83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 363: 25TH Anniversary Of The Yappapi Strap Match!

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

On this REMIX episode of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson, Eric and Conrad look back to celebrate the 25th anniversary of WCW Uncensored 2000! Eric was on his way back to WCW at this time, but hadn't quite returned yet, and on this episode he discusses his WCW status at that time and his working relationships with some of the office, plus the card itself, including the main event of Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair in the famous and infamous Yappapi Strap match! Sid Vicious defends the WCW World Title against Jeff Jarrett, Sting vs. Lex Luger, Dustin Rhodes vs. Terry Funk, The Mamalukes, Disco Inferno, Vampiro, Booker T, 3 Count, Bam Bam Bigelow, the debut of Chris Candido, and so much more! RIDGE - Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code 83WEEKS at https://ridge.com/83WEEKS #Ridgepod BILT - Start earning points on rent you’re already paying by going to https://www.joinbilt.com/83weeks ENVISION - Save money and grow your business with Envision Marketing—visit https://www.conradsguy.com/ today! BLUECHEW - Try your first month of BlueChew FREE at https://bluechew.com/ MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/83WEEKS Magic Spoon—hold on to the dream!  THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod 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://nationsgo.com/conrad/ 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. On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at https://adfreeshows.supercast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm good, brother. Corona-free, live-in-life, enjoying this little bit of downtime. It's a weird, weird time. We're weird time, but we know we're making the most of it. Montana, our daughter, Montana, for those of you that don't know me well. got in from L.A. this past week, so, you know, we're just, uh, we're making the best of a bad situation. I got to ask, um, being quarantined in Wyoming is, it's basically like Tuesday, right? Well, it, you know, in some respects, um, this is a small town. Cody Wyoming's only

got about 10,000 people in it, uh, the nearest, you know, city from here, if you want to call it, a city is Billings, Montana, which is about 100 miles north of here. And between here and there, there's a whole lot of cattle and mountains. So, you know, we're kind of isolated anyway, and the lifestyle here is much different than it is, you know, in most cities and suburbs and things like that. So in some respects, it's no big deal because, you know, people that live here tend to live here because they like to be isolated. They don't like big crowds.

They don't like big cities and have learned, you know, to trade off the conveniences that many people become dependent upon in a city or a suburb for, you know, the relative isolation and living out of the country and being a little bit self-reliant. So for many people here, it's not a big deal. But I got to tell you the truth, I drove through town yesterday to pick up. some things we needed from the hardware store, and it was a little eerie to, you know, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it was 50 degrees here in sunny and, you know, one of the first really nice spring days we've had in a bit. And to drive through town on a Saturday morning and see like six or eight cars, you know, on the main street. And, you know, it's not because people are afraid necessarily, but nothing's open. You know, Cody, Wyoming, the city of Cody,

did the same thing a lot of people have done a lot of city managers and politicians have done around the country they just shut everything down so a lot of the small restaurant owners

people that I've known for 20, almost 30 years some longer are really hurting you know here's what's really weird about Cody

and I'm sure this is true in a lot of places not just Cody Wyoming but this is a town that for the most part 70 or 80% of the income in the revenue that small businesses take in throughout the course of the year happened over about a four or five month window starting around the middle of May, first of May generally, running through September, maybe October in some cases.

So you've got four or five months to pay all of your bills, to pay all of your staff, to put some money in the bank, hopefully. And that window of opportunity is now close for the most part. You know, people, and people come from all over the world here. You know, in the summertime, if you were to walk up and down Main Street, you know, Cody, Wyoming or stop in one of the local, you know, bars or pubs and sit outside, you've got people from all over the world. It's kind of like a small version of the United Nations in the summertime because, you know, Yellowstone National Park is a big damn deal. and people come from all over the world. But those people have all canceled their reservations.

Nobody's got anything booked. And those that do have vacations, books. Sometimes people come out here and they book a year in advance because once summer comes, it gets busy as hell here. Those people are all gone. So I'm really fearful for what's going to happen to a lot of my friends and people that I don't know in the community that have small businesses that depend on tourism

because tourism for this year, in my opinion, if things turned around as well as we can hope for, I don't think we're going to see things getting back to normal till the end of the summer, first part of the fall, and that's probably optimistic. So it's, you know, we're immune, no pun intended, to, you know, the ramifications of this crisis in many respects, because like I said, most of us that live here choose to be, we've been self-isolating or social distancing, you know, it's why we moved here. Not a big deal, but the businesses are going to suffer and that's sad to see. It is sad to see. And we hope everyone listening to this is safe and sound. And I realize a lot of the things we enjoy have

been canceled or postponed. 83 weeks is not going to be on that list. Eric is broadcasting from the comfort of his home and I am as well. We've been lucky enough to have a little home studio rigs here so we're going to keep cranking out new content for you every week and we appreciate you guys allowed us to come into your home and be a part of your little wrestling family and uh everybody's saying it right now but it's worth feeding together we'll get through it and uh we can sort of rather together as a little wrestling community and uh and have fun here or make the most of it and that's what we're going to do today with uncensored 2000 this is i believe the last pay-per-view uh that eric missed before he's going to be

back in a saddle in WCW, but it was worth revisiting. We sort of talked through a Nitro that was building towards this pay-per-view, and now here we are, March 19th, the American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida. Man, this is a different WCW than we've talked about a lot here on the show. It's a major pay-per-view with Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair on top and an undercard with really big matches and lots of names. And there's 2,543 paying fans for $97,925 at the gate, which is actually less than ECW did for the pay-per-view they ran the prior week in Danbury, Connecticut. It's hard to imagine that there's a month where ECW ran a pay-per-view the same month the WCW did.

and WCW offered Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair on top and ECW drew more at the gate. That just doesn't seem like that should be. Well, you know, in watching this show to prep, you know, for this addition of 83 weeks. And I don't want to go too far into it because we'll cover, you know, on a match per match basis as we go. But it was, I'll give you my overall impression.

It was bad. It was not a bad pay-per-view in some respects. It just, there was no coherence. There was no, as near as I could tell, not a lot of real story, you know, leading up to it. It was more of a, to me, watching it. Now, I have to be fair. I want to be fair to the people that worked on the show, whether I like them or don't and all that crap.

I didn't watch the nitros and the thunders leading up to this particular pay-per-view. So it's probably not fair for me to comment on the quality of the story and the build-up of the arc leading to this pay-per-view. But based on what I saw and what I heard, more importantly, and the references, you know, the callbacks to beats within a story that presumably happened, you know, in the weeks leading up to, I didn't hear any of that. you know there was a couple clips from thunder and from you know night show week last week week before that you know showing a high spotter you know a beat that was relevant to the reason why we were watching a match on a pay-per-view but there was no nothing nothing tied it together it was a spectacle it was like oh we don't need a story we just need to have a crazy match and there were a lot of i thought decent matches here some good some i really liked some

that just felt like filler. But overall, you know, good, decent pay-per-view. And I don't want to get into individual matches too much because we'll do that in a minute. But my overall impression was, you know, if I had to give it a scale of one to ten, I would say my first impression was that it was a five and a half. But the business side of it, as you just pointed out, you know, to do under $100,000 for WCWCW, pay-per-view during this era really reflects how much the audience disconnected from the product.

And you can look back and be a rocket scientist and list all of the reasons why, because one might think they're smarter than everybody else. But I truly believe it's because there was no vision. There was no real story. Everything was a spectacle without a story. And I think the audience just, they don't get passionate about that. You have to have good story. I don't think that'll ever change.

Yeah, it's weird because it does feel like there were certain things you could always count on, you know, from WCW, like it was just a bankable. I mean, going back to the first time you did Flair and Hogan, it said every record there was. And that wasn't 100 years before this. It was, you know, less than six years prior to this. and, you know, Sid Vicious and Jeff Jarrett for the, for the WCW title is maybe not a major draw if you're a heritage WCW fan, but Sid had made evented a couple of WrestleMania's and Sting and Lex Lugar working in a match.

I mean, you would think, well, man, that's, those are sort of WCW stalwart. That'll be, that'll be something fans will be into. And then you've got old school too, instead of Dusty Rhodes versus Terry Fonk, it's Dustin Rhodes versus Terry Fonks. you've got a lot of marquee bankable recognizable wrestling superstars i mean if you made a mount rush more of wrestling you've got two or more names that are on that i mean terry funk would be on mine and it's just really remarkable that this is where it is that's drawing i but but you're kind of making my point in your own way you know you can put all those big names you want on the card

but if there's no story that's compelling that drives it and makes it feel new. I mean, Flair and Hogan, yeah, we went to the bank on that several times. Flair and Sting, you know, same thing as not in this pay-per-view, obviously, but, you know, there are certain matchups like, you know, Flair and Singh, you can keep going back to it as long as you don't do it too often, as long as you've got a good story that's compelling to support that matchup. But if you just throw it out there, banking on, you know, the attraction of Hogan and Flair with the Yavapai strap match, you're kidding yourself. I mean, it's a little bit like putting, you know, Robert De Niro in a horseshit movie with no real good, you know, with no, not a decent plot or decent script.

Great. Robert De Niro's in the movie. Should be bankable. Should be box office. But you put a guy like Robert De Niro in a, you know, a movie with a shitty script and a lousy direct. and what are you going to get? You're going to get a box office bomb, and that's what, you know, we're looking at here. Not because the guys didn't work hard, none of that.

It's just there's no fucking story, and I don't care who you are. I don't care if it's, you know, 2020 or if it's, you know, 175, the things that stand out in the audience's mind, those great matches. And everybody's got a different opinion of a great match, by the way. My opinion is my opinion. You know, you've got yours. Steve Meltzer has his. You know, Weight Keller has his.

And every wrestling fan has theirs. And they may be similar in some respects. They may be different. There may be a combination. But for me, personally, just me, yeah, you've got to have great, you know, ring skill. You have to be able to execute. But, man, if you've got a story, and we'll, you know, we'll talk about more of that in a minute. but if you've got a great story, I'll look past a sloppy finish.

I'll look past, you know, a miss spot. I'll look past all that if I'm really passionate about the story and I'm invested in the characters. If I'm not invested in the characters, if I'm not invested in the story, all those little flaws in the body of a match, all the stupid shit that you normally would go, yeah, yeah, but that was silly, but this is really good. All that goes out the window and all you're left with is, eh, that was stupid shit. or at the very best, it was like, hey, it was all right.

Flair and Hogan, you have a Picerat match. It wasn't horrible. It's what you'd expect, but it certainly didn't have to build up in the story that it needed to make it feel fresh. Hey man, are you still carrying around the same bulky, overstuffed, and let's be honest, crusty leather wallet your grandfather had, it's time for an upgrade, meet Ridge Wallet, the sleek minimalist wallet that's changing the game. Ridge wallets are extremely thin, yet securely hold up to 12 cards plus cash without adding

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because i do you know you said hey the story but i wonder if it's maybe and maybe i'm overreaching here but when you've got this small of an appetite for a pay-per-view with these names and this list of talent it almost feels like you've lost the the confidence of the wrestling fans like where once by the time they trusted you to deliver big matches and great stories and it'd be very entertaining it does feel like for whatever reason you know we've heard a lot these last several weeks about investor confidence on wall street and maybe that's one of the reasons that it's been all over the place with the Dow Jones but sort of fan confidence in this product it's it's probably taking a nose dive here has it not oh no it has it has it definitely has

And it didn't happen overnight, by the way. It had been, it started happening, you know, in late 1998, very late 1990. And it really started to accelerate in terms of, you know, the fans leaving the product and becoming disenfranchised, if you will. It really started in the spring of 99, and it just started getting progressively worse. There was a guy, I don't know if I've ever shared this here before. And I actually, I just had lunch with him in L.A. a couple of weeks ago. His name is Gary Consoline.

