don't want the place that's employing all of my friends and buddies and coworkers to go out of business. Neither does Eric.

no one's rooting for AEW to fail. We want AEW to get better and get bigger and get stronger. Eric just sees some missteps. And who better to judge that than him? Not me. What the fuck do I know? I've ran one wrestling show. Eric ran it when it was on top and unfortunately ran it when it started to slide.

So who's better qualified to spot these things that you can take issue with? But people just think it's just you bitching. Like Brian Alvarez went viral this week because they coverage or interview with Ariel Hawani. And here's pretty much the quote, I may have one word in here wrong. Brian Alvarez said on his program, Eric said something stupid,

completely stupid on Ariel's show. We don't need to explain to our audience that AEW is not dead. Eric is on WW payroll. Of course he is. I'll let you clear the record here. What payroll are you on specifically, Eric? That's so funny. And I don't think I've ever,

Brian Alvarez, but what a dumb little fucker. I am not under, here's how stupid he is. I mean, you don't even have to have much

experience or common sense to figure this out, but clearly Brian Alvarez is short on both. I just did a W.W.E. up to two WWE episodes, one on NXT and one for WWE on the A&E network.

And then 48 hours later, or 24 hours later, whatever it was, I'm on an MLW show, who by the way, was in a lawsuit with WWE. Do you think you stupid little fuck that if I was under contract with WWE, I don't even have a legends agreement with WWE? Yes, you do. I read it online. God damn it. They can't.

You don't know your business better than... I can't wait for the back paycheck to show up. How dare you think you know more about your income? I don't have a written agreement with anybody. I don't even have a handshake deal with anybody. Lying. If they call and I'm available and it sounds fun, I'll show up. And that goes to everybody.

If T&A were to, if Impact were to call me and say, hey, we're doing something. We'd like you to show up. if it fit into my schedule and it sounded fun i'll do it so again this is a perfect example of guys like brian alvarez a needy little fucking elf and and his partner james mercer talking out of their ass when they don't know what they're talking about ever they just don't know what they're talking about you know what's what's crazy is i feel like at times respectfully because i like I like Dave Meltzer.

And I don't know, Brian Alvarez is that great. We've never had an issue. We're not cross. But I feel like they take everything that you say literally. And we saw some of this in our more recent political cycle. And we're not a political show. And we're not talking about that. But I'm saying, when you went on Ariel Hawani show and said AEW is dead, they're done, there's no coming back.

Eric Bischoff didn't literally mean the show will not air this Wednesday. It's been canceled and I have the information and you do not. Like they're not saying, Hey guys, if you work there, you ought to double check your direct deposits this week because there's no money. You didn't say that. You didn't mean that. You mean to say as far as momentum,

which is a real thing in sports and entertainment as well. So it's certainly a thing in sports entertainment. Man, when it turns, it's really hard. to get that consumer confidence back and you're concerned and have expressed that concern that hey they've probably peaked they've seen their mountain top it's going to be hard work to get them back there and you just don't see a happening now that doesn't make you a doomsdayer or a naysayer to me you're pointing out hey the metrics don't support that there's this magic

bullet around the corner here but for them to just jump on well of course it's not dead he didn't fucking mean like it closed and everybody he knew before you did why are they not why are they missing that you didn't mean literally because they don't they don't have anything else to work with they're not smart they don't understand the business they're emotionally especially belts are emotionally tied to to Tony con in a way that I don't clearly understand or completely understand I mean I've and I don't like to spread rumors, you know, and whenever I, whenever I talk about something that I've heard and I,

and I don't know it firsthand, I make an extra effort to make sure everybody knows that what I'm about to say isn't necessarily a fact, it's third-hand information. But when I hear third-hand information from several people who are closer to the epicenter than I am, I start to wonder if maybe it's true. And one of the things that I've heard for a while now is that Dave is, I don't want to say financially invested, but certainly emotionally invested beyond just covering AEW to the extent that he was involved in developing a business plan for AEW. I don't know if that's true or not, but it explains a lot. it explains why a guy like Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez clearly are working overtime trying to defend the indefensible it's just not and I think it's their emotion because they're so closely tied to it

you know Dave for years has been you know promoting the idea of these you know matches for the sake of matches although now all of a sudden I see he's kind of reversing his position a little bit you know great matches for the sake of great matches and and more Japanese matches and his five-star matches when it doesn't fucking work. It never has worked. But it's what Dave likes in obviously Tony Kahn. And these two have that perspective, flawed as it may be, they have it in common. So when it's not working, Dave has to look at itself at a mirror and go, well, it can't be my fault.

It's got to be this guy's fault. It's got to be something else. We should move the goalposts or pretty soon, you know, Well, thank goodness they're going to be on max because then ratings won't matter anymore. I saw somebody make that comment here a while ago. All of which is true because Dave can't admit, doesn't want to admit the fact that he's a clown and he was wrong. It's bizarre to me.

