83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 356: Charisma, Commitment and Timing

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad take us back to January 3rd 2000 for a Monday Night RAW watch along. The guys discuss The Rock's prominence in the company at the time and influence on today's wrestling product. Eric also shares his thoughts on Goldberg's rise in WCW and makes comparisons to The Rock's. The duo also discusses all the happenings in Vince McMahon's legal issues and so much more. PRIZE PICKS - Download the app today and use code 83WEEKS to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! PrizePicks. Run Your Game! 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 MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo 83WEEKS at https://mandopodcast.com/83WEEKS ! #mandopod CHUBBIES - Chubbies is here to help you take on 2025 in style! Get 20% off @chubbies with the code ERIC at https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/eric! #chubbiespod SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com/savewitheric/ ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fish Shaw, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great today. Mrs. B is in Los Angeles with our daughter, Montana, making sure everything is kind of cool. She's right on the edge of the evacuation zone. So we felt it was pretty important to get there and see if she needs any help. So I couldn't leave but Lori is there. So I'm flying solo man. I got the house to myself for a few days and kicking back and join talking to you guys. Man thoughts and prayers for everybody in California. Man, they're going through it right now. I don't know anyone really close in my

life. That's been affected, but Jeremy from Jazz Weirs has always been super friendly with me. And I mean, got completely wiped out like a lifelong collector in the entire collection all of his personal possessions just gone eric like this is this is crazy scary stuff happening in 2025 already yeah a good uh in fact i mentioned his name here gary consid i and the former executive producer of the tonight show i talked to him yesterday and uh they had to just pack up and leave said between the down power lines and the fires and people panicking it just it wasn't worth holding out any longer so it's it's amazing when you look at the devastation station, some of the aerial drone shots out there on television, it looks, I mean,

some of the shots I've seen, it looks like Hiroshima. I mean, just thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades just leveled. There's nothing to repair. They're just leveled. And I can't imagine what the future looks like for that area and the people in it. A lot of them have lost. their homeowners insurance because the state of California put a cap on what insurance companies could charge for homes in high risk areas. So they, the insurance companies more or less were forced

to bail. And there's a lot of people that lost their homes that have marginal insurance or no insurance. And then you think about it, even if you had insurance, now you have to rebuild at a cost that's probably twice as high as your insurance coverage when you can find a I mean, how are these people going to live? You know, and you hear about the super wealthy people. They have options.

Now it's horrible for them. Don't get me wrong. It's fucking horrible. But it's horrible and you have options. There are so many thousands of people that have lost everything, not just their home, which in most cases are the big, investment or financial safety net that a lot of people have they're not only lost all that

furniture their memories and memorabilia but how are they going to rebuild and even if they could where are they going to get insurance to cover the new home they just built it's it's a it's a really really horrible situation that's going to take decades to recover from well our thoughts and prayers are with that entire community i just can't imagine going through that and to know that that's happening here in america is just crazy um our topic today is going to be watching an old episode of monday night raw from 25 years ago we want you to join us it went down on uh january 3rd 2000 so fire up your netflix head on over to the raw vault this is the year 2000 and went down on January 3rd of course if you're looking to hear what

Eric thought about the WWE debut on Netflix it's available for you now at 83 weeks com we did a live reaction show this past Monday immediately following the show and it is available and totally free for you right now on YouTube but we're going to today be talking about uh raw in 2000 but before we do I wanted to uh at least run through a few things that have happened since you and I hooked up on Monday night after Raw on Netflix. We saw The Rock on NXT. He showed up and he was announced, of course, on Netflix that he would be at the NXT show, which was there in L.A.

And it sold out immediately once he made that announcement. It was a small building. They only needed like 300 tickets to sell. And they did. And the Rock came out and cut a big promo, dropped the F-POM four or five times. So maybe you didn't hear all of that. but there's some unedited stuff floating around if you really want to hear him drop the f bomb i don't know why you would but there it is but almost one million viewers

checking out the uh the nxte program on c w i guess that's no surprise if the rock's there people are going to tune in yeah and he brought a lot of attention to cw which i think is probably the reason why he made that appearance obviously he wants to help out wwe but one of the best ways he could help build the wwe brand is by bringing more attention to the cw show nxte and uh mission accomplished mission accomplished it'll be interesting to see what net next week's ratings are as compared to say the previous three weeks before rock's appearance just to see you know how much impact he really had or residual impact he had i i'm interested to see where they go with the rock from here

you know there's been lots of reports the rumor in innuendo is that at least for now the whole roman versus rock feud and match is uh on hold any speculation that it was going to be the rock and cody roads at russomania that seems to not be the case it feels like based on what we've seen this week that the rock is probably going to sit this russomani out and respectfully i don't think they have to have him this is maybe the most loaded WWE roster of all time, like if you're just fantasy booking, you could come up with really big time main events on both nights. That being said, even though I don't think the rock will necessarily have a big feud and a match at WrestleMania, it would be hard for me to imagine

him not even making an appearance at WrestleMania, right? I don't see it, man. The guy just bought almost 100,000 shares of TCO stock. You think he's not going to try to move a needle anytime he's got the opportunity. I don't. So I think he loves this. I think it's good for Duane Johnson, the actor. I think it's, there's no downside. Now, if he's got a movie project and he's, you know, contractually not able to, to participate in WrestleMania, I get that. That's business. But I think unless that's the case, I wouldn't be so quick to write anything off at this point. I think the level of storytelling and the confidence in their creative approach,

their BWWE's creative approach, a lot of little Easter eggs that I saw, or perhaps I wanted to see, which is kind of the fun. We talked about that last week. You can read so much into it, and it's one of the things that makes wrestling so much fun as compared to other forms of entertainment is because when it's done well, it's very unpredictable and surprises and I hate to use the term swerve because it's been abused so much but you know plot twists let's call them plot twists nobody's bastardized that term yet at least in wrestling but the plot twists and a little Easter eggs and there's so

much out there right now that I would just I would manage my expectations and enjoy the ride because I think anything's possible at this point. I wouldn't exclude or include rock or any matchups that may come of it because I think they got the creative horsepower to pull just about anything off. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for WWE and what's next for Peacock. I don't know if you saw this, Eric, but Billy Corgan's Adventures in Carneland is finding a new home on Peacock. Once upon a time, I would have thought that any wrestling-related content,

on Peacock would be WWE exclusive, but we know that WWE is looking for a new home for their archives outside of Peacock, and Peacock knows that they're searching for that. If WWE winds up finding a deal somewhere else and they come off of Peacock, do you think that creates an opportunity for another brand, whether it's the NWA or it's MLW or it's TNA or is there room, do you think on Peacock's slate of shows that they're going to be offering or some other wrestling promotion if WWE makes a move away completely.

Possibly. I mean, I think it's the bigger question is, is there a wrestling company out there that has enough steam behind it, enough viewership, enough of an audience that will come along for the ride to Peacock in this case, but they've got a substantial audience that's loyal and their business appears to be growing, I could see it because content's content and wrestling works.

I mean, I was thinking about this, Conrad, kind of a different subject, but along the same lines. You know, we're reviewing a Monday night raw from 25 years ago. Yeah. And depending on the context, 25 years ago seems like forever. It's a generation technically. And in some cases, it feels like five minutes ago, depending on the context. But if you look at from a technology point of view, how far we have come in 25 years,

we've come so far that if somehow in catering, which is where I like to spend a lot of my time at WWI, I would have been sitting there having some roast beef, maybe a little mashed potatoes, salad the desserts were really good in wwee catering so it would have been hard for me not to grab a dessert see but if i've been sitting in catering enjoying my meal talking to other people in catering i would say you guys know what here's my crystal ball 25 years now from now there's going to be this thing called netflix it's going to allow wwee to distribute their show live worldwide. I would have probably gotten escorted from the building,

required to take a piss test. They would have wondered what kind of drugs I was on. We've come so far. But as far as we've come, if you step back and kind of take a macro view of the wrestling industry since the 60s, I've said this before, and I think it's really worth saying,

Now, professional wrestling has always been on the leading edge of the evolution of content distribution. Before cable came along, wrestling was the most watch show in almost every major market, every single. The little studio shows with 50 people in the audience and, you know, horrible production and smoke-filled venues they've been referred to as. They were just small studio shows. And when they were produced in larger events, they were dark. I mean, I don't have to describe it. You all know what they did. That was throughout the 60s into the 70s.

And then Cable came along. So wrestling went from being one of the most popular shows on local television. Cable comes along. Professional Wrestling becomes one of the leading programs on all of Cable and has maintained that status since the beginning. beginning of cable television time and then pay-per-view evolved out of cable and professional wrestling had been on the leading edge of all pay-per-view content for decades and then streaming o t came along and Vince McMahon you can criticize Vince there's a lot to criticize but you cannot

criticize his vision and in his focus on achieving things from that vision and the OTT you know, abandoning pay-per-view, which represented probably a minimum with 25% of their net revenues. Abandoning that format and taking a new approach with OTT is what set WWE up for the Netflix opportunity that we're seeing now. My point in all this is professional wrestling has been on the leading edge of television content and programming throughout all the different forms of distribution. syndication cable now streaming and if you look at when i first went to work for ted turn the turner organization ted somebody wrote a book i think was by porter bib who is the author was a there was a book about ted turn in that book one of the things ted talked about professional wrestling and why he got involved and one of the things he pointed out was a short

paragraph or so, but it was clear that Ted viewed professional wrestling back before he had a lot of money, before he could buy the MGM library, before he could be competitive and pay top dollar for second run programming. He had to buy whatever he could afford. And Ted knew that professional wrestling, although it is not, you know, spit-shined, it is not always pretty compared to other forms of entertainment, it works and it's cheap, which is why in this long-winded way I'm saying to you, I think there is an opportunity for TNA or NWA or any small independent, so independent-ish small television footprint, wrestling company out there to end up on a peacock because it works, it can work.

And if somebody's out there like T&A, T&A has got for certain things about TN. Now, I'm just from very much on the outside. I don't follow TNA on a regular basis, but I kind of keep my finger on the pulse a little bit. They're making moves. They're doing things that imply growth or at least suggest that they've got their eye on growing their business. Sometimes that's all it takes to make someone comfortable. placing a bet on you so i do think because wrestling works if you're peacock and you need that you need that traffic you know the professional wrestling historically as one of the most loyal

committed audiences of any form of content out there so i think there is hope and i think there is a chance regardless whether you know wwee ups with peacock or not i think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for wrestling companies that are positioned to to take advantage of it. Well, you need to take advantage of what prize picks is doing right now. They're making the NFL a lot of fun. And of course, we're in the middle of the playoffs. And I'm looking to have some fun and make a little money and get a little juice going. I just absolutely love prospects.