Gary used to be, I'm sure he recognized the name. Gary used to be the executive producer for the Tonight Show, which he led out. And he's also done a lot of other late night stuff. He was on the ground floor and, you know, helped create access Hollywood back in the day. And very knowledgeable guy. And it's still today producing a lot of great television. And around. 98, when things were still going pretty good for us.

Actually, no, it might have been earlier. Things were going really good for us. And I went to the NBC studios in Burbank and they had a meeting with Gary. And Gary said something to me. He said a number of things to me that really have always stuck with me. And one of the things that he said to me that still resonates to this day is that the audience votes with their remote. And once they vote against you, It's really hard to get them back.

It's because you're in such a hole that once, to your point, Conrad, once you've lost the audience's confidence and they no longer believe you're going to entertain them and they make the choice to go somewhere else, it's harder to get them back than it was to get them the first time. Yeah. Meaning, you know, like with Nitro, you know, and some of it, like, some of it was good luck, some of it was great ideas, some of it was great talent, some of it, some of it, a lot of it was just timing, right? Doing something different that had never been done before, reinventing the way that wrestling was presented to the audience. You know, I know I sound like I'm, you know, patting myself on the back here and maybe in

some ways I am, don't really care, but it's true. Nitro changed the industry, and we're seeing the benefits of that change or the manifestation of those changes to this very day. They've stuck. We've followed suit. You know, we're seeing a lot. Tony Khan can say whatever he wants about WCW, but my God, I mean, if they're not kind of trying to follow, trying, I emphasize trying, trying to follow the formula that made Nitro

successful, I don't know what else they're doing. But when we did it first, it was a massive change in the way the audience, it's why the audience went from 2 million people a week or 3 million people a week to 8 or 9 or 10 million people a week at its peak. We brought in a whole new generation of fans that were either disenfranchised with the product and hadn't watched it in 10 or 20 years or, in many cases, brand new fans that had never followed professional wrestling. Because it was new, it was different. It was not what you expected from the product. Now, as much as I'm tearing cartilage and pulling ligaments patting myself on the back, fact of the matter is, under my watch, and certainly it was accelerated under other people's watches, we lost that.

We deviated from the formula too much, or we didn't do enough things right to hold that audience and at the same period of time that we kind of took our hands off the wheel and you know we're looking to the backseat playing with the kids and not paying attention to the road in terms of you know managing driving creating in wcW for nitro you know the wwe comes along and broadsizes you know at 80 miles an hour with a semi truck called you know the attitude era where they took what we created and turned up the volume they were doing it better than we did the formula that really launched nitro and we got to broadsided. Well, but when we got broadsided, the audience would, fuck that. We're not

watching a nitrower. We're going to go watch the semi-truck that just blew them out of the intersection. Getting that audience back next to impossible, way harder than getting them in the first place. And, you know, probably going a long way around a block to make that point. But that's what I'm seeing here, to your point. Yeah, we lost the audience. They no longer had confidence in us. We weren't going to deliver anything spectacular. We were no longer must-see TV. In 96 and 97 and 98, we were must-see TV because we were doing shit that was cool that nobody had ever seen before. We were surprising the audience. We were doing the unexpected. We were introducing new elements. We were shooting the show in a way

that it had never been shot before. We were taking the audience backstage and exposing them to, you know, this is probably earlier 95-96, but we had exposed them to elements of the backstage arena. And we told our story in parts of the arena. that had never been exposed before. And they dug it because they feel like the audience felt like they were there. Well, fast forward a couple years later, you've seen all that. You've done all that. How are you going to entertain me now?

You know what I mean? So it's just an interesting thing to look back at and to try to analyze. And I hope I'm being objective. I'm sure I'm not, but I'm at least trying to be. But I think this is a perfect example of what Gary Considine, my buddy from formerly with NBC said is once the audience votes and they decide they don't longer want to watch, getting them back is almost impossible. Well, I'll tell you, it's because a lot of fans,

let's talk about the, uh, how the show did on pay-per-view. There's a 1.3 by rate, only $605,000 on pay-per-view. So that's what? Yeah. 600 and 5,000 in revenue on a pay-per-view. Yeah. holy shit that's like that's worse than 1992 revenue it is that's horrible yeah it's it's it's no wonder that you're getting a call and that you're coming back because this thing

has taken a nosedive by comparison let's compare it to just one year prior to recap on censored 2,000, 97,000 at the gate, 600 grand on paper review. There's 200, 2,543 fans in attendance. One year prior, uncensored 99 were 15,930 fans, and we did a 0.7,7 buy rate for 3.69 million. Holy crap. So we went from 3.69 down to 600 grand. We lost over $3 million on one show. from year to year.

And that's really the way most businesses compare themselves. And they say, hey, wherever were we this time last year. And so you can see sort of, you know, we need to appreciate where we are now, but we need a frame of reference for where we've been. So we can say,

are we trending up or we trending down? Holy cow. We go from 15,930 fans down to just 2,543. It's unbelievable. And WCW is in a state of free fall. So your phone's going to ring. You're going to have an opportunity to come back. back in and we're going to be talking about that in the coming month or so this is the sixth

and final uncensored pay-per-view it started in 1995 talk to me a little bit about and we've touched on this a little bit once before the original concept was uncensored and perhaps why it didn't become sort of a hallmark wcw event in the same way that maybe bash at the beach was or Starcade was or Halloween Havoc was, what was the goal with uncensored as a concept pay-per-view and why was it amiss? Well, we'll start with the concept. That was the first part of your question. The concept, you know, with uncensored was originally to be a pay-per-view that basically

through all of the rules and the framework of how matches took place and where and when and why and how and threw it all out the window one time a year where you would have let's just call it anarchy you know from from top to bottom uh on the pay-per-view that's a very general broad way of describing it but that hence the name uncensored right the the reason that it didn't work there was there was more than one i'm sure um let's go back to the first one you know it didn't have elements that were so much different than what you would see on Nitro or what you would see in other pay-per-views that made it feel special. Rewind a bit, a little bit.

One of the, you know, when in 93, 94, whatever it was, when, you know, I'm sitting in a room in my office and I'm counting pencils and I'm looking at numbers and Bill Bush is sitting across for me. And I'm not exaggerating here. I spent the majority of my day with Bill and in the early part of my management of WCW really, really grinding the numbers, despite the urban narrative to the contrary. And yes, we spent a lot of money. I spent a lot of money on talent. But bab, baby, baby, da, kisses and all that other shit. Yes, yes. Well, we were making three or four hundred million dollars a year at the time. So it's all kind of fucking relative. But in the beginning, beginning, when I first took over, it was an austerity strategy.

We were scrimping everywhere we could. We were trying to make, we were trying to balance our numbers. We were cutting costs every way we possibly could. We've covered all that. But one of the things that we could do back then was increase revenue by increasing the number of pay-per-views, which we did. We went from four to five to six to eight, to ten, the twelve, whatever. whatever that trajectory was, I don't remember it off the top of my head, but it was. And WWF at the time, it was doing much the same thing because they were in the same boat.

They were losing their ass. They, their numbers were going down. Their ratings were soft at best. But they started at, when we started adding pay-per-views, they started adding paper views. And it was important in my mind, still is to this day. I would do it over again, only I would do it better because I'm smarter having it. had the experience, is making each one of those pay-per-views feel as unique and different as we possibly could because otherwise, it's just a three-hour TV show that we're asking you to pay

$39 for because it doesn't have commercials. That's all it is. If you don't find a way to give each pay-per-view a personality of its own, each pay-per-view should be its own character if you're doing it right. You know, Royal Rumble is a character. Yes, it's the name of a pay-per-view, but it's a character on the WWE roster, and it comes around once a year and it shows up. WrestleMania is the character of all characters

in the WWE, you know, pay-per-view schedule. And there's more. And WCW didn't have that. Yes, we had, you know, Stargate, but that was the big one. Yay, StarCade is the big one. But it didn't have a personality. It was a big pay-per-view, but it didn't have a personality.

We didn't have to fuck with StarKake because it had its own brand because it had been around for a while. But the new pay-per-views that we were adding, uncensored being one of them, you know, we were trying to give it its own character. And we did a bad job, you know, because we didn't differentiate it. It wasn't that much different than what the audience was able to see across any of our other platform, any of our other shows. Not different enough, right? So I think that's probably the reason it fell apart was just not figuring out and being disciplined enough to stick with your plan, even if it didn't work exactly the way you wanted it to in the beginning. Even if it created some ripple effect in your other shows and you told talent, no, you can't have that finish or you can't use those garbage cans or you can't bring out a fucking fire cigarette or you can't do all the shit you want to do on a television show. we have to save that or uncensored so that uncensored feels different we didn't do that we weren't

disciplined enough in that and as a result uncensored was eh that bad just not great didn't have a personality and never really never really caught on all right i've got a little public service announcement for anyone who rents if you haven't heard a bill you're about to thank me earning points on rent is now a reality when you pay your rent through built you don't even have to check with your landlord to start earning points that you can use towards flights, hotel stays, fitness classes, and even your next rent payment. Let me break it down for you. There's no cost to join built, and as a member, you'll earn valuable points on rent and on your everyday spending. Built points can be transferred to your favorite hotels and airlines, and even the ones you haven't

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That's J-O-I-N-B-T-com slash 83 weeks. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. That's joinbuilt.com slash 83 weeks to start earning points on your rent payments today. I'm glad you talked about that because the personality of the pay-per-view is something that I feel like a lot of fans miss. You know, believe it or not, one of the most frequent questions we get across my podcasts are fans tweeting about, man, I really miss the different sets from the pay-per-views. And that's, you know, the set is as a small piece, but certainly an important piece of the personality of a pay-per-view. And the big complaint is, well, it feels like everything with the WWE these days is sort of same, same.

They don't have different personalities. They all feel very, very similar. Do you think that has hurt WWE and their pay-per-view efforts? And obviously it's a different time and now it's on the network. and maybe that's not as big of a deal. But with all the rumor and innuendo that Vince is perhaps looking to offload some of that pay-per-view business to a major player, whether it's ESPN or someone like that,

will that be a challenge for him moving forward because the pay-per-views these days don't really have different personality? I think so. And it's more than that. It's all of that. And then some. Again, I'm going to be careful what I say. say here, so it's not kind of inside knowledge that I was able to gain over the few months

that I was there. But I may figure out how to say this without get myself in trouble. Back in the late 90s, when I was involved, for both WWE and WCW, pay-per-view was at a minimum 25% of your revenue. It was, as I've discussed before, you know, wrestling, sports entertainment, professional wrestling, whatever you want to call it, when it's firing on all eight cylinders,

let's call it 12 cylinders, let's think Maybach. When it's firing on all cylinders and purring and things are running flawlessly, generally speaking, and again, this is back in the 90s now, 25% of your revenue would come from ticket sales. 25% of your revenue would come from your television.

25% of your revenue would come from licensing and merchandising. And then what did I leave out? It was 2525. So you get television, pay-per-view, licensing, and merchandising, and ticket sales. Those are your four legs on your stool, right? I think in today's environment, that number has changed dramatically. Part of it is because of, you know, streaming and technology and other revenue opportunities, by the way, that aren't bad.

But the model for sports entertainment has changed so drastically over the last 10 or 15 years that pay-per-view is just not the significant part of the business that it once was. other things are becoming more significant. Other things are becoming more important. And I think as a result, a couple things have happened. One is there's less emphasis on story. Why? Because there's less emphasis on the pay-per-view.

