83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 353: Right Guy, Wrong Time

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad explore the career of multi-time WCW champion Alex Wright. The guys discuss Alex's debut on WCW television, his first major championship win in the company and the unfortunate rollercoaster ride of injuries, character directions and storylines that ended his full-time wrestling career. Eric shares his candid thoughts on a talent he believes had so much more to give but the audience wasn't ready for it. 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 LUMEN - Take the next step in improving your health, go to https://www.lumen.me/83WEEKS to get 15% off your Lumen.  MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code 83WEEKS at https://www.manscaped.com/.  TECOVAS - Get 10% off at https://www.tecovas.com/83WEEKS when you sign up for email and texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Make it happen today at savewithconrad.com. on lesson number 212, non-equal housing lender. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great, doing great. My daughter's coming in a couple days for the holidays. He's going to be with us for five days.

And I'm anxious with that. It's starting to feel a little Christmassy. I like it. It's finally settling in. You know, when you see Christmas stuff, like I went to Walmart to get some wood chunks with a big green egg. I think I was smoking a turkey. And this was like in, this was early October.

It was way before Halloween. And I go into Walmart where I get my mesquite wood chunks. They have the best wood chunks. I don't like chips. Chips are bullshit. I like the big chunks, like the size of your fist are bigger. Do a great job. I go into Walmart, into the area where the wood chunks are,

and it's Christmas decorations in early October. It's like you become numb to it all. And it takes forever for me to get into that Christmas vibe. It's finally starting to happen. I'm excited too. I can't believe that Christmas is almost here. This is a great time to spend time with family and friends and get ready for next year and have some interesting conversations that you might not normally have.

And I'm thinking we're going to be doing that today. Our topic is Alex Wright. And when I think of Alex Wright, I don't think about dancing around a leather jacket. I don't think about Berlin. I think about potential. I think about what could have been because it does feel like with the benefit of hindsight

you've got a multi-generational wrestler here and we're going to talk about all of his background but just from a macro perspective it felt like much like J.R. once said about a guy we'd never seen on TV before oh here's your blue chipper right there the idea being

he could be a really really big star he has as a prospect all the intangibles that you look for to be successful now of course when jr was saying that he was talking about the rock making his debut at survivor series 96 i'm not suggesting that alice wright was ever going to achieve those same heights that the rock did in pro wrestling or in movies but it does feel like if you were to lay out what we might call a can't miss prospect Alex right was probably that guy once upon a time was he not he sure was you know if if you were casting a movie and you have a casting director whose job it is to look at the script understand the characters in the script and then go out and find the

right actors or actresses to portray those parts if wcw would have been a movie instead of a wrestling company and there would have been a casting director who is charged with the responsibility of going out and finding the ideal wrestling character that was young at all the potential in the world that looked like a star. Alex Wright would have been in that list, on that list. He just had all of the ingredients, not only in terms of his look, but his abilities were off the charts. He had so much potential.

And we'll talk a lot about that and perhaps why he didn't reach his potential, but And coming through the door, young as he was, inexperienced as he was, he just had potential oozing from every pore in his body. It's just really, really so much potential. And he's got an interesting look. I mean, you referenced it a minute ago, but he does feel like, I mean, he was right out of central casting. Like if that guy was in a television show or a movie or movie may be more

specifically, I'd be, okay, that makes sense. I could see that. I can see him as the young white meat baby face. And there's other times where I could see him as a villain. Like this is he has a face of character. I don't know another way to say it. But I, uh, I think it's a pretty distinctive look. And it's interesting his story too, because it's written about the observer way back

in March of 94. I know what you're thinking. Wait, wasn't Alex Wright more like 96? Well, here it is in 94, March of 94, it's written in the observer. Alex Wright, the 18 year old son of science. scientific legend Steve Wright from England worked on the WCW tour after so many had gone down with injuries and was said to have been impressive. This is around the same time of the March 1994 tour of Germany,

maybe best known for when Mick Foley lost his ear, but I guess you guys were battling the injury bug. You needed some local talent to help fill out and round out some cards. And Alex Wright gets his opportunity for WCW Browell. to see what he's capable of. You know, uh, that's the story we've heard a lot in traditional sports.

Injury creates opportunity. But who knew, especially with the benefit of hindsight. The most notable thing besides fully losing his ear is perhaps WCW discovering Alex ride on this same tour. That's a pretty big deal. Eric, it is a big deal.

I, you know, I wasn't directly involved in talent in 94. Um, they brought Alex in. I'm not. really sure who made the decision to, to put him on the roster and put him in a position so that he could take advantage of the opportunity that the injury created. But whoever it was

certainly had an eye for talent, 18 years old. And I was curious about that. When I knew we were going to talk about Alex, because I wasn't really involved in signing him, I wasn't part of the process. I was really curious about when he came in. I thought it was earlier than 94. I think it was. Perhaps 94 was the first time we saw him as a result of the injury that you just talked about. Again, you got your information from the observer, so it's hard to tell what's accurate, what's not accurate when it comes to that, when it comes to the observer. But I thought it was, I thought it was in 93, but it could have been 94. 18 years old. Oh, my God. Oh, my, boy just a month after he's sort of discovered by wcw and this march tour of 1994 that's in

march of 94 in april of 94 he finds himself at center stage he's going to work in the opener against lord stephen regal who beats alex wright with a backslide he's billed as being the youngest wrestler in germany it is a dark match it's a tryout i would imagine is what we want to call it because he's not on tv until late summer and then he's going to be at every TV taping and before long, every house show. But I guess we do want to see him on American soil here in Atlanta, the home of WCW, not just we're getting live event reports from Germany. We bring him in, he impresses folks.

And I guess at that point, now it's about trying to get all the legal paperwork together. Like I'm not going to pretend that I've ever done this. But I guess if you're an international talent, I mean, we've all heard that you've got to have specific paperwork and visas and I guess there's a difference between a tourist visa and a work visa and the whole process is different was that the reason that we bring him in for just a one-off sort of to check him out and then he's got to go back and we get the paperwork straight to make this a more permanent thing or what do you what do you imagine that was like you know you're right I can only imagine I'm guessing he came in for his dark match impressed

the right people. I think Rick Flair was one of his biggest advocates at that time. I do remember that. Rick had a very high opinion of Alex Wright and the potential that he had. So Rick, if Rick wasn't the one who made the decision to bring him in, he was, Rick was instrumentally. But you're right.

The visa challenge was a big challenge. And I think if there's ever been one, Big advantage that Turner Broadcasting provided WCW, aside from the television opportunity, was that that process, because Turner was so accustomed to dealing with work visas and international talent and all that, it didn't, it was a lot easier for WCW and Turner Broadcasting to go through that process than it would be for a lot of people who don't do it on a regular basis. But yeah, that makes sense. He probably would have had to, Alex would probably have to go back and get his affairs in order and documentation and all that other

stuff because it is, it is an arduous process when it comes to workplaces. I do want to ask you about a, you know, when it came, when it comes to WCW and their process of handling all these work reasons, is that something that is still a challenge today, you think like I don't know what has or hasn't changed in that regard but I still act I still want to believe that I'm hearing problems every now and again with with with travel visas or or work visas rather it doesn't feel like it's it's unique necessarily to wrestling but I don't really hear about it in any other avenue of business is it because of the entertainment aspect or does the rest of the world maybe just ask forgiveness rather than permission

I think there's a lot of people that are probably coming into the country and performing that likely, possibly, don't have the appropriate visas, technically speaking, and just like you say, oops, sorry, I forgot that. Let me fix that after the fact because it is, and I have no idea what the process is like now, immigration laws, work visas, all that stuff. It's more of a legal process than it is anything else. And that's one of the reasons why we didn't get involved, Turner legal handled it all. But I can only imagine that it's become more difficult over time. And it's probably going to get a lot more difficult in the future. We should give you a report from August of 1994 in The Observer.

Lots of television taped this past week on August 11th at Center Stage. they taped for the September 10th show, and Alex Wright was put over. He's 19 years old now and said to have good potential with some nice moves, but still green. A couple of weeks later, the observer would say that Alex Wright is going to be billed as Wunderkin Alex Wright. He debuted on television over the weekend and impressed people with his potential. He's the son of former wrestling great Stephen Wright, who was a star in Europe in Japan during the original Tiger Mask era,

and he worked in California in the mid-70s. He definitely beats out his dad in the hair department. Bright is still green, but opponent Brady Boone looked great carrying the match. I wanted to ask you, like we've all heard lots of speculation about who was running things at different times in WCW and who was an advocate for this guy or that guy.

I've pretty consistently heard. And this led to a lot of ha-ha, maybe unfairly, but I've heard that Jim Barnett and Rick Flair specifically were really high on Alex Wright. Is that the way you remember that? I remember Jim being enamored with Alex and, you know, I don't want to infer anything here, but I think anytime you've get an 18 year old, 19 year old athlete and Alex was a great athlete, probably still is. everybody was excited Jim was just a little more effusive

about revealing his his his feelings about Alex he was very very high on him he got very very excited and of course because it was Jim and Jim was so unique in the way he communicated

people remember that but you know Rick Flair was just as excited about Alex as Jim Barnett was Alex was a great looking kid. Like I said, with all the potential in the world, everybody saw it. But yeah, Jim was, Jim was very excited about Alex, no doubt about it. Now, listen, you're saying that kind of tongue in cheek, I feel like, but I mean, I know that Jim Barnett knew how to make money in professional wrestling.

We also knew that, you know, he, uh, he was a homosexual man. And I feel like that, but that gets joked about maybe to his detriment. because I do think at times in an effort to be funny or pop a joke or do a fun impression because J.R.'s got it down pat and it is funny that we almost don't really give Barnett any credit for the the things he did bring to the wrestling product. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about Jim Barnett. Am I all face? Did he have real value or did he, is he really just a comedy figure and I've got it all wrong? I think, I mean, I don't know. I wasn't around. I wasn't around when Jim Barnett was a player and a respected promoter generated a lot of money

in the wrestling business. But it was, you know, in the 70s, in the 80s, it was during a period of time where independent promoters were making a ton of money. And Jim was, some of them were. And Jim was one of those promoters, especially when it came to international. Jim had a handle on what was going internationally and was well respected internationally with a lot of other international promoters. I think by the time Ted Turner decided to acquire Jim Crockett Promotions out of bankruptcy,

there were certain people that had been a part of Jim Crockett Promotions that came along with, came out of Jim Crockin Promotions and were part of the original WCW as it was created. Jim also had a relationship with a guy by the name of Jack Petrick. And at one point in time, and this was before I arrive, so I may not have the details of this 100% accurate. But at the time, Petrick and Barnett had a relationship, a business relationship. And I think Jack Petrick was one of the people who, when Ted decided to acquire

Jim Crockett promotions out of bankruptcy. We needed the Turner needed certain people that had been in place that had a fundamental understanding of the wrestling business. Ted was essentially starting from scratch. He was buying a company out of bankruptcy, decided to create his own wrestling company and brought certain people along with him. David Crockett being another one, Jackie Crockett, the cameraman, his brother being another one.

Rob Garner, who is our, the WCW kind of VP of Sales and Syndication. was part of that. So there were a number of people that came out of Jim Crockett promotions into WCW and Barnett was one of them. Barnett never really had a function in WCW. It was, nobody was ever clear about what Jim Barnett actually did. Now, he would have input, you know, if somebody wanted to try to put together an international tour or was exploring the idea of maybe doing something in Australia because Jim had solid relationships in Australia. Jim would get involved, but he was more of a consultant than anything else.

He didn't really have any direct responsibility for anything. He didn't really have anybody other than Gary Jester working with him. I'm not even sure what that, what they did together, to be honest with you. Gary didn't need Jim Burnett based on the, responsibilities that Gary Jester had at the time. But they worked closely together, and I think more than anything because they were friends. They spent a lot of time together.

But Jim never really had a role. So I couldn't tell you firsthand, you know, what Jim was good at because he was really, he loved the dirt, man. He was, he was faced down into Dave Meltzer's shit sheet all of the time. And I remember distinctly before I got into management when I was talent, I for whatever reason if I was in the office Jim my boy my boy come on in oh want to hear some dirt you know he just loved it he and zane brezlov got along great man they they love the dirt

but that's the only thing I really remember of jim other than you know the fact that nobody really knew he did everybody was a little afraid of him because they didn't understand why he was there and he must only be and of course jim played it played this up Jim played his personal relationship with Ted Turner up to probably prevent people from looking too closely. What the fuck does Jim Bernard actually do? I don't know, but he's friends with Ted.

So let's just leave him alone. That was the feeling that I got when I first arrived. Well, you're going to get a feeling when you try our next sponsor, Blue Chew. We're big believers in this product. They're day one advertisers on our program. And if you haven't tried it yet,

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i found this out by accident actually um two saturdays ago enjoying a wonderful saturday morning it's kind of a tradition in the bishop household with mrs b and pop by blue chew about 7.30, 8 o'clock in the morning, had a wonderful morning. And then went right to the gym afterwards. Did a chest and try workout. That blue chew is still going through your system, right? And it increases blood flow everywhere. I got a pump after that workout. I went into the to the locker room to change into my street clothes and I took my shirt off and looked at myself and said my god I said doing this on a more regular basis so not only do you have the benefit the features of the benefits that blue chew was designed for but if you happen to be

working out in the gym and pop one of those babies you'll be shocked at the way you look when you're done check it out if you haven't already it's blue chew.com you're going to love it and uh I can't wait to talk about what's next here for Alex Wright, because the next set of tapings, this is November now of 1994, and it's going to air on the 26th. We see Alex Wright come out dancing, and they've got paid models disguised his fans, mobbing him. We're trying to give the illusion that he's a teenage heartthrob. It's written about in the torch that the ladies are paid $50 per taping, and Chivani is going to announce on commentary that there's going to be a cruiserweight title tournament airing on WCW programs and that Alex

right and Jean Paul Levec are going to be contenders for this cruiserweight title that's right they thought triple H was going to be a cruiserweight what do you think of that presentation having him come to the ring dancing and with models sort of making him a a teen idol a heart throb if you will typical WCWN at the time. Keep in mind, I think at that in that period of time, WWE was so far ahead of WCW in a lot of ways. Now, from a television perspective, and I didn't even realize this until maybe a couple of years ago, I was just curious as to how WCW performed on a ratings basis compared to

WWE in the early 90s. And surprisingly, the WCW Saturday Night Show at 605 East in 305 Pacific time, did very, very well up against Monday Night Raw, surprisingly so. But when it came to house show attendance, pay-per-view, revenue, licensing, merchandising, which didn't even exist really in WCW until probably 96. W.W.E was so far ahead of WCW in so many different ways. It was we were number two, and if you just looked at television ratings, you could make the argument that we were very competitive.

But when it came to revenue, we might as well have been instead of number two, number 222. And as a result, a lot of the creative in WCWCW, before I got there, you know, Jim heard famously with the hunchbacks and all that silly shit, the Robocop sting character, all of that stuff was kind of following WWE's lead at the time, which was to create very animated, cartoonish, gimmicky characters. And I think the idea, and again, I wasn't involved with it when Alex first came in from a talent perspective. I think the idea was to kind of follow, you know, what would WWE do? If

WWE had Alex right, how would they create that character? So I think Alex's character inside of WCW was more of a reflection of what was working for WWE at the time and WCW's attempt, sometimes embarrassingly bad, but attempt to emulate the formula that was working so well for the three. Hence the kind of teen idol gimmick. It was forced. It wasn't authentic. It wasn't, you know, people weren't talking about authenticity back in the 90s, right? But it just didn't really connect because it wasn't real. It was too contrived and over top. But then we'll talk about how that affected Alex later on, I'm sure, on this podcast. But I think that was the original idea. Bring them in as a teen idol. Pay these girls to act like, you know,

fan girls and react hoping that the audience would go oh well they feel that way i guess i should do i think that was the lot we know that uh jean paul levec who we know as triple h the real life paul michael levec from new hampshire he is going to be getting a lot of tv time here in wcd in the uh november and december period of 1994 and it's written in the torch that levec and right have both been getting more TV exposure in recent months than anyone not in the Friends of Hulk club and Wade would say Levec has apparently not signed with WCW but it is not a sure bet he won't be jumping to the WWF either he's been given an offer of about a 50% raise from his current level and may have agreed in

principle their offers probably below what he would average in his first year or two in the WWF but it's possible that unless WCW ups the offer to around the level of his partner, Stephen Regal, which is said to be between 100 and 150,000, that he may back out of signing with WCW. The plans are, and this is obvious from TV, for Levec team with Regal and eventually go after the tag titles, that was even talk of Sister Sherry eventually switching to managing Regal and Levec and feuding with heat. As far as management goes, they're high on Levec.

Sources say he may not get an offer from WCW that will keep him from looking at other offers and despite all these negotiations, no one seems to be saying that he's like going to be a big money draw, but in an era when it's hard to find competent young rising rising talent, the talent like Nevec takes on new meaning. They're also really high up and perhaps even higher on Alex Wright. They think he could be a superstar within his first year. He's going to have a bigger push in the coming months and his strengths are his athletic size, his ability and his looks.

But his weaknesses are his interview, his selling, and his transitions. So we see sort of the tale of two talent here broken down in the torch, where WCW seems to be thinking that Alex Wright has more superstar written on him than what would become Triple H. If you could go back to your 1994 way of thinking, could you convince yourself that you would see that, that Alex Wright had more potential in 1994 than Paul Levitt? It's so hard to say.

I mean, just for me, as a non-wrestling person, meaning I had never wrestled before, and my evaluation of talent was probably different than, let's say, Rick Flares. Rick Flair would have recognized technical abilities much differently than I would have. And I would have just looked at the package, Unintended. Don't go there. I know you all want to. Everybody listening to this right now is dying to make a snarky joke. It's obvious. It's juvenile. I'll save you the time. I would have looked at the visuals. I would have obviously paid attention to what he was capable of doing in the ring, but not to the same level as someone like Rick Clare or Arn Anderson, for example. Or Terry Taylor is another example. They would have seen.

things in Alex that perhaps I didn't see. I would have just looked at the overall package, so speak. Triple H, look, I wanted Triple H. I, you know, I think it was Terry Taylor that first brought Paul Avec

to everybody's attention. And I really wanted to keep Paul for a variety of reasons. But Paul came along at a really difficult time. And it's funny because we were talking about the ATM Eric, you know, episode last week right and how we just stroke checks and all of that bullshit um the opposite was

true and when i first talked to paul i think i only paid him 75 when he first came in and that was hard on paul he was not excited about that number i explained to him that the only way i could afford him even at 75 or whatever the number was was if he moved to Atlanta and i never forget and Paul has brought this up in previous interviews. I said, Paul, you got to understand. You are what I refer to as a GUD, GUD, geographically undesirable, undesirable, meaning at that point in time, because previously in WCW, they would fly people in all over the place, not keeping track of expenses, not paying attention to the tickets that they were mailing out to people. I've gone into that detail. And around the time that Paul,

came into WCW, I was focused on saving money, not spending money. I had a very, very limited budget. And as much as I wanted to keep Paul, I couldn't. The budget just wouldn't sustain it. One could argue, yeah, but you're going to get rid of this guy. But these people had contracts in place. It wasn't just as easy as trading one wrestler out for another wrestler. But contractually, I didn't have the budget.

We, WCW didn't have the budget to really pay Paul. what we should have paid him. Again, it wasn't, I wasn't in charge of wrestling operations at that time, completely. But as high as Rick and Claire was on Paul and Terry Taylor was on Paul. And a number of other people were excited about Paul. We couldn't really pay him what he was looking for. And I think it's fair to say, I've never asked Paul this.

I will someday. But I think Paul, much like Chris Jericho, Paul wasn't ready for WWE. I think Paul knew that. Paul was fresh out of Killer Kowalski's wrestling school and probably, you know, wrestling some independence. I think Paul came to WCW to get the experience, to get the exposure so he could ultimately get a shot at WWW.

Because that's what Paul grew up with. He grew up in the Northeast. He grew up on WWE. WCW was just a stepping stone for Paul. And because I couldn't really entice him financially, I think it was a foregone conclusion, regardless of how any of us felt about Paul and his potential, he wasn't long for WCW. Now, had he come along a year or two later, that situation might have been different.

And fortunately for Paul, the timing worked out really, really well, because he's now where he is today. Had he stuck around WCW, who knows what could have been or could not have been, obviously. But it worked out in for everybody. we got to take just a minute and talk about what happened at star k 94 no i'm not going to make you sit through us talking about Hulk Hogan and the butcher we are going to talk about the second match on the card that night though Alex Wright beat triple H in 14 minutes and three seconds now course he's not called triple it yep he's John Paul the vet he's billed at 274 pounds

and he's in a cruiser who decided to put him in a cruiserweight division here's what's even funnier. On commentary, he's billed at 274. Alex Wright is billed at 221. And Bobby Eaton, or Bobby Heenan, rather, on commentary says, I think, uh, I think Levex got about 15, 20 pounds on him. I mean, it is interesting to see. Now, of course, the fans, they don't really understand who these characters are. So they're not getting a lot of fanfare or huge reactions coming out. But the match is pretty good. It gets a star in a quarter in the observer. It actually gets three stars, a three stars in the torch. And it won the second best match of the night. in the Observer poll. So it is a good showing in Nashville, Tennessee. You can see big

improvement. That seems to be universal about both guys. But I do think it's interesting that as a footnote in history, Alex Wright will always have this. He beat Triple H at Starcade, just like you beat Terry Funk at Starcade. What a crazy stat that is, right? Take it to the bank, see what you get for it. But yeah, I guess he can, he always has that. he can he can take that picture and and have it framed and put it in his gym because i do believe Alex is i think he's got a wrestling school in germany he does yeah uh and i'm sure these days he still looks great and it's probably because he knows all the tricks like lumen lumen's the world's first handheld metabolic coach is a device that measures your metabolism through

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Text IHeart to 50505 today and take the first step toward protecting your savings. So we're going to see Alex Wright pick up some wins over guys like George South on the syndicated program and then he's going to start working with Bobby Eaton everywhere all over the syndicated shows on the 605 shows on the live events and even on Flash of the Champions 30. This went down January 1995. They go seven minutes and 28 seconds and Alex Wright gets the win. The announcers are no longer referring

to him as being 19. They still want to lean into, he's so young, so we're shaving it off and saying he's 18, which is fine. But one of the things that stood out to me is the report that says that when they're running down the card, when Gary Michael Capetta is running down the matches,

you know, this guy is going to wrestle this guy. Alex Wright was getting the most booze by far. So I want to ask you, I mean, clearly fans are not buying it. They're not sold on it. They feel like he's being pushed down our throats. He's the white meat baby face that's got the tuneout factor at this point. Was that the plan?

I mean, I know sometimes we have guys and it feels like, you know, the company or the fans will push back and say, no, they're trying to force him on us. They're trying to shove him down on the throats. We don't want him. Other times, that was the plan. Was that the plan? Did we want to make him a hateable? heel or were we really doing our best to make him a baby face and we just miscalculated the thing i think we were doing our best to make him a baby face but here's the problem

Alex was too good looking he was too young guys hated him girls may have found him attractive but guys fucking hated him he was too pretty he had too much going on and he was being shoved down their throat. And I think the gimmick, you know, the dancing and all that is just, you know, you're looking at a product that's predominantly male audience at that time especially. And you're bringing out a character that looks like he just walked off the front page or the cover of GQ magazine and he's out there dancing for the girls who are paid to scream and act like, you know, fan girls. The guys in the eyes were just like, fuck that. So I think the gimmick worked against him, but to your point or to your question, I think it was, he wasn't getting heat

because he was designed to get heat. That wasn't part of the plan. Not to my knowledge. It's reverse engineering, and I don't think that was taking place at that time. We know that he can certainly wrestle and he can certainly dance, and we're going to keep that going for Super Brawl 5. In February, he's going to get a win. over Paul Roma. They opened the pay-per-view with a 13-minute, 21-second affair, and we actually got a question about that from our live studio audience here from ad-free shows.com. Coach Rosie says, I remember hearing an old shooter interview with Paul Roma. Roma claimed he was fired for not making Alex look strong at Super Bowl 5 in February of 95.

Is this something you remember happening? Why did Roma's run come to an end? you remember it being that maybe he didn't do the best job here with Alex right possibly again wouldn't have been my call at the time but I think there was just an overall feeling of all wasn't high on anybody's list and part of that was Paul's way Paul carried himself backstage part of it was what he was able to do in the ring or not doing the ring it just wasn't clicking and I think on top of that to have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder when you're a guy like Paul Roma and feeling like you're too good to put somebody over or to make

someone look good because you felt like you were more valuable I could see that becoming an issue and most likely was I want to remind everybody that Paul Roma didn't actually get fired immediately following the paper view I was able to to jump on cage match dot net which is where we get all of our data here at on the podcast network. But he says that, or it shows that Flying Brian was still beating Paul Roma in March of 1995 down at the Disney MGM tapings.

He had a dark match against Brian Pilman 10 days prior to that in Atlanta. So he's still got a handful of shots left after this, but this was his last pay-per-view appearance with the company. It is the first match on the show. The Observer gave it one star. The torch gave it a star in three-quivor. quarters and the legend of this match that has become internet wrestling lore is that Roma was unprofessional and sandbagging the match here to undermine Paul Alex Wright

rather and that story's been out there since I believe even before the shoot interview but the shoot interview lore just made it even bigger do you remember there ever being a famous story about someone being fired for sandbagging another wrestler like is there one that comes to mind like oh yeah this guy sandbag that guy and he was out of there not that i can recall off the top of my head i mean it may have happened um i didn't really get involved in those kinds of decisions until well into 96 so if it would have occurred before then i just wouldn't have been part of those discussions i left wrestling operations to operate wrestling and I tried not to get too involved type of thing, but if whether it would be Rick Flair or

Dusty Rhodes or anybody else would have said, it's not working, it's not working for them. Then it wouldn't have worked for me and I would have supported whatever decision they made. It does make me wonder, is this Rick Flair's influence? And Lord, I'm not trying to stir it up here. But I said at the top of the show, I've always heard that Rick Flair and Jim Barnett were really high on Alex Wright. I also don't believe that Rick Flair was all the way in favor of Paul.

Paul Roma becoming the fourth horseman instead of it being Tully Blanchard. I'm sure he had a different idea in mind. And I know that Paul Roma did not exactly endear himself to Rick Clare. He felt like he was the new hot thing and player was yesterday's news. Claire still has a little influence and a little power here. And a lot of influence and a lot of power there. In the course of this match, Paul Roma press slams Alex Wright. And when he drops him, he starts mocking the Alex Wright dance.

and it gets a huge pop for the live crowd and I can see how if you're Rick Flair and you already have decided you don't like the guy for whatever reason you just didn't click and didn't your personalities don't mesh well you didn't like him and your your faction the four horsemen whatever it is and you're trying to get Alex right over and even just announcing his name has the fans booing but that's not the desired result you're trying to make him a baby face. If Paul Roma, who had heard that and seen that, just did what all wrestlers do and listen to the crowd and feels like,

oh, okay, let's give him more of what they want. If they really wanted him to do that and he does the dance and it gets a big pop, I could see how somebody in the back would say, oh, he's going into business for himself. And they'd be right. By the way, his job was to make Alex, if that happened,

again, tell you blow for blow what he did or what paul did or didn't do appropriately but yeah if you're rick flare or you're dusty roads or you're anybody else and you're trying to get this young kid over him yeah maybe you're swimming upstream and you're trying a little too hard or the character isn't quite right and the audience isn't reacting the way you want the audience to react the heels job is to get them to react the way you want them to react not to go out there and get yourself and the way you're describing it to me sounds like the classic example of an unprofessional performer in this case, Paul Roma, getting himself over, playing to the crowd as the heel when his job is to help

get the baby face over. So if that's what happened and if someone would have come to me, again, whether it was Dusty or Rick or anybody else and said, here's why I'm letting this guy go and here take a look and you'll see what I mean I wouldn't have questioned that decision well I just want to remind everybody that this causes a change maybe you weren't paying attention to it at the time but yeah he's dancing his ass off here at super brawl paul Roma mocks him it gets a huge pop and for the next set of tapings center stage but went down on April 5th they're taping WCW Saturday night Alex Wright gets a win in the match but he does not dance before the match so it does feel like okay maybe we overdid that too much

we should pull that back a little bit I know that ultimately he does bring the dancing back but that does feel like that touched a nerve to me yeah it's a reaction yeah it's a reaction let's talk about slamberry here's what's written in the observer as it turned out the only wrestler on the show who even came off looking like a good worker was arne anderson It was almost perfect in his role of carrying Alex Wright to his best TV match to date and beating him convincingly in a way that Wright came out looking fine. It didn't go unnoticed that the biggest surprise pop of the show was when the referee counted three after Anderson's DDT.

So he's no longer working the first match or the second match on the pay-per-view. Now he's working with Arne Anderson. He's worked his way up after all these wins to a television title shot on pay-per-view. and with the DDT, boy, he gets a big reaction, Arnd Anderson does. Fans are, uh, they're not a fan of Alex Wright, but boy, they started him off nicely. I mean, let's take a look at his big high profile matches so far. We know that we see him against Jean Paul Leveck, who's going to be the future Triple H, then Bobby Eaton, and then Paul Roma.

That's where maybe things change. And now Arne Anderson. I don't know that there's going to be some people who maybe snicker a little bit when I'm talking about Paul Roma this way, so we'll set him aside. But Arne and Bobby Eaton and Triple H, boy, you're trying to put your best foot forward with this guy, right? Yeah. And again, that would have been Rick Flair, not Eric Bischoff, um, in those attempts.

And it's a little odd that Rick would have put him in a match with Roma, given how Rick felt about Roma and Roma's abilities. Roman was not a, and he was, he was a middle of the card guy. he was not a super star now paul thought he was but he really wasn't he wasn't a big star he was a useful um talent in the middle of the card at best so it's odd that rick would have booked that match well hang on here's what i wanted to get to because here's what rick did with this booking allegedly this is what's written in the observer and the torch alex wright was supposed to win this match. Alex Wright was supposed to beat Arne Anderson for the television title. That was the

original plan for Slambury 95. That's the way it's written about in the observer and in the torch. But it's also pointed out that this is yet another sign of the power struggle behind the scenes between Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan. Because Rick's idea was, I'm going to have my best buddy, Arn Anderson, put over Alex Wright. I think Alex Wright's going to be the next big star. We're going to keep doubling down on Alex Wright. Allegedly, Paul Cogan didn't like that and said, no, the Renegade is going to be the next TV champion. So we're going to have Arne beat your guy at Slambury, and then we're going to have Arne drop the TV title to the Renegate. And that is what wound up happening. But it's positioned in almost a backstage political way.

And Alex Wright finds himself in the middle of this without any knowledge. It's not like he's trying to do a cost you know a cosplay ultimate warrior gimmick he's just hey i'm my i'm my dad's son and he was a technical wrestler and i'm a good looking kid and y'all threw these models at me and i'm the youngest wrestler from germany and wait now i'm in the middle of this Hulk Hogan rick flair mess what do you make of that report that flair really wanted to put the tv title on Alex Wright and hogan said that doesn't work for me brother you're gonna put it on the renegade instead maybe I find that hard to believe. I think that story has been,

that story has evolved over time. I'm guessing. Look, Jimmy Hart was the one that was excited about Renegade. Right. Much more than Hulk Hogan was. The idea that Hulk was trying to book anything other than Hulk, But, granted, he did, you know, bring the nasty boys in, and there were certain people that were part of, you know, Bruce the Barber Beefcake.

And yes, Hulk did, in his own way, try to get them better opportunities or more exposure. And in some cases, like with the Barber Beefcake, when Hulk had creative control, he put himself in matches with Buddhists to try to help get his friends over. That part is true. but to the extent that Hulk was campaigning and debating with Rick Flair or trying to influence Rick Flair to get others over, particularly somebody like Renegade. I'm not buying it. I just don't.

I don't know. Maybe there was a conversation between Hulk and Rick and perhaps Hulk turned up the volume a little bit was really hoping to get renegate a shot and to really push him. Perhaps that's true. But that would have been driven far more by Jimmy Hart and by Hulk Hogan. Jimmy Hart was the advocate, the biggest advocate, to the point of almost being a little obnoxious about it. There's really more Jimmy Hart than Halkin.

Well, let's talk about the Great American Bash, because this is one of the bigger pay-per-views WCW's doing of the year. I mean, at least from a critical acclaim standpoint, people are saying it's one of the best of the year so far. But the big pleasant surprise is the opening match. A rather rusty, not all that used, Brian Fillman here, is going to be taking on Alex Wright in the opener. And the talent that they keep sliding in front of Alex Wright is crazy.

They go 15 minutes and 26 seconds. And it's written in the observer that Alex Wright was almost totally booed to the point that after the show, the decision was pretty much well made to turn him heel and make him the protege of Rick Flair. He would also say, these two left for New Japan junior heavyway tournament a few days ago with all the hatred directed it right because Flair gave him that deadly dancing gimmick. A lot of people are missing that this guy has improved a lot over the past six months. And it's had three of the better matches on TV over the last several weeks.

Now, of course, he's talking about working with Big Big Big. big stars here. But it does feel like, man, we tried every which way we could to make this work as a baby face, but it's just not clicking. Eventually, if the fans have spoken, you just got to kind of go with it, don't you, Eric? Well, in this case, yeah, I mean, you can only swim upstream for so long. Uh, and then you swim into the mouth of a bear, you know, kind of like the images you see in Alaska, you can swim upstream all you want. You may finally get to where you think you want to be and then you're just going to get gobbled up and it sounds like that was the case here you know and it's it's it's yeah it's so unfortunate because

hindsight's perfect right everybody's got perfect we can look back and say what should have been done or what could have happened like we all have some crystal ball but if you're making those decisions at that time and within the context of that period of time with regard to what was working in wrestling and not working a little too little too late i think if because he was so good looking because he was so young and relatively speaking because he was so talented in the ring he was still learning he was still green he was 19 or 20 years old for fuck's sake so he still had a long way to go but even at that stage of his career Alex was pretty phenomenal in terms of what he was capable of.

Had he turned, had he started out as a heel, you can only imagine how that could have worked because when you play, it's, it's, it's psychology. Again, you've got 60, 70% male audience. You've got this kid that looks like he walked up the cover at GQ and he's out there dancing and girls are being paid to fawn all over them. You have to understand that the male, the largest percentage of your audience are going to boo this guy. had Alex started out as a heel

wouldn't it have been interesting to see what his career trajectory would have looked like because if you're casting that character you would have cast him as a heel not as a teen heartthrob I want to encourage everybody if you're going to watch one Alex Wright match after today's show go watch this one The Great American Bash from 1995

Brian Filman and Alex Wright put on a clinic you got three and three quarters of a star in the observer the torch was really high on it, gave it four and a quarter stars. And Wade really gave some context that I appreciated about how Brian Pilman had been frustrated with his career in WCW for the past two years, but he's out here doing his best as a professional to get the fans to boo him and to cheer Alex Wright.

That doesn't happen. We're still booing him, but Brian's working his ass off. And it's also written about, and I think I for one didn't always think of it this way, but this makes a lot of sense. Check this out, Eric, this line from Wade Keller writing about this match here at Great American Bash 1995. In that sense, it was a bitter sweet night for Alex Wright, who not being entirely

familiar with this country and its culture is emotionally affected by the booing. I never really thought about culture-wise how things are just totally different in different parts of the world. And this sort of response, he's being booed for not doing heel tactics. it's not like he's cheating he's not holding tights he doesn't have a foreign object he's not holding the ropes for leverage he's not doing any of the traditional heel tactics but fans are just shitting on him and booing him for nothing that probably is something he wasn't used to and again i know that a lot of people are going to say oh that's a cost

of being a performer you put yourself out there blah blah blah i get all that and i agree with what you're saying but if he's 19 years old goodness gracious you're asking a lot of a young person to be put out there. And you're telling him, go do X, Y, Z, go wear this jacket, go dance around. These girls will come. Yes, sir. He does it. Fans shit on it. That's probably a lot to ask a young person to process at 19 years old, right? Or if you're a veteran at 35 years old, you're going out there, you're doing what you're asked to do, you're doing, you're giving a hundred percent to it. And in most cases, you're doing exactly what you're asked to do and doing it really well, it's just not working. And no matter

what you're 19, you're 35, you're 45, if you're out there and you're trying to accomplish one thing and you're achieving the exact opposite, it has nothing to do with culture. That's just this is fucked up and it's not working. And he, Alex, didn't have the stroke, the position, the influence to do anything about it. I can understand why. he would be frustrated. In fact, I wouldn't have been able to understand how he couldn't be frustrated. I don't think it has anything to do with the culture or even his age. I just can't help but feel bad for him because it doesn't really, you know,

I try to keep myself in check on college football because I know there's a lot of people in my life who just live and die by college football. And I hear people say just awful things about the kids playing college football. And I sometimes have to remind those folks, how you know that guy's had a driver's license for three years. he went to prom last year and you know you're in your 50 showing your whole ass right now that's keep it in perspective this is a young kid this is a child he has toys in his room still i mean there's a good choice in there and you're mad uh the best of the super juniors tournament

is getting kicked off in june of 1995 and guess who's there yeah Alex right along with a lot of other great wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero Otani Crispinois Brian Pilman Dean Malenko. I mean, this is a who's who and it's a big opportunity. The torch is reporting that Alex Wright's push is now all but over now that Rick Flair is out of power. Right was a favorite of flare, but Hogan's camp sees Wright as a threat to the renegade. Oh, that's silly. Uh, eventually we get to the tapings here, July 26th, in Atlanta, Georgia, we're at center stage and Rick Flair is going to beat Alex Wright. He's got Arne Anderson in his corner, Rick Flair does.

And this was said to be superb, according to Wade Keller, great work rate, a logical story, and a relatively clean finish. Flair and Anderson subtly teased descent throughout the match, building tension ever so slowly. It came to a head when Flair had the figure four on right and reached to Anderson for leverage. Anderson refused and responded, You're Rick Flair, you don't need that.

The same type of exchange followed Anderson's refusal to help Rick Flair out on a sunset flip. Flair applied the figure four leg lock, grabbed the middle rope for leverage, and pinned right, and then Flair and Anderson got in each other's faces after the match. So this isn't really all about Alex Wright, but it is interesting that they used him as a piece of their story to talk about the dissension.

We know it's ultimately going to lead to a pay-per-view match between Arne and Rick Flair, but Alex Wright being in that spot as a young kid, that's a good spot, man. You're sharing a ring with Rick Flair and Arne Anderson, you're going to learn a few things no matter what, right? And again, this is 2020 hindsight. Anybody can sound like a fucking genius.

But can you imagine, again, what would have happened had Alex been used in a similar fashion, not being shoved down their throat, here he got beat, but probably would have had more sympathy, he would have had more support from the audience getting beat like he did in this match with Rick Flair than he ever did coming out in dick dancing in his leather jacket. It was that, unfortunately, Alex had to go through a whole lot of being shoved down everybody's throat before he finally got used in the right way. And losing to Rick Flair, the way you just described that match, would have gotten Alex

far more over than all the silly shit that he did when he first made his appearance. That's the way Alex should have been used. and build him up slowly, let the audience get behind him, but the audience have sympathy for him, but the audience feel like, man, Alex got fucked.

He should have had that opportunity. That would have gotten Alex over, but again, 2020 hindsight, everybody's a genius. Unfortunately, all of this angle doesn't make air. Believe it or not,

this was one of those rare times where there were TBS problems. The satellite and the transmission was just a mess so it doesn't actually air on tbs and its intended form but that's not the real story the story is that we're thinking about what to do with the horseman we know for sure that we've got you know uh rick flair and arn anderson but now what are we going to do with that fourth spot and one of the ideas that's floated this is according to the torch Paul Orndorff wanted to be the fourth horseman

and he's a member of the booking committee so maybe that could happen but Rick Flair was advocating for Alex Wright to be the fourth horseman is he's a big fan of Alex Wright wants youth on the team there's some other folks who are saying no it should be Steve Austin

to be the fourth horseman and there's always speculation that it could just be Lex Lugar what do you think about these sort of what ifs I mean in an alternate universe these were all ideas according to the torts that were batted around. I'm not saying any of them were very serious, but it was at least preliminarily discussed in a booking meeting.

Should it be Steve Austin? Should it be Paul Orndorff? Should it be Alex Wright? If Alex Wright became a horseman, how much different does his career look? It looks worse. Really? He would have gotten a Paul Roma reaction.

Hmm. I mean, the audience, they weren't behind him. He was too young. He was too green. He was too new. And I think this, and again, I don't know if any of the report that you just read, I don't

know, 10% of it is true. I don't know, 90% of it is true. Again, we're talking about dirt sheets here, which is usually information fed to somebody who's fed to somebody and then printed. Still true to this day, unfortunately. So regardless of what percentage of that report is accurate, let's assume for the sake of of conversation is 100% accurate. it would have worked against Alex just as much possibly more

than having him come out as a teen heartthrob. It would have been bad casting. I don't know what Rick's thought process was, or again, even if this is true. But putting a guy like Alex in the four horsemen, I think would have made things even harder on him, to be honest. do you remember off the top of your head Eric the Alex Wright dance I mean I've seen it enough times recently

yeah it was pretty hokey let's do a one shot oh you're going to ask me to do that dancer I saw that on social media I saw that in X hey Eric can you do the Alex right dance I'm not fucking doing it not doing it all right listen if you want I was trying to do that to transition into a manscape promo since you won't do that well you just show us how hairless your rig is right now you can dance or show us your rig you pet i'm going to take a pass up both let's just go right the performance package 5.0 ultra by manscaped is the real deal i can go ahead and give you a little spoiler i'm going to be gifting a few sets of these for christmas i do every year

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That's the toiletry bag that J.R uses to smuggle marijuana coast to coast for A.W. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code 83 weeks at Manscape.com. That's 20% off plus free shipping with the code 83 weeks at Manscape.com. Stay on top of your grooming game and be ready for anything the season throws your way. So Eric, you know, before we finish, you want to show the dance or your rig or final chance. I'm not going to do that to anybody. It's like the dancing would be horrible and the rest of it would just be it would it would leave scar tissue people would have scar tissue see that I just in my head I hope that at times you and mrs b would cause play and you'd hit your hit your Alex right with her no need no need when you got the kind of game that I've had really my entire life I don't have to dance yeah I heard you had so much I just have to walk in a room.

Oh, okay. All right. Fall Brawl 95, I had a live pre-show. It was called main event. Yes, that's the syndicated show. But this is kind of cool because we're able to go ahead and use that platform to be like a free-for-all, a pre-show for the pay-per-view. And on that pre-show, Alex Wright works Eddie Guerrero.

Yeah. One of your all-time favorites, Eddie Guerrero was working with Alex. right in advance of fall brawl now that sounds with benefit of hindsight as eric just pointed out like a great honor you're in there with one of the all-time greats on the other hand in 1995 it might be perceived as being a step down because if you've been wrestling with rick flair and you've been wrestling with aren't anderson you've been wrestling with paul leveck and bobby eaton now you're wrestling with eddie guerrero for better or worse you're going to get painted with that cruiser weight brush, which means maybe you're going to move down the card.

That was the perception at the time. We know that not to be the case in, in 2024, but if you were a talent like Alex Wright in 1995 and you found yourself working Eddie Guerrero on a pre show, would you feel like this is a bit of a demotion or do you have such great respect for his in ring work that you see it as, hey, I don't care what the fans at home think. I know that this guy's one of the best wrestlers in the world and I'm glad to be wrestling I don't know if Alex, I have no idea what Alex was thinking and how he was reacting to that, but having a little bit of familiarity with Alex and where he came from

in his perspective on wrestling, I don't think he looked at it as a demotion. I think he looked at it as an opportunity to get in the ring with somebody that can make him look good because Eddie was so good. It's one thing to be stuck with a guy like Paul Roma who's self-centered. and doesn't really have a tremendous amount of ability anyway, just at best kind of adequate. And then to be able to get in the ring with somebody like Eddie Guerrero, who at that time,

we're talking about 95, Eddie wasn't the superstar that he went on to become, obviously. But it didn't matter because Eddie was still recognized as one of the best workers in the ring. And I think if you're a young talent and you're trying to get your character over, you would much prefer to be in there with somebody like Eddie, even though Eddie wasn't Rick Flair at that time, you would probably be a lot more excited

about being in a ring with Eddie Guerrero or Jim Alenko or Chris Mino or anybody else in that category than you would perhaps a bigger name who maybe just isn't as interested or capable of getting you over the way you want to get over in your match regardless of whether you're winning or losing.

Just like Rick Flair did. Rick Flair beat Alex right. Rick Flair did a better job of getting Alex right over by beating him then was accomplished by getting Alex over on some of the other talent that he worked with putting this so not getting him over putting him with the conflict in Iran global markets are on edge oil prices are surging volatility is spiking and the u.s dollar is under pressure this isn't a distant headline you're feeling it at the pump in your grocery budget even on your When uncertainty rises, many Americans turn to physical gold and silver, tangible assets that have protected wealth for centuries.

And with gold recently topping $3,300 an ounce, experts believe the upside is just getting started. That's where preserve gold comes in. They make it simple to get started and offer real support every step of the way. Right now, they're giving away a free wealth protection guide. guide. Just text iHeart to 50505. Plus, you could get up to $15,000 in free gold or silver with a qualified purchase. Don't wait. Text iHeart to 50505 today and take the first step toward protecting your savings. Alex Wright sort of gets lost in the shuffle for the next year and a half after this. He's lumped in with a lot of cruiser weights. He loses any semblance of a push. There's no

real story or angle. It's just a series of matches. And he's working with really good performers. I think he's actually Chris Jericho's opponent on Chris Jericho's debut. So he's had he's got the opportunity to share the ring with some great talent, but there's no real story. Let's fast forward to 1997. We're going to go to the spring of 1997. Nitro on May the 12th at the Baltimore arena. We've got Hugh Morris and Conan teaming up to beat ice train and Alex Wright. And well, he gets, he gets aggressive. He gets cocky. And when Morris starts to make a comeback, Alex Wright tags an unexpected ice train back into the ring. The moment later, when Train is looking to tag right back in, right all of a sudden starts to feign a knee

injury and Conan is going to clip train from behind and when Teddy Long gets an Alex Wright's face Alex shoves him starts yelling at him and he abandons the tag team match so we start to see a little bit of character work here from Alex Wright some personality if you will he starts dancing and he's talking to the camera saying he knows he's the greatest and he tells the girls to eat their hearts out I don't know, man, this is the first time we've seen that you guys do much of anything with Alex Wright and you're doing it in the spring of 97 when the NWO is running an absolute tear. I'm glad he got a second look by 1997. Was this still Flair advocating for him

or at that point did Kevin Sullivan see something in him? Why are we trying it again with Alex right here? Well, I mean, the way you just described that to me is probably something that should Again, had they taken that approach with Alex, and again, I know this 2020 hindsight, everybody's a fucking genius, but since we're playing the hypothetical here a little bit, had Alex been presented with that full of himself character and putting himself over with it, they're turning him heel here is what they're doing, but it's three years too late, my opinion. had he started off as a heel because of the way he looked, because 60% of the audience is male, because they don't want to see a good-looking guy that girls are falling over, and then they've got to get up in a mirror in the morning and look at themselves. That doesn't work that way.

Now, it's antithetical to human psychology, at least in wrestling. But this makes sense to me. This is the first time that we're talking about Alex creatively. in a way that at least in my mind, it makes sense. And it would have been Kevin Sullivan at this point in time, 97. It would have been all Kevin Sullivan. And, you know, it might have been, you know, Terry Taylor working with Kevin or others working with Kevin.

The decision and the approval would have been Kevin Sullivan's. We, uh, we got to encourage everybody to go check this out. Because if you're someone who was watching WCW back then, it's really hard to communicate how much of a 180 this one. was for Alex Wright, to the point where when he does this turn, you're like, wait a minute, why didn't we do this sooner? He so did this right away. Uh, behind the scenes, who, who do you think would have been helping produce a young

talent like Alex Wright like this? Would this be a Terry Taylor or a Kevin Sullivan or was producer the way we understand it in WWE parliance, not really thing in WCW at that era? No, it was. And if I had to bet money, I would say Terry Taylor. Terry always had more interest in working with young developing talent than anybody else did. Now, Mike Graham was in here for a little while. Greg Ganya was in there for a little while.

And here's the problem with having guys like Ganya and Mike Graham who were insecure individuals to start with. They felt like they should have been an Alex. right shoes. There was a resentment, even though it didn't make any sense because, you know, especially Greg's case, he was way past his prime and, and Mike's Graham's as well. But there was so much frustration with guys like Ganya and Graham who just resented any young kids getting a push because they weren't in the minds of guys like Graham and Ganya, they weren't nearly as good as they used to be. It's just a natural resentment. Terry was the opposite.

I had issues with Terry. Terry, I saw Terry down at NXT a couple of weeks ago, and we had a nice conversation. I respect the hell out of Terry Taylor. He's really got a handle on his life. He's doing a great job. He's contributing in a massive way. But one of the things about Terry is he always loved working with young developing talent. And he would get passionate about it.

Terry didn't bring that. inherent resentment of a former wrestler to the equation that a lot of guys did and in some cases still do let's talk about a little dust up that maybe you remember hearing about in 1997 there were syndicated tapings at universal studios in orlando hard body harrison who had earned a reputation in the locker room as being a legit tough guy got into an argument with alex rike apparently this was born out of them discussing who was going to work as a heel in the confines of their match. And then I guess Alex interpreted Harrison's movement as being threatening.

So he punched him first. They go to the ground. Let me just read this directly from the observer. They fall to the ground where Harrison applied a headlock. Harrison bled from the forehead and not from blading. Wright earned some locker room respect for holding his own against Harrison, who was regarded as being legitimately tough. I don't know why that tickled me, but it did.

the idea that Meltzer points out that someone fought in the backstage area and there was blood not from blading as if in real life people played what do you remember hearing about this

Alex right hard body Harrison dust up nothing it may not have even gotten to me okay and again it's Dave Nelson reporting on a fight that took place backstage where he wasn't I mean how much fucking sense is that make This is the guy that covers events and rates and rates them.

He doesn't go. He doesn't go to any of these vets to cover them. He reports on them based on what other people tell him. But, you know, to have that much detail about a backstage fight when Dave was, you know, sitting under a pile of garbage in his office writing about it, it's kind of hard to take any of it seriously. Although people do. They pay $15 a month for that bullshit. I don't know.

It's hard to report on it. The only thing I would say is, just from personal experience, guys that are built like Alex, especially if he had any street skill whatsoever, those long legs and those long arms, you better be really sure you're going to be able to get the job done with a guy like that because they're generally a lot tougher than they look. They got they can sit down while they're drinking a cup of coffee

in a bunch of between the eyes, not getting out of the chair. Nitro on July 28th is in Charleston, West Virginia. It's a sellout again. And on this show, Alex Wright would win the cruiserweight title from Chris Jericho with a German suplex after six minutes and 26 seconds. So yeah, man, he's been here for over three years. And it finally happened. He's the cruiserweight champion.

He beats Chris Jericho. Just a few days after Jericho had just won the thing from a big special, did like a Saturday Nightro house show audio live deal. Anyway, the speculation in the observer is that the idea here is Alex Wright is going to win the cruiserweight title, but then they're going to weigh him and he comes in over the weight limit and is forced to relinquish it. I never really have that. That's a cool idea.

I know who thought of it. I like it too. Somebody should have done that. Let's talk about Roadwild. It's 1997. Meltzer would say Roadwild was ruined before it ever started setting was strike one backstage maneuvering with strike two and as a result of those maneuvering the lame hastily put together finishes up and down the show

were strike three um there's a lot of problems politically in wcw in this era and somehow it winds up that it looks like Alex Wright's going to be in the middle of this booker Terry Taylor had put together a show and subsequent bookings for the next couple of months built around three title changes on this show. I guess, first of all, Terry Taylor did book shows three months out. So the reporting is, I'm throwing a flag of who reported this? Well, hang on now. Let me get, let me, I'm not out.

I just want to make sure you understand what we're talking about. You're still doing syndicated tapings in a lump. So when you go down to Orlando, you're not like, oh, here's this week syndicated TV. You're still recording your bullshit syndicated shows. Uh, and a clip of several weeks at a time. Sure. So it does make sense if what he's about to lay out is about title changes that who's wearing the belt when on those tapings, that's probably what we're thinking about three months

out. It's not like he had three weeks of nitro, but I know that those syndicated tapings were never priority, but also done in bulk, right? Correct. We would do typically 13, 13 episodes of the ticking. Like three or four months worth. There's bang, bang, bang. Here we go.

Well, Chris Jericho was allegedly supposed to regain the cruiserweight title from Alex right here at the pay-per-view. The Steiner's were supposed to finally win the tag team titles from Hall and Nash, and Hulk Hogan was to regain the title from Lex Lugar. And it's written here, what exactly happened wasn't clear, but the belief is that Hall and Nash went to Bischoff and told them that there had been too many title changes of late and it's ruining the credibility of the titles. At least that's where everyone was placing the blame. On the surface, they did have a valid point and Bischoff agreed, which may have been the correct thing to do, But the problem was that needed to have been done before all these plans were made.

So the company's next show is going to be the Clash of the Champions, and they're going to be on a loop here. And it's supposed to be designed around these three title matches. The Steiner's were going to defend the tag belts against Malenko and Benoit, which would have been crazy. But the Steiner's don't have the belts. The Cruiserweight title from Chris Jericho against Eddie Guerrero, well, that's out now because he didn't win the title back as planned.

And Ultimo Dragons TV title defense against Alex Wright, which was supposed to be, all right, he lost the cruiserweight, but now he's in the TV title hunt. That's off the table too. Do you remember Hall and Nash coming to you around Road Wild 97 and making this case that we've had too many changes or losing credibility? Does that sound right to you? Is it possible? Sure.

Do I think it actually happened? No. Again, this is guys reporting who were nowhere near back. stage, who were nowhere near the production, who were nowhere near the pre-production, the planning process, or anything else, who are reporting significant detail on a situation that they were not exposed to, which means they're

getting their information from talent. In other words, Wade Keller or Dave Meltzer, whoever wrote this, was relying upon second, probably third hand information that was tainted. That's the problem with, and that's why Dave Meltzer is exposed so frequently as being the fraud that he is, because he's reporting things that people tell him that are absolutely not true,

but Dave's too stupid and lazy to try to get to the bottom of things. So when people report, regardless of who it is, whether it's Meltzer or Keller at the time or anybody else, when you're reporting that much detail about something that you were, you were thousands of miles away from and have no visibility into it is so fraught with fiction that it's just hard to take anything seriously or be able to respond in a serious way other than to say we all know that the Disney tapings prove to be a serious challenge when you're producing three months of television in advance and so many things can change along the way

We kind of knew it and we accepted it. The syndicated tapings were a necessary evil. We were still making a fair amount of money off the syndicated product. I don't remember what the names of the shows were anymore. But I think we had three of them. The Sunday night main event was a syndicated show. We had a syndicated show, whatever the name of that show was. I can't remember anymore.

I think there was a third one called Power Hour that was kind of like a montage of everything else. A little bit of Saturday night, a little Sunday, a couple original matches. So we had three different syndicated shows. And when you're shooting 13 episodes at a single time, you know going in that you're not going to be able to match the story in the syndicated show. You're not going to be able to mirror anything. And at best, you're going to be able to come somewhat close. but we accepted that. Do I remember Holl and Ash coming to me with that?

Absolutely not. Is it possible that a comment or a conversation could have taken place that reflected that sentiment? Sure. Everybody's got a fucking opinion. And back then, everybody was really anxious to share them. But to try to assign credibility to something is incredible. non-credible is that reporting is really hard for we uh we got to uh talk about what's next here for alex right he doesn't drop the the cruiserweight title back to jericho but he does

drop it to uh or he does win the tv title rather uh from alex right i'll get it right disco inferno beat alex right for the television championship that's a sand this is in the middle of the whole Miss Jackie thing, which is kind of crazy and hard for me to wrap my head around, but hey, at least my man Alex Wright is still in the mix somewhere. I want to bring up something that happened in late November of 97, though, because I remember there being a lot of discussion about this. He is out there pronouns boy. Alex Wright is wrestling Prince Ikea, and we don't know exactly what happens, but he has

some sort of injury. He lines up in the hospital, and people fear it's a brain aneurism. It's being said that he's blind in one eye. He's hooked up to IVs. He's spent him the night in the hospital, and he's got temporary blindness. And there's a report at the time that he's got an aneurysm. That's what he suffered. Others would call it a brain bleed.

And I guess it was a kick to the back of the head, according to Alex, right, that happened here. And he did go temporarily blind here. He winds up eventually thinking that he's going to be the US, champ and we're going to be headed that way and things are going like I like it. I just got married. I bought a new house. But all of a sudden, an insiguri,

which we've seen a million times, pops a blood vessel in the back of his head and his eyesight starts to decline to the point where it's totally gone by the time he's backstage. This is a crazy thing. We didn't know what we know now about concussions and that sort of thing. Do you remember this? Well, does any of this ring a bell, do you? I'm embarrassed to say it.

No, it doesn't. Again, not to suggest that it didn't happen, but do I remember this specific incident? Unfortunately, I don't. It said that if he wouldn't, if the blood wouldn't have stopped coming out of his brain, they were going to have to open his head up to relieve the pressure. They didn't have to do that. The blood started to be reabsorbed into his body. But this is a really big deal.

I mean, he's going to spend more than a month in a completely dark bedroom, no light, no nothing. And eventually he has to get back into the groove of wrestling, build up a bump tolerance and start working around the power plan again. He's out of action for like six months here. And there's a huge concern that his career may be over, not just for professional wrestling fans, but this is how my man makes a living and pays for his new marriage and his new house that he just bought. and we don't really talk about this injury that often but and he really dodged a bullet here just to be able to live normal life on the other side of this this has got to be a scary time it is frightening and it's you know it also kind of reminds us you know we're watching wrestling all the time and we accept we're impressed and odds sometimes by the physicality

that we see in the ring it is an art there's an art to it and there is a science to it as well but occasionally the science goes wrong and the art isn't what it should be and injuries really do occur and this is a perfect example of just how risky what people come to just accept as professional wrestling how risky it really is you know this is not a this is almost in the freak accident category I want to mention too that this is just the worst possible timing you know he's finally turned heel. He got the cruiserweight title. He got the TV title. Now they're working towards the U.S. title. The injury happens. He's on the shelf for six months. Thankfully, he's able to come back. And when he comes back, it's a great bit. He interrupts the Nitro

girls when he's trying to dance with them and show them up. That one I remember. That was funny as hell. He's going to spend the second half of 98 in the beginning of 99, though, It's almost like a preliminary tag team heel with the dancing fools and Disco Inferno and occasionally Tokyo Magnum. Then he disappears for three months and he comes back as Berlin. Before we talk about Berlin, the timing of this injury makes me think maybe perhaps it was politics that derailed the first push. But this second one, the injury, I mean, just when he's got things like he likes it, he's a heel, it's clicking. it's working he's racking up some win he's winning some singles goal but unfortunately when you get injured like this for a lot of wrestling fans and certainly i'm sure the riders it's probably

out of sight out of mind a little bit right show must go on and it generally goes on without you and then we try to figure out how to reintroduce you once you come back in six months is a long time a lot of things can happen six months well anywhere worth going is worth going in good boots and that's why Eric and I want you to find your perfect pair with Tocovus. Ticovus crafts quality Western boots for everyone from generational ranchers and lifelong cowboys to first-time boot buyers. Born in Texas, 10 years ago, Ticovis makes it easy for anyone to find their perfect boot. Every one of Ticovus's boots are handcrafted with over 200 meticulous steps for broken in comfort that comes right out of the box. Whether it's a long day

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It's Gainesville, Florida. It's April 19th. There's 9,000 fans there. And he's shown sitting at ringside during a cruiserweight title match. Now, it doesn't look like the Alex Wright we're familiar with.

He's got a new black mohawk. and it's written in the torch. He's not as scary looking as Saturn, but close. I do want to ask, what went in to this look? Like the whole character, Berlin, what's the backstory? Can you give us any details about the character? I can't because I wasn't involved in it. That would have been Kevin Sullivan, perhaps Alex, perhaps Alex was driving it.

And Kevin jumped in and helped support it. I really can't tell you because I didn't have anything to do with it. I think it was a cool idea. Man, I wish we would have started out that way because that's, that was a cool character. It was different at that time.

It was edgy. Um, and it felt a little dangerous. All really great ingredients for a character. Remember now this is April 19th, 1999. So we'll throw that look back up there. He's going to dress an all black.

He's got the long black trench coat. And, uh, He's got the black shades on, the black mohawk. There was a documentary that was done that same weekend that followed him around. And Alex does an interview where he says, I'm just starting the night. I've got a new character here. I used to be Alex Wright and I used to dance techno.

But the American people are not very familiar with techno. So I changed. And now I'm just being a bad, mean guy. Came up with my new look. And like I said before, I was Alex Wright. But now I'm Alexander Wright. Now, I want everybody to keep the visual of him here. At the time, he was going to go as Alexander Wright, he thought.

We know it's going to be Berlin, but in all black, with the sunglasses, long black coat, the whole deal. That's April 19th, 1999. Eric, do you remember what happened the very next day after he debuted this character? Absolutely do not. Columbine. Oh, wow. Shooting happened to April 20th, 1999, wearing all black,

wearing black trench coats. One day later, ugh, like this fucking guy has the worst goddamn luck in the history of WCW. By the way, he had nothing to do with the shooting. He's not involved in any of that.

This is a fucking wrestling character. But when those reports came out, it was about, well, these kids playing their video games with their black trench coats. It's like, God damn it.

This guy can't catch a break, Eric. That's devastating. I can only imagine, only imagine what Alex was going through oh that's how many times it would be said on this show timing is everything well i just know bad the greatest idea in the world and if the timing is working against you you're fucked you can sometimes have a half-ass idea but the timing is right for you and you're

you look like a genius this was the former not the latter he gets shelved because well that's obvious. If we have this look and this character and we just had this real great American tragedy happen, we can't have any similarities. So he's just not on TV for a while. But he comes back August 30th. It's a nitro at the Nassau Coliseum. So you know it's a big show. They're in WWF territory. They've got 10,605 people here. Mean Gene Oakland is going to do an interview with Berlin. That's Alex Wright. He's got an entourage. He's got a blonde interpreter. They're trying to make this a cool thing, but maybe the miss is, respectfully, he says his target is buff Bagwell.

And it's written about in the observer that if they really want to push the sky and help him move up the cards and establish him as a player, he should be calling out and establishing a goal for Hulk Hogan or Sting. Not to say to get that match, he'd work his way up there. But if your goal is buffed bagwell, maybe this thing isn't headed in the right direction. What would you say to that criticism, Eric? Fair. it's a fair criticism

I mean this is unfortunately a dark time in your life I mean you're just a few days away from audiosin but what did you think of that presentation Silva showed us a picture just a minute ago in ring of him with the whole crew and he's got the blonde interpreter I guess they're calling her

utah Ludendorf she was an actor or an actress rather so I guess they're going to they're trying something here but it comes at a time when you're sort of burnout creatively and just about to pack it in for WCW. Did you at the time see any value in this or was it not on your radar because you had bigger fish to fry respect to the time? Unfortunately, that was probably true, meaning it was not, there was not much on my

radar creatively at that point in time. I was struggling with the business side of WCW and the creative side was really the least of my concerns at that point. I hate to say that, but it's true. Just one week later, it was written that Berlin, the real life Alex Wright, was vocal about going to the WWF, but Diamond Dallas Page had convinced him to stay,

promising that he personally would make sure he's given a push. And I guess DDP also said that, you know, hey, I've done that for disco, and Canyon and Kidman, and I'll do it for you next. I'm sure this comes up when they're spending time at the power plant. All these are Atlanta guys who are working on trying to get better. Would it surprise you to hear that DDP was advocating for some guys he believed in?

It doesn't surprise me at all. No, no. And that's what Page was known for. And he, you know, we know of the ones that he advocated for that you just mentioned. But there was a lot of people that Paige really tried to help. help in any way that he could. You know, Page didn't unfortunately have a lot of influence over me at that point in time. Again, not because I had any less of a relationship with Paige,

but because my priorities were just not creative at that point. So Page wouldn't have been able to deliver on much, but does it surprise me that he would have gone to Bathport him in any way possible? Absolutely not. I want to ask you about Alex Wright from a macro perspective. I mean, he misses most of 2000. The whole Berlin thing was a burnout. It was a doad.

And there's probably all the regime changes. You know, he's making this change right before Columbine, got to wait. Then he makes it right before you leave. And now here comes Vince Rousseau. And he's got his own ideas. So he's going to miss a lot of 2000. When he comes back,

he comes back with a shaved head. he looks more like himself in the ring he does a little short tag title run with disco I know you were involved in the booking a little bit in 2000 you remember hearing why Alex was away was it a medical thing or why did he miss a lot of 2000 I could no idea zero idea he's back around in the picture in 2001 during this theoretical fusion transition period but only barely he teams up with disco to put over a debuting tag team known as Air Raid. An Air Raid is a fellow named Air Paris, friend of the show.

And there's this other guy on there named Air Styles. I guess we known him as AJ Stiles, but he was in WCW right there at the very end. How about that? He comes back a few weeks later and puts over Jason Jet. But unfortunately, Alex, for the large part, kind of retires when WCW closes. He wrestled one match in Germany in 2003, but otherwise he's just saved his money and concentrated on his wrestling school and well non wrestling activities but between the injury that nearly ruined and cost him his life he thought and now the Columbine mess the regime

changes the backstage booking politics once upon a time like it feels like he's one of the great what ifs in WCW history and maybe the story of Alex Wright when it's all said and done you said a minute ago as timing is everything fair to say I actually feel bad for I hope I run into Alex at some point in time, just commiserate a little bit because he had, he, he, he had so much potential, had, had he gone to WWE, maybe 99 was a little late for him, but I think he would have gone on to become a massive star. Had Columbine not happened, I think he would have gone on to become a massive star because that Berlin character had money, would acknowledge.

over it. And Alex had the ability to deliver that character. You're right, man. In this case, you know, bad time. He is the, he is the poster child for bad timing. We had a great question here from Reed's Nugies over on Twitter. He says, was Alex right born too late? He was considered a cruiserweight at the time, but at six foot three and 225 pounds, he's bigger than a lot of main event guys today, like Sammy Zane, Seth Rollins, Finn Baller. It seems he would fit right in. It's just another example maybe of timing being everything.

Like, when you think about the ones that got away or what could have been, maybe that's a better phrase, what could have been. Is Alex right? He's got to be on like the Mount Rushmore for WCW of what could have been, right? I don't want to call it a missed opportunity because it's not like it's anybody's

fault necessarily. This is just the way the ship shook out. But he's probably at the top of my list for what could have been. In terms of his look, his potential, his skill, what he delivered in the ring? Absolutely.

He'd be the first person on that Mount Rushmore of what could have been. In wrestling, not just WCW, but in wrestling in general. It's crazy, too, to think, because unfortunately, whenever something bad happens and we see someone not really enjoy the career that they hoped and they have some starts and stops.

A name that comes to mind is like Marty Janetti. Like we all know and like and love Marty Janetti and what a crazy character he is. And I'm glad he was a part of wrestling. But when he doesn't enjoy all the crazy success that we once thought he would, at least we can point back and say, well, maybe he helped with a little bit of that. A little bit of self-infliction. Maybe there was some self-sabotage. But it's not like Alex Wright did anything wrong.

Like this is a guy who just showed up, did his job and just was handed some bad cards, one after another, but I for one, am on the train. Let's celebrate Alex Wright. I want you to go out of your way to watch some Alex Wright matches and celebrate, you know, these are the lost heroes in wrestling, the unsung heroes and wrestling to me, Eric, the guys who didn't get the big payoffs, but man, they were entertaining. They did their job. They did what they were asked.

They were a good egg, as the people say, but it just didn't shake out the way we imagined. Definitely not. But I hope Alex is going on. You know, I don't know, but I believe his wrestling schools are very successful. I know he's been doing it for a long time. And I hope that he's going on to have a very fulfilling career outside of what could have been in the professional wrestling business. And we've seen him make some rare convention appearances too. Earlier this year, he did an appearance for the big event up in the Northeast.

and I hope that was a huge success and I hope we see more Alex Wright and his influence and wrestling continues on but that's going to do it for us today on 83 weeks we greatly appreciate all that you guys have done for us by the time we see you again Christmas will be in the rearview mirror Eric are there any Christmas traditions you're looking forward to upholding this year at the Bischoff household I like to make I like to make pheasant for Christmas dinner so I'm going to endeavor to go out in a a few pheasants running around out there in a swamp somewhere here in Wyoming and bring them home our daughter Montana loves peasant so that's part of the deal so yeah a little

bit of wild game we've got some venison got a little bit of elk in the freezer so when do you have a a wild game Christmas dinner well we will be back next week on the heels of Christmas just before the new year comes about and we're going to save the best for last ladies and gentlemen next week here on 83 weeks we're going to be talking about the rise of goldberg it's coming your way on december 27th tell a friend and be sure to hit that subscribe button right now if you haven't already it's 83 weeks dot com i want to see if i can't talk eric into showing us over on our youtube at 83 weeks dot com how exactly does one prepare pheasant because as a resident hillbilly i've never had pheasant i don't even know how you cook pheasant how do you prepare

Feasant. Maybe we'll find out. Maybe it'll pop up at 83 weeks.com. That's where you can enjoy our Saturday night's main event recap. We were totally live immediately after that show. We will be again on January 25th. You never know when. By the way, by the way, did you, Mrs. B, you know, we were live last week

during the Saturday night main event recap and you brought that silly ass Midian thing that I completely forgot to mention to her. We saw Mrs. B's reaction where she threw the flag. right yes called bullshit because it absolutely was the dumbest fucking thing anybody's ever fabricated but she didn't know what was said i was trying to explain to her what you know the circumstance that many and said that happened was obviously lying through his fat fucking

face and and then mrs b stumbled across that i think you posted it you posted the video where he'd explained this scenario that never happened Lori saw it and she lost her shit she got hot the way media described she was standing there crying and it's like oh my God you should have seen Lori go off on that when she saw it

I wish I had it on film it's funny as hell by the way that Mrs. B cameo got a lot of favorable comments on YouTube I don't know if you saw but people were saying that you are the salesman of the year you're a hell of a salesman shout out to Mrs. B for always being a good for it. She thought, I've got bedhead. And the internet was like, give us more.

Uh, you never know who's going to run in at 83 weeks.com. Maybe we'll convince her that it needs to be the Eric and Mrs. Bish show. It's the Bishaw family reunion. That's the real draw. I think if we really want to start making money on YouTube Eric, we just film Mrs. B. Why don't you ask her questions? We'll hear your voice. And we just want to look at Mrs. B. That's what they're saying. Or maybe we should do a wise choices with her. And she'll just ask to answer questions she'll she's up for that oh my god can you imagine let's try to do that before the end of the year go right now stop what you're doing hit the subscribe button 83 weeks dot com i hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday have a very merry christmas and a couple of days later

plop down with eric and i as we talk about the rise of goldberg right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bischel. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple Podcasts or your regular

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