83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 365: Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wresting with guest Jason Hervey

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric is joined by special guest Jason Hervey! Jason is Eric's long time producing partner, this dynamic duo is responsible for some of the wildest reality based television of the 2000s including Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling! Eric and Jason remanence about their experiences working with CMT, the celebrity talent and so much more. BILT- Start earning points on rent you’re already paying by going to https://www.joinbilt.com/83WEEKS THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod PRIZE PICKS - Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/83WEEKS and use promo code 83WEEKS and get $50 instantly when you play $5! BLUECHEW - Visit https://www.bluechew.com/ and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://www.magicspoon.com/83WEEKS Magic Spoon—hold on to the dream!  ENVISION - Save money and grow your business with Envision Marketing—visit https://www.conradsguy.com/ today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Save with Conrad.com My name is Mike Coopin-Garner. I am a top guy with ad-free shows. I am currently living in Charlotte, North Carolina, moved here from Arizona. Like everybody else, we shopped around for mortgages, trying to get the best deal. One of the things I wanted to do was give my buddy Conrad a shot. So I reached out to him and told him I was interested in going through the process. The team at Save With Conrad was awesome.

There was a lot of communication. They were very quick to respond. They were very quick to listen to, you know, what we needed, the complexities of selling our home with buying a new home. So it was absolutely fantastic. We felt comfortable using the team. We closed on time. The paperwork was hard to get to us. So they made sure that they sent those overnight.

So there was no delays. I've tried to recommend Conrad and his team, save with Conrad, to other people that were either looking for new mortgages or looking for ways to refi or, you know, just trying to get on a better. or financial footing, you know, because he often says that he doesn't say no. He says maybe not right now. My name is Mike Kupin-Garner, top guy with ad-free show, save with Conrad, help me and my family get into our dream home. At all this number 212, non-equal housing lender, savewithconrad.com. wow jay i'm in the captain's seat i'm not used to being in the i'm not used to being in the captain's seat but unfortunately fortunately and and unfortunately and fortunately conrad is out

plain but the good news is i get to do this show with you how about that that's right how how does the big chair feel is it you know comfy in some ways it's really comfortable because I do a lot of solo stuff, you know, whenever I can with a mood strike, so to speak. Right. And I have fun doing that. It's pretty easy, especially when, you know, you've got fans you're interacting with and all that. So when we're live, it's always fun.

I love taking questions live. I love hearing people's funny comments or, and a lot of times really good questions. So I've done enough solo, but not like this. This is different. Usually when I'm solo, I'm solo. got a guess so now i get to now i've got to be a traffic cop yeah and and and ask smart questions which is always a challenge for you you're pretty smart my friend sometimes sometimes i've got a pat yeah i'm right now down with smart ones so here's what we're going to do today everybody um

because conrad had to travel there was just no way around it when the opportunity's not you do what you need to do. So we thought, okay, should we do a best of? But we just, you know, put it all on Super Dave Silva and his team and go back and bring you some of the best clips from all the shows. That's actually kind of cool once in a while, but I don't like to lean on that. It's kind of just, eh, feels like it's not put it in a hundred percent effort. So we put our heads together. We said, wait a minute, no, the show must go on. You know that deal. Jason, you grew up with that. It's in your gene pool for crying out loud.

We're going to talk about that. But anyway, we said, okay, we got to do an interesting show, but it's got to be about wrestling. Well, who should that be? I got a list of go-toes, wrestling people, people with other podcasts, do each other favors. And that's all cool. I do that from time to time. And I want, wait a minute, we've only scratched the surface with Fishoff Hervey Entertainment and end that relationship and how it started and where Jason started.

Like, where the hell did this all come from? So I thought, wouldn't it be kind of fun if you and I sat down for a couple hours and just riff like we used to, Ashley, and kind of go back and take a look at Hulk Hogan Celebrity Championship Wrestling and all the things we've not. talked about on a podcast. And you, fortunately, jumped right in, said, absolutely, it'll be a blast and here we are. So thanks, Jay. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Of course, of course. You call, I answer. All good. So, let me start up. Jason has been in show business almost his entire life like since he was four or yeah it's a long freaking time we're gonna we're gonna take a little