Instead of, you know, back in the day when, let's just go back at the period of time where I was active in the business, you know, you had a pay-per-view every month. So the formula was pretty simple. act one act two act three act one act two in the first half of act three played out on television the last half of act three the ending of the movie if you will the final half hour of a feature film that was your pay-per-view so the focus should have been sometimes it was it was done well other times it not so well does it change the fact that it should have been the architecture

when week one week two week three all on television week three ends up pretty fucking hot You're going into the last 20 minutes of your feature film, if you will, where the movie pays off, and that becomes your pay-per-view. Well, now that the pay-per-views have become less significant to the bottom line, I said less, not meaning less, just less significant to the bottom line. There's less emphasis on story. And now, and I'm talking about across the board, I'm not picking on anybody here, and I'm not being critical. It's just the way it is. Everything changes, right? Everything changes.

The way we make cars have changed. The way we grow food has changed. The way we watch wrestling has changed, and the business model has changed along with it, is what it is. But back then, there was a much more, in WWF at the time, especially in the early, in the 80s and early 90s, was really good at it. You know, everything built to that pay-per-view. And now you look at what's going on in television. And I try to watch. I'm, again, not being critical.

I try to watch. And I do watch. I drop in. I watch 20, 30, 40 minutes at a time of AEW and Smackdown and Rob, mostly because I feel obligated as a wrestling fan to support, you know, it's just the people, the effort, whatever. I feel like, you know, spent 30 years plus in this business, I'm kind of a dick if I don't at least watch and try to support it and tweet about it.

And that kind of thing. But when I try to watch, I just, I don't get the sense that anything is leading to anything. You're not hooking me and dragging me and compelling me to watch next week. You're giving me good stuff, but it's almost stand alone, as I say in the television industry. It's an OTO. It's a one time only. It might as well be because it doesn't really compel me to wonder or discuss with my friends or with you, Conrad. I don't pick up the phone with you.

Not that you're not my friend, of course you are. But you know, you're probably of all the people that I have in my Rolodex, the person that I talk to the most. And I know you're a wrestling fan. I don't pick you. I don't pick up the phone and say, hey, Conrad, did you just see what happened on this show or that show? Because it's just not, eh, it's just standalone. It doesn't drive me to the pay-per-view.

And I think that's what's happened to the pay-per-view business. It's just become less critical to the revenue model. Let's get back to Uncensored 2000. We've already covered Super Bowl 2000, which took place in February, and quite frankly, not too much has been going on in WCW since then. I've got a lot of losses to Raw on Monday nights and seemingly more and more fans losing confidence in WCW and their programming with each passing week. This is indeed, though, the last pay-per-view before you return to WCW and start working with

Vince Rousseau. So this is a paper view that you probably watch. from home back then? Yep, I did. Let's keep it going here. There's rumors flying around all week about potential management changes. As of press time, nothing has happened. The locker room talk is that Eric Bischoff is going to be taken over from Bill Bush.

Bischoff, of course, has denied this to everyone. But the fact, um, the fact is they've meant nothing to quelling the rumors and it said something to Bischoff's credibility. But then again, nobody has credibility in this business. One thing as... Especially you, Dave. One thing as it regards to Bischoff that nobody's figured out is his potential to make the racial discrimination lawsuit disappear because of his long-term friendship with Sonny Ono.

Stop right there. Stop right there. Perfect example of what... I'm going to be really careful here. I promised myself I wasn't going to do what I was just about ready to do. That's ridiculous. That comment is why I get upset. I got upset and still do to this day because this type of thing still happens to this day.

There's no freaking way me coming back to WCW was going to have any impact on litigation regarding the racial discrimination lawsuit. And to even suggest that reflects not only complete ignorance, not in the derisive sense, but in the literal sense of the, in the literal sense of, the term complete fucking ignorance of the situation and using that situation to try to sound really smart when in fact it reflects complete ignorance in the literal sense of the term that's as nice as i can be well meltzer would continue bill goldberg strongly backed Bush, who according to various sources among the wrestlers, said anywhere from 50 to 80% favoritism among the wrestlers when compared to Bischoff, although Vince Rousseau is right now seemingly the most popular among the wrestlers, with the exception of Goldberg.

Of course, the company is experiencing record low ratings and the last two buy rates were embarrassing beyond anyone's wildest imagination and ticket sales over the past few weeks and for the upcoming shows are just scary. So it's a weird time where maybe the boys have more confidence. in Rousseau than perhaps management does. Management is obviously looking at not the way everyone feels about WCW, but how is the business of WCW and that is down, down, down.

Talk to me. We've talked a lot about Bill Bush, but I don't know that we've talked enough about him in this era. What was your relationship like with Bill here in March of 2000? Oh, it wasn't good at all. by March of 2000 look Bill Bush made a move so did Sharon Sadello

so did a number of other people JJ Dillon a whole whole crew of people made a move right because they saw what they thought was an opening it was it was the residual effect of the old you know Crockett promotions and the in the early WCW

political maneuverings that were you know a constant you know when Ted Turner acquired Crockett promotions and and turned it into WCW. It was so, you know, between Jim Barnett and Gary, Chester, Sheriff, Sadelloids, you know, so many of the people that were key management people, they were all just looking for an

opportunity. And when one didn't exist, they would try to create one. It was the most toxic environment I'd ever been in. And granted, I hadn't worked for big corporations when I came to WCW early in 91 or mid-91, whatever it was. So I didn't have a lot of experience. But what I saw was like, fuck, these people are just, they spend more time trying to figure on how to screw each other over and take each other's job than they do figure out how

to do the job they already have. And it was evident, you know, across the board. And Bill wasn't one of those people. In fact, Bill, early on, Bill and I got along great because Bill was a numbers guy and I wasn't. You know, I didn't have a lot of familiarity with, you know, corporate finance. It is zero familiarity with corporate finance. So I relied on Bill.

Bill was a straight shooter. There was another guy there that worked with Bill by the name of Don Edwards. Don Edwards is not a name that you'll hear too much of. Maybe a guy Evans book, Night Show probably came up. But Don Edwards is another one. Very, very, I mean, he was, if you were casting a movie and needed a relatively young, but really wise and conservative finance guy, that would be Don Edwards. Bill Bush was much the same, but Bill had just a touch of entrepreneur in him,

meaning he was willing to look at those numbers and approach them with a what-if kind of a perspective, meaning, you know, what if we take, I'll give you a specific example. Bill Bush was a big supporter of mine when early in whatever it was, 93, I guess, when Bob Doe and a guy by the name of Don Sandifer who basically oversaw live events, 92, 93, whatever it was, they were in charge of live events, right? I had nothing to do with live events. I couldn't cancel a show. I couldn't go out and promote a show.

I didn't know nothing. They handled all of that. I was looking at those numbers along with Bill Bush and Don Edwards and going, fuck. Every time we go out the door, we're losing money and Bill, Bob Doe, and Don Sandofer, their solution that they presented to Turner Management was to do more house shows. Let that sink in. Yes, the gross number would get bigger.

So let's say, for example, you're doing 100 shows a year and they're each doing, you know, $20,000. Great. That's your number. Well, if we increase it by 50 shows, we'll do an even bigger number. You're right. The problem is, every one of those shows were losing money. Right. So if you go from 100 where you're losing money and increase to 150, guess what's going to happen?

You're going to lose more money, right? That should be freaking obvious. Again, I was a finance virgin. I hadn't ever not to get gravity here, pop my finance cherry. So I was learning on the job. but even I my wife wouldn't let me out of the house with a checkbook at the time even I could look at those numbers

go well fuck that doesn't make any sense and Bill Bush and Don Edwards were two guys in finance and keep in mind again this is a little detail but it's an important one neither one of those two guys reported to me right finance and legal reported to Turner to find Turner

a woman by the name of Vicki Miller who was a head of corporate finance for Turner that's where finance reported and legal reported to Turner legal, not to me. Now, there was a dotted line there, meaning we worked together, but they didn't report to me. I couldn't hire them, I couldn't fire them, I couldn't give them, I couldn't yell at them, if they weren't doing what I wanted them to do, or if I didn't feel like they were servicing WCW the way they, because that's really what they were. They were an extension of Turner corporate finance and Turner corporate legal, so they were providing

a service for the most part. And if I felt like they weren't being responsive or engaged, I could certainly go to their bosses and attempt to make a change. But for the most part, they didn't report to me. Now, for the most part, they in fact did not report to me. But we worked very closely together. Bill Bush was one of the guys early on who sat down with me and helped me pitch my approach to the arena business, even though it had nothing to do with me. it wasn't my responsibility it was affected to wcw of course but it was outside of my area of responsibility which at that time was just television i couldn't hire and fire talent i'm talking

early on now couldn't hire and fire talent wasn't involved in creative i was involved in getting the television product to television with the best possible uh production values that was me the rest of it with somebody else's shit, but I could see it. Bill Bush could see it. Don Edwards could see it. Dick Cheatham, another name. He was very supportive, although he didn't work for WCW. He was a real, he was a supporter and a fan, and, you know, he had more stroke, I guess, to rip off Jeff Jared at this point. He had more stroke with Turner corporate finance than Bill Bush or Don Edwards did because he was a higher level executive in finance, but another one who looked at our proposals and looked at our numbers and the way we arrived at our decisions in

terms of what I wanted to present to Bill Shaw in terms of canceling the house shows back in the day. Bill was one of the, you know, he led the charge with me. So we had a really good working relationship for a long time. And during the peak, you know, the success of WCW, Bill and I were very close. We were beyond, you know, close working, a close working relationship. And we had become socially, we'd become friends. You know, he lived a half a mile from me in the neighborhood where I lived. And, you know, we would occasionally get together on the weekends.

And, you know, there was a afternoon, Saturday afternoon where it was a beautiful day in Atlanta. And I had my plane. I just felt like flying somewhere. So I called Bill Bush, and we flew to Charleston for lunch and back. So we had a great working relationship, but when the opportunity, when the wheels were falling off, and I sat down with Bill on September 9th, the Thursday, September 9th, I'll never forget it, and kind of vented, Bill took that opportunity along with a couple others, and that I mentioned previously, and decided this was their play. and they played it and and they failed fucking miserably all of them from j j dillon who shit his pants and i should say shit the bed um sharon sadello bill bush the whole the whole group of them you know embarrassed themselves they weren't ready for what they were trying to do and at that

point i knew it bill knew what he did and when bill heard that Brad Siegel and I were speaking again, Bill knew exactly where he stood with me. Anybody that really knows me well knows that I'm a, I forgive people pretty easily for stupid shit, you know, things that don't cost me a lot of money or things that don't hurt my family. Eh, the big scheme of things, yeah, I don't really give a shit. If you offend me, if you piss me off, you call me name, I don't really care, right? But if you try to fuck me, if you try to hurt my family, you try to hurt my family.

family in any way, including financially, then your name goes on a list that it's never going to come off of ever, ever fucking ever. And Bill knew that. He knew me well enough to know that. So he was when when the rumors began to manifest, Bill was long gone. He was he was moving, I think he moved back to like New Orleans or something selling boats. All right, guys, I got to admit, as a small business owner, I paid my fair share of stupid tax along the way. One of the things I did is I trusted my TV and radio rips, who had served me well when it came to buying radio and TV. And then they tried to sell me digital and I fell for it.

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per click, targeted display. Have you heard any of this before? Of course you have. But the people who were pitching that to you, man, they're just trying to make a commission off of you. They don't know what works and what doesn't work. Besides, they find themselves in your office first to sell you radio or TV. This is just

to see if they can squeeze you anymore. What you need is a professional. I mean, listen, if you broke your arm, would you run down to Jiffy Lou for a solution? No. So why would you think that you're going to buy digital from a radio company? Why would you buy internet advertising from a TV company? Go with who you know, like, and trust. And for me, that's Eric Nichols at Envision Marketing Consultants. He helped me with my mortgage company and he can help you too. And I mean no matter what you're looking for, B2B, retail, food and beverage, manufacturing, non-profit, even small business owner.

I got a buddy mine who cleans windows. I got another buddy who's got a restaurant. And everybody I know is talking about and bragging about all the great work they're getting from my guys at Envision Marketing Consultants. This is a true endorsement for me for Eric Nichols, so much so that when you look for envision marketing consultants, check this out, Conrad's Guy.com. And they got this name because so many of my friends would say, hey, call Conrad's Guy. Hey, I wonder what Conrad's Guy's guy's doing.

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March of 99. Your average attendance is 7,934 fans. Fast forward one year. The average attendance is down 76 percent. It's 1,896 fans. But what is that? Crush TV, baby. Crash TV. The dollars are a similar story. Your average gate in March of 99, 178 grand here in March of 2000, 46,000. So it's down 73%. You went from selling out 21st, uh, uh, you went from selling out 21, uh, uh, sending your house shows in March 99, you're selling out exactly zero here. You know what? I hate to interrupt you. I know it's rude, but you cover a lot of ground pretty fast.

What's really interesting is you're comparing March of 99 when business was the shits. Yeah. To 2000 when it's the super shits. I mean, if you go back to March 98 or March 97, you know, look at that cataclysmic kind of graph. That's amazing. but to, you know, to have such a significant drop in attendance, revenue, and every other, you know, quantifiable form of measuring anything, that's significant of a drop from a horrible period of time to even a more horrible period of time in 2000 is even more staggering.

Yeah, as Bruce would say, it would have to improve quite a bit to just be the shits. March of 99, your average rating 4.09. They're down 36.7% here. Your average rating is 2.59. So while ratings are down 36%, you know, your money is down 73% at the gate. So just really, really disaster territory for WCW. We should mention Meltzer would hit the news and say at Dad, DDP and Kevin Nash, the list of wrestlers whose pay has been cut in half with the new WCW policy,

regarding wrestlers on the DL. Of course, that's the disabled list. The reality of this new policy is twofold. First off, it does encourage wrestlers who are taking more time off than they need to economically return to work, and that's good. The bad is it also encourages wrestlers who are really hurt to return as quickly as possible and not mess any time at all while injured, which encourages injuries not healing properly,

and it's guaranteed to make the drug situation and the company worse for that very reason. Page is expected to be back in early April. Nash should be back imminently. Hall is on the DL and there is expected to be some form of punishment delivered to him once he's back on the active roster. Of course, Scott Hall has been battling with some real personal problems, going through a rocky split with his wife of many years,

and he's had some substance issues. He's brand-of-out with the law a little bit. It's a dark time for Scott Hall. Of course, that story has a happy ending. He's pulled the nose up in real life. now. But let's talk about the policy here because for a long time, it looked like guys were trying to sort of gamify the system. Even when you first came into the company, you were told by a WCW stalwart, hey man, these airline tickets, there was a hustle for airline

tickets and other people had a hustle for reimbursements on, uh, on hotels. And the boys realized, hey, if I'm, if I'm hurt, I get paid my full pay and I get to sit home. them. And as a result, I think a lot of people thought, hey, they're starting to abuse that. So they amend the policy here. This isn't a policy change that you made. This has made prior to your return. But you're probably familiar with what the dynamic was there. What did you think of the decision? And is there a foolproof way to get this done? There is no foolproof way. You know, there's always going to be ramifications to any policy. There's always going to be, And this is true, not just, you know, in the wrestling industry, certainly not just true in WCW in 2000, the period of March of 2000, but it's true across the boards.

People will find a way to game anything and take advantage of any situation. It's, I guess, you know, dark side of human behavior in not all cases, but in many cases. there is no, there is no foolproof way to address this situation. Now let's, let's, you know, get on the context train and, you know, head into reality here a little bit. Again, look at WCW in totality and in context, you know, we had to offer guarantees in order to attract top talent. back in the mid-90s. And actually, by the way, this is another narrative item. I guess I should just let it go and hope people figure it out on their own eventually,

but most people will never will because they listen to the narrative and not to the facts. I didn't create guaranteed contracts. I was fucking hired on a guaranteed contract. And when I got to WCW as a C-Squod announcer, all of the talent there had guaranteed contracts. So I didn't invent the shit. I inherited it. But the reason that there were guaranteed contracts is because, unlike the WWF, WCW, didn't have the profit streams, the revenue sources to share revenue. Paperviews were doing the shit.

So how shows were miserable, as we talked about earlier, there was no licensing and merchandising. So if somebody were to come into WCW and Jim Hurd or Bill Watts or Jim Ross or whoever, Dusty Rhodes, were to say, Kip Fry, We're to say, don't worry, kid, come on over to WCW. We're going to give you 25% of the pay-per-view business, 25% of the house shows you're on, 25% of the licensing and merchandising. You know, we're going to really load you up. 25% of fucking nothing is nothing. They didn't have it.

So in order to attract talent or keep talent, what was the only, just the only? There were no other options. What was the only alternative? Guarantee them the money that they, felt they could have made working for somebody else. That's it. Now, fast forward from that point, 91, when I got there, when that was the situation, fast forward now to 96, 97, 98, when all of a sudden there is a bunch of revenue.

But we hadn't kind of restructured our deals. In other words, you know, we didn't, we hadn't gotten to. the point where we were successful enough, long enough, to gradually start rewriting contracts to probably reflect more of what we see in the W.E. Guaranteed contracts, which they're now doing, where you have a downside guarantee. So if you're hurt or for whatever reason you're not being booked, at least you could pay the light bills, right? And I'm exaggerating there. The downside guarantees are substantial. But we hadn't gotten there yet.

And there was a lot of abuse where guys would get hurt and they would take the time off because they take more time off than they really needed or they would fake injuries or they'd work the system, game the system, if you will. That happened a lot. Across the boards. And again, as you pointed out, I was a part of the decision to restructure the. those deals, but I think it was a smart decision. I would have supported it had I been asked because you have to find a way to, you're not going to fix it. You're not going to change it, the it being people gaming the system, but you can certainly mitigate it. You can certainly minimize it. And this was an effort on WCW's part. I'm sure Diana Myers was leading that charge.

I'm guessing, I should say, I don't know it, but I'm guessing she led the charge to restructure those deals. and mitigate the abuse that was taking place. It's such a wild thing to even have to discuss, but that's the wrestling business. Let's talk about the UK tour. This is a different tale. And it's always been fascinating to me that the wrestling companies figure this out. And everybody does it sort of on different timetables.

But when business was down for Vince McMahon in the mid-90s, he could go tour Europe and he would have sold out arenas. where, you know, there'd be sparse crowds here and, and there was even times where the company was running, you know, high school gyms and the like, but then they go overseas and, man, they just, they can't print enough tickets. Fans are just, they have a huge appetite for it. WCW does the same thing here, but years later, TNA would do that. And, and when things looked sort of bleak for impact at different times, they could go abroad, man, the crowd's variety and the gates were big and sort of the same thing here for WCW in 2000. Birmingham drew 11,000,

12 fans. The gate is over 383,000. London is going to draw to 10,450 fans. The gate's more than 375,000. And Manchester is the biggest draw of all 16,318 fans paying 447,000. No surprise here. Brett Hart is the biggest star on the tour, getting huge reactions each time. Um, was that one of the original ideas of of bringing brett over for whatever reason he's always had a huge huge impact in europe one of the biggest draws there and when wcw signs him a lot of people sort of jump to the conclusion that hey man this means they're going to be doing a lot of european stuff because brett would be the top guy for that was that ever discussed or was that in the plans and why don't we see more of it do you think um it was a part of the plan it was a part of the

rationale and to a degree of justification for the amount of money that we paid Brett, knowing that Brett was a commodity in Europe, knowing that over a period of time, we could recoup at least a portion, significant portion of the amount of money that we're paying him because he was such a draw in Europe. But it was a secondary consideration. The primary consideration, going back to why we hired Brett, is when we were faced with creating another primetime show. Not a YouTube show, not a Facebook show, not an internet show, not a show and syndication since YouTube and the internet really weren't viable at that time. YouTube didn't even exist. But we brought bread in primarily to help drive and be the face of the brand for thunder.

That was the original attack. Now, things changed. A lot of things changed. But the primary consideration was, holy shit. We're going to, you know, we've got all these guys. We've been exposing them to a degree over exposing a nitro. We need a fresh, big name, big brand that could be a game changer to help us anchor Thursday. The secondary consideration was Europe.

And keep in mind, we didn't tour Europe as much as WWF did at the time. We didn't really have the relationships with the promoters. had been doing it for a long time. They had a great relationship with some of the top promoters. They had a great TV in a lot of the markets where WCW was still trying to carve out a niche and create a footprint. So our international tour model was nascent. Even in the late 90s, we were just beginning to really develop it and the relationships necessary to pull it off. So it was a secondary consideration, not a primary.

Mary one. Let's keep it going here and talk about, I guess it's worth mentioning that there are some shenanigans that happen on this trip. It feels like anytime you're going to put a bunch of wrestlers on a plane to Europe, and there's going to be alcohol involved, shenanigans are going to happen. Apparently Brian Nobs would shave the wall's eyebrow and some of Flair's eyebrow while both of the guys were asleep Brian Nobs had a reputation for uh for doing this and supposedly once upon a time to make sure that he sort of threw people off the scent

after he went and mowed down a few guys eyebrows he went in the bathroom and chopped off his own so he could say oh it wasn't me look they got me too i love that that's that's just awesome that is that's classic brian nobs oh that's awesome it's the best shit ever it's uh you gotta wonder when those guys wake up are they just looking all over hey where where my eyebrow go where eyebrows are gone i must have left it around here somewhere well let's talk about bread again he's going to pop up on tsns off the record which is a big deal in this era and it's kind of weird because you know for lansberg to be such a big part of of the wrestling discussion and landscape for so long seemingly you never even hear about the guy

anymore but he's doing a sit down here with brett and they discuss a lot of stuff about you know the bad things that have happened in his life going back to the montreal screw job and of course losing his brother owen and now having his head kicked off by bill goldberg at starcate 99 what was your relationship like with tsn and landsberg and what did you think of the off-the-record television show? You know, it was really well done. It was really well-produced. But, okay, I'm being careful here.

I'm editing myself. I've often joked about how Canadians are marks for themselves, but it's kind of not a joke. I mean, Canadians, and it's not a bad thing, by the way, I'm not criticizing it. Canadians are the most nationalistic. I mean, they were doing, you know, make Canada great again before anybody else ever thought of making America great again. Everything that Canadians do, they take a tremendous amount of national pride in.

And I wholeheartedly support that. I am not being critical. So if anybody is listening to me right now and you take it upon yourselves to be, to post something on social media about how Eric Bischoff is burying Canadians, please grab a rusty crowbar and go fuck yourself. Okay. Because that's not what I'm doing. All right.

What I am saying is that culturally, Canadians have a tendency, or at least they did back then, had a tendency to be much more nationalistic about everything Canadian than most Americans. Now, it didn't change. changed the fact, again, not being critical, that the minute any of them started making any

money, they got the fuck out of Canada because the taxes were too high. And they came and they bought nice places in, you know, Los Angeles and Florida and other places. And they became American citizens because it's, you know, cheaper to live here. But nonetheless, when it comes to Canadian pride, it oozes through the pores and orifices. of every Canadian I've ever done business with. And I think that's a good thing. Now, unfortunately,

when I would do a show with Michael Landsberg, and I think I did one or two, everything was from the Canadian point of view. If Redhart said it, it was absolutely the truth. If any Canadian had a point of view, any Canadian professional person had a point of view, it was God.

gospel, regardless of any facts, regardless of the rest of the story or the underlying situation that may have been central to the discussion. None of that matter. The Canadian said it was gospel. So, you know, when I would go on Lensberg, Sherr, when I did, I can't remember if I did it once or twice. Let's just say I did it once because somebody just sent me a clip of it the other day. it was from a very

decided decidedly Canadian point of view and you know it would be adversarial in a fun way I mean I liked work I liked interviewing it

because he was he was in your he's kind of like you remember the first time I came to your house yeah and you you interviewed me in front of your friends and we you just read you

you didn't interview me motherfucker you cross-examined me it was like I was on trial. And by the end of it, because you fed me more beer than any human being should be able to consume. And by the end of it, I felt like a really hammered Tom Cruise, you know, or you can't handle the truth. Give me the truth. I mean, it was horrible. And it, well, horrible, but fun. And that's kind of the way, without the alcohol, that's kind of the way, you know, the interviews with Landsberg would go because he was just so pro-Canadian and anything that came out of

Canada or any opinion that was based in Canada. So it, a lot of it was adversarial and a lot of it was just fun jousting. A lot of it was great television and great radio, which isn't necessarily, you know, a host and a guest, you know, patting each other on the back. You need that, you know, head banging and, you know, conflict and drama and resolution. But for the most part, He was a, he's so pro-Canadian that it was really hard to have a a well-balanced conversation with him. Have better sex with Blue Chew, Blue Shoes, the original brand offering chewable tablets.

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Try your first month of Blue Chew free. Just visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the day's podcast. Let's briefly touch on the Brett Hart Goldberg thing. he said in this interview he's essentially being bitter towards Goldberg and he says that Goldberg closed his eyes and never looked at his direction which is why he kicked him so hard and Brett says he would never hit someone with his eyes closed and later in another interview he would say the professional the wrestling profession is in the toilet I'm looking forward

to running away from it as fast as possible I look forward to a day not only when I can wash my hands of it completely but never have anything to do. with any aspect of it. Of course, he would change his opinion on that, but that just sort of gives you a look into what he's thinking at the time. Recently, Brent Hart sat down with Steve Austin, and they did a broken skull session on the WWE network, and Brett just absolutely buried Goldberg and said that he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, and he was the most dangerous wrestler he ever worked with,

and he heard everybody he ever worked with. Very, very critical of Goldberg. What did you make of his comments? and now oh god i hate i don't hate that's a wrong word i'm really uncomfortable talking about the stuff because i really try to not be negative when it comes to certain people and look this is very personal to me and i think you've gotten a glimpse into this It's not just about Brad, but there's just other people that, you know, we end up talking about or discussing. And I find myself, if I allow, if I allow myself to take a position and really dig in and criticize other people for what they think, what they say, how they behave, I find myself being very negative.

And I guess Mrs. B has taught me, you know, over the course of 35 or 36 years together, that carrying around that negativity is you're only hurting yourself. You're only making yourself miserable. You're only taking away from your own potential. You're only digging yourself into a deeper, darker place that doesn't serve you or the people you love. and I do it. I catch myself on this podcast. I catch myself. Sometimes I'm able to hit the brakes before it goes too far. Sometimes not. But I try.

At least I try every single day not to be negative or allow other people to make me negative. And I didn't see the Brett Stone Cold interview, the most recent one. I'm not going to see it because I made it my mind back in the UK earlier or last year when I, you know, crossed paths with Brett and we found each other sitting at a table with a large group of people, but Brett was, you know, three feet away for me and we're drinking beers. Now obviously Brett and I were, you know, chatting each other up, but we're all part of the communal table, if you will, of guys that were just having fun and enjoying themselves and, you know, telling old stories. And I made up my mind sitting at that table that I was no

longer going to say or react to anything negative that Brett Hart says. Because I think deep down, I believe Brett Hart's a great guy. I really do. I think he, I experienced when I first started doing business with him. I think I know, I think I know who Brett Hart is as a human being. Unfortunately, so many things have happened to Brett, or Brett has allowed things in some cases, obviously not all of them but Brett has chosen to carry that negativity around with him wherever he goes and the minute you put a microphone in front of it you hear it all over

again and it's dark and I choose not to listen to it not because I don't believe Brett not because I don't think that Brett's justified in some respects none of that I'm not I'm not I just I don't want to participate I don't want to be a part of it because it's it's like giving somebody, you know, I do the YouTube thing, 83 weeks with Christy Olson, right? I love doing it. These guys, they're great guys. We do a short 20-minute, you know, YouTube show

where we kind of recap the 83-week show of that week. And I said something to them the other day that I think applies here. You know, it was in the context of, was I ever afraid of, you know, getting in the ring with Stone Cold Steve Austin because of our history? And I said something, and I'm going to repeat it here. And I'm going to preface it by saying, I am not trying to suggest that I ever was or am a tough guy because I'm not. Now, there was a point in my life, you know, my early 20s through my mid 40s where I could go and I loved it. I looked at it as recreation, whether it was a bar fight or bouncing in a bar or, you know, whatever.

I just love the contact, but I'm not that anymore, and I never really was. I wasn't afraid of it, and I enjoyed doing it, but it doesn't mean I was that great at it. I just, my point to it is I was never afraid. They asked me, were you ever afraid of any, you know, rest of you got in the ring with? And my answer was, I've never been afraid, and this is the truth. I've never been afraid of any person, any one person. I've been in some ways intimidated, not physically, not in the sense of a physical confrontation, but, you know, Vince McMahon is an example. Never was afraid of him physically when I called him out and challenged him to a fight, hoping he can show up.

I wasn't afraid. I didn't give a fuck if I got my ass kicked either. I just wasn't afraid. And they asked me why, and I said, because I've always believed that fear is a weapon. And if I'm fearful of someone, I'm giving them a weapon that they can use against me. And I feel the same way about negativity. I've learned to feel the same way about negativity. If I allow someone to make me negative, I'm giving them a tool that they can use against me.

And that's why when I say I don't listen to it and I don't want to get into it and I don't want to be critical of something that someone has said. And I, you know me, you bring up Dave Meltzer, I'm all ready, I'm ready to go off, you know, and there are other people that kind of fall into that category because they affected my life. They affected my business. They affected my money. They go on a list and they're not coming off. But I'm not going to let that happen any more than I can help, you know. And that's why when I say I don't listen to Brett or I don't really want to comment on the negative

things Brett says, it's not because I'm a Brett heartmark. It's not because I'm trying to get myself over. It's not because I don't want to be negative. Well, no, it is because I don't want to be negative. It's because I don't want to allow myself to get into a deep, fucking dark hole that makes me angry the rest of the day. Or it makes me, it gives me the opinion when I cross paths with somebody that I'm already antagonized just by looking at them. I don't want that. I just don't want that my life.

Too much baggage to carry around. Well, let's talk about somebody who's no longer being carried around. I'm going to butcher the name. I'm going to need you to correct me. Jay Haysman, Hossman? Jay Hossman, who headed the pay-per-view division, was fired. No, wait a minute, it was Jay Hassman, I think. Okay, well, either way, Jay is, he's not here.

Now, Meltzer would say there's been heat on him ever since he was the one who got the blame for the screw-up, Halloween havoc in 1998, when WCW increased the show to three and a half hours instead of the usual two hours, 47 minutes. And somehow most of the cable companies never got the word, leading to most of the company's cutting off the Goldberg page title match. So Jay's out. We don't hear that name a lot here. What can you tell us about Jay?

Nick Lambrose hired Jay to, I think to oversee pay-per-view and marketing. I think the Sharon Sadello had transitioned to international at that point. I could be wrong about that. I have to go back and try to find some kind of that. documentation, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. And Nick Lambrosos brought Jay in. Jay came from, I don't remember what his credentials were, but he had a resume, he had a pretty good resume.

He had worked for some large networks and cable systems previous to WCW. So on paper, you know how this goes, Conrad. On paper, he looked like a great candidate. it however he's the guy that created the cat's ass logo that's just simple right he did that was that was his he created the cat's ass logo you know what i'm talking about right talking about the redesign wcw logo in the year 2000 maybe 99 but it's the thing that yeah yeah it's not a good look and and nobody has ever liked it at all ever anywhere except maybe he him no and look good guy by the way he he was in over his head um made some poor decisions

didn't have enough confidence to follow through the way he should have followed through um but mostly just over his head and bit off more than he could chew and he became overwhelmed and rather than fight his way out of it or be honest about it he just kind of clamped up went into a hole and let the shit fall in all around him. He ended up over T&A. Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Jarrett hired him. Yeah. So he had life after death for a little while, but yeah, he was originally part of the old

Jerry Jarrett, Jeff Jarrett, T&A experiment. He convinced them that he convinced, I believe, now you'd have to talk to Jeff about this. But I'm pretty sure if memory serves me even. remotely correctly, Jay Hasman convinced Jeff and Jerry, Juret, that pay-per-view companies would sign on for a weekly pay-per-view with no television to support it. That should tell you everything you need to know right there. Well, I thought the name sounded familiar because I've always been curious about the early days of T&A, and I read Jerry's book, and a quick Google search shows that

he uh well he faced and he pled guilty way back when in 2007 the two felony charges of second degree grand larceny and first degree falsification of business records uh this according to a report that i found online but the idea is he's working in the pay-per-view department for the very early days of t and a and he's claiming the first pay-per-view did 80,000 buys well in reality it did 25,000 and subsequent weeks did 15 and 10 uh the entire time he was reporting bigger numbers so they were making business decisions uh headed a different direction so pay-per-view professional wrestling was the downfall of jay uh allegedly let's talk about goldberg muster would say the tentative idea for goldberg's

in ring return is now may he's going to appear on the april 10th denver uh nitro but only for the live house and uh alex barvess on wrestling observer dot com spoke to goldberg and said he he was really annoyed by internet reports that he wasn't supportive of Bill Bush and the current creative. He says the only reason his return is being delayed is that he's dropped 27 pounds and he needs about six weeks of training to get his look back. But he is going to be doing some press tour stuff for WCW. It's an interesting thing where, you know, it's sort of all over the place, you know,

who's in, who's out, whether it's DDP or Goldberg or Kevin Nash. And as a result, WCW is leaning on what they. know they can trust. And that's Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair. Let's get to uncensored. The show starts with some video packages. They're saying this is Sting versus Lex Lugar for the last time ever. It's Sid versus Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World title.

And of course, Hulk Hogan and Rick Blair in the Yapapai Strap match. And then we got backstage and we see Team Package, which is Lex Lugar, Rick Flair, and Miss Elizabeth. They're shown entering the arena all jazzed up about tonight's show. and we see Ron and Don Harris as tag-alongs for Double J. What did you think of that group? The Harris Boys and Jeff Jarrett is like their own little click here. I know I'm probably tainted a little bit,

but it just didn't click for me. And again, I have nothing. I have more respect for Jeff Jarrett now than I ever have in my life. I've gotten to know him better as a person. He's gone through more as a human being than a lot of us ever have. He's come out on top. He's been challenged. He's faced horrible things in his life.

And he's come out to be a great human being and a very talented human being, a valuable part of WWE, in my opinion. And even when I worked with him in TNA, our relationship was cordial, but distant. I would refer, we were superficially friendly in TNA. But nonetheless, when it came to, there was a period of time when Bruce was working at TNA and so was I and Bruce had to take a little bit of time off and I kind of stepped in for a minute. and I would always depend on Jeff as an agent to communicate what we were trying to get out of a match because I think Jeff, Jared, as a producer, under the right circumstances, asterisk, probably one of the best I've seen. I'm sure there's better. I know there are, but I haven't worked directly with them, so I'm not criticizing anybody else. else or not paying homage to others.

But I've watched Jeff. I watched Jeff communicate, especially to younger talent. Jeff really knows psychology. Jeff really understands timing and pace and how to get the audience, well, it's just psychology, but how to get the audience to react the way you want to react, the way you want them to react and when. I think the world of Jeff as a producer, as a talent, I'm sorry, Jeff. I hope you're not listening to this, but if you are, I don't mean this with anything but honesty and love.

Eh, just never that guy. Call it size, call it delivery, look, whatever. Certainly not his work. Job was a great mechanic. He was a great storyteller in the ring. But when it came to the on-camera presence, it was never that nine out of ten or ten out of ten, it was always a six-er. a seven, in my opinion, not taking anything away from his in ring ability. But in terms of being a character that was compelling or interesting, just for me, it was never there. And that's

just me. Maybe that's a flaw on my part. So when you ask me, what did I think of it, especially because of the relationship with Rousseau and Jared at this point, he was being shoved down the audience's throat. They weren't buying him. We'll get it. into it more detail when we when we cover their match on this show but man you talk about a square peg in a round hole and bad casting in this particular scene or in this particular show and again we'll talk about it more detail in the match but this is about as bad of casting as you could possibly come up with and i and i think it hurt jep i think over pushing jeff actually worked against him if if it would have been more organic if they wouldn't have tried so hard to get him over if you

wouldn't have tried so hard to get himself over, he probably would have gotten over more. But man, when you start cramming it down people's throats, I don't care. I've used this analogy before. Conrad, you and you and Megan took,

you know, Lori and out for sushi. You know how much I love sushi. But if you cram that down my throat, I'm going to gag on it. And that's kind of what I think happened here. Yeah, this whole era of WCW,

it feels like I wish we could all just control, alt, delete, and just start over. Let's keep going here. Let's talk about the first match here on the show. We've got the artist formerly known as Prince I Akeh, retaining the WCW Cruiserweight title over Psychosis, 7 minutes and 22 seconds. Meltzer would write to show the elementary lack of planning in the pre-match clips to build the match,

the show to finish where psychosis was actually pinned by Kazayoshi, as opposed to the match where he beat Kaz Hayashi. Tremendous. Only in WCW do we show a highlight reel to pump a guy up when he's actually. losing. Hard knocks Chris Candido is going to come out and do a little bit of commentary here, ringside. We're trying to introduce him to this audience. He's probably familiar with his work from the WWF and ECW, but now he's coming in here to WCW. This match is a bit of a miss. There is one point where Hove and 2

Guerrera is getting his ass kicked by Paisley. Mark Madden starts screaming cat fight, which is what they do on ECW, but it's not with two ladies. It's with Hoveintude. Uh, the unbelievable top rope leg drop from psychosis. I don't know how that guy's still walking, but he is. And, uh, they miss the finish. They go back and do it again. It gets half a star in the observer. And this is, don't get me wrong. I love psychosis. You know how I feel about fucking Prince Ikea, but this is definitely not the, the cruiserweight bang that we're used to, uh, for the last, what, five years in WCW at this point. No, because the, the, the whole.

design model presentation of the cruiserweight division really began to unwind and kind of just dissipate where there was nothing really unique or distinctive about the cruiserweight division at this point and that's partly you know bad creative it's lack of discipline and not the least of the three the talent themselves the cruiserweight talent themselves didn't want to be cruiser weights. They wanted the opportunity to main event. They wanted to be, they all wanted to be stars and they felt like, I don't want to say in all cases, but in many of the conversations

that I had at the time, and subsequently a lot of the stuff that I've read, you know, that others who are in the Cruiserweight Division talk about, about this period of time is they didn't want to be locked into the cruiserweight kind of category. And as a result, the presentation changed, the styles. changed the booking the creative changed and by this time in 2000 the cruiserweight division was just another division that didn't mean anything it's it's kind of like what was the what was the division

that t and a had it was kind of a derivative of cruiserweight's the ex division the x division didn't mean a fucking thing right it didn't mean anything there was nothing unique about it and when i first got to t and i don't want to go off on this when i first got to the t and i don't want to go off on this when i first got to the day, one of my first questions when I got more involved and creative is, what is the ex-division? Describe it to me. Well, the only explanation is there is no explanation. Are you fucking kidding me?

So the only rules are there are no rules. So that's just like every other batch on the show, right? I mean, there's no weight category. There's no distinction in style. There's no distinction in rules. There's no distinction in presentations. we're just calling it the X division to try to convince people it's different it's not it's just like fucking everything else with the same guys that you see in every other matches that's what

the cruiserweight division became in 2000 yeah it's a shame too because it man it was such good stuff in the back we've got mean jean interviewing bam bam bigelow about his upcoming match with the wall and bam bam has revealed that he was the wall's mentor and the man responsible for bringing the big guy of WCW. And next up, we get Norman Smiley in full kiss garb tagging with Kissed demon here, taking on Lane and Rave. They only get three minutes and 41 seconds.

The really hot part of the match is when Mrs. Hancock comes out and woo, she's all the reason I need to hate David Flair for the rest of my life. What did you think of the match? Uh, it. I didn't like any of it. Dude, this sucks. This should not be on pay-per-view.

This is like, it's a thunder shit. It was so fucking stupid. I mean, the demon character should have just been retired as soon as it became apparent that we weren't going to do a long-term deal with Gene Simmons a kiss. That was the reason for the demon character in the first place. We didn't necessarily have a demon character and we tagged in Gene Simmons. the demon character was created specifically and solely because of the longer-term strategy and plan that we had in place or thought we were going to have in place with Gene Simmons. Once that deal fell apart, once we were no longer going to be working directly with Gene and Kiss

to create this kind of army of just demon-like characters, once that thing died, that character should have died. and it didn't and it was just so bad and to have Norman smile and I got to admit now as hokey as this match was as much as I didn't like it except for the obvious Miss Hancock portion of it it made me laugh but I'm not sure it was the kind of humor or the kind of levity that you want I laughed I think because it was so ridiculous and I'm not sure ridiculous should be a part of the formula it was just stupid listen if you enjoy this show I know that you love nostalgia and when I think about nostalgia for my

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in grocery stores and in delicious flavors like marshmallow and chocolatey peanut butter. My personal favorite is double chocolate. What are you waiting for? Go get $5 off your next order right now at magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks. Or look for MagicSpoon on Amazon and in your nearest grocery store. That's magicspone.com slash 83 weeks. Magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks. magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks you'll get $5 off magic spoon yeah it's uh it's not great negative

one star in the observer it is fun to see norman smiley have so much fun and uh and i appreciate the him dressing up and the kiss garb and all that as a as a funny ha ha but i don't know that i really want to pay money to see it on a paper view no and and unfortunately and i think Norman Smiley, you know, again, we all often talk about this guy being underrated or this woman being underrated. I think Norman Smiley certainly falls into the most underrated category from a technical, technical point of view. He had all the skills and the physicality necessary to go out there and work a great match with almost anybody. I think his character was emerging, and I think there was probably, this is the part that when I see these matches with Norman,

really feel like, you know, we all, including myself, missed a boat with him because the potential was there. He was a lot like Ernest Miller, you know, came along towards a tail end, didn't really get the attention or the opportunity that he probably deserved to really exploit what could have been. And I think much like Ernest Miller, Norman had the potential of having a really, really great character. But, you know, they planted the seed. They threw a little water on it, grew a little bit, and then, you know, the bottom fell out at WCW, and we never really saw it emerge. But the problem with this match like this and the guy like Norman Smiley is once you go

out there and have this kind of a match, it's really hard for people to take you seriously. I mean, it takes it because, not that it can't be done, but it's a whole different kind of effort to all of a sudden, you know, it's kind of like disco inferno. You know, we often talk about, laugh about, make fun of, have, not make fun up, but have fun with the Disco Inferno character, but from a technical point of view on the mic, and we'll see it a little bit on this pay-per-view when he's in commentary, on the mic as a character, he played his character extremely well, so well that he'll never shake it. And he's still living with it today.

You know, people don't take Glenn Gilberti seriously because they didn't take the character Disco Inferno seriously. And it's part of life in the wrestling business. But Norman falls in that same category for me. Tremendous stuff in the backstage area. We see a fired up Booker T telling Billy Kidman that he's going to have his back. He should have it. And if not, just go away.

And then we see David Flair and Crowbar sporting neck braces after taking a beating at the hands of the wall on Thunder. And Daphne is, uh, is having to promise that she won't go out there when the wall is in the ring. And of course she promises, but then after Flay and, and crowbar leave she reveals the sheer fingers crossed the whole time oh my god yeah then we get a three-year-old wrote this let me get bam bam bigelow and the wall they're going to go to a dq three minutes and 26 seconds melzer would say the highlight was wall splitting his pants uh they're

going to brawl to the back where wall would choke slam bigelow through a table it gets a dud rating but after the match glare and crowbar attacked the wall and uh they carry bigelow out on a after a choke slam through a table, which I have a couple of monitors set up here to make a little miniature explosions, like, you know, computer monitors. Just a little hokey. Just a little. What was the wall's real name? Jerry Toot. Jerry Toot.

I never, I never understood why there was fascination with him. I mean, decent worker, big guy. but man I put a lot into him as a character and I just never and certainly in watching this show back a couple days ago to prepare for this podcast

I again I was just shaking my head and go what what what why why did they do this? I have no idea what the fascination was with that character yeah it was I don't know I mean did you prefer like when you had renegade v. Steve Austin

that was your that was that was that was your father-in-law ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha come on man we're just we're just spitting facts here we're spitting truth come on in the back brian nobs yells to mean jean about how crowbar and bam bam are the two gossiest performers he'd ever seen and brian nobs dedicates his upcoming hardcore title match to uh the wall's latest victims then we see this hardcore title match it's brian nobs and he's going to win the hardcore title from three count that's right three guys six minutes and 51 seconds you know come on but here's a deal

here's the deal conrad all three of those guys if they stepped out a truck scale together didn't weigh as much as brian nobs left ass cheek it's not like yeah three guys but There are three little guys. Now, that being said, part of it in jest, I thought this is one of the best hardcore matches I can remember watching. Really? You hate hardcore matches. I fucking hate them.

They're junk, garbage, lack of creativity, overused, over promoted, fucking ugly to watch. Nobody looks good. It's just beating each other up with fucking pie pans and broom. sticks and shit and i fucking hate all of them except for this one i like this one you know why i like this one because brian nobs brought his shit out to the ring in a fucking wheelbarrow that's right he didn't reach under the ring and come up with a goddamn fire extinguisher he came to the ring with it in a freaking wheelbarrow that's the way you bring weapons to the ring you don't look under the ring and see what the fucking tooth fairy left for you like you lost your eye tooth when you're a little

kid that's bullshit that takes me out of the moment what made me realize is the opening part of this match is that it had the potential of being a stellar not just a good a stellar hardcore match because it was the first logical thing i've ever seen in a hardcore match you bring your shit to the ring and a wheelbarrow now that being said three count did a great job a fucking great job all three of them they did such a great job brian sold his ass for off for these guys he was stiff with him he beat the fuck out of him and they stood up to it and they came back with their own shit i think this is for my taste just me little old me sitting here cody wyoming all by my lonesome i love this hardcore match i encourage you w we network go back watch it tell me if i'm right tell me if

i'm wrong tell me if this is not one of not the one of the one of the best hardcore matches you've ever seen let's calm down and all that come on it's a coffee brother it's the coffee uh backstage we see mean jean standing with harlem heat 2000 um we've got stevie ray big tea the former omid johnson we got j big former clarence mason and we've got cash it was four by four the no limit soldiers and then we see a brief shot of a mysterious limo that had arrived earlier and uh now we got booker tea and Billy Kidman taken on Harlem Heat 6 minutes, 59 seconds.

Meltzer would say this was probably the greatest match the New Harlem Heat will ever have. They mainly got heat on Kidman. Big T. tried to hurdle the guardrail and close line Kidman and almost made it. It gets a star in a quarter. Of course, Booker and Billy Kidman pick up the win. I got to say, man,

anytime I see New Harlem Heat, it's automatic fast forward button for me. I ain't into it. That was a shit. You know what? I did like, though, I was going to mention this last, I think we saw Mr. Biggs last week, and I failed to comment on him. What a phenomenal talent.

Yeah. What a way, phenomenal. He was so good. He did color commentary on this match. It's like, I don't know, man, he was like part Dusty Rose, part superstar Billy Graham, you know, threw a little Martin Luther King in there on a couple, with a couple comments. I mean, he was so good, and he was good. He wasn't just a good character for the sake of being a character.

He didn't just have a good rap. He could tell a story, and he could set up a story. I don't know whatever happened to Mr. Biggs. I think he was an attorney in real life. He's probably practicing law, you know, living large somewhere. But, man, as a commentator, as a manager, wow, he was really good. he was good he first showed up in the wdvf a couple of years prior to this and uh he was always entertaining over there too and you're exactly right after wcw's run with him came to an end he

went back to uh being a practicing attorney and i think he's down in del ray beach so life is good for mr clarence mason go clearance if i'm ever in del ray beach you get pulled over i'm calling you brother let's keep it moving here let's talk about the next match we've got vampiro and david finley it's a false count anywhere match i'm unlike you and i actually like the presentation of the vampiro character i can appreciate that it's something different and unique and i can see where it would definitely fit in and i'm just a mark for everything finley ever did he just looks like a legit badass because he is a legit badass and uh this was not the best match ever but uh it's it's fun enough for what it is two and a quarter stars there is uh some garbage wrestling

they are going to go into the men's room uh they're going to tease that finley is going to throw vampiro off the balcony and um he's going to use the nail in the coffin for the pen vampiro picks up the wind two and a quarter stars what'd you think i i didn't like it at all for the reasons that you touched on the garbage kind of stuff Look, anytime you go back, I don't care who it is, how talented someone is. You go backstage, and it's why I never, I didn't like to overdo the backstage elements, especially, you know, the brawling, because it never looks as good as it does in the ring. You know what I mean?

You don't, the stage is quite different. The floors are slippery. You know, there's nothing to work off of. You can't bounce off a concrete wall like you can't off the ropes, you know. It's just, it looks. it looks like a bad bar fight in a good scene it looks like a bad bar fight

I like pull-a-parts you know if there's enough people around to keep it from actually getting so physical that it looks like a bad bar fight then I'm cool with it because that builds anticipation what's going to happen when these two guys get in the ring

or these two women get in the ring but when it's just brawling as a part of a match backstage it just looks so horseshit I can't I can't describe how much I dislike it. Now, I'm like you, you know, fit to me.

And it's not just because he's a badass, and he is, you know, very much so. But he's a smart, talented, and classy guy. Love fit in a lot of ways, but this match did not serve him well. As far as Vampiro, again, I've said this before, it had this kind of raveness darkness to it. It didn't really stand for anything. It wasn't relatable to the vast majority of the people. And it wasn't unique.

You know, at the end of this match, you'll see Sting. And I think it's, no, it's not until the Sting Lugar match, but you'll see, you know, Vampiro and Sting come together. It's like, okay, well, they must be cousins. It's not, they look so much alike that there was no real, nothing that really made one stand apart from the other in that particular scene at the end of the Sting Lugar match. But Vampiro, here's where I think they lost it with Vampiro

on this show. He should have never been allowed to talk. His promos backstage, he sounded like the guy I was talking to at Walmart two days ago when I was asking him what time they opened. he is he his delivery was so I don't know below average and I don't mean in terms of articulation or stringing a sense together he just sounded like a guy you were talking to a jiffy loop there was nothing compelling about that backstage dialogue nothing if anything it took away from the character if he would have just stood there and stared at the camera you would have

created kind of a sense of urgency or mystery or some emotion that would have made me feel like mine. I guess I can't wait until I see what happens when this guy gets in the ring. When I listen to Vampiro's promo from backstage, I can't even call it a promo. When I listen to his dialogue from backstage, it was like, fuck, I'm going to go eat a hot dog. I am not watching this shit. It was horrible. Not a criticism of Vampiro.

Whoever produced it, whoever wrote it for him, whoever allowed it to happen. should have thought twice because they allowed him to kill the mystique of his own character the vampiral character should have had mystique and did for a while

this he drove a stake through his own heart did you catch that he drove a stake through his own heart he being vampiro wow I'm good at this that's why I like doing these shows

with you I can put myself over and have fun doing it Well, you know what? I wish I could give the same endorsement for the Harris brothers. They're going to win the tag titles from Big Vito and Johnny the Bull. It's half a star. Meltzer would write this match was back by popular demand after what a rousing success

it was in England. Either Disco or Mark Madden made mention of how one of the team members was a guy just out of the power plant, which is true. But I thought he was a mob guy working for Chuck Zito's family. It's a boring mess. What do you think of the finish? where we see the referee take a look at the big screen and all that shit all that nonsense i hated everything about it you know and um i made up my mind when i watched the show back

to prepare for this podcast i made up my mind within the opening 10 seconds that i was going to hate it and nothing convinced me otherwise um to have jeff jarratt my harris brothers coming out to NWO music. Yeah, they're a part of the NWO silver here. We had the black and white and then we had the black and red. And then we had the Latino world order. Well, now we've got, uh, it was supposed to be Brett Hart sort of leading this group, the black and silver.

And with Brett sort of on the shelf, Jeff Jarrett's the guy. So now, yeah, the Harris voice come out to the NWO music and you're like, what the fuck is this? It was so. I mean, that's when I, I mean, nothing, they could have had, you know, Luthes in there with, you know, Vern Gagne and Nick Bokwinkle, Kurt Henning and, you know, a big four way or whatever. And, and that still wouldn't have made me like this match. I mean, it was just so bad and ill-conceived. And this is what I meant earlier in this episode when we were talking about Jeff and force feeding.

And, you know, it's like, let's try every give. Let's see, we got a guitar. We got these goofy fucking shooting. glasses. We got the two muscle guys. I know. Let's throw some NWO music in there, too. Another NWO, which, by the way, had already started, it was fucking, it had Rigamortus by this time. I mean, they'd taken it off. They disconnected it from life support. Oh, no, they didn't, because they actually kept trying to revive a dead corpse. But it was dead. It should have been pronounced dead. It should have been buried by this point. But no, let's put Jeff Jared and the Harris

brothers in it let's have them come out to NWO music and oh by the way let's make sure they don't wear any NWO shirts let's put a slap nuts shirt on Jeff Jarrett and have the Harris brothers come out with basically wearing all black to NWO music it was just it was just so ill-conceived creatively and again it's not a criticism to the individual talent there but I guess it is because they should have spoke up there there wasn't any spy in BCW at this point. Nobody would have pushed back on him. Somebody should have raised their hand and said, well, this is fucking stupid. If we're coming out to NWO music, shouldn't, shouldn't there be some representation of NWO and our merchandise? Not that you're trying to sell it, but you're trying

to establish it. You're trying to do a call back to the audience. Trying at least, and I'm not supporting the fact that they did it. I think it was a dumb move to even have any of these guys associated with the NWO. But this is a perfect example, and this is more specific to Jeff than the Harris Brothers. Harris brothers could, I could see. If I was casting the original NWO idea and these guys came to me from a casting agent, I could see that, you know, I could see it, these two big, you know, lookalikes, big guys, dangerous, intimidating.

I get that. Jeff Jarrett and his shooting glasses and a slap nuts t-shirt coming out to NWO music? That's like putting fucking Pee Wee Herman in an action movie. I just don't get it. What did you think of, I'm glad you mentioned, the shooting glasses. I always thought they were like the Bob Bila specials. No, because those would be clear. That yellow glass is originally for, I don't want to say originally, but they're used often in, you know,

sporting clay is shooting or skeet or trap because it, it makes the target more clear in sunlight. I look to me they're shooting glasses but whatever they're fucking ugly should not wear them to the ring not a good look for anybody they'll never copy that it's a bad idea you seem to know a lot about trapping have you been to a trap house before a trap house I've been trapped shooting

I've never been inside the little house that throws a clay targets if that's what you're talking about okay why what's the trap huh what is a trap house nothing i was just you know trying to make conversation man is there anything better than when something fits you perfectly that's what it's all about at the perfect gene if you haven't already what are you waiting for why haven't you tried the most comfortable jeans i've ever tried i absolutely love the perfect gene and you will too because the perfect gene has redefined

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That's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene. com. When you use our promo code 83 weeks. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. fuck your khakis and get the perfect jean we see another shot of the mysterious limousine fit finley cuts the backstage promo which he claims that vampiro has finally earned his respect effectively settling their feud once and for all uh and then we see thank god yeah thank you

then we see mean jean interview lex luger and rick flair elizabeth looking on and they're promising to destroy their upcoming opponents hogan and sting let me get a little video package that's sort of detailing the rivalry between Terry Funk and Dustin Rhodes. And then we go back to Maine Jean, who's doing an interview with Dustin Rhodes, claiming that this is going to be Funk's retirement match, number 912, and he promises to end Terry Funk. It's a bull rope match. It goes nine minutes and one second.

It's really, um, I don't know. Listen, I give Terry Funk a pass. I think the worst Terry Funk match is still better than a lot of others. I don't know why the guy entertains me so much. he just walks through the curtain and I'm in a good mood and here he is coming out doing the whole chicken routine with the chicken like a real one and uh I fucking think he's entertaining doing anything so I enjoyed it but I'm sure that this was probably not for everyone you included no I I dug it too because like you I look at it in

context you know when when they announced this video when he announced this match I knew it was coming up pay-per-view when I was rewatching it for for this podcast. I knew what to expect. I did not expect, you know, a Dave Meltzer five-star match. I did not expect, you know, a Lucha Libra style match. I expected a Terry Funk match at this stage in Terry Funk's career, and we got it. I laughed my ass off. When he hit, when he hit Dustin Rhodes in the face with a raw chicken, I almost pissed myself. I just thought it was funny. You know, when whoever it was came to the ring at the finish, dressed up like a chicken, and they had chicken sound effects in the background?

I don't know. I was entertained. I thought it was funny. Can't take it seriously, but said it a million times. I'll say it again. You know, you need this kind of match to,

now unfortunately, there weren't enough of serious, intense, believable, compelling, you know, matches on this card that actually needed any balance because some of it was just stupid

and uninteresting. but you know in a perfect world you've got a balance of the type of matches where at some point you need some comedy relief with with established characters and this match could have been that unfortunately everything that happened before it was goofy enough on its own that this didn't probably have the impact it could have had but i i dug it i dug it i did too i'm a big fan of terry falk i don't think he can do anything that's not entertaining if you tried. But they're going to try to entertain us in the next match, but man, this feels a lot different. We're going to get a look at the, the rivalry between Sting and Lex Lugar on a video package. These guys have been,

uh, I don't know, one way or another link to each other, their entire WCW runner, so it seems. You would think this is going to be an awesome match. It's not. It's half a star.

Seven minutes and one second. It's a lumberjack match. And the idea is all the lumberjacks have casts on their arm. Every lumberjack that comes out has a cast on their arm. What the fuck? Is this a fever dream? No, it's Vince Rousseau. What, he's not even here?

That's Ed Ferrara. All I know is Eric Bischoff is saying, not it. Not it. Vampiro and Jimmy Hart are going to stick around. Rick Flair and Liz come out as Flair is interfering, taking some bumps. Liz hits Sting in the shoulder with the bat, heart drags Elizabeth away, Lugar racked sting, Vampiro hits Lugar with the bat. Sting scores the pin with the Scorpion death drop.

And most would say this match did have one redeeming value in the Sting and Vampiro came together at the end and were treated as equals. So it should make Vampiro a player half a star. I don't know that Lex Lugar was capable of I don't know if Sting was motivated here and I don't know that Lex Lugar was capable of putting on a great match on pay-per-view here in 2000 for whatever reason it just feels like you know the wrestling business sort of advanced and Lex Lugar was still 1987 I think that's unfair Lex I felt the same way about Lex when I first got to WCW I found him to be really uninteresting yeah he was Jack

up. He was a big guy and, you know, physical specimen. But when I came to his work in the ring, eh, eh, nothing really special. When Lex left, went to WWF, came back to WCW, he was highly motivated. And he was very capable of having good, if not great matches, depending on who he was working with. He didn't have the, he didn't have the, I would say, the broad skill set of a guy like Rick Flair or a Ricky steamboat or an Eddie Guerrero to have a great match with almost anybody, right? But when you put him in there with the right guy and he could tear the house out, in my opinion, he could go.

But Lex was also a little bit of a challenge to motivate if he didn't feel it. And again, not a criticism of Lux. I love Lex Lugar, by the way. Another guy that I have a tremendous amount of respect for. He's really turned his life around, kind of an inspiration to me at this point. but at the time Lex had a pretty particular view of things

and he either felt it or he didn't and he wouldn't bitch he wouldn't be a bitch about it he'd go out and he'd have a match and it was the best match he could have with a certain individual under the circumstances but he didn't feel it but if you put him in a match with someone

that he did feel that did motivate him he could have a great match he could be a great character And we saw it, you know, go back and look at some of the Lex's stuff from 97, 98. It was good shit. But in this particular match, I don't think Sting was motivated. I don't think Lex was motivated. I think they were all going through the motions.

And it was reflective on this pay-per-view. Let's talk about the next. How about, what more, before we go? How about Tank Abbott walking out? I don't know where. No rhyme. no reason no story no connected tissue walks out i'm thinking as i'm watching this back to prepare for this podcast okay tank abbott's going to get in the middle of this at least this could be interesting

it'll be a shit show but it could be an interesting shit show and he goes out and knocks out doug dillinger and walks to the back oh okay dougs now a character we're going to have a doug dillinger tank abbot match next week what the fuck yeah it's weird dude it's weird when they all braw to the back. It's super lame, actually. But Ahmed Johnson has nobody to brawl with, so he just walks to the back. It's just fucking terrible. Next up, Sid Vicious retains the world title, beating Jeff Jarrett in seven minutes and

36 seconds. Spelts would say, Jared did as good a job as humanly possible, sit at this stage, and it really wasn't bad early on. Eventually, Mark Johnson runs out. He's got Hulk Hogan limping behind him. Hogan saves the day, beating up Jared and the Harris twins, who had been interfering quite frequently and then he gives jareth the leg drop put sit on top of the pen after the mat scott stuyner comes out and cracks a balsa wood guitar over hogan's back star in a quarter

and now we're right into uh hulk hogan and rick flair i got to tell you as a wrestling fan man growing up half of what i was most hyped about was a hulk hogan entrance and i feel like i'm sort of robbed of that in this i know it's a minor thing but like i want to see the big Hulk Hogan entrance and we didn't really get to see that here. Flair's going to come out immediately after Hogan got conked and we're going to start the match here, 14 minutes and 28 seconds. Hogan is going to sell for a couple of seconds and then he starts making his comeback. Flair's bleeding and Meltzer says Flair's work in this match was the best that's been in a long

time, but because his body is showing his age, people aren't taking him seriously. seriously when he took bumps for sting wearing the t-shirt he looked cool his work is good but he's got to wear a t-shirt now or fans can't get past the body and to miss him at first sight i thought that was an interesting observation of course uh david melzer has always been a big rick flair fan obviously i am too but uh i thought flair was working hard here but i do see what dave is saying and the more modern fan is going to expect a certain aesthetic look and perhaps that's not where Rick is. The match got two and a quarter stars.

You can imagine what it's going to look like here. Hogan's going to do the high kick on Lugar just before the finish. And even though this is a, a Yapapod strap match where you're supposed to touch all the corners, they don't do that. Instead, they're going for false finishes. And the announcers are trying to say, hey, I don't know why he's doing that.

The only way to win is to go to all four corners. And then the referee counts the fucking pin. So afterwards when they realized, oh shit, it was a strap match, he still drags flares carcass around and touches all four posts. What do you think of the match? You know, as far as a stip goes, not great, but the actual work itself, not the worst. Let me put it to you this way. If I was a member of the Yavapai Indian tribe living in Camp Verde, Arizona, which by the way I've been to and spent some time with it, Montezuma's Castle and things like that, that because I love Native American history and culture and all that.

But if I was a member of the Yavapai tribe, I would sue for referring to this as a Yavapai strap match. This match was so ill-conceived and poorly executed that I think there should be damages of some way, some shape, or form that the Yavapai tribe could collect on. This is really bad. It has nothing to do. well, I shouldn't say this. I was going to say it has nothing to do with Rick Flair and Hall Cogan,

but guess who was laying this match out, Rick Flair and Hall Cogan. So to have that strap match and to not have a, basically you're having a match that, this is just like any other match only you're strapped together. Well, then why call it a Yavapai strap match? Why lay out the rules? Why create the outline of the framework

for a match that you're not going to follow anyway? I know, it's just, it was desperation. It, you know, desperation, not really thinking, not taking the time to think anything through. It was indicative, I think, of the dysfunction, creatively, business-wise, communication-wise, and every other way of WCW at this point. But it was, I felt bad for both the guys, you know, I'm sure it looked good on paper for a minute until they started laying a match out and forgot that they were supposed to get all four corners and just decided, man, we don't need to do that. So it didn't serve anybody well, didn't serve the pay-per-view, didn't serve Alco, and certainly didn't serve Rick Flair either.

What did you think when you watch this from home, did you just say, oh, fuck this, man? No, I mean, you know, it wasn't on my watch. So I wasn't beating myself up as I sometimes do or oftentimes do. We should, God, I wish I could go back and, you know, if I would have only, only known then what I know now kind of thing. And it's hard to escape that, you know, when your fingerprints are all over something that sucked. And my fingerprints were all over a lot of things that sucked, as well as some things that were pretty good.

But, you know, on this one, I didn't have that, oh, my gosh, why did I do that feeling, which I was grateful for? But it just made me feel bad for how far WCW had fallen by March of 2000. really that's about the only feeling i guess i had it's like man what a shame just a shame i meant when you were watching it back in 2000 you know before you came back you see where oh oh no i was thinking about calling brad seagull and say you know you and i discussed money and we agreed but i think i'm going to have to charge you more thank you that's what i was going back going back going back to what i said in the first part of the show once the audience makes up their mind i

don't like your product it's really hard to get them to come imagine this there's a another, I like to give, you know, metaphors. You open up a restaurant, you call it the nitro restaurant. Forget about the fact that there actually was one at one point. Las Vegas, that sucked. But just imagine that that never happened. You open up the nitro, you know, restaurant in downtown Huntsville, and you promote the hell out of it.

And it gets rave reviews. And everybody from all the other restaurants, they quit going to those restaurants and they come to your restaurant. And they love it for a couple of years. Can't get a bad meal, can't get a bad review. Everything's fucking awesome. You're riding high. You go out and buy yourself a new truck.

You get a nice big house on a frickin' hell overlooking the valley down below, just like in a song, Billy Jack. You just, you're up there. Things are going great. And all of a sudden, people start getting sick. They get food poisoning. They go home after eating in your restaurants. They have the shits for three days.

It's horrible. All the bad press you get kills your business. So you figure out, okay, I'm going to hire a new cook, I'm going to hire a couple new waitresses and have them run around a bikinis and we'll put some new pictures on the wall. You know what hard it would be to get people to come back to that restaurant? Yeah. You'd be better off starting a new restaurant and calling it something else. And that's kind of what WCW did here. It was so bad they had lost so much audience.

And this match is a good example. Why, that had I really been as aware then as I am now, I either wouldn't have gone back because I would have known before I even tried. And this is a flaw in my own personality. I think I can do anything. I think I'm capable of anything. Truth is, I'm not. But I think I am.

And oftentimes I find out the hard way. It's just I've been that way since I was born. And at this point, when I was talking about with Brad about coming back in March of 2000, And in my heart, I believe I could find a way because it's just the way I'm wired. I've learned that there are some things I'm just not capable of doing. And this, if the, if the 65-year-old Eric Bischoff would have been able to talk to the, what year is, is this 2000 hold? Was I in 2000? I don't remember 50, 45, 50?

20 years, however you old now, I'll take 20 now. All right, 45 years. If the 65-year-old Eric Bischoff would be able to sit down and have a conversation with the 45-year-old Eric Bischoff, after the 45-year-old Bischoff was speaking to Brad Siegel, the 65-year-old would have said, look, motherfucker, I know you think you're good. You're not good enough. Don't even attempt it because you'll, you'll be carrying that around with you for a long time. And if you're going to do it anyway, get a lot more fucking money. That's what I felt like. well we hope you feel like tuning in next week we have had a lot of fun revisiting uncensored 2000 next week though we're going to talk about you know we oftentimes talk about the bad stuff and i think that makes for a more fun show next week maybe one of our most requested episodes ever stings 1997 uh we know how it ends the motherfucker needed a tan but find out everything else. Not my fault. Not my fault. He had his own tanning bed for crying out

loud. Is that your move today? It's, oh, this was, this was your father-in-law. This was Vince Rousseau. This was Ed Farrar. That's not my fault. He had a tann. Can you admit just anything ever was your fault ever, just ever in life? I just got done admitting that I fucked up a lot of shit and my fingerprints were all over a lot of really bad ideas. For God's sake, what do you want me to do? Throw myself off the fucking roof under the concrete below. Well, when you did that right out loud. I take a lot of heat. I put a lot of heat of myself for shit I've made mistakes up with. I can't wait to get Eric fired up next week. Sting 1997. How did Eric fuck it up? Let's find out. Next week right here. On 83 weeks with Eric Michelle, hey guys,

stay healthy. Stay indoors. Be smart. We'll get through this together and wash your fucking hands. Come on. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad free shows dot com is all about. Get early, add free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple Podcasts or your regular podcast apps. How easy is that? Ad free shows also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content and docuseries like title chase, Eric Fires Bank, Conversations with Conran, and the Insiders. Plus, new series like The Book with David Crockett, Monday Mailbags with Mike Keota and

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