It's interesting. It's an interesting study in human behavior, which is why I like fucking with people so much because it's really interesting to see how they react. but for Brian to suggest that I'm on a WWE payroll, which implies that I'm under contract. You can say I was under contract, but he's implying that I'm under contract is so disingenuous and stupid

just on the surface of it, again, by virtue of the fact that 24 hours after finishing up at WWE, I'm over an MLW. And by the way, yes, you were paid to be on NXT, but I seem to remember you being paid to be on a multiple times too. Yeah, and by the way, WWE booked me after that.

They didn't care. Yeah. Because I wasn't under contract. That's right. Well, listen, you and I've had this conversation all fair, but I get opportunities sent to me because for whatever reason they feel more comfortable with me or whatever.

And they'd say, hey, do you think you and Eric or hey, do you think Eric? And I always start with, and you know where I'm going to say here, I don't speak for Eric, but I can tell you it usually has to check two, boxes it's got to be fun and pay well if it's fun and pays well he's probably in i mean that's

kind of the eric bischoff mantra for life is it not it is for me now i mean if i what if i really wanted a career in the business i'd probably be a little more judicious about spreading myself around but i mean i mean i love where i live i love my life but you know i'm pretty isolated here and as much as i love it it's nice to get out every once in a while do something a little bit And it's always fun for me to get in front of a crowd. I do enjoy that. There's two things I miss about the wrestling business. One is just going out and connecting with the crowd and getting that, just getting that

buzz. And it is. For me, it's a buzz. Like some people do drugs and other shit. When I get out in front of a live crowd and I can stir them up and get a reaction, that's, that's a rush for me. So I do miss that. And I will take an opportunity to, to enjoy that aspect of.

of my personality. But I also liked, you know, to get out of Dodge every once in a while, you know, I had an opportunity to go to New York, you know, some really great restaurants in New York. So, yeah, while I'm there and I'm having fun, and in the case of MLW, I donated the money just because I wanted to, but it was fun. I'm glad I did it. And it checked the only two boxes I have, you know. Is it fun?

Does it pay? Cool. If it's into my schedule, count me in. I don't have a list of people I will or will not work with. And, you know, part of it is freedom. You know, freedom means so much to so many people, but it also means a different thing to most people. Not everybody has the same idea of what freedom really is.

For me, freedom is I have the ability to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, and nobody can tell me no. And that may not seem like that big a deal to a lot of people. But at this stage in my life, if somebody calls me and says, hey, do you want to do this? I don't want WWE or anybody else to tell me no. That's not freedom to me. And I enjoy my freedom and my flexibility.

Even if I don't exercise it often, I know I can if I want to. I like you talking about freedom. It makes me think about rocket money. Rocket money can help you reach your goals and get that freedom that we're all looking for. And let's be clear, the start of the new year, you're going to make some sort of a New Year's resolutions list. And I bet somewhere on there saving money and getting out of debt are two of those things. Rocket money can help you do that.

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try to negotiate to lower your bills for you. They automatically scan your bills to look for opportunities to help you save, and then you can ask them to negotiate on your behalf. Rocket Money has over 5 million users, and they've saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when you use all of the app's premium features. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions today and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money.com slash 83 weeks today. That's rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, I got to ask you about that little thing that Tony said that was maybe a little needle towards you

oh we're going to be the longest running wrestling promotion on T&T they're at episode like 270 i think of dynamite i think nitro had 286 so we're thinking like 16 weeks out i think the very week where they're going to be on the air as long as you have with nitro for dynamite

is March 26th but coincidentally is the date of the very last Nitro way back when wouldn't it be cool if for old time's sake for nostalgia's sake if the March 26th

dynamite on a Wednesday was a spring break show somewhere in Panama City on the beach wouldn't that be fun yeah be different I just think it's interesting that when they have the exact number

of nitros it's going to be March 20 dynamites as there were nitro i think if i just by the way i don't mean to throw a wrench anybody's parade here plans but um i actually quit running nitro in september of 99 yes so my role i mean first of all wcd as a wrestling company on the turner networks will far exceed you know uh ew on tn t and t Again, that's like a technically correct statement, but also obviously fucking stupid. But it makes Tony feel good. It gives him something to brag about because he doesn't have much to brag about. But, you know, my role in Nitro ended really in September of 1999.

So in many ways, technically he's already exceeded that. Yeah, he's had more than you did. but I think he was just trying to make the dynamite nitro comparison. I mean, even the name dynamite is clearly a wink and a nod to, I mean, even the color scheme is a wink and a nod to nitro. I for one miss the spring break Panama City shows, the outdoor shows. And I think it would be interesting when they've had the exact same number of dynamites that they found themselves on a beach in the same town doing a spring break episode.

They should throw a big giant party, maybe get three, four hundred people to show up. You know, that would be awesome. Have a big, make it a celebration. Clearly, it's a big accomplishment in Tony Kahn's mind. Despite the fact, it'll take up another 10 years to, to add up the same audience that I was able to generate, you know, my five short years with Nitro or whatever it was. Tony don't have to be on T&T for another five to eight years to come even close to delivering the audience. audience that I did, but that, you know, it's just audience. It doesn't really matter. We do have some more things I want to get to, but man, the, the live questions are stacking

up. Let's do one here from VIN. He says the problem with AEW is Tony is the face and first impression and look. He has a clown look. Telling dynamite storied or using celebs like Costco guys seen a second rate. Tough spot being the RC Cola versus Coke. I don't know if I follow all that. But I think. think the idea is he feels like it's a low rent presentation compared to wwee i mean isn't everything though isn't every wrestling promotion ever like nobody does production better than wb i don't think no but i think there is something to tony being the face of the company and i understand you know he owns a company he writes a

check so he gets the right to rules it's just the way life is but again you know when i first noticed when aew first started i was hearing and seeing a lot of Chris Jericho, so much so that I thought, okay, this makes sense. Tony's going to make Chris Jericho the face of the company. Not necessarily the guy making the matches and all that, but from a PR point of view, from an optics point of view, it looked like Chris Jericho was going to be the face of the company, at least for a short period of time. And then I started seeing more and more of Tony. And I don't mean this to sound too critical. Because we're all born with whatever attributes or lack thereof we're born with.

You don't get to make any choices in that case. So I don't like judging people necessarily on their looks. But it's called television. It works for a reason. And it's not just Tony's look. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with Tony's look. It's like an attractive guy to me. I don't know.

I have to ask my wife for a better opinion, but Tony's problem is his delivery. He's fucking horrible. He should never have a microphone, especially in front of a live crowd because he screams and yells and he's got like a high-pitched voice that just fingernails on a chalkboard. Well, he's not on TV all that often. What are you doing? He's in the, he's always, he's. always he's pushing himself all the time as the the general manager owner of the team whatever

he would be better served to be in the background he'd be better served to have somebody who's really good on television take his place in the silly media scrums or whatever the fuck you want to call him and all of the other time when you see tony con on tv we should be seeing somebody else because Tony actually takes away credibility from an already challenged brand when it comes to credibility. Some people just aren't cut out for TV and Tony's one of them. Man, I hate that I'm going to double down on all this Tony talk right now because I don't want to. But man, Dave Meltzer tweeted something this week that I just, we can't let today go by

without us talking about it. There's a fellow on Twitter, DL Rock One calls himself D.L.R. train and he says WCW would have never run out of business if Tony Kahn were running it and Dave Meltzer quote tweeted it and said I've never thought about this but it is probably true I mean we'll never know we don't know if it would have had the assent but if he opened the checkbook and signed the top guys and treated them well maybe would have he could copy new Japan pro wrestling as well and maybe more than just one angle because he'd study for sure they'd have never done the 2000 descent but maybe he'd have never lost

Austin and pushed him and more aggressively pursued Duane too many factors we don't know so to be clear and boy I feel like I need to put the nose and hair on I like Dave Meltzer I'm a subscriber I'm a reader but goodness gracious if Tony Cohn were running WCW he would have seen that Steve Austin wasn't so stunning, he should have been stone cold. He would have pursued a Canadian NFL washout, a Canadian league football player, and said, we're going to call you the rock. I know you're calling yourself Flex Kavana, but we're going to switch that up. And the collapse that happened for WCW in the year 2000, that definitely wouldn't have

happened. And the only good idea that Eric Bischoff had was the NWO. and he clearly just stole that from New Japan but Tony Connell to continue to steal all those great ideas from New Japan and signed all their best guys because everybody remembers Masahiro Chono, main eventing Halloween have

no, he didn't but who could forget the time that Great Muda he was the world champ heading into Super Brough No, that didn't happen this is nonsensical horseshit what is this? I think it's so ridiculous. It's hard to respond to.

I mean, it's all stupid. This is a good glimpse into the mind, I guess, of Dave Meltzer and why he's regarded as such a clown when it comes to his knowledge and understanding of the wrestling business. There's something weird going on with Dave, and I don't know quite what it is. but let's just take a couple of the and you pointed out a couple things that were just absurd but yeah Tony did so well with I don't know Cody and punk he surely wouldn't have let Steve go even though by the way if you go back and listen to the podcast I did with Steve Austin way back when we get into this and Steve Austin said on his podcast Eric if I were you I would have fired me, too.

But Tony's done such a great job managing talent that it's hard for Dave to believe, even though he fucked up Cody Rose and he fucked up CM Punk. It's been a huge disaster for his company that he's never recovered from. I recovered. I let Steve Austin go and WCW had its greatest run ever. Tony Con let CM Punk go and he's been in the toilet, circling the drain ever since. So just that fact is, I think, a really clear reflection of how Dave thinks

and how disconnected and out of touch he really truly is. It's bizarre. This is now getting into the, this is a bizarre world. Again, the subculture, cage match ranking, Dirtsheet, IWC, Dave Meltzer fans. No offense to you, Conrad, are some of the weirdest fucking. people in the world that don't even know how clueless they are. Eric, the thing that really makes me scratch my head, there's a lot in here that I don't get. But for sure that it never had the 2000 descent, that implies, and I'm an AEW supporter,

I'm an AEW fan, I'm going to continue to be. The 2000 collapse has already happened. What is he talking about? like nitro that's a suggested AEW isn't collapsing which it clearly is no that's what I'm saying though is like the 2000 collapse the equivalent for AEW has already happened yeah I'm saying look at the where the ratings went to for thunder and nitro versus where they are for collision and dynamined it's already happened the big star you know the stone cold leaving his name's Cody Rhodes it already had everything that Dave saying well this wouldn't have happened and that could have. It's already kind of happened. Like, now the question is, can Tony pull the nose up? And I think we all agree, Eric, it's best for the wrestling industry and the people, the performers in it, if he does pull the nose up.

Like, guys aren't, if AEW goes out of business, it's not like there will be other networks jumping at the chance to televise wrestling. Quite the opposite. Like, you need it to be successful in order for there to be a third. Like right now, in theory, we have two viable. bolt national options and t and a feels like it's bubbling up they've got big announcements coming it feels like there's big stuff on the horizon for them it would be really great if we were back to there was a strong three but man if we go back to it's just wwee the whole industry could be

forever changed so no one is beating the drum wanting tony con to not be successful quite the opposite but the hard work starts now like all the bad things have already happened now you you got to pull the nose up, right? I just don't get how we're saying. Those things wouldn't have happened. It's like, dude, they already did. Because Dave is clueless and disconnected. And that's it.

He's emotionally invested in Tony and what Tony's doing and thinks it's the right thing to do and refuses to take a look at reality. And I think that tweet is just a perfect example, just how disconnected and delusional Dave Meltzer really is. How long have you felt like Dave Meltzer had a heart on for you personally? Just with the way he writes. Like he could copy New Japan as well and maybe more than just one angle because he'd study. And I don't really want to spend a lot of time talking about this.

But there was never an NWO like angle in New Japan. Like what the fuck is he even talking about? Was there ever an angle if you look at the two guys the way I set up the NWO and the third man being Hogan and turning heel, the baby face turning heel, and taking over the company and all the things that we did that made NWO successful, can you point me to one scene in a New Japan show that looked like it could have been similar? What Dave did, because he's Dave and has whatever challenges he has, is he heard me say once, the inspiration for the NWO angle started initially when I was.

going to Japan on a regular basis. And I was trying to analyze for myself, why is it that in the United States, both WWWF at the time and WCW were dying? The WWE house show business was horrible in getting worse by the day. WCW was worse than that. I'd go to Japan and there'd be 40, 50,000 people in the arena at a $100 ticket average, by the way. This was back in a 90s, and they show up wearing suits. Why was there such a disparity in the way wrestling was treated in Japan and the way that wrestling was treated in the United States? And what I took away from being in Japan and seeing those major differences between the

New Japan product and the WWE, excuse me, the American product, WWE and WCW, was that one was treated more serious. it wasn't a human cartoon. There were no midget dentists. There was no IRS guys. There was no clowns. It was presented as a more legitimate sport, a more reality-based sport of product.

That's what I took away. But somehow in Dave's fucked up mind and in weird, weirdness, he equates that to me imitating an angle that I saw. That's how challenged, that's a good way to say it. That's how challenged Dave Meltzer is. And he keeps going back to it. And it's funny because if it were true, he could point it out and he'd have it all laid out.

But it's not true. It never fucking happened. There was no NWO angle, going on in New Japan when I was going back and forth there it didn't fucking exist except for and Dave Meltzer's challenged mine he's just making shit up as he often does to to make himself sound like he knows what he's talking about when he clearly clearly doesn't well something we know a lot about around here are hard ons and we learned a lot thanks to our friends at blue chew it's an online service that delivers you the same active ingredients as Viagra Cialis

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But before we do, I want to remind everybody that you can still save money at save witherick.com. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket. And in Eric's real life, he's helping people save money just in time for the holidays. So don't put Christmas on a credit card. You can skip your next two house payments. That means no house payments in January or in February. you're done until March. How about that?

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That's savewitheric.com. Eric, we saw a lot of back and forth about all the Dave Meltzer stuff and talking heads this week. But we've got a lot of live questions that we need to get to. First of all, shout out to Jason Carney. He's just joined us here at 83 Weeks.com. Appreciate you throwing in and donating to the calls today. Vince says reminds me of when Dave said Vince lucked into Austin and Rock. Dave tries to position narratives because of his vendetta with people like Eric and VKN.

him, yeah, it is interesting how quickly he's able to at times sort of dismiss the success of others, like, oh, they didn't do much. Oh, they only did this. He certainly has his favorites. And I don't guess that that makes him all that different from everybody else on Earth. But I do think when you're wearing the journalistic hat, people have a different expectation. But the very nature of him rating matches and giving a star system, but it means it's less objective and it's more subjective. He's not really a journalist. He's an entertainer, right?

He's a clown. Okay. Because he thinks he's a journalist. And he tries so hard. Like he'll tell you about all the participation trophies he got from people that don't fucking matter to try to add some credibility to his existence. Or he'll talk about how he teaches at colleges and, you know like he like he studies he's always using the word study like he's a student of something

he's a fucking wrestling nerd clown that charges people money to read his silly shit yeah give him credit for that he's made a living you know taking people's money and convincing them that he knows things he doesn't know but that's got to get increasingly more difficult you know dave had a great before you know it's one of the reason he hates podcasters he's always, you know, taking shots at podcasters. Well, yeah, a lot of people take shots at podcasters because podcasting has much more influence over just about every aspect of our life now than any other form of media, including dirt sheets.

And now people like me and Bruce Pritchard and Conan and so many others who are actually, actually in the business and were actually there and know the details of some of the issues that Dave lies about and twists and distorts or ignores, that we can call him out, which is why he hates podcasters so much. Because back before podcasting came along, nobody had a platform. Dave could write whatever he wanted to, and nobody challenged him because there's no real way to do it. And now we get to have fun doing it and make money doing it.

And of course he hates it, because now he's being exposed for the fraud. And it's another thing. People, you know, you hear a lot about projection. Dave likes to call people cons and frauds. But here's a guy charging $15 a month for lies, distortions, and bullshit. All while he's convincing people, he's a journalist because he got a couple participation trophies from people that don't fucking matter. That just happened to work for a big newspaper.

Who cares? Journalists are like, other than congressmen and women, probably the least respected group of people on the face of the earth are journalists and dave is at the bottom of that barrel let's do a fun lighthearted one here instagram a wrestling historian is with us here live and he wants to know which wrestler do you wish you would have had for m lw one shot if you could have reached into your bag of tricks and pulled out one name to appear on one shot with you eric who would that have been oh So one wrestler from any organization that could have showed up with me on one shot.

That's a question, right? Yep. Yike, yike, yike. God, I don't know. I mean, my go-to is always going to be Randy Orton because he's always the coolest guy to work with. And he's such a big name. So it would have been fun to try to come up with something between Randy and Matt Riddle and Tom, Lawler and everything. Oh, yeah, that would have been fun. Yeah. Some kind of shmaws there would have

been fun because it's a, you know, callback and yeah. Yeah, maybe that. Hey, you know, it's unrelated. And we are going to get some of these questions. They're continuing to pour in here. Appreciate you guys being here with us at 83 weeks.com. Hit that subscribe button. Turn on your notifications bell. If you haven't already, you never know when we're going to go live again. Who would have thought earlier this week we'd be live on Sunday. I do want to remind you, though, we will be live this Saturday night. Just moment. after WWE brings back

Saturday night's main event. We're going to be live here. Immediately following Saturday night's main event. It's this Saturday, December 14th, 83 weeks.com is where you want to be. NBC has live wrestling again. I can't believe it's back.

I'm pumped. I'm sure there's going to be lots of implications for the Royal Rumble. And maybe we'll get some hints about what to expect at WrestleMania. We're going to be discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly. this Saturday night at 83 weeks.com live.

I do want to get your opinion, though. Eric, when I mentioned to you last week that a friend of ours wondered, hey, did WWE book Eric Bischoff for NXT in response to MLW because MLW was promoting you pretty heavily and now we got to see you on TV two days in advance. And a friend of ours felt like,

oh, he loves messing with people. And then we saw on the other side, there was a little bit of a hubb about gcw and a ew i guess one of the big performers one of the big stars in gcw is a performer named effie who's a really great guy great guy in real life but he came out and had some work shoot comments i guess that were pretty pointed at aew and tony con and it was all about them running the hammerstein ballroom of course gcw is the largest independent organization here in America,

and they're running the Hammerstein in New York City, which is very expensive. I've been told you're looking at like six figures to turn the lights on and run a show there. So it's not cheap rent. It's a big deal for an organization like MLW. I'm sorry, not MLW, but it would be big for them too,

for GCW to have an opportunity to run there. Now, before they get a chance to do that, as I understand it, AEW has booked three shows in the same building, just a couple of weeks prior. And I guess Effie, as a point of pride, wanted to go defend his company and say he didn't feel like that was fair. And while around that same time,

they had announced that Ricky Starks, who is an AEW contracted performer, was going to be working and doing some appearances for GCW. And now AEW has canceled all those. And they've also come out and announced that Matt Cardona, who's been sort of like one of their main stars, one of the flag bearers,

the pillars, if you will, of G.CW for the last few years, he's going to be wrestling Chris Jericho for the Ring of Honor pay-per-view in that same building, the Hammerstein, for the Ring of Honor World Title. So it does feel like a lot of people on the GCW side of things have their feelings on their shoulders right now. They're wearing it on their sleeves. Hey, AEW's picking on us. They pulled Ricky Starks off of the GCW show. Now they're booking one of our guys to wrestle in the same. building before we get a chance to run there. What say you?

Phil's very Eric Bischoff of Tony Cohen. How does any of it really matter? I mean, I'm sure it does to the people involved. Don't get me wrong. But in the big scheme of things, it's not going to change GCW's trajectory. They're doing great. They continue to do great.

Yeah, this is a, probably a bit of a kick in the teeth for them. But two days later, it won't matter. I wouldn't stress over it. I think if I were Brett Lauderdale of GCW, I'd kind of take this as a compliment. When you got a guy who's spending the hundreds of millions of dollars that he is trying to become a legitimate wrestling organization

and failing miserably, but yet takes the time to screw with an independent organization. That's called fear. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And if I was Brett, that's the way I would take it. He's afraid of you, Brett. And he's, you know, Tony's got all the money in the world so he can afford to lose money. He could care less.

It's why he's keeping so many people under contract when he has no intention of ever using them because the money doesn't matter to him. it's the perception and the ego that matters to Tony. So there's such a long time, Tony, I think perhaps because of his proximity to the NFL and maybe to a lesser degree soccer in the UK, where trades and free agents was such an important part of those businesses, and it is.

that Tony somehow thinks that it actually matters to the same degree in professional wrestling, and it really doesn't. It doesn't mean that there aren't some major talents that if you can acquire them, at least on paper, should make a difference. It doesn't in the EW. In fact, we've seen so many of them come in with all the hope in the world. They're all going to be game changers, change a game forever, and reinvent the business and fall flat on their face, Mercedes-Munay.

and just about everybody else through no fault of their own, necessarily. That I think Tony's so heavily invested in the idea of free agency and trades that the idea of losing somebody, and again, go back to Cody, go back to punk, he's so fearful in the marrow of his tiny little bones of perceiving to be on a losing end of a talent acquisition. that he doesn't care about the money, and he'll burn it. And that's what he's doing right now. He's trying to buy credibility. He's trying to buy one-upmanship. And it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, it's not going to matter to GCW, and it's not going to matter to AEW. They're going to continue to circle the drain until they're finally flushed, and GCW will continue to grow and find new opportunity, so I wouldn't sweat it. Did you just say, his tiny little bones. Yeah. He's a little dwee.

He's a tiny Elvis. You can put them in your pocket and take him for a walk. It's tiny little bones. I don't know. It's like it's a fish dish or something. Hey,

Travelocity's with us here live. Shout out to you, man. Mr. Bischoff, hope you well. Do you think L.A. Knight and C. and Punk will be world champions next year. I'm a mark for both.

Sumi. Not really. Have a good day. Yeah, I think it does lend itself to L.A. night being in the title picture now that he's lost the for lack of a better word the mid card belt see him punk's

always in the mix i could see either one of those happening next year here i think the i mean i hope to see it for la night just because i'm so impressed with his journey and how he's gotten to where he is i think it's a great wrestling story real life story not fictional storyline story just I admire him so much and I don't even know him I don't think we've ever even had a conversation but just knowing what I know of him and what he's what he's done and how he stuck with it and continued to believe in himself and broke through I just love that kind of story it's it's good for the wrestling business because it's aspirational it gives other people some of those I hate to call him kids but some of those people that trainees that I saw

the Performance Center, N.C. Performance Center. He's an example to them. It's not always going to be easy. And there are going to be times when you're going to doubt yourself. And you're going to have friends and family telling you, you know, you might want to think about maybe pursuing a different career because it doesn't always go easily. In fact, it rarely goes easily. And the fact that he did it, he being L.A. Knight did it. And now he's in the position he's in.

I just think it's such a good thing. So I'd like to see it for him. Punk, I think the only question there is certainly not his popularity, certainly not his ability. It's whether he could physically hold up. It is what it is. Yeah, sometimes everybody's highest and best use isn't working all the house shows. But although we hear house shows, you know,

may be not as much of a priority as they have been in the past. Let's do some more questions here. AOTV production says, Hey, Eric, some people still give a Ridge Holland flag for what happens with Big E. Do you think that's justified or not? Of course, you got to see Ridge Holland this past week. And we also saw a pretty incredible storyline with Big E in the New Day. It was one of the more entertaining segments in the modern WWE history.

And a lot of people miss Big E in the ring. And of course, it was a freak accident that happened that injured him and that overhead suplex on the floor executed by Ridge Holland. I, for one, hope that that is not a defining thing in the rest of Ridge Holland's career. I don't know, Ridge, never met him. But I can't imagine there's a scenario where he would intentionally hurt Big E. No. No.

No. That's unfortunate that people would even have that thought. Major says, do you think, at NXT, do you think the next generation of wrestlers can cut an unscripted promo? Or do you think scripted is the future? is the art of the promo dead that's interesting you know they used to have a promo class down there at the performance center do you think we'll ever get back to that especially now that in theory we might have more programming on streaming so the hard breaks and hard outs time wise and some of the limitations of things you can or cannot say on television if some of those

parameters disappear could it create an atmosphere where we're more likely to try unscripted Or is that just wishful thinking that's never coming back? I clearly don't know. All I can do is give you my impression. My impression is that, at least in my case, the adherence to a script was really not that big a deal. Now, they laid out a script slightly more than bullet point. But I was told, this is just, here's the points we need to get in, make it your own.

Now, maybe it's different for the NX developmental talent. Perhaps they want them to get used to memorizing and getting familiar with scripts and delivering them first before they allow them to improv a little bit. But the general impression I got is that talent in NXT probably will have to get used to memorizing, but there will be an emphasis on developing your ability to deliver your script, to deliver your content in a very natural, authentic way. I would be hopeful, just based on what I saw. just based on what I saw,

I would be hopeful that you'll see. And I also, you know, Polovec knows. Sean Michaels knows. The guys there that are teaching and training, they know that the real art to promo is being able to take something that's written for you and make it your own in your own way.

that's where the that's where the connection happens so my impression is we'll we'll be seeing by I bet I would imagine by the time you get to the main roster in raw or smackdown you'll probably be capable of delivering now some more than others some people never get it I've worked with people in the ring that have been in the business for 20 years it couldn't cut a promo to save their life unless you had it written down for them and they memorized it and you can always tell too it's very simple I've also worked with people like, you know, Steve Austin and Mick Foley who would look at a script and go, hmm, okay, see you out there.

And then you just go with what you got. But they were so good at it. That's why they became superstars. And I think Paul, and I've never had this conversation with him, but I'm pretty sure just based on where Paul came from and his experience in understanding that the best promos in the world don't come from a hard script. that you'll probably see an opportunity for NXC talent to develop that ability. That's the best way to say it.

Well, what we want is we want good promos. We don't want shitty promos. I mean, if it's good, it's good. And if it's bad, it's bad. And speaking of good shit, can I recommend Tushy of such a big believer in this product? Eric and I have both been big believers in Tushy for years. We're thrilled that they're finally a sponsor here.

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Eric, let's clean some shit up here on the show and then we'll move along. Bush and Ryukat says Eric has WWE ever done a television event or house show in Russia or China? Or has W I know WW has gotten talent from China, but were they allowed to wrestle there? They did wrestle there in 2017, but I get where the question's going. Do you think now, since there's this new global initiative, do you think we'll see WWE wrestle in China in 2020?

God, I don't know. That's a fascinating question. I've never thought about that. Yeah, I have no idea. I don't know how much exposure the Chinese population gets to Western culture. It's a communist country. Everything is absolutely 100% controlled by the government. The exception would probably be Singapore, Hong Kong.

It's not really China, but same thing. Or Hong Kong is now, I guess. But if there's not a lot of exposure to professional wrestling, I kind of doubt it. It's a little bit like when I went to North Korea. And yeah, there was, I don't remember how many, 350,000 people over the course of two nights, none of them would ever seen professional wrestling before. So it was weird. They didn't know what to make of it or how to react.

So I can't imagine there'd be a commercially viable reason for WWE to go to China unless it was subsidized by the Chinese government. And that's a whole different, you know, a little bit like Saudi. That's a whole different thing. Possibly, I think it would be cool as hell. That's a frontier. Man, if you could crack that market, that in India. If you could crack those two markets, home free. Bush and Ryukat says, and this is for Conrad, am I wrong?

or do I remember you hosted the reveal of AEW in Florida event? Yeah, that's correct. At the time, Jim Ross was still under contract to WWE. He was unavailable. So I was sort of the placeholder, I guess, with Alex Marvez, there in Jacksonville. And then again, for the pay-per-view kickoff for double or nothing, the very first AEW show. But obviously, once JR was there, they didn't need any heavy set people with southern accents up there anymore. David Hernandez says, I cracked up when you said, when you could just wake up.

up in the morning and say to yourself, I think I'm going to fire someone today. Ha ha, that's great stuff. AOTV production says it feels like Tony is trying to convince everyone, including himself that there's nothing wrong with AEW. And when someone says otherwise, it bothers him. I mean, do you think that that's the case that do you think Tony Con is thin-skinned? I mean, he's getting it from every direction. I don't think he's thin-skinned.

I think he is. I know too many people that work directly with Tony. I think he's beyond Finskine. I think he has a hard time dealing with anything emotional. Hey, Eric, what do you think it's going to take for Tony to realize Dave Meltzer isn't the best person to go to for advice on what to do? AOTV productions. I mean, it feels like he's probably already figured that out. All of a sudden in the last six months or so, Dave Meltzer has been a lot more vocally critical.

about AEW than he has been. It's quite because he's trying to protect whatever's left of his subscriber base. I mean, even even the most diehard AEW fans, he had to look at some of the stuff that Dave is writing and going, fuck, dude,

what are you on? So I'm going to imagine Dave's trying to mitigate some of the credibility loss that he's taken over the last couple of years and trying to present himself as being a little bit more balanced. But then he completely blows himself out of the water with that post that you showed us a little later talking about Tony being in charge of WCW. First of all, just to finish up on that thought, it just occurred to me where Tony running WCW, that means Tony would have been working for Turner Broadcasting at that point in time. Correct.

Tony wouldn't have lasted a month in a real world environment where money actually does matter and the bottom line does matter. Tony would have maybe he would have lasted a month. But not to. But I think with Tony, oh, I don't know. It's hard. I kind of give up predicting what's going through Tony's mind and what it's going to take for him to realize. If he doesn't realize it by now, he's never going to.

He keeps doing this. If he does realize it, when is he going to act on it? If he does realize it, when is he going to start pointing together compelling storylines? When he is going to do it, when is he going to start taking control over the product itself and not letting the entire roster do whatever they fuck they want to do whenever they want to do it which is what's happening now no matter what anybody says publicly we all know what's going on behind the scenes it's a fucking madhouse and as long as he continues to let that happen nothing

will change it's only going to continue to circle the drain do you think uh he needs more delegation he needs to delegate more i think tony should absolutely bring in somebody that knows what fuck they're doing that actually has some leadership experience and tony should be able to find a way to be proud of putting the pieces that's what a good producer is a producer is nothing more television producer is and that's what tony is is nothing more than the guy who's really good at putting the right pieces together it doesn't mean that you're good at doing everything it doesn't mean that you're good at running the camera or that you're good at running the audio board or that you're good at writing or that you're good at anything in particular. It means that you're

smart enough and talented enough to know where to find the right people to do those things. That's what a good producer does. He puts the right people in place, the right pieces in place. And if Tony could learn that nobody's ever going to look at Tony Connick, wow, he's a great booker. He saved the wrestling business. That's a joke. But if Tony could find a way to be satisfied with the idea that he was smart enough and had the resources, which he does, to put the right pieces together, AEW could be successful. Look, as long as they've got the resources, and they do, and as long as they have a television platform, and they do, there's hope, some hope.

but that hope will only manifest if Tony is smart enough to back away from the things that he's not good at, which is leadership, management, and which is creative. And it's not that hard to find people that could fill those roles. It's really not. It's his ego and his pride that are keeping him from doing it. David Newman just joined us here at 83weeks.com. Thank you for signing up and joining with us here at 83 weeks.com. Franklin says IWC helped kill AEW with elitist BS pushing people away.

That's an interesting take, you know, but I have seen that a lot that they feel like there is a contingent of fans who feel like, you know, they've been sort of talked down to. Like if you don't like AEW, it's because you don't appreciate good wrestling and blah, blah, blah. Do you think that the vocal minority have helped alienate some of the wrestling fan base? Absolutely. And I made that point early on. That's the Meltzer effect. And the weirder and more vocal the Dave Meltzer effect becomes, and it is,

the more your average person, rational person, relatively open-minded person, doesn't want to be associated with that group of people. It's like this. Yeah. Yeah, nobody wants to be a part of that group. Nobody wants to admit publicly that they like something that the vocal minority of the IWC and the Meltzer effect. Nobody wants to associate themselves with that. It's what I mean.

Dave Meltzer does more to harm AEW than anything that Eric Bischoff could ever say. Who wants to think that you agree with that nerd or that you have anything in common with him? Ugh. Go creepy. You got to go take a shower. just thinking about it. I didn't see this, but AOTV productions is going to give us our last question for the day. He says, hey, Eric, Vince Rousseau made a bold prediction that Triple H will be out of

WWE in 2025. How unlikely do you think that is? Just based on what's going on right now, highly unlikely. What, what, I mean, I don't know what basis Rousseau has. to say that but from a performance perspective i'm sorry a company's rocking like it's never rocked before creative is better than it's ever been i i i can't imagine that i said last one but this is the last one we got a great question this is from our notes today john ashford he points out something that

boy it stands out for me to ask you will WWE have to keep Hogan and Jesse Ventura separated during Saturday night's main event allegedly they're both going to be at Saturday night's main event they haven't seen each other in a long time I'm sure I know that Jesse is not necessarily the biggest Hogan fan and I'm sure the feeling's mutual you think they're going to have to have separate dressing rooms brother

I don't know about Jesse I haven't spoken to Jesse since 94. We all change. Everybody changed. Everybody evolves. Yes. So does Jesse have the same? Because back in 94 is one of the reasons I let Jesse go is he just couldn't keep his opinions himself.

I don't mean publicly. I mean backstage with everybody. He was just a he was a morale killer, which is why I fired him, to be honest. But maybe things are different for Jesse now or not. I don't know. I can talk about Hulk, though. I can't speak for him, but I know who Terry Belaya is,

and he's not a guy that holds a grudge. At this point in his life, I think he's more just interested and get along with everybody and having a good time and making the most out of any situation. is in. So I don't think there'll be any issues on Hulk's side of the equation. And I certainly can't speak for Jesse because I haven't talked to him in quite a while. It's going to be a lot to talk about this Saturday night. It's back. Saturday night's main event will be live on Peacock and on NBC. And immediately following, we want you to join us here live at 83 weeks.com.

It's this Saturday, December 14th, immediately following Saturday night's main event, don't you dare miss it. And in the meantime, man, hit the subscribe button turn that notifications bell on you don't want to miss the next time we're live it's 83 weeks on youtube.com that's 83 weeks dot com Eric I never know what to expect when we sit down and click record uh how many wrestling shows are you on this week I had to watch Tuesday I had to watch Thursday let me go ahead and get my DVR set I know we're watching together on Saturday but are you on Monday night raw this week are you on smackdown I you're not on dynamite are you what's going on this week no I get a call about once every

18 months, so I think we're good for a while. Well, make plans to join us, boys and girls. This Saturday night, it's back, Saturday night's main event. And we'll be live right here on 83 weeks.com.