journey we're gonna go through that time tunnel and see how you and i ended up actually even here today yeah because it's really kind of a fascinating story and that one that you would expect to find just in the normal course of business so before we get to know the showbiz park what's your earliest memories growing up. And where did you grow up? I grew up in Southern California and in West Los Angeles. Easiest way to think of it is if you know where the UCLA colleges in Westwood, not far from there. And when I was probably about three years old was at my uncle's house, uncle, I was fortunate enough to have, you know, very close relationships with my cousins and, you know,

tight-knit Jewish family, you know, we do stuff all the time together. And my uncle had a friend that was a voiceover artist. And, you know, he would be at some of the family get-togethers and stuff like that. And from the time I was three to the time I was four for about a year, he kept saying to my mom, hey, you know, Jason, you know, he's got chubby cheeks. He's, you know, this, you know, cute outgoing kid. He's, you know, singing and dancing and, you know, making people laugh, blah, blah, blah. He should really think about, you know, doing commercials. You know, what would you think of that, Marcia? My mom's name, may she rest in peace. And for about a year, he kept on my mom about this. And finally, my mom called, my uncle, her brother, and said, you know, you've got your, your college buddy, you know, who's always, you know, hanging around and he's, you know, keep saying to me, oh, Jason should be in commercials. Let me just introduce you to my agent. And my mom said, well, you think he's just being polite. He, you know, what, what's, do you think he's serious about it? And my uncle said,

well, I guess if you don't take him up on it, you will never know. So my mom took me, and I Eric, I'm telling you, at four years old, I remember you know, I remember parts

of this, okay? Right. She had a very small, her name was Beverly Hecht, okay? She had a very small agency right, you know on Sunset, Eric, like where the Rock see and the rainbow is like okay so she had a little office above a nail salon okay that that was

you know right there on the on the sunset strip and I remember walking off these very very long you know flight of stairs with with my mother and when we got to the top of the stairs which happened to enter into like her kind of lobby waiting area like a receptionist there's only like two offices and Eric it was like it was like being in an episode of the show Madman okay I just it was it was like a time portal okay even though it was daytime outside it was very dark in there and it was like smoky and like dimly lit and I hear this ladies laugh and I'm like oh my gosh is that like the wizard of Oz behind the curtain and the and the lady was like jason hervey and you know my mom oh that's us that's us and you know my mom she takes

me you know and and and and beverly you know like when you see in those movies like those like those old you know judy garland movies like the women that would smoke cigarettes had them in a you know in like a cigarette holder yeah like carilla de ville yeah carola deville yeah so she had this like Corella Deville style cigarette holder. And I remember her chair had like this leopard print on it, okay? And she's sitting there, you know. This is like a scene out of a really cheesy Hollywood movie. I'm telling you, it is.

It was my life. So she goes, the lady goes, Beverly, heck, she goes, come here, sit on my, sit on my lap. Okay. That would probably never happen, you know, today. It's violated. I know, it probably does. We just, we won't read about it until the depositions. Amazing.

And yes. So, anyway, so I go over there, like I sit on her lap, and I just remember the smell, like, of her perfume. It was, you know, it was poured on. And she was like, you know, made some kind of small talk. And she was like, I think I could, you know, we can. make a fortune together, something like that. And I signed with her. And I remember my very, I worked, I booked my very first commercial, literally like two weeks later. And it was for, it was for a Japanese ketchup commercial. Okay. And I remember kind of like being on, on the set, you know,

little bits and pieces, as I'm saying. And I remember I was supposed to like eat a bite of this hamburger that had, you know, this ketchup smeared all over it. And I, you know, take a bite. I just remember this bucket, you know, being there that, you know, take a bite and eat delicious. And then, you know, spinning a bite of a hamburger. Hold that thought right there. You covered a lot of ground. And there's a couple of points I want to go back to.

And then we're going to take some questions from the audience that are watching live here on YouTube. By the way, thank you very much for joining us here on 83 Weeks.com live. I love doing live shows. bonus points here by buddy jason's with us and we're going to talk some stuff it's all eventually going to have something to do with wrestling so hang in there uh it'll be worth wait but you kind of passed over um your uncle and briefly uh because this isn't going to be a biopic quite yet but um your uncle aside from encouraging your mother who eventually went on to become an agent herself and that's going to be a cool story to tell i want to make sure

we cover that because i loved your mom she was awesome she loved you and and i got along with her great i felt like family and your dad yeah we'll talk about that too but um howie your uncle howard your mother's brother kind of a big damn deal in the entertainment business but on the business side of the entertainment business right just briefly describe yeah yeah briefly and i i i won't get into his client list. But my uncle is one of the biggest business managers in the entertainment business. And basically what that means is he takes a percentage of your income and then oversees, you know, your investments and, you know, just as basically your, you know, wealth and financial advisor, business manager, etc. And, you know, his client list is a list, you know,