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really simple. You know, you just take a look at the lineup this weekend of all the different games and you say, hey, I think this guy's going to get more this or less that for simple stats, touchdowns, passing yards, receiving yards, rushing yards. It's simple stuff. Like you might say, hey, I think Russell Wilson is going to have less than 200. or I think Lamar Jackson is going to have more than 70 yards on the ground. That's it. You're simple. You're locked in.

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as you and I are recording on a Friday morning. Of course, the show normally comes out on Friday. We had some technical challenges yesterday, so we're glad to be. Yeah, that's called me. I'm the technical challenge just so you know. Well, either way, we're delighted that you're here and up running and we're sorry we're a little late, but I'm kind of glad we're a little late because had we recorded yesterday, we wouldn't be able to talk about the breaking news.

So we are going to talk about the breaking news. But before we do that, I want to mention that, uh, you're going to be making another appearance for MLW. They've got a Kings of Coliseum show coming up. And this is going to be happening in, uh, in Texas right there in the Dallas area. Tickets are on sale now at MLW Dallas.com. That's MLW Dallas.com. Tickets are on sale right now.

I think that's coming up this Saturday. So be sure to check that out. And if you can't make it to Dallas at MLW Dallas. Then be sure to check it out live on YouTube. That's tomorrow night, Saturday night, January 11th in Dallas on YouTube. Uh, the breaking news today, though, Eric, is all about Vince McMahon. You know, we started January of 2024 with some pretty heavy news about Vince. And now we're hearing that at least the SEC investigation, maybe about the

misappropriation of funds or I don't exactly know what the charge was. Uh, it's apparently been settled. As I understand it, there was a $400,000, uh, fine that he'll pay. And then he's got to reimburse W.W.E. $1.3 million in change. I guess this call goes back to the payouts that were issued. Maybe they should have been his personal funds, not WWE funds. He's making WWE whole.

But Vince McMahon came out and had a pretty strong statement. You know, case closed. And I think a lot of people are, well, let's just read the statement here. I mean, there you see it. If you're watching with us over at 83 weeks.com, the case is closed. Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies, there's been a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be.

As today's resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading. In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE. I'm thrilled that I can now put all this behind me. Of course, he's not putting all the lawsuits behind him. Janelle Grant's lawsuit has still continued. her attorney actually issued a statement already today. During this time, leading W.W.E. Vince McMahon acted as if rules did not apply to him.

Now we have confirmation that he repeatedly broke the law to cover up his horrifying behavior, including human trafficking. The SEC's charges prove the NDA Vince McMahon coerced misgrant into signing violates the law and therefore her case must be heard in court. While prosecutors for the Southern District of New York continue their criminal investigation, we look forward to bringing forward new evidence in our civil case about the sexual exploitation of Ms. Grant endured by WWE at WWE by Vince McMahon and John Laurinitis.

Can you leave that up while we talk about this? I just, there's some of that I want to cover. Sure, absolutely. No, I just want to hear from you, man. What do you make of all this? I mean, obviously, you know, the statement from Vince, I think at a glance, if you didn't really know what was going on,

you would think, oh, well, he settled it. He's out of trouble. It's all finished. It's all good. Well, not exactly, but certainly there is a difference between a government investigation and a civil lawsuit. And I know that sometimes people get those things confused, but, hey, man, the government, they'll fuck around, put you in prison, take your shit and freeze assets and blah, blah, blah, a civil lawsuit.

Hey, man, maybe she gets a judgment. Maybe she gets paid. I mean, civil matters are totally different from criminal matters. So if this is a criminal investigation that has been. been sunset. And again, we're just getting all this information fresh this morning. I could see why Vince would feel like, hey, we need to let everybody know case closed, but that's not exactly the whole story, Eric. Well, what do you know when this, uh, statement from Ann Callis, the attorney, when did that come? Did that just come out this

morning? Yes, it did. It's in response to his statement. So here's the conflict that I'm, and maybe because I haven't had enough coffee today, but Vince is coming out and saying, case closed it's over he's been fined which suggests that the case is over and he has been fined appropriately and it's over except in this this statement and this is why i hate this shit that's been played out no there's two there's multiple things it's not the same lawsuit that's what i was trying to say maybe i did a poor job communicating that but no no i get the lawsuit the lawsuit the lawsuit is pending the civil lawsuit is completely different than a criminal suit But Vince's statement suggests that the criminal investigation by the prosecutors for the Southern District of New York is over.

But here it's saying, while prosecutors for the Southern District of New York continue their criminal investigation. So my question is, am I missing something? Or is Vince right? And this is over and this statement is misleading? Or is Vince's statement misleading because there's still an investigation going on? I'm just confused. Well, there's multiple investigations going on here. is the civil lawsuit from Janelle Grant.

We know that that's still going on. But the case closed thing, I believe, was about did he use WWE funds to pay for personal things? So that was almost, and this isn't the technical word, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not saying it correctly. But I think this was about, did you

embezzle from the company and not disclose it to shareholders? We need to make them whole. Did you use this money incorrectly? Did you use? So I think that is the case. But when it gets posted, that says case closed, I think Vince sort of when he says, hey, the case is closed and that's sort of a headline. I think the takeaway he's looking for is that people will say, oh, yeah, we can put all this

behind him. I mean, he even says that. I'm looking forward to. So what are the other criminal investigations that are going? So, okay, so there's that. So he was charged, not charged, but an investigation began in February of last year about sex trafficking and sexual assault. So that's what the Southern District of New York was referring to in February. of last year, but when these payouts first became public, and I think it was like the summer, maybe June of 2022, I think that is when people started to ask, hey, who made the payment for these settlements? Was it Vince or was it WWE? Because if it's WWE, that shareholder money and it wasn't disclosed. Did he, was he not truthful or forthright or honest in the disclosure

of who was paid and from what funds? That part seems to be in the rearview mirror. now, $400,000 fine from what I understand and reimbursed WW1.33 million dollars, but I still think that the actual lawsuit is still going on, both civilly from Janelle Grant and then maybe this other investigation that is tied to what Janelle Grant is alleging. I think those two were, I think Janelle Grant's lawsuit in January triggered the response in February, if that makes it. So it was the SEC that was investigating events for mismanaging reporting and that case is closed, but you're suggesting that there is another investigation by another agency that being Southern District of New York on charges not related to the reporting

of funds. That's right. So the SEC is going to investigate financial crimes. And so they're just looking at how did we handle WWE shareholders? through this process that is in the rearview mirror i don't know that he's been formally or officially charged of anything from the southern district of new york we believe they started an investigation last february as we sit here 11 months later they haven't heard anything um but yeah it doesn't feel like it's all in the rearview mirror for vince but it doesn't surprise me that vince wants to put the best face on this he can hey one down um and i'm not taking sides here conrad but this is when I say I hate, and not just for this case, it's not, trust me, I don't have any

personal relationship with Vince McMahon, but other than our history, it's not like we're friends, we don't socialize, we don't chat, that kind of thing, it didn't send me a bottle of wine for Christmas, nothing. But when these cases are being played out in public and you get these various statements from the attorneys or in this case from him itself, you just can't read into or believe too much of what you read because it's all posturing. It's all sales. It's all trying to shape public opinion and facts get lost or buried or omitted in the process of trying to convince the general public that whatever you want them to believe is true is true. The information available is just really, really misleading and confusing.

So I just can't pay attention to too much of a react to it a little bit. I don't, I don't, I don't bet a lot of money on anything that I read. Well, we're glad that you're here with us and we're not going to be doing a bunch of reading today, but we are going to be doing some watching. So if you haven't already, fire up your Netflix. Head on over to the Raw Vault. The year was 2000. We're going to be watching January 3rd, 2000.

But before we do, I want to mention that we just recently decided to take a look back at an old episode of WCW Saturday night, all the way back 30 years ago to August the 94 where we could still see a shift in character and development of a very young Steve Austin. Let's take a listen. Those changes from kind of the loud tights that he would wear with the long hair and the robes and how he had started shifting to being a little bit more of this kind of tough demeanor, was that, did that just happen? Was that something, do you remember him being

instructed to do? Well, he wouldn't have been instructed by me necessarily, although by the time Steve left, I was obviously more involved operationally, but still not creatively, right? I mean, I was dipping my toe in the water, so that any change in his appearance, most likely, to be honest, it would have been Steve just going, you know what, I'm going to try something different because there wasn't a lot of control or direction from anybody in creative when it came to a tire or the nuances of a character. Should I wear bright red ties or should I wear black ties? Should I get rid of some of this blitzie stuff in my ring gear and maybe come out looking a little more black boots black tights working man's wrestler a lot of those time a lot of times i would say

75% of the time when there were changes like that it was just the wrestler of them to the talent themselves deciding to make a subtle change i'm guessing that's what it was with steve because steve had been transition out of the hollywood buns and now back in singles and gee who am i now So in the meantime, I'm just going to put on black boots and black ties until I figure it out. Would not be surprised if it was something as simple as that. Check it out. You can see the entire episode where Eric is watching an old episode of WCW Saturday night from August 27th, 1994 over at ad free shows.com and be on the lookout because Eric is going to be sitting down again this month to watch another fun episode from WCW Saturday night.

This is all bonus content that's never going to be on YouTube. or any of our RSS feeds. It's exclusive over at ad-freeshows.com where you can get a whole bunch of other great series like Lex Express. That's right. Lex Lugar and The Godfather and Mike Yota and Nick Patrick and Tully Blanchard and Downtown Bruno and David Crockett Jr. And Sam Madonna's.

They're all a part of ad-freeshows.com along with all of my other hosts, we got bonus content each and every month. And it's all available for you now at ad-free shows. We're talking over 100,000 hours of bonus content. Every single panel from Starcast, plus you get to be a part of live watchalongs, live Q&A, you get to be a part of our live studio audience. We want to give a good morning to Anthony and Bobby and everybody who's hanging out with us this morning. But if you haven't got out to, I want to shout out, I don't, sorry to interrupt you,

Conrad, but I want to shout out to Josh Henney, who's not feeling really well right now, but he's going to kick out, it's going to get stronger, going to get better. Josh thinking about you, man. Get well soon. Josh is the man. I'll be glad when he's back at full speed. And, uh, yeah, let's, let's fire up our peacocks or wow, look at me, force a habit, fire up our Netflix.

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Check it out, man. Try your first month of Blue Chewool. free just visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information and we thank blue chew for sponsoring today's podcast okay eric no more false finishes i've teased it a few times i got unlocked and loaded ready for the playback are you uh ready to go are you muted are you at all zeros are you ready i'm ready to go i'm at zero one so i'll take a beat close enough here we go and three two one play getting the old signature open from raw is war all the flames all the pyro a lot of high energy in this open i think it's one of the

better raw opens that i uh that they did through the year's what's i i agree i just had so much energy and it really defined raw for being such a unique program i dig it i love this is my favorite open of all time this episode is in miami florida so of course the rock is going to open the show just to give you some context we're at the beginning of i guess what we'll call the McMahon Helmsley regime. Stephanie has just turned on Vince McMahon a few weeks ago at the Paperview main event match between Triple H and Vince McMahon. And now Hunter and Stephanie are the power couple.

And this is happening before they're a power couple in real life. But what's that old phrase? Art imitates life. Well, eventually they got together in real life. What did you think of Stephanie becoming a television character? Of course, in 2000, WCW is still a thing. You're on the outside looking in, though, because in January of 2000, they've not yet called you back to work, right?

Yeah, I was, I was on the outside, but I wasn't even looking in. So a lot of this stuff during that, you know, that window of time, two, three months, I was aware of it kind of anecdotally, but I certainly wasn't watching wrestling. This is the era where the Rock's book, is coming out you see uh you see it referenced there on the lower third this is not the foley style book where he hand wrote it all over several months no it's a ghost written opportunity and i don't know that it did nearly the numbers that foley's book did but hey uh with the success of foley's book well a lot of times in wrestling when uh they think there's money and then their heels

so they all try it much like every wrestler's tried a podcast in this era every wrestler was trying a book. When do you first remember being pitched about doing a book, Eric? It was shortly, maybe about a year after I got to WWE. So that would be what, 2003, I guess, 2001, whatever it was. I don't remember about a year after I got there. I, uh, somebody, and I don't remember who it was. It was somebody from licensing approach me and said, hey, have you ever thought about

writing a book? Not really. And at that point, it was like, what else is there to talk about? Everybody knows everything. What would it be like? And they sat down and explained it to me and what their perspective was. And I thought, what the hell? Much like you said, Conrad, WWE had been having a lot of success.

I think they were with Simon & Schuster at that point. Simon and Schuster had tremendous distribution and all the main. This was back when books and magazines were still hot items. But they were having a tremendous amount of success. and they assured me that I would have a ghostwriter that was excellent and could help make a great story out of it. So I had the ring said, hell, why not? It's, uh, it's interesting to think about how it all changes and moves around because I don't think nearly as many wrestlers are interested in doing books now. Um, the rock is doing his

finally the rock has come back home. so he's making himself a baby face here of course we're in miami where he was a big college football star uh i do think of rock and miami together maybe it's because of the football connotation i guess these days everybody thinks of uh rock with hollywood um do you think the rock would have flourished in wcd like in an alternate universe if for whatever reason paterson doesn't return rocky johnson's call and he never gets a look with the WWF and he wound up going through the power plant because that was the way people got into WCW once upon a time.

Do you think the Rock would have enjoyed the same kind of success? I mean, I know that the old phrase, oh, the cream always rises to the top and blah, blah, but knowing what you know about the power plant and the way it ran, I mean, and by the way, not shooting on the power plant. I mean, look at Goldberg and DDP and there's so many other success stories there. but how do you think the Rock would have done in WCW coming out of the powerpoint? I mean, you took the words out of my mouth. I mean, all we have to do to address this hypothetical because it's purely hypothetical,

the only thing that we can draw from is, well, had WCW ever done it before? The answer is yes. In fact, if you look at the parallels between Rock and Bill Goldberg, there's some very interesting ones, particularly in the early portion of their careers. Bill came out of the NFL. It wasn't necessarily a big star in the NFL, but he was a part of the Atlanta Falcons. He was a big star at Georgia, certainly had some momentum behind him from that, much like Rock had his collegiate football career behind him. And I think Rock probably played in Canadian Football League for a little bit and tried to make his way into the NFL, got hurt, and ended up breaking into wrestling.

Bill's story's a little different. I'm not sure if Bill retired because of an injury, but I think at some point Bill realized that his future probably wasn't in the NFL and decided to make a move into wrestling. And they both did almost around the same time. In fact, there's so many parallels between Rock and Bill Goldberg. Maybe we can address some of them here, but they both entered wrestling when wrestling was at its peak at that time.

arguably even by today's standards in terms of it being a mainstream pop culture kind of phenomenon so both gober came in when wrestling was at its peak rock came into wwe when wrestling was beginning to peak for wwe but the business as a whole was at a fever pitch and you had such a great roster of talent to help get both of these individuals over now the other thing they had in common is they both had a tremendous this amount of charisma. No real wrestling experience, certainly in Bill's case, probably maybe, I don't know, a little more in Dwayne's case, Rock's case, I don't know. But they both broke into the business. They both started at the bottom. Bill Goldberg came up through the power

plan. Rock came up through the developmental system that W. We had in place at the time, wherever that was, whether a smoking mountain or OVW, wherever, I don't know. But he came up and exploded both Goldberg and Rock absolutely collapsed the typical trajectory of a wrestling superstar taking a look at a guy like Steve Austin by contrast who had probably been in the business for a decade or more before Stone Cold Steve Austin showed up and took him to it took him to the moon right and that was not atypical six eight 10 years you know wrestling before you finally break through and start knocking on the door of that superstar status, well, both Goldberg and Rock did it in a record amount of time, primarily because

of their charisma, and we'll just call it charisma, commitment, for sure, but also in large part because of timing, the business was at a fever pitch. I think a more interesting question would be, not that yours wasn't interesting. But as long as we're going to play the hypothetical scenarios, what if Rock and or Bill Goldberg would have come along and say 1994? Remember, Rock stuttered out of the gate. He didn't come out of the gate as a rock. He stutter stepped his way into superstardom. He stumbled a few times along the way.

Bill Goldberg pretty much hit the ground. running. Point being, they both made it to superstar status in large part because of where the business was at and an amazing roster of super talented people that could help get them to where they ultimately got to. So I don't know. You know, we'll never know. I think the obvious is true. I don't think if the timing would have been the same had Brock come along at the exact same time as Bill. I don't think Rock would have reached his, the success that he's reached here clearly.

I think a lot of Rock's success outside of the ring had a fair amount to do with the power of the WWE brand. And the power of that brand, even when WCW was at its peak, eclips that of WCW. So Rock just had a lot of great things going for him, I mean, being one, obviously God-given talent and charisma being another, but that WWE machine is different, brother.

It creates different opportunities. You mentioned him and Goldberg started around the same time. Goldberg's first match that we could find over on Cage match was a dark match against Buddy Lee Parker in June of 1997. March of 96 is when we would see Dwayne Johnson wrestle the Brooklyn Brawler for the first time. Then believe it or not, skip Chris Candido pick up a win over Dwayne Johnson in a dark match in San Antonio before a raw the next day in March of 96.

And then he sent down, he being the rock of course, to Memphis to work as Flex Kavana in the USWA before eventually he makes his way to the WWE's main roster that was November of 1996 at the Survivor series. So yeah, they're about a year and three months apart from having their very first match. I'll be honest, I never drew that comparison because when I think about someone who had a similar career and explosion, if you will, I tend to think about the ultimate warrior. And I know that he didn't have the exact same, maybe too much too soon for Goldberg, but the

way the WWF positioned him in his style of matches and things like that. So when I draw a WWF comparison to Goldberg, I would more often than not go to the ultimate warrior, but timeline wise and being, have, have enjoying success so quickly from that perspective, you certainly think, yeah, man, this is a, that's a good comparison that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of Goldberg and the rock. And if you want to really have, sometimes if you're really bored, like a really board just pick out a couple of the top wrestlers that we know of and and i don't know you know i'm not like a mouse i don't know everybody's history i don't have time don't have the

bandwidth for it it's not valuable to me but go back and look at rick flair and see how long it took rick flair to become a legitimate star where he's headlining big shows around the country You know, Steve Boston, we've already talked about. But just go back and look at some of those guys. And yeah, we know of them as superstars, but where did they begin? When did they start? And I think six, seven, eight years is probably an average before somebody starts really noticing talent back then.

It's different now. Everything is different now. But both Rock and Bill, you know, they collapsed the timeline dramatically. It is an interesting parallel. I've thought about it a lot, actually. we're seeing something that we're going to see for years to come here it's uh triple h in the rock uh going uh promo for promo we see triple a she's stealing my leather jacket gimmick i mean god is there not an original thought in this guy's head what the fuck

i love you for that uh on the other channel wcw is perhaps off its low uh doing its lowest at the time that we could have ever imagined for WCW were fresh off of Goldberg injuring himself he punched a window in a limousine what'd you think of that when you saw that happen I heard it I just Chuck probably I guess same reaction you just got I just what the fuck Bill I mean I've seen Bill and I think he probably still does it to this day you know but one of the ways of Bill don't have our own say we a lot of people have their own ways of focusing or getting themselves fired up or getting into character

if you're a performer. Even though I wasn't a wrestler, I had my way of doing it before I went through the curtain just to transition from being a guy sitting in catering to the guy everybody wanted to hate. Bill's was unique, man. Bill's involved self-inflicted discomfort. It's like banging his head on shit, forearm and walls and putting his fists some glass and he just had a weird way of getting himself fired up for the show well that

happened uh on a couple days before christmas 1999 so like a week prior to this is when he's punching holes and limousines he was mad because i was gone that's why he hasn't he shared it with me you know one of those calls that we have you know we talk often just share a lot of things as men you know sometimes it's it's good to be vulnerable and open yourself up and Bill and I have that relationship and he explained to me oh gosh what was it now 18 months ago so almost two years ago and one of these heartfelt conversations that the reason he put his fists through that windshield of the limo was he was so frustrated because I wasn't there you know to to help Bill wrap his head around what he was about to do and

I apologize, but Bill understood. We should mention that not only did Goldberg hurt himself when he punched the limousine, wasn't a pay-per-view, wasn't a nitro, it was a thunder. In a weird way, thunder is the worst thing that ever happened at WCW. Well, kidding aside, including my conversation with Bill Goldberg and sharing vulnerabilities, thunder was from jump it was the worst thing just it expedited the collapse it gave all the execs and turner that wanted to pull the plug on wcw it gave them so much ammunition so much ammunition and it just went downhill from day one we're seeing a dx now do a run-in and put the

boots to the rock so you got sean walton and you got billy gunn and you got the road dog uh and i like the way that whole set looks i don't know if you got a look at that wide shot but the next time they show it where you can see that you've got not just the the titan trine above the entrance but you've got there you go silver's got out here for us Isn't that a cool look? That's very cool. On the left of life with the two main key characters. Like, what an interesting.

And again, for those of it, I mean, I think this is cool today. Yes. For a wrestling show. But look how far we've come. Yes. But we've come, we've come far from a very, very well-produced show. I mean, it's not like this was wrestling in a dingy smokefield auditorium in front of 1,200 people.

This was a highly, highly well produced live action show and it's only gotten better it's it's my bugger it really is now you see uh triple h wagging that finger talking about the rock he's putting hard times on the rock right here uh but yeah we're also this is around the same time of when uh i guess a couple of weeks later the radicals are going to leave wcw this is a pretty big deal all the stuff that we've got going on here at the exact same time where we're just a couple of weeks away from Vince Russo being sent home or quitting whatever you want to say the first time

with WCW and we're not too far behind them actually calling you back and this is also the era where we mentioned Goldberg tearing the tendon but it's also the time when you know WCW brought back a bunch of legends including Jimmy Snooka who gave Jeff Jarrett the worst injury of his loss with a terrible concussion for only four months removed or four months this is four months ahead of David Arquette winning the WCW world title and it's also the era where Chris Benoit is about to win the WWE or I'm sorry the WCW big gold belt and then quit the next day because with Vince Russo back at home Kevin

Sullivan's back and he didn't want to be a part of all that so Benoit Eddie Guerrero Dean Malinko Perry Saturn I'll fold up tent here with WCW and jump to the WWE What did you think when you heard that that group had left and they were now with Vince?

I didn't hear it. I saw it. I was sitting in an Applebee's Applebee's or a Chili's restaurant right outside the Flying Cloud airport in suburban Minneapolis. I had been up in Wyoming, been here in Wyoming with my brother and my sister and my wife

I flew from Atlanta, picked up my brother and sister in Minneapolis, and it flew out here to the house. We watched Super Bowl together, spend a couple days. And I flew my brother and sister back to Minneapolis. Lori and I were going to spend the night there and jump in a plane and fly back home the next morning. So after we dropped my brother and sister off, Lori and I head over to the hotel near the airport where I parked my plane. And across the street, there was a Chili's or an Applebee's, whatever, I think it was an Applebee's. So we went over there and I'm sitting in a restaurant. I ordered my food, probably chips, probably nacho chips, I'm guessing, from applebees at that time

or chilies. You know, it's not really great food, but it's not horrible. You can get it down and fills you up. Anyway, we're sitting there and they had TVs going on all around the restaurant. We were kind of in the middle. So I couldn't hear anything, but I could see. And they had Monday Night Raw on. So I'm watching Monday Night Raw, and they cut to a shot of the radicals sitting at Ringsside.

And again, I couldn't hear anything. So it was like, what the fuck? And I, once it said in, I looked at my wife, I said, they'll be calling me soon. Swear to you. Remember like it was five minutes ago. And sure is shit within about 10 days or two weeks, whatever it was, I got a call from Brad Siegel. Can you go ahead and hit me with that Southern Frayette?

again one more time sure is what now i don't know what i said what i say sure is she yet i mean you did it with a two syllables she it i learned that from your dad oh shit i said there's not two syllables and shit he goes bullshit i went damn you're right right there is two syllables and shit well when he does it there's there's the main street posse uh we have a any time talking about the main street posse, but what did you think about that as a faction? Giving Shade McMahon, his own faction from the main streets of Greenwich, Connecticut, sweater vests and polos, like this feels like something you would have appreciated. It feels like it's right out of a movie, right?

I love it. The villains from nerds or something like that. I love it. The mean, streets of Greenwich, Connecticut. I mean, that's good tongue and chic character shit there. I think it's fun.

It is fun. And that's what WW is supposed to. supposed to be and a lot of people regard 2000 as being you know one of the biggest or best years in wdh history as far as creatively i don't know it wasn't for me i for whatever reason just didn't connect with wwe in 2000 as well as i had in prior years maybe that's just a me thing um anyway we're watching two cool in the dudley boys who've not been here in the company for very long they made the jump in august the 99 i believe so they're just a few months in And do you remember there ever being even a discussion with the Dudley boys for WCW?

I know that you had public enemy and you had Perry Saturn who was part of the Eliminators, Mikey Whiprek and a lot of other characters, Raven, Sandman, on and on. Do you remember there ever being any even preliminary discussions about the Dudleys in WCW? Not with me. Now likely Kevin Sullivan, quite possibly Kevin Sullivan did. But it never got to me. I don't know why, but I think that Bubba Ray Dudley and WCW feels weird.

You know, obviously he didn't get to do the same sort of heel stuff that he did in ECW here in WW. Did you ever see any of his mic work when he was healing on the crowd in ECW and really pushing the envelope? Oh, but I should. I love bullies. First of all, I really, bully's a good friend. I have a ton of respect for him as a human being, but also as a professional. And, man, I'd love to see him open up. I'm going to have to go back and look for some of that stuff because he has the ability to be pretty awesome if you let him lose.

But he's smart. He knows he's just so talented. He can he can tear you up, push the envelope, cross the line, get back over it just in time, cross it again, get back over it just in time. Or he can lay out a very nuanced. on cerebral promo, depending on the situation. He's really, really talented guy. Underappreciated. I know he's, you know, people put him up on a pretty high pedestal.

He deserves it for all the stuff that he did in the ring. But in terms of his thought process, in terms of his instinct, that's what it's all about. You know, we can call it thought process, creative abilities, but it's all just instinct. It's being able to anticipate how people are going to react. And bully has an uncanny instinct for the wrestling business. We got to appreciate the uncanny instinct that this man has for the wrestling business. We're backstage now. We see Michael Cole holding a microphone for both Ron Simmons and John Bradshaw-Lafield,

who's been having a lot of fun filling in from Bruce Richard on something to wrestle. Have you called any of John's episodes of something to wrestle, Eric? I have not yet, but I talked to John yesterday, a day before. yesterday and he's having fun with it, so I'm going to check it out. Imagine a customer ready to buy. Is your brand the first thing they think of? At Seattle Times Media Solutions, we put your business on people's radar and keep it there. You'll get a free digital audit, a no-obligation strategy, and plans that don't blow your budget. It's smart, it's local, and it works.

Visit MediaSolutions.com or call 206.6.6. 5-2-6700. Don't be forgettable. Be remembered. I think you should also check out Mando. It's safe to use on your pits, Eric. You can even rub some on your balls, your thigh folds, your belly. Do it every day. Your feet. Really? Now, how deep in the asshole do you go with Mando? Well, I hit the general area. It's not like I do. It's not like I have any probative technique.

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I'm watching these Mando commercials because they're all over the place. And this woman, who is a doctor, starts explaining why Mando is such a great product. And I'm looking at this woman, I'm going, there's something familiar about her. I don't know what. And she's a legit doctor, legit doctor. This is going to me talking like some kind of, that's like dirt sheet mark. a legitimate doctor there's something about her so for six or eight months every time she would come up in a mando commercial i would look over to my wife i said loy i know i know her somehow

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So I Google her. She lives in the, she's from Minnetonka, Minnesota. So I went to high school. She, and I don't know her. I don't think I've ever met her. I may have met a relative, sister, brother, whatever. Hell, maybe even her mom. I don't know how old she is.

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Kurt Engel. And this is Kurt's rookie year. You know, Kurt's, uh, it's going to be. strapped to the rocket ship or whatever you want to call it over the next year but he's really making a big impression early working with a big star like cane i mean cane's still early in his run but at this point he's already been world champion so to just have him in there and do this sort of david and goliath routine i really dig it you know we talked a little bit about uh the dudley boys and whether or not they were even considered for wcdb and could the rock have worked in wcd will

allegedly, when Kurt Engel had decided, you know what, maybe I need to give pro wrestling a second chance. He had denied in public interviews that he would ever even consider something like that. And then, of course, we know that he had a hiccup, a cup of coffee at an ECW show and decided, thanks, but no thanks. He even had a preliminary conversation fresh off that world title win or that gold medal win with Vince McMahon and the WWE, but decided, well, I'm a gold medalist, so I can just never lose as long as we can figure out a way to do this where I don't lose well that didn't

work so he tried some new things he was a news anchor he did the spokesperson commercials and things like that he was a public speaker doing motivational speeches but then he decided you know what I need to use some athleticism and I want to make some real money I need to get into wrestling he meets Rick Flair and Rick Flair says whatever you do don't go to WCW go work for Vince McMahon he knows how to make a star he'll make you a star now Rick is saying all that while he works for WCW and timeline would prove while he's in a bitter war with you

now I can't help but wonder if you didn't have your big fight with Rick Flair and there wasn't the back and forth and the suing and so forth he had already seemingly maybe he felt like burned a bridge with Vince before because he said hey I'll come but I can't lose well there was no offer coming after that so when he asked Rick

I do think genuinely he was trying to see hey can you get me in with WCW and Rick pumped the brakes on it and said no you need to go to Vince I find that interesting because Rick Flair killed WCW well I don't know that Kurt Angelo but in an alternate universe had you not had a pissing contest with Rick Flair and we've covered that a thousand times we don't need to get into it again but it is interesting because if that timeline is right if he's not at odds with you, does he come in to WCW? What does that change, if anything?

Well, it changed a lot of things. And none of which we'll be able to pinpoint, but a lot of things would have changed. What year was this again? So he's going to make his debut with the company in 1999. When was his conversation with Rick? Do you know?

I assume that would be 1998. It would have been interesting, because Now we're, again, we're talking that period of time where we cranked out Bill Goldberg in 97. In 97. So there would have been a reason for us to believe we could do something with a guy with Kurt Engel's talents. It's not like we hadn't done it before.

I get Rick's point. And look, WWE has always had the reputation of being able to build stars. And justifiably so. So I don't think Rick's advice was necessarily wrong, probably good advice, excellent advice in retrospect. But it does kind of leave the door open as to what would have happened because we recognize that it is possible to create a superstar out of the power plant because we did it definitively with Bill, but also with other people.

Diamond Dell's page didn't come out of the shoot, learning, knowing how to wrestle. He learned what he learned in a lot of different ways. but the majority of it in the power plant. And with Kurt's background, there would have been a recognition and an effort to exploit that. What could have happened? I don't know.

But I think in Kurt's case, it would be hard to look back and say he made the wrong decision or he could have made a better decision with WCW because I don't think that would have been true. I think he made the best decision for himself at that time regardless of Rick Flair's advice, which I think is probably good advice at the time.

I just find it fascinating to think about these sort of what if alternative, you know, circumstances and situations because we know that Rick Flair does come back to, to WCW, but it happens in the fall, like October, November, I believe, 1998. What do you think of what we're watching now? We're seeing China coming down to the ring with the cat, Miss Kitty here. And she's dressed up almost as like a China clone. What do you make of that, China and her mini-me? China never resonated with me.

Really? No. I never, you know, I was impressed. Don't get me wrong. I mean, physically, how could you not be impressed? But for me, there was something lacking. It certainly wasn't her presence. she had a great presence and she was a tremendous amount of ability

but it was just something missing and I could never quite put my finger on. I did think China was a star. I mean, she's definitely felt different than and if we've learned anything on 83 weeks, we know that sometimes that's all you need. By the way, the Kurt Kane match was a DQ. Steve Blackman came down and got involved and there you go.

But now we've got Stephanie McMahon out here to try to solve this whole intercontinental title controversy. You may recall China had just beaten Jeff Jarrett back in October to become the intercontinental champion. But then she found herself working with Chris Jericho. And I guess on Smackdown, Jericho forgot to lift his shoulder on the suplex spot. So now we've got co-champions. So we have co-intervention.

Continental Champions, China and Chris Jericho together. They're the Intercontinental Champion. And I know that sometimes you take some rising about some of your title decisions. I was just going to say, this is kind of weird, right? Co-champions, come on now. That's a little silly, isn't it? That's a stretch. Yeah, I think so, too.

I wanted to ask you about some more recent stuff. You know, we don't usually talk about modern stuff in the middle of an old show, but we're going to do it now. because we're watching stuff from 2000, but we're going to talk about something that's happening in 2025. There's reports in the observer that it looks like Malachi Black may in fact be done with AW. There's been lots of speculation that maybe he wanted to go back to WWE,

and we certainly heard that about other talent. But not that long ago when he wrestled Adam Cole, I felt like the big bow afterwards and the big thank you and all that. That felt like a farewell. When I said that on the shows, people jumped all over me and said, no, it's not. He's still got plenty of time left on his contract. Why would you say that? Even Malachi Black, I think himself posted a video denying it saying, I don't know where this is

going from. It was just a match. I remember that, actually. Turns out he might actually be done after all, which is exactly what it looked like. What do you make of this? Because this whole, we want to go back to WWE or we want to leave and go to WWE narrative seemingly out there for a handful of guys. Allegedly, that's what Ricky Starks wants to do. Allegedly, Malachi Black wants to do that. There's speculation that I don't know the last time we saw Mero.

And there's a whole list of these folks. But I do want to ask you what you think about Malachi Black and is there going to be an opportunity for that perhaps? And when I take a look at the Raw and Smackdown roster and what they're doing right now, like they've got so many established stars. if they're not careful, they're going to recreate the AEW circumstance. We've got a lot of talented folks in catering. There's just only so much time here to fit all of this talent in.

I'm a Malikai fan. I like this work, but, and it's a crowded space in WWE right now. Is it not? You sort of, but look at the content that they have to produce. You've got, and I'm so, I'm confused. is raw going to be three hours now raw has no time there's no set time it's around three hours it could be 40 minutes it could be four hours you i'm guessing you're going to probably be looking at an average of around two hours but have the ability to go two

and a half three hours or whatever if depending on the scenario it's a lot of content to fill you've got smackdown now you've got c w a lot of it depends on what they want to do with the nxtee brand i have no idea And this is with no respect to what I would do or wouldn't do. But you've got CW, it is, yes, it's a small network that a few people watch, but that's an opportunity. They have an opportunity to not necessarily own from a technical perspective of the CW network. But if you can become the most powerful, powerful franchise on that network, it's in a way better than owning it. because you don't have any of the liabilities.

And if their goal is to grow NXT and build it bigger, then you'll probably see a lot more stars that might have otherwise been exclusive to RAR SmackDown showing up on NXT. And I think Malachi Black would be a great character for that, a great athlete person for that. But, you know, I met Malachi in 2019,

when he first, I believe he had just recently arrived in WWE when I did. And Paul Heyman was very, very high on Malachi, almost like overly aggressive about trying to push him. And not to me necessarily because he was a smackdown guy and I was wrong. But to Vince, I mean, Paul spent hours and hours and hours in catering. talking with Malachi, helping Malachi, you know, understand his character, understand what he was doing on the show. I mean, Paul took a very active hand in trying to position and groom and get Malachi ready for the opportunity in WWE.

And for whatever reason, it didn't work out. Now, that reason could have been Vince. It could have just been a taste thing. And despite Paul's, and I know the Vince respected Paul, he just spent a lot of time talking to him. But for whatever reason, we've been sent to see it, maybe Triple H does. Or maybe he's just a very talented guy that would fit on NXT or CW if there's a growth strategy involved. It's interesting, you know, I'm guessing, I don't know, I don't know Balakai personally, we don't chat.

But I'm guessing he could have probably stayed in AEW and made up. A lot of money, probably more money than he can make in WWE if he goes there. But guys like Malachi want to perform. I talked about this years ago, two years ago at least, when referencing AEW and all the talent they were stacking up. You know, you mentioned Miro and a lot of other people who would love to get out of AEW right now despite the money because they're not able to perform. When was the last time we saw Mero on TV?

Year and a half. I couldn't carry. I mean, talk about killing a guy's career. There's two ways to kill a guy's career, over expose them, and put him on a shelf, indefinitely, out of sight, out of mind. That's how you kill a brand. And young talent is smart enough to know that. And once the money wears off, because the money's always a thing, right? Oh, man, I've ever made my life and your wife or your girlfriend or your parents or whatever.

everybody's happy, you get to buy a new car. And then about six months later, you're starting to get used to all that shit. It's not a big deal anymore because it's not new anymore. And you're sitting on your ass doing nothing. And you know, you not think about it consciously, but subconsciously, every day that goes by is a day off of your career. And at some point, you've got to get out there and perform and grow. But I think WWE's got enough content, certainly.

and guessing is going to have even more with the international footprint in terms of live events that there's plenty of room for good talent in WWE will be for years to come I think Miro had like 30 matches in 2021 and AEW but he had four in 2022 and he had seven 2025 and he had seven in 2023 and zero point zero in 24 his last appearance his last wrestling match was world's end so new year's Eve's Eve December 30th

20th 2023 in Uniondale New York Miro and Andrade Mero picked up a win I mean his most recent matches here's his most recent string he beat Andrade Dandre d'Andre d'Andrelly Daniel Garcia action Andretti powerhouse Hobbs Nick Camerato Anthony Henry Tony Neese he's got a winning

streak from two years ago. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happened. I mean, you brought this up before. A weeks ago, it was like, you know,

is Tony wrong for tacking on time, injury time to the back end of contracts? You know, and I stood up for Tony on that one. Yeah. You invest in someone and you expect to return on that investment. And then because of an injury or any other thing. that would take that talent out, you lose your opportunity to get that return on that event.

You still have to pay them because that's what the contract says. But now you've got a short window of opportunity to get a return on your investment. That's not fair. That's not fair. It would not be fair to Tony. So in that situation, absolutely. Tack that three months, tack that six months. Do it every, and assuming you're going to use that talent to try to get a return on the investment,

that's good faith. That I understand. That's just basic fairness. But to have someone under contract and have no plan for them and not use them, that's when I think you cross the line with whoever it is. We're talking about narrow in this case. But whoever, there's a lot of talent that might as well be in a witness protection program. If there's no plan to use them, for God's sake, I know money doesn't matter.

Tony's not held accountable financially for anything, but damn, do the right thing. Not like it's going to hurt your business, Tony. Save the money. Donate it. Whatever. My favorite version of Miro's WWE career is when he was in WWV as Roussef, and he had Lana ravishing Russian with him. And I thought, man, that whole presentation, I mean, he rode.

to the ring at WrestleMania on a freaking tank to wrestle John Sina. That's about as big time as it gets, but so much has changed. I don't know that we can even recapture that now. I mean, I'm a fan of Mero. I'm just saying I want to understand, you know, his real life circumstances change. So I don't know what that would even look like if they put the band back together and recreate that act or whatever. But man, it was great stuff.

And I hope we get to see Malachi Black and Miro doing their things. again somewhere sometime soon and allegedly people are going to see Pentagon on the second episode of raw on Netflix. How do you think Pentagon will do as a singles performer in WWE in 2025? Eric. I'd be lying to even take a guess. I'd be just fill in there. I don't know. Don't know enough about him. Don't know enough about his history. Again, I would, if I had to place a bet,

I would bet the odds of him being successful in WWE are pretty good because obviously there's a commitment to him and WWE has demonstrated what they make a commitment to you. It's not a guarantee you're going to become a superstar, but the likelihood of success is fairly high. It's a good bet. So I would make a good bet that he's going to be very successful without even knowing him or his history. I can't wait to see what Pentagon looks like in the WWE.

I'm also excited that we're able to watch Big Show versus Triple H here for the world title. So this is the crossover. So we're going to have a big title match. Big Show came to the ring wearing the big gold belt with the blue strap. And Triple H in 2000 was probably at his physical prime, his match against Cactus Jack at the Royal Rumble later this month. it's still maybe my favorite

Triple H match and one of my favorite McFoly matches of all time but he's not too far he being the big show he's not too far removed from WCW I think he debuted around Valentine's Day the prior year but he's still in his first calendar year

he is the world champ but they got him wrestling in a t-shirt when you saw how they were using big show did you regret losing him or did you feel like the relationship had gotten to a point where it was Tom. I would, I could have kept Paul. I like Paul.

I've always liked Paul from the first day I met him to the last time I saw him a year or so ago, whatever it was, Paul is a genuinely nice person. He's a good dude to hang out with. He's got a great sense of humor. He's a, he's a kind person. He's, he's a very, he's a very good. very cool guy. And I, as much as I liked Paul while he was in WCW, I knew there was nowhere to go with him. I, oh, I shouldn't say that. I didn't believe in my heart that we could

get Paul where Paul needed to be or where Paul thought he could be. You could not, I didn't believe, and still don't, that you can build an entire promotion around a guy like Paul White. He's too freaking big. He's too big to be a good heel. He's too big to sell him, be a good baby face. He's just, in terms of laying out story and laying out matches with somebody as physically dominant as Paul White, it's incredibly difficult. you put them in there with you look at triple what is triple h at this point 250 260 yeah

it's like paul's wrestling me i mean well not quite but you know what i mean he looks like a child compared to paul and yes if he paul's a good word i'm using paul in this example watching but anybody that could get in there yeah you can have a you could be the greatest technical wrestler you could be like all of rick flair and all of eddie guerrero and all of ray mysterio whatever, and you put all that together and you're still not going to be able to have a believable match with a guy like Paul White. Yes, you can have a good match. You can have a Dave Meltzer good match.

Technically speaking, but emotionally, you're never going to connect the way you need to connect if you're going to have a guy like Paul being the face of your company champion. It's just too hard. He has to eat too much talent to get there. And then once he's there, then what? And when Paul came to me and said, Vince offered me a million dollars a year, guaranteed minimum, he gave me an opportunity. If I wanted to have beat that, I could have.

I didn't. I wasn't happy to see him go, but I was happy for him. I didn't think he was going to, I didn't think he'd make it. Paul's a very sensitive person when you get to know him. He's a very, very gentle giant. he actually in Google General Giant Paul White's picture should come up because that's exactly what he is and I thought based on what I had heard I had never been in WWE that the grind and just the chemistry in the locker room because he was coming from WCW and just knowing how important

personal relationships were to Paul at that time I didn't think he'd make it but he did I'm glad he did he did a lot of money well it's funny because you had paul versus paul there and we know that uh this is believe it or not this is the debut of the water spit at the end of uh triple h's entrance you know which became a pretty iconic part of his entrance and i think this march third two thousand episode maybe the first time that we get to see him do that that's because he said he Vince had them because who is it in the Mr. McMahon documentary Vince talked about a wrestling character that he loved that

used to spit the water. Yeah. Isn't that cool? I don't remember. Because you've got a memory like a steel trip. You always remember shit. Yeah, but it's old schools before my time. So I don't remember exactly who it was, but a lot of our times. I do. I do know it was one of Vince's favorite performers. I don't know if you saw, but earlier this week, we saw a little bit of a promo battle, if you will, with MJF and Jeff Jarrett. Jeff has announced that he's signed his last talent contract with AEW, and it looks like he's on a collision

course now with MJF. I wouldn't have that on my bingo card for 2025. What do you think of that for you, MJF and double J? I don't know how the story comes together, but the match will. Yeah, the match would be great. That's would be awesome. There's, you know, Jeff is, in my experience, limited as it may be, working with producers or agents in laying out matches and then watching the result. Because, you know, you get that you're in a typical bookie situation. Okay, we're going to have these two guys wrestle. This guy's going to go over.

Well, okay, that's great. Now you know what's going to happen on the TV. But how that talent is going to get over. It's like the really important part. And that's where guys who are really great agents who really understand psychology, who can anticipate how the audience is going to react. Because they can anticipate it, they can pull the right strings at the right moment to get the reaction that they know they can anticipate.

That's the art of it, in my opinion, or a good part of it. Jeff is one of the very best I've ever. worked with, granted, I didn't work with the Paterson's of the world and other very experienced producers at WWE, but other than Bruce, the people that worked with me as a talent. But Jeff is one of, I think one of the best producers I've ever worked with because he absolutely understand psychology from the talent's point of view. This has been around a minute. And a lot of different situations. His memory card is full, so to speak.

He'll have to work with. But he also understands the television side. And oftentimes wrestlers really understand what's going on in the ring, but they don't understand to the extent that they should what happens outside of the ring in terms of television. Jeff's got it both. So that tells me, especially with a guy like MJF, who has an amazing ability, seen it you put those two guys together jeff psychology mjf's youth ability character

i'll watch for sure i'll even write it down a piece of paper stick it on the fridge to make sure i don't forget we're seeing the big celebration now triple h has just won the world title for the second time with little help from his friends and dx and down come the green and black balloons and the confetti and uh we got a new world champion triple h who's now running the show is the helmsley mcman regime or the McMahon helmsley whatever um nice little doesn't it feel like nitro 1997 with the confetti and the colors and the gang warfare i mean she's come on is it just me or of course they're putting the strap on him because they got to get ready for the Royal Rumble match with Mick Foley.

They've also got to get ready for the WrestleMania main event, which is right around the corner. It'll be a fatal four-way elimination with a McMahon in every corner. Triple H with Stephanie McMahon, the Rock with Mr. McMahon, McFolly with Linda McMahon, and Big Show with Shane McMahon. So that's what's on deck for WrestleMania in a few months. But I do want to ask you, you know, that's going to be the first WrestleMania without Stone Cold Steve Austin.

I mean, he's their top star. out crowned in 98 rides the wave through 99 has to get that next surgery at the end of 99 when he goes down it's november of 99 survivor series so you've been home at that point for a couple of months but when you come back in 2000 and you know that austin is on the sidelines he's injured he's out did you see that as an opportunity for wcd when they don't have their top star much like When Raw was preempted, you probably saw that as an opportunity to try to grow and steal some of that WWF audience because, well, they can't watch the WWF program. So maybe they'll give hours a shine.

Did you feel like Austin's absence represented a similar opportunity at all? Not that I recall. Again, my role when I came back was so much different. Came back as a consultant. So my day-to-day thought process with regard to what was going on in WCW and WWE was completely different than it was when I was running. And I honestly didn't really think about it. It wasn't my focus at that point.

My focus was trying to figure out how to fix what we had versus trying to compete. we were so broken it was like triage you know if if you don't make sure the patient doesn't bleed out on the table it really doesn't matter whether you can perform the heart surgery or not you got to save the patient and I wasn't kind of a save the patient frame of mind so I just wasn't paying attention well I know you've been paying attention to your chubbies and if you got a novelty mug this Christmas instead of the chubbies you really wanted? Well, we've all been there, but it's not too late to treat yourself for what you truly deserve this year. Chubbies has everything you need to turn your wardrobe and your life around. Start with their every wear pants

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Chubbies is the real deal. Go right now to chubbyshorts.com slash Eric. You'll get 20% off your entire order. That's chubbies shorts. com slash Eric. Man, we just saw some hilariousness here. Test and May Young and fabulous mula in a tag team against big boss man and Prince Albert.

But man, take a look at that where she's carrying down. downtown Bruno over her shoulder. Oh, and in the backstage area, we're here just in time for the celebration. And man, this does feel a little NWO. Does it know it? Oh, my God. Come on, people. If you can't see it, I can't help you.

It's too obvious. Look at a big show carrying his roll away. I don't know why, but him walking out holding that suitcase. It looks like. I know, it looks like a lunchbox. It looked like young Conrad Thompson when Conrad was like, you know, third grade, walking to school with his little lunch box. Yes, hilarious.

All right. Let's see what's next. We got the APA, the accolites. I know that we've talked a little bit about, you know, why did this guy ever come to WCW or that guy ever come to WCW? Did you spend much time with Ron Simmons in WCW? I mean, we know he winds up, you know, coming to work for the WWF in 1996.

But he had a cup of coffee with the world title in WCW. and I know you were there for some of that. Do you think he could have had during the Monday Night War era a role for WCW? What might that have looked like had he stuck around WCW? I don't know, but it would have been awesome. I really, really have a lot of respect to Ron. And I was there for a couple of years while Ron was a power player, so to speak, in WCW, and certainly there when he became world champion.

Ron was He had so much respect from everybody but he gave respect he was very, very, you know, I was a C squad announcer. He probably didn't even know my name when I first got there. In fact, I'm sure he didn't. No reason for him to. And whenever I had to interview Ron

or do something with Ron on camera, He made sure that he was his professional and nice and he wasn't intimidating. Maybe that's what it was because he was just, he could just be sitting down with his eyes closed taking a nap and he's fucking intimidating, right? But I think Ron had so much confidence and he was aware that he could be a little intimidating, that he went out of his way to not be. That's the best way I can say it.

And for someone like me who was coming in from the outside, didn't know anybody, You didn't have a relationship with anybody other than Larry's Obisco and Diamond Dallas Page. And to have a guy of Ron Statcher go out of his way to be as pleasant as he was to someone like me, who is oftentimes when it came to talent, this is the part that people understand. When the C squad announcer comes back into the locker room, when you're doing whatever you're doing, getting ready for a match, getting done with a mat, whatever it is, and you have some third string announcer coming to you, first of all, you know that what you're doing really isn't that important. Otherwise, it would have been Jim Ross and Tony

Shabani doing it. So when the kid from Minneapolis comes looking for you, it's a pain in your ass. And I got a lot of that when I first started. But I didn't get it from Ron Simmons. And that's why I see Ron to this day, he's Mr. Simmons, much like Mr. Regal. A lot of respect for him. now we're seeing uh this is fun this is the first time that i've seen this in a long time instead of the mc foley have a nice day is dx presenting a little miniature movie called have a bad day and we're going to have dennis night the guy we know is middy in here portraying mick foley trying to find a job after wrestling and he's got an he's visiting right now on camera

with his unemployment agent because he's filing for unemployment and he's of course got to check in and explain what all he's been doing in order to keep those unemployment checks coming and the unemployment agent is being portrayed by triple h the unemployment uh agent's name you want to guess the character's name here eric oh no i can't what is it that's mr harry sack harry sack is unable to uh help mankind find a job Because he says he's basically just a Muppet who walks around with a damn sock on his hand. Of course, Mankind, wink, quink tells us, no, it's in my pants.

So listen, they're having a little fun to build the Triple H Cactus Jack story and pay-per-view. It's going to come up here pretty soon here, the Royal Rumble. What do you think about these sort of parody mini-movies and skits and all this? I know that we tried some of these in WCW and people would take turns. dunking on it. Can it be done well? Do you remember any of these little many movies and skits and parodies that have been done well? Like the four horseman one comes to mind. But I know that

created its own set of controversies and problems. What do you think? I think there's room in wrestling for humor. And I think when these skits, it's what they are, um, are well produced and written in a way to be tongue and cheek and humorous. I think, think they have a place i i can't remember off the top of my head other than a four or someone you can't off the top of my head recall the ones i like the best but i think there were several both in wwe and the wcw that were pretty effective oh check out what's happening now they've got the cage set up we're back here ready for the match and it's going to be a cage match with jeff hardy his opponent al snow wow

that would have been an independent wrestling dream match not too long before this you know Jeff Hardy was working those Indies on in the North Carolina era and he had a lot of buzz obviously in this era of WWE but man you go back a few years prior to this and now Snow was one of the most highly regarded independent talents I mean people were he was a tape trading sensation his series of matches with Sabu so knowing that him and Sabu created so much history and got so much buzz on the Indies, it makes total sense that you'd say, hey, you know what? If we have a Saboo in WWB here in 2000, it might be Jeff Hardy. Let's let Al Snow and Jeff Hardy go out there and tear it up.

Sounds like a thought process, right? Yeah. Jeff Hardy has recently done an interview. I don't know if you saw this, but he recently did an interview where he basically said, you know, he was living pretty hard and his 20s and 30s, but if he was living back then, like he is now, he feels like he could have had a career even bigger than John Cinas, if he would have been able to maybe get his life together a little bit. What do you think of that?

Could you see that in an alternate universe? Jeff Hardy becomes, I mean, he's obviously a megastar, still is, but we know what he's talking about. He had some challenges that maybe got him off track a time or two. Without those, what do you think Jeff Hardy's career would have looked like, Gary? I think the potential is certainly there. I mean, you saw Jeff, you know, this is 25 years ago. Jeff is still a good-looking guy.

I mean, the camera loves him. He's got an amazing amount of natural charisma. He doesn't know how to use it. He does in the ring. I mean, obviously, the things that he's done in the rain are off the charts, artful, impressive, incredible, whatever words you want to use. His mic skills, eh, he's never been good at that. He's been adequate at best.

but never really found his voice as a character. Had he not spent so much time fighting demons, and had he put the same energy into developing that skill as he had developed a skill in the ring, given his look at his natural charisma and the way the audience connected to him, I understand why he feels that way, and I don't think he's wrong. Bigger than, I don't know, that's always a little tough.

But do I believe 100% that Jeff Hardy could have eclipsed the height of the career he's already had, absolutely believe it 100%. By the way, that goes for anybody out there that's a talent, you know, unless you're really good on the mic, you know, the one way you can stand out to this day, to say, Separate yourself from everybody else and be different than all the people around you who are also really good in the ring. Find your voice, man. Find that character and get really comfortable with a mic in your hand because if you do, you're unstoppable, as Diamond Delt's page would say. But a lot of guys developed that like Jeff Hardy, amazing skill sets, could do crazy things.

He was just fearless, all of those things that we know Jeff for. But imagine if Jeff had the gift that Rock has with a mic, or Jansina had with the mic, or Chris Jericho had with the mic. Hush, scare me to death. Terry is inside the ring, inside the cage. She's locked inside the cage for this match. Al Snow's gotten rid of the referee and locked him out. Of course, J.R is letting us know that the only way to win the match is by pen submission or escape.

But since the referee's locked out, that's going to be challenging. You know, we see what we see Dustin's, uh, I guess at this point, maybe ex-wife. I'm not sure if they're together at that point or not. But either way, we know that she was, uh, his wife. Did Mrs. B ever, was there ever an idea or even a discussion about her making an appearance on a wrestling program at any point ever? Never.

Yeah. Never. no it would have no no you couldn't say never harder or faster could you no it's just she would have never done it no she just couldn't see herself doing something and i wouldn't have asked her to because she would have been really uncomfortable doing it i think she would have been great at it she could have been she could have been really great if she wanted to be character she could have been really great but it's just not her thing never was i know that uh garret

had some interest and obviously he had some fun in T&A and did the whole training school and I mean he did it the right way did it was Montana ever even remotely interested did it cross her mind at any point no yeah now she's interested in the business side of things but not my daughter was largely responsible for the Cody Rhodes reality show that was on TBS or TNT whatever it was on when Cody was still in AEW. My daughter was the one that got that deal put together. A lot of other people took credit for it,

but she had been working on that project for a long time before any of the people that jumped on board to credit for that idea. She really, she found the showrunner, which was one of the critical components of that effort. The show writer for that show was a friend of hers. And she worked with Cody. It worked a long time to get that show. show up and running. So she, and she's, you know, she's the vice president of a production

company in Los Angeles as we speak. So she's doing very, very well. She's been very successful on the television and the business side of things. But she doesn't even like me posting pictures of her in my social media because it draws too much attention to her. She doesn't like that attention. And my wife is much like that. She's, she, Lori's gotten better about it because she's kind of out in front of things more with the different things that she does professionally. And, you know, she does podcasts. She didn't like public speaking. She was fine in front of a camera.

She grew up as a model. She got her first modeling job when she was four years old. She was on the front of a Play-Doh can. I know that silly, goofy color. Yeah. Oh, I know. It's still a thing. No, it's still around.

Her first modeling gig was to be the cover kid on Play-Doh cans when she was like four. and she had been a model all the way up into the day I met her was because of so she was always comfortable in front of the camera but when it came to speaking or performing shut down and that's changed but Montana still has a lot of that still has a lot of her mother's characteristics when it comes to just being in public she shy Eric I'm not sure if this is it or not but in our private link here our private chat. I just posted a link. Is that Mrs. B as a kid right there? Just pop it up. No, I'm, I mean, I sent it to you in the private

chat. Oh, let me click on it. Let's see. Um, I can't tell if that's her or not. It might be. Let me. It could be. That's not the can I remember seeing. She had another one she may still have it somewhere around the house we gotta find that and throw that up because we can find an old image of her on a plate okay and that would be that'd be a find for the i think she has it i'll ask her if she's got to sit around the house anyway yeah so stay tuned and eric bischoff will post that on his social if he could find it uh because i think that would be hilarious to see oh my goodness she was a cute kid Terry's trying to escape the cage and Al Snow is going after Matt Hardy is in there trying to make the save so there you go Matt Hardy has saved the day Jeff Hardy has picked up the win Al Snow is left laying by the way as a reminder we're about a year removed from the finger poke of doom with the benefit of hindsight and I know we've covered that in our archives you know we've talked about the myth that that was the

end of WCW, but a lot of fans still point to it and say that if it wasn't the end, it felt like it was the beginning of the end and all that. And of course, Jeff Jarrett would say, oh, no, creative is subjective. And I tend to agree with that. But when you're watching what we're watching now, I'm kind of reminded at times how just throw away, I mean, disposable is maybe a better word. Some of this content is because,

there's so much of this stuff that I know I saw that I just don't remember so when something stands out either for being really good or really bad I don't necessarily think that's always a bad thing because so much of it it's just I didn't remember Al Snow had a cage match with Jeff Hardy you know what I mean well there's no reason why you would right it wasn't that exciting it was nothing special happened there's nothing there's no reason for you to remember it there was no that was created during that match that would make you connect with it.

Your amygdala said, fuck that, I ain't carrying that around. There's no reason to remember that shit. Why am I going to put that in my computer file and it is a part of my memory when there's no reason for it? So you're a migdala,

your brain, a part of your brain that controls all that shit. Just kicked it out. That's why you don't remember it. Meaningless. Well, now we've got part two of our Have a Bad Day story. So now

Wink Wink, Mankind, aka Phineas and a mask, is visiting a children's hospital. And he's meeting the doctor here is being portrayed by Triple H. Of course, when Triple H was portraying the unemployment agent, he was Harry

Sack. Do you want to guess his doctor name here? No. Hung Lowe. Dr. Hung Lowe has just done some karate, aka a kicking mankind in the balls. I don't think he could get away with wearing those glasses today in 2025. We're still doing it.

Now we're going to a mankind book signing. Allegedly we're in a bookstore and we've got his Have a Nice Day book there. But there's no one in line to meet him. This is really pretty horseshit. It's a lot horseshit. I know they're trying to have fun. And I get that they're trying to be lighthearted and they're trying to be entertaining. And I'm sure it can be, but it does feel like a bit of a miss.

Yeah, I mean, and again, I can't hear it. So without hearing the dialogue and maybe getting the joke, it's a little hard just watching the video. But it, you know, you asked me earlier, do I think these things can be successful? Absolutely. I do. If it's a well-produced kit that's funny, is it tended to be funny and as you know a lot of people think they're funny but very few people are comedians good ones and if you can find somebody they can write good material and

take a skit like that and make it fun that's i think it's awesome let's see roads man wrestling's a buffet just go find something you like cool but when they're not funny it's just wasted space it actually takes away there's nobody nobody wants to hear people that aren't funny, trying to be funny, or people think they can sing and have a shitty voice. Nobody wants to hear it. The DX celebration is continuing backstage. Of course, we're getting ready for our big main event. It's the Rock versus Xbox, Billy Gun and Road Dog.

It's one on three. That's what our main event is. But before we get there, it's time for yet again, more have a bad day. so no one's showing up to mankind's book signing and the bookstore owner is upset at him for ruining his business this is just sort of here for me man and i'm trying to be here for you over at save with conrad dot com but eric can help you at save with eric dot com bet you didn't know that was a thing did you yeah eric bischoff is actually in the mortgage business and has been for years at this point he got his license back

in like 2021, we just didn't advertise it to everybody. We didn't let everybody know exactly what we were doing because Eric wanted to actually make sure he can do it and get good at it and get comfortable in it and learn the softwares and get the licensing and now he can help you check every box. Whether you're looking to get out of that apartment and buy your very first house, Eric can help. As a matter of fact, he can help you buy a house with no money down. They've got programs out there whether you're a veteran or not where you can still buy

a house with no money down. and if you are a veteran and you're still renting, dude, you're missing out. You should take advantage of your great VA benefits, buy your house with no money down. And a lot of times your new house payment could be cheaper than your rent. Now you'll start building some equity for yourself, start building some wealth for yourself instead of just giving it to some landlord. How about this, though? If you've got credit card debt right now, I want to have a conversation with you because

more Americans are carrying credit card death than ever before. Somehow we're in more credit card debt as a nation than ever before. Trillions of dollars of credit card debt. But it's not too late. There is a solution and it's been hiding in your house the whole time. Not in the attic. It's not in the basement. It's not in the junk drawer in your kitchen.

It's in the equity in your house. You see, a lot of families put Christmas on a credit card and there to like May or June before they pay it off. Well, you can get rid of all that credit card debt right now at save with Eric.com. if you've got credit card debt, you know you can do better than what that interest rate is. What do you pay it?

21%, 28%, 31%. I've seen it all. I want to find a way to help you get out of that credit card debt, get a much lower monthly payment. You can even skip your next two house payments. As a matter of fact, you won't have another house payment until April. We're talking WrestleMania time.

Wouldn't that be nice? I have a little winter vacation from house payments. And if you put Christmas on a credit card, we can help. Find out how much money you can save right now at save witheric.com. You don't need perfect credit. You don't need money out of your pocket. But it's not a matter of if we can save you money, but truly a matter of how much.

So find out right now for free at save with Eric.com. NMLS number 2129. Save with Eric.com. So there you see the rock. He found the DX locker room. He's trying to get a jump start. And he's in there. naked in a few punches. I think when we come back, we're going to be ready to,

uh, to get going here. This is, uh, heavy on story. And this is not the, uh, Vince Rousseau era. This is the, uh, Tommy Blancho era, where Springerwitz is going to be joining the team. And it's a whole new look creatively behind the scene. Who is Tommy Blancho? He took over for Russo. He was the next guy in that seat. Oh, really? I didn't know. That's for someone I've heard that name. He's, uh, done a lot of writing and a comedy writer and I guess he's written some other stuff in uh in LA he's actually got a podcast now but I met him several years ago doing

live shows in the uh LA area with with fruit really really fun guy took over for russo around the same time of the Austin injury neck injury if you remember that was November of 99 so I think that was around the same time he had started maybe a few weeks prior to that so right around the same time russo's out time he's in So I think you never met Tommy. No. If I did, I don't recall it. I apologize, Tommy.

But I don't think so. Isn't it amazing? You know, we started out talking about this as we're watching DX coming down the ramp. Shout out to Sean Walman and his dog Buster, by the way. Cool dog. How far, individually, where these people are at down their life. Sean, we just saw you. He was at ringside. Netflix Raw.

Pretty cool. Yeah. Oh, dog. That Polovec guy. You know, he's done all right for himself. Rock is now on the board. He's not just wrestling. He's on the board.

Lily and Garcia is still announcing. And Lily is still there. It's awesome. It's just so fascinating to look. I mean, this is 25 years ago. There are adults who vote. have important jobs who weren't even alive when this was happening and a lot of these guys still out there doing it this is so awesome I love seeing this the power couple

of all power couples I mean that is the definition of a power couple in wrestling right there oh yeah by the way they went to the uh they spent a year's eve with the president as a president elected the United States yeah just little things like that it's how far we've come 25 years no big deal wow that's crazy you know that is such a weird sentence because it's Donald Trump I just don't even think about it and it's like oh yeah he was a part of WWE and I just kind of sometimes don't even think about him being the president not trying to have a political conversation but when you're like oh yeah the people who run WWE the red the WWE champion who's got Vince McMahon's

daughter in his lap with the world title drinking champagne he spent in a year's Eve I didn't know that but he spent new year's eve with the president oh okay like think about that any other context like oh yeah well this wrestling camp he spent new year's at what now what that feels like those words in touch huh and and even i have to catch myself because you know i obviously i was in the thinking things back in the late 90s when wrestling was fever pitch and everybody recognizes it in the industry and out of the industry that was a huge huge period of time for the wrestling industry in general. But look at where we are now. In so many ways, we're so far ahead, or WWE, I should say, I'm not part of it. WWE is so far ahead of where they were in the late

90s or in this case 2000. And they've reached a level of, it's mainstream. It's not pop culture the way it used to be. I think that's a difference, and I think maybe that's because of what's happened to our culture, primarily because of social media. But if you look at how the peak of wrestling back in a late night, let's say 98, 99, whatever the year was, and you look at the peak now, it may not have the same pop culture impact as it did back then. It may not seem like it, but globally, this business has gotten so much bigger. It's hard to wrap my head around.

It fascinates me. It really does. Goldberg and the rise of Goldberg specifically will be our topic next week here on 83 weeks. We were supposed to do that one a few weeks ago. We had some holiday conflicts and it didn't work out, but we will be bringing it to you next week. So if you are looking forward to hearing about the rise of Goldberg, stay tuned to 83 weeks.com.

And if you haven't already, what are you waiting for? Go hit that subscribe button right now and turn on your notifications. bell because we go live all the time whenever there's breaking news or something major that's happening we're going to be live at 83 weeks.com we want you to join us and we don't want you to miss out that could be your chance to interact with eric asking questions live get his opinion pick his brain to go right now to 83 weeks.com and hit that subscribe button my goodness what a little sequence we saw right there from the rock and john walton that was awesome If there's any wrestlers listening to this,

I would encourage you towards, I guess maybe there's eight minutes or so left in the program. The rock just finished a little combination where he was working over Sean Waltman between the guardrail or whatever you call it here that separates the fans from the performers. And then the ring post. And I've never seen that little combination before that I can recall. But man, that came together.

And I'm sure a lot of that is the magic of Waltman's. but when he finished I said to myself self that was badass why don't people do that today someone needs to steal that Eric I would hope so for crying out loud that looks so believable and unique stand out be different then go back and watch this tape for Conorat's suggestion working into your repertoire Rock was selling his ass off here for this. Isn't that that's kind of like a common characteristic of the top,

the talented app actually reaches the very top of the business. They're all good at selling. Yeah. It's the secret sauce. It's just so consistently. It's in the selling. The art is in the selling. It's so good.

Selling is what creates. the emotion you know we talked a minute ago about all the guys in the ring you know behind the scenes road dog is one of the more important players in wb and you know he's helping with uh the tv and production and writing and i mean he really is one of the major cogs in the wheel and we know that you know billy gun is much more than just an agent for a w he's also an in ring performer and uh doing literally whatever he wants in a w and having a great time doing it and we know the Triple H is the king of the mountain. I mean, he's running wrestling right now, for real.

But I guess I'm kind of surprised that the person that we all regarded in this era as being sort of the measuring stick for what a good in ring performer was and Sean Waltman, I don't know that he has an official role with WWE. I just kind of assumed by now that dude might be running NXT or I don't know, but do you think he just doesn't have the interest in it or why don't you think we see baltman in a more formal official capacity with w w i can't think of a good reason he's you know i was with him in uh in orlando a couple weeks ago we we spent quite a bit of time together had lunch to go breakfast together and hung out during the course of the day and i worked with him you know

in the the was it what it called legends and future greats lfg yeah i got to work with him a little bit and saw and watch him watch Sean interact with some of the young talent there coaching so speak so good at it he's passionate about it he really really is good i i can't imagine that there's not a reason there's not a role for him down in florida and you know he's look sean's married he's got a got a wife that's got a great job in hollywood and they've got a home He's got a great life and he gets a good jog up. Of course, I don't know. I should give him a call.

Things might be a little different now with the fires. But just two, three weeks ago, when we were together, man, he was living a great life. And he may just be ready to make appearances every now and then. I know how that feels. You know, you still love the business. You still have a passion for it. But it's tempered by reality. And, you know, the idea of moving to Orlando and living down there,

all year round and you know spending all day in a training facility may not be the best idea for john walton right now he may be enjoying what he's doing too much well we enjoyed what he did in front of the camera i hope we get to see more of him sooner rather than later such a talented guy he really is like if i started a wrestling company tomorrow i think if i needed people working in the backstage area and people i knew i could count on and we're going to make sure we had a great show. Like, I think I'd call Waltman. He'd be one of the first guys on call.

A hundred percent. A hundred percent because he's got great insight. He's, he's got no ego. I mean, he's very honest. And he's got a great, he's got a great instinct.

And he understands it. He understands how to communicate it. Really talented guy. the rock is setting up the uh the people's elbow look at the crowd going bananas listen i i know that this has been beaten to death but just take a look at the response in this crowd from this move do you want to talk about literally the safest move in the history of wrestling that's got to be the safest most delightful finisher like we've all heard that story of Vince McMahon being in the bar and taking all the guys finishes the one i'd sign up for

Hey, Rock, you can hit me with the people's elbow. Like the idea that, and I know that wrestling has evolved and it's changing and it's much more fast-paced and hard-hitting and strong style or whatever you want to call it now. I get it. But the reaction that we saw there from really just running the ropes and hitting an elbow and the place goes bananas waiting on him to tear off his elbow pad. And that's the magic of wrestling. You don't have to dump guys on their head. You can just, you know, bring the. entertainment to sports entertainment and that works better more often than not and you could do it

forever without killing your career or your opponents yes i mean ross will be able to go out there and drop that elbow till he's 75 if he wants to it's just doesn't take a lot out of you it's not like look at hogan's leg drop there's a reason why hawkers walks the way he walks and you look at all of the top talent, with the exception of probably Rick Flair, they're all walking around and you can pretty much tell they were professional wrestlers because they're busted up so badly. And a lot of it has to do with, in all case, it was his finisher, dropping that 300 pounds on his left ass cheek or whatever it was, 300 times a year jammed his backup so bad that it takes away quality of life, years down the road.

And if I was a young wrestler, I was 25, 23, 24, 25, I'd be. looking at finishes like rocks something that i can do 300 days a year so i can make the most money possible as opposed to doing some crazy ass shit that looks really cool when you can do it three or three times a year when you're not injured the rest of the year just yeah if it's your career make it last well said i was going to say the exact same thing you did about the leg drop you know i'm not in touch talking about modern wrestling and you're dumping people on their heads and oh, you're going to be in a wheelchair. I'm not giving that whole speech.

But I am just saying something as simple as a leg drop on a concrete ring over and over and over and over, Hulk Hogan will tell you, uh, I don't know if that's the best for you. So a really safe look at finisher, as silly as it was, it was over and he got it over. And, uh, this match is over because the rock just went over. He beat not one, not two, but three members of DX and Stephanie and Triple Age can't believe it. The finish of this is pretty good. The way we started with the rock opening the show and Triple H throwing down the gauntlet and we're going to punish you

and somehow he foiled him again. That's a pretty good story tale, story arc inside of a single show, don't you think? A beginning and a middle and an end. How amazing is that? Well, that brings us to the end of this show, but we're going to be back before you know it. We don't know what's coming next with this news that we keep hearing. Maybe there's a chance we'll be live this weekend with more news. Maybe we'll be live on Monday after something crazy happens on raw. Don't miss it.

Join us. Be a part of the conversation. Interact with us. Ask Eric questions. Join us at 83 weeks.com. Hit that subscribe button. Turn on the notifications bell. And don't forget to tune in next Friday for the rise of Goldberg right here on 83 weeks

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