through and through and he's been doing it for a long time at a very high level yeah since the early 60s portfolios are some of the biggest names in Hollywood and has for decades so I say all that because that has that dovetails into later on in this story fish off of the entertainment how we were able to make so much progress so fast it really has a lot to do with relationships and you came to the table with a boatload of high-value relationships. But thank you for covering Howie. And your mom, Marcia, at this point, obviously, was not an agent because she helped you find

an agent. That's right. That's right. When did Marcia jump into the biz of the agent business? If you will, if you will. Yeah. So it was right around, I think, first year. of the Wonder Year, so I'm around 16 years old.

And my mother was kind of like the go-to mom on the set. And for whatever reason, whether it be a contract negotiation issue, whether it was talent relations, whether it was endorsements, I don't know, just my mom had a knack for the biz, and raising me being around it and just having that, you know. So that explains a lot, Jay. That explains a lot because just for real, you have such a innate and intuitive sense for the business of the entertainment business.

I mean, it stands out amongst all of the people I've done business with. Thanks. For any length of time. So it's a compliment meant to be, deserved one. however is what it is it's the last thing that I would expect out of a kid that grew up as an actor because that's a life that's a career and a lifestyle at the level that you played at that doesn't require you needing to know much in some cases people want to prevent you from knowing too much. But here, your mom's taking you out on calls before she's an agent.

She's probably figuring out, you know, I can do that. I don't need to pay them for something I can do. I'm guessing, just knowing your mom, I thought probably flashed across her mind at one point or another. It's just kind of cool to see how that one suggestion from your uncle, who had influence to your mom, to your mom becoming an agent. I think that's as well as your career. It's just kind of fun. All right. I've got a little public service announcement for anyone who rents. If you haven't heard of 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,

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What up, Eric? How would Logan Paul do in WCW back then? I think Logan Paul would have been easy, would have easily stepped into any era of wrestling and figured it out just as quickly as he does now. He is a, he's one of the kind. It's incredible how somebody with no background can jump into the industry.

industry at such a high level under so much scrutiny and over deliver on a consistent basis. So there you go. Jason, welcome back, brother. We had a technical glitch. All of a sudden, I saw you talking and I was gone. But, you know, anyway, I was putting over your mother and I was also putting over you for learning so much about the business side of the entertainment business from such a young age. Exposure, repetition, keeping it just the stuff you hear while you're a little kid sitting in the back of the car and your mom's talking to something. somebody because there were no cell phones back then and she's having a conversation with

somebody in the car about the business side of the business that stuff sinks into your brain sticks with you whether you know it or not no and to your point like a lot of times during you know when we were on the wonder years a lot of time and I know you want to cover that but you know a lot of times during the lunches you know when everyone else was you know playing around and doing whatever it is they were doing on their lunch hour I was you know upstairs in the writer's room and with the producers and directors and I would ask them if I if it was okay if I would eat if I could eat my lunch you know there with them and you know just from a very early early age even though I was in front of the camera I think it is because I grew up with

you know my mother you know having this you know instinct for business and then handling every facet of my, you know, career to a certain point than her launching her agency, my uncle being my business manager since I was 14 years old. Yeah, I always just gravitated more towards the business, even though I was an actor and I was in front of the camera. That's really cool. And it says, well, it explains a lot. Let's put it that way. So your, now your mom's an agent. She's Obviously representing you, that agency, I'm guessing, grew pretty quickly knowing your mom. Yeah, yeah. She partnered with, there's an actor.

I don't know if any of you guys have seen. Remember the movie Ted with Mark Wahlberg and the bear? Okay. So Ted has a series now on Peacock going into its second season. Scott Grimes plays the father. You know, he's been a working actor, you know, like me, like, you know, pretty much. much his whole life. And I was good friends with Scott. And, you know, Pam coming from, you know, the East Coast and Boston and moving out to Los Angeles to, you know, support her, you know,

son's dreams and all of those things through our friendship, you know, much like my friendship with the Lively's, with Blake Lively and Jason Lively and Robin Lively, you know, there was a friendship, you know, of form there because none of us could drive cars at the time. So, you know, parents oh i'll pick them up i'll drop them off this that and the other well my mom ended up partnering with uh pam grimes and they launched their agency hervey grimes uh talent and you know one of her early discoveries was uh jona hill um you know which is which is oh really yeah yeah mom mom represented uh mom represented jonas for like uh jona for 10 years um and then you know he just became as he should you know there was no hard feeling

know anything, you know, weird or, you know, conspirator, but it was time, it was time for him to move on. Oh, no, no. When you get to that level, when you're playing with that much of other people's money, you've got to have a powerhouse behind you. 100%. That's got a whole legal staff. And, I mean, yeah, it's a different game at that level. Yeah, without a doubt. But, yeah, she had, you know, Casper Van Diem from Starship Troops. troopers and you know uh she really focused on you know not necessarily booking the star of the movie but you know maybe six out of the 10 co-stars were probably hers you know a lot easier to deal with than the star that's right and those people were because they were grateful for the

opportunity the star was like I deserve this come on now all right let's so we're going to get to Hall Cogan Celebrity Championship Wrestling, because we got so much to talk about. We're 20 minutes into the show, and we haven't even bounced up against the door yet. But, you know, obviously, you know, I mean, the Wonder Years, ABC Network Show, Primetime. We'll talk about the number of years because I don't remember off the time I had, but it was a good run. Seven, I think, maybe eight. Yeah, seven. In the Smithsonian, as we speak, arts and entertainment, part of the Smithsonian.

that like kind of put young jason hurry on the map brother what how old were you when that came down and tell me about tell me about the audition when you're when you're a kid and you know you're at this point grown up in the business you started you know when you're four so whatever but even then this is got to feel like whoa yeah work good question So when I first got, you know, they don't, they, when you go on your first and second audition, you know, they don't just hand you the script, or at least they didn't for me. You know, they hand you three or four pages and that's what's called your sides. So they, you know, give you your sides and, you know, you're expected to either be off book, which means memorizing them, you know, or be pretty familiar with the material. You know, I try to be, you know, off, off, off, book when I can, which meant memorizing this three or four pages. And they didn't tell me anything about it. They didn't say that, you know, things that probably would have perfect, or, you know, that could have shaped my performance, right? They didn't tell me that it was a period

piece, right? That this was, you know, in the 60s. They didn't, you know, tell me that there was, the biggest one that there was going to be a narrator that was, you know, this young Fred Savage and an adult looking back at his youth, at his wonder years. And honestly, I, you know, I went in there and there's, you know, 50 people, you know, cattle call, you know, kind of thing. And I go to the audition. And, you know, at that time, you have to remember, you know, my routine was I would go to school if I wasn't working. My mother would pick me up after school. She would have a change of clothes in the car for me. If I'm lucky and if she remembered, maybe a little snack, a little juice box, an apple, whatever, and I'm changing in the car, I'm, you know, changing in the car,

getting into my audition clothes. And my mom would take me, you know, from Santa Monica, you know, to the valley, to Hollywood, to wherever the audition was. And sometimes I'd have three and four auditions in one day. Some of them could be just for a little, you know, regional commercial, for a car dealership. You know, one could be a national, you know, commercial. One could be a small part, you know, in a movie. One could be for, you know, a guest star and a show. They were all, you know, ranging in, you know, all shapes and sizes and scales. And, you know, you know, my father, you know, may rest in peace. He always told me, he's like Jason, you know, and my mother, too, but like, if you don't get the job, you know, it's not because, you're not a good person. It's not

because, you know, there's anything wrong with you. You know, they wanted somebody taller and you're shorter. They wanted somebody shorter. You're taller. They wanted somebody. you know, skinnier or fatter, you know, whatever it might, you know, be. It's not personal, you know, you're fitting this role that usually starts with, you know, what the writer has in their mind when they're shaping and creating, you know, this character. So I had to have a pretty thick skin, you know, early on. I would have to go into that audition, give it everything that I could. And then literally as I'm leaving the building, forget about it. Because, you know, if you became emotionally attached to something and start thinking about, you know, in what ways

could this potentially change my life, you know, financially, you know, celebrity. And most of all, you know, you're a kid, so you're not really thinking of those things. You're thinking about, can I get home in time before the street lamps go on and I could play some, you know, football in the street with my buddies or ride my skateboard or my bike, you know, but, you know, you're around the business and, you know, you pick things up. So, You're kind of like, you know, a kid in your age and in your stature, but in, you know, some ways you're a little bit more, you know, business-minded because, you know, you have to sit in a certain place.

You have to be told. Don't laugh. You know, stand still. Do this, do that. And you're expected on the set and in your auditions to behave as an adult, even though you're a kid. Yeah, that's, hey, that's kind of a cool thing. Yeah, man.

So I literally, I, my mom, you know, sweetest can be happy. you think you did. You know, did you do good? And I would say, mom, I'll be honest with you. I thought I blew it. You know, I really thought I blew it. So then about two weeks goes by and she's like, hey, remember that audition that you thought you blew for this secret, um, untitled ABC project? And I was like, yeah, she was, well, I want to see you again. And I thought, oh, okay, okay. So, you know, uh, this time there was, uh, the size that I did the first time. And now that they gave me another three or four pages to, you know, to memorize. So, so I don't, how long did it take you to memorize?

Oh, honestly, less than 20 minutes. 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 genes I've ever tried? I absolutely love the perfect gene and you will too because the perfect gene has redefined what jeans can be. No more crushed nuts or saggy diaper butts.

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please support our show and tell them we sent you fuck your khakis and get the perfect gene yeah for four page yeah four pages of dialogue um because you know i was just if eric it's a muscle you know what i mean and it's just something that if i've never had one i couldn't tell you but no when you're in that mode I know it sounds you know neat but when you're in that mode

and just doing it it's just it's muscle memory you know so I you know I memorized it and by the way memorizing it is one thing okay

committing it to memory but then incorporating the emotion and your performance and you know you have to hold for a certain beat because you know

you remembered it in one way in your head but now you're interacting with somebody other than yourself doing it in the mirror there's another person and you know it can it can affect your timing you know as well so believe me there's a lot of other things happening at the same time that you're memorizing you know your your your dialogue so i'm going to camp out on that point that you just made because this is a wrestling show and whenever i can i like to tie the things we're talking about that don't seem like they have anything to do with wrestling but actually do a lot what you were talking about just there the difference between memorizing your script and being able to interpret that script in a in a real

environment whether that's film or in front of a live audience because now you're reacting to something other than the memory the pace that you have it memorized so if you if you have this thing memorized yes you're memorizing it at a certain pace as you're playing both sides of the script in your mind yes right yes and now that's in your head and now your director cute and all of a sudden you go you're gone you're like a horse coming out of the out of the gate you're like sectariat and you're coming with your strong you know with your with your your copy, your narrative. Yeah.

Unfortunately, there's another person on the end of that just trying to do the same thing. And when they don't really sync up, you get really bad acting and 90% of the wrestling promos that you see backstage. That's what you get. You're so right.

And by the way, let me add to that, okay? You're not working with another actor. You're working with the casting director. Right. And that casting director, you know, you're like, yeah, I'm the most important person to me, but, you know, not to them. I'm, you know, I'm just another person coming in there. And believe me, they're thinking about their lunch. They're thinking about the return phone calls.

They're thinking if they remember to, you know, feed their kid or their dog, you know, whatever. Like, you know, so they're kind of phoning it in. And they're just giving you this monosyllabic, just dead, no emotion, looking at it. the pages because they're not off book. So it's like a sponge, right? You know, they're just like taking everything from me, but, you know, they say, you know, acting is reacting, right? And it's a lot of times in those moments, you know, of almost saying nothing, you know, where you have these great facial reactions, things like that. But when you're reading with someone and they're just doing this, they're giving you nothing. And, you know, you have to, you know, be able to work through

that, you know, and to not have it affect my performance because they're sucking, you know, they're sucking my energy down. But taking it back to wrestling, don't you see, do you agree with what I see when you see most wrestling promos is that they, they both, both pieces of the puzzle maybe really, maybe have everything memorized, but it doesn't feel real because they're not reacting to each other. They're just taking turns talking. Yes, yes. They're taking turns talking.

Yeah, taking turns talking. Yeah, no, that's, and it's like, you guys are supposed to be talking like to each other and there's, we're supposed to feel like we care, you know, and there's this, you know, connection, right? So, you know, not, I mean, I can't help but, you know, bounce around. But that's why, you know, Eric, when we did reaction, and it wasn't, you know, a page, of, you know, things that they needed to hit within their promo. You know, it was, you know, off the cuff. And we would inspire that reality to unfold within the narrative, you know,

that we've created. And I think that's why people reacted to it, because it was real, real, you know, but within, like I said, our, our narrative. So I think there's a direct correlation between wrestling and, you know, this audition process or even just this performance process, you know, there's two people doing a dance, you know, and you have to connect, you know, in that dance for it to be soulful and real and meaningful. So, so let's get back to Wonder Years. Now you got a call back. I got a call back.

So I'm thinking, you know, maybe I did something, you know, correct. So, you know, I go through that process. still just the casting directors. Another two weeks goes by. I get a third callback. Now I'm kind of starting to want it. Even though I don't really know what it is yet or the significance of it,

the only thing that I really had heard was that the creators of the Wonder Years were the same creators of the TV show Growing Paints. And I was a big fan of that show. I was great friends with Kirk Cameron. So I knew that it would be smart and because Growing Pains was at ABC and these were the creators of Growing Pains and this is their next show, I knew that the network would probably, you know, get behind this.

How old were you in debt? How old are you right now? 15, you know, 15, 15 and a half? So at 15 years old, you could sense the vibe and the significance of the package, as they say in Hollywood, they came along with the idea. Yes, yeah. And now I'm starting, now I'm starting to want it, you know, even though I was told you got to forget about it the second you walk out of that building, you know, now I want it. And those testing rooms were going from 50 people to 20 people to eight people to three people. Okay. So now everyone's kind of sizing each other up, et cetera. I go, I go on my, you know on my uh on my third audition and that night instead of waiting for a couple weeks that night i remember my mom you know coming in and and saying to me uh the uh the studio and

the casting director reached out congratulations you're going to network which means you don't have it yet but it's down to like you and you know like one other person okay and and And it's going to be at Capitol cities, which is, you know, at that time, it was the ABC World Headquarters. So let me interrupt you, Jay, and I apologize. We'll go right back to World Headquarters. But did you know who the other person was or people were who were up for it? I guess, you know, I was trying to like remember, oh, who could it be, who could it be? And I narrowed it down to, you know, to one guy.

I don't remember his name, but, you know, I remembered his face. And we look very different, you know. So I could see that we both kind of got over with our performance. And now it's going to be a look thing. Because you got to remember, none of these people are family. They have to cast the family. So there has to be like, you know, now it's like mix and match, you know. Okay, you got this sister with this brother, possibly with this father.

But we really love this mother. It's kind of like Ancestry.com for Hollywood. Yes, bingo, exactly. Just like that, okay? But except with this one, you can pick your family. With the other one, you're stuck with them. So we get to, oh, and before you go to network, by the way, and this is very smart.

Now the business person in me goes, yes, of course, that's logical, okay? when you go to network, okay, they negotiate a seven-year deal up front, okay? Oh, wow. Because they're not going to have you get the park, and then you've got them somewhat over a barrel in terms of a negotiation. You know what I'm saying? That's smart. And they're not going to go, well, geez, if the pilot does well, let's let them renegotiate. Yeah, that's not going to happen.

That's like, you know, putting the belt on somebody and only doing a, like, a one-event contract with them. And then you put the strap on them. Oh, now let's do your deal. Well, you just made me the champion, you know, better get out the checkbook. I don't think I've done that, but it's been close a couple times. Get a little too excited. Oh, really? Don't worry about it.

Attorneys will get that paperwork down unless it's get to work. Oh, my gosh. So, and the only problem, by the way, at least from the, I get out what protects the network, okay? But now you see what you're going to make, you know, in success for if this thing goes for seven years. So, you know, now you want it, okay? Now, like, you want it because you could see that it could be, you know, or would be, you know, life changing. Wow. And then for the other person who didn't get it, remember.

they they had a contract you know that was you know condition oh j that's freaking painful bro yeah exactly exactly because you're going through weeks and months of oh my gosh my life might change yeah to shit yeah that close that's right exactly and then you could take that contract and rip it up as it means yeah because there is no number two there's only number one that's right So I remember, yeah, so I, I, so they, you know, my mother and my uncle, you know, negotiate the deal. Everyone is, is happy. And they do it like real quick. They're like the auditions in two days.

You have to negotiate the seven year deal. Like, you know, let's go. Let's go. So. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm sure Uncle Holly had seen those seven year deals before and knew what he could and couldn't do. So that was probably pretty a seamless process, at least for the first one, right? Yeah.

exactly um so um because in success and around year four we did all renegotiate our contract right um you know um but and you have to band together to do that did you guys go on strike no but i think there might have been one or two days somebody had the flu um so it's like you know people don't realize it's not totally obvious because the real parallels between Hollywood and the way you grew up and the way you're talking about business and the wrestling business are not that much different. I think, to be honest with you, everybody says, you know, guys will say dirt sheet writers, oh, it's just everybody that businesses, you know, never going to tell you the truth. They're going to lie. They're going to

manipulate you. They're going to do like, you know, people in a wrestling industry, executives, even at the highest levels, are like the worst. people in the world, they're evil. Markers don't even know evil till they spent 20 minutes working in Hollywood. Evil, when I say evil, I'm talking about absolutely ruthless business people. Yeah. I mean, they've, they've been turning aggressive negotiations and all of the dances and the, in the, in the, in the, all the accoutrements of doing. a deal.

They make you feel so good. But when it comes down to negotiating, it's a meat grinder. And if people think the wrestling business can be manipulative. All right. Let's talk about one of our favorite sponsors here on 83 weeks.com. We're talking about price picks. Price picks is the best place to get real money sports action with over 10 million members and billions with a B dollars awarded in winnings.

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50 bucks credit to your account instantly after you make your first dollar five dollar light up that simple price picks run your game yeah yeah without without without without a question and I've you know uh been through a few of those been through a few of those um but we so now you know the deal's done You realize how life-changing this is going to be, okay? If you get it, if you get it. And I go into capital cities, you know, and it's this, you know, two-story lobby and everything is black leather and granite and, you know, covering every inch of the wall, you know, is, you know, who's the boss and different strokes and great pains, you know, like all these like mega hit shows. And you're like, wow, maybe my poster, if I get this, and this show could last, you know, maybe it'll be on, you know, in these hollowed halls, you know, one day. And we, they take me upstairs and I go and I go upstairs.

And there's, there's, there's like five chairs sitting right in front of the room that we're going to go in. And that is the very first time that I meet Fred Savage. And that is the very first time that I met Dan Loria, who would go on to play my father. And I remember it was me in the middle, Fred was to my left, Dan was to my right. And we were all just like kind of sitting there. And Dan goes, hey, you know, how are you kids doing? Are you guys all right? And like, yes, sir, you know, I am, you know, Dan and Fred, you know, we all shake hands.

And he looked at us because remember, Dan, Dan was a real actor. from the theater, you know, in, you know, in New York, right? And unless you've done the theater, you're not a real actor, you know, according to Dan. And I love Dan. I say this right to him. So he says to me, and to Fred, he goes, any of you kids do theater? Do you theater? Have you ever done a play?

And Fred and I were like, no, you know, no, I haven't done a play. he's like ah yeah you're not real actors then you're not you're not you're actors and and i was like well i've been doing this for you know quite a while um you know he's like yeah that's just experience he's like he's like that's not what i'm talking about and he goes you know he goes if you get this show if we all get this show and he made it sound so terrible eric he goes we're all going to be turned into TV stars. You know, we're all just going to be TV stars. What in the attitude?

Why did he go to the audition then? Right. And I was like, well, that, I mean, that doesn't sound so terrible, you know. In the meantime, you're, you're standing there looking at a lottery ticket that's got a time stamp on it. If you can last long enough to match the timestamp, your life is over with. A lot of good ways. Exactly.

And I was like, well, that doesn't sound too terrible. And, you know, then they come out and they're like, okay, you know, come in. And that was the first time, the very first time that I did a scene now, not with the casting director, but with Fred and with, you know, the gentleman who played my father. And who just tells you that you're not a real actor? That guy did. And just the last thing I'll talk about, last thing I'll say. is the setting of it, Eric, the setting of it is meant to intimidate you.

It's this big room that they have actually a stage on, okay? It's not a massive stage, but it's a big enough stage. And there's bright light on the stage. And when I tell you, you cannot see into the audience, I don't know if there was 100 people there. I don't know if there was five people there. And because they've been hearing the same dialogue all day, they don't give you any energy. They're not laughing, you know, where you're delivering lines that you know are written, you know, as comedic lines.

And they're just like sitting there. And then they say, okay, you know, thank you. They'll validate your parking up front. And that's it, you know. And then that night, you know, got a call saying, you know, I got the park. So crazy process. Crazy process. And thanks for sharing that.

is you're kind of a, you're sharing a part of the process that me on the outside who have never really worked in Hollywood, you know, I spend a minute, you know, on the business side working in Hollywood, but not as a performer, not as an actor. Right. That's a whole different world that you just exposed. But, you know, we don't think about, you know, you see somebody who's a child actor who goes on to become successful on your case, Network series, Smithsonian Institute, fine arts, a lot of accolades going on there, right? but we don't think about the process of what it takes to get there similar to professional wrestling you could look at somebody like a roman reigns right now or a cody rose right now or an mjf right now and you could go wow they're in that spot oh that's the coolest thing ever oh they're so lucky no they work you had half a clue of what it took for them to get there and what they had to sacrifice

along the way and just the emotional like getting your ass kicked every week You said, I got a thick skin. It comes with a cost, by the way, especially when you're a young kid and your brain's still forming and your personality's farming and your subconscious is developing and you're being put in these situations where you know you're being judged, even if it is, as you said earlier, because you're a little too tall, a little too short, a little too chubby, a little too skinny. That's all subjective shit that doesn't, shouldn't be taken personally, but you can't help it as a human being when they go you get to stay you mucker fathers get to go home yes exactly they don't say it

that way but it's how it feels and you got to go through that as a kid so that's an interesting aspect of the journey well you know and and eric was interesting and this is why i i love the business you know the the wrestling business and i have so much respect um for for the performers because you know for the athletes um you know what they go through you know and And, you know, I would say, you know, in some aspects, in a lot of aspects, it's a lot harder than, you know, an actor, you know, or an actress, you know, in a movie. Because wrestlers, when, when the art form is done perfectly. And, you know, and Hulk, you know, my long relationship with him because of you, you know, he taught me as well as you taught me a ton, you know, about the business. And, you know, Hulk would always tell me, he's like, you got to listen to the building. He's like, the building will tell you, you know, what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong. And you have to be able to, you know, adapt and improvise, you know, to that. And without cutting a promo, okay, and, you know, the baby face and the heel and we know who

everybody is going into that match, when wrestlers can tell that story with no promo in just the physical, in the physical attributes and their moves and what they do, it's beautiful and it's amazing for them to tell a story with no words that's a physical, you know, story and you're going to know who your bad guy is you're going to know who you know your good guy is and it's going to tell you this and you know it's the psychology you know of the story but there's like there's a lot of of similarities you know between yeah i've used the analogy before where and not really an analogy but just an example of how you know in a broadway play because it's live yeah it's like wesley normally is

it's live there's a crowd there and you're on a stage instead of a ring right and you've got cast members instead of opponents and you've got the written word which is your dialogue which is a big part of your tools yeah in wrestling you have a stage it's called a ring you you have your co-stars which are your opponents yeah right and the big difference is your narrative is physical. You don't have dialogue. You'll have some, but the most significant part of a wrestler's dialogue

isn't the spoken word. It's what happens, as you just pointed out, inside of the ring, the ability to not only tell that story inside of the ring, but reinforce the character at the same time. Yeah. That is in our form. I agree with you 100%.

It's an under wrestling, professional wrestling done well, because we all see a lot of wrestling. professional wrestling, not done so well. But when it's done well, as you preface this, but with, it is really a beautiful thing. And it's really fascinating. If you get past your own biases, if you're, you know,

if you're kind of like, I don't really know why this wrestling thing works. There's a lot of reasons why that wrestling thing works and why it's still dominating the world of entertainment today, much to the chagrin of all those people that went, gee, it's wrestling. I don't know if that stuff really works. Bigger than ever. Hey, listen, we're going to move this along a little bit. I think we're going to end up doing another show because there's a lot of other

ground I want to cover. So I'm going to take Liberty here to fast forward us through the time tunnel that is Jason Hervey's life. And how it collided with one of your fish off. But let's fast forward through a lot of that stuff. But real quick, 30 seconds or less, elevator pitch, two-story building. You're walking into the elevator. Tell me how, tell me your first memory of being exposed to professional wrestling. Saturday morning with my father and my brother, Georgia Championship Wrestling was on a local channel 5.

I think it was like a K-Kal affiliate. And it was the four horsemen. It was Tony Chivani. It was Rick Gray. It was Hans of Stone. Jimmy Garvin. It was Barry Wyndham. It was, yeah, that's my earliest memories of it, it was the thing that brought us together. And when I say us, meaning my father and my brother and myself, and my dad, who grew up in the Bronx, New York, he would go and sneak in to

Madison Square Garden, and he would watch, you know, professional wrestling. And, you know, that was something that he, you know, passed along to my brother and I. And it's, you know, how we spend some time together. So he probably bought tickets to Vince McMahon Seniors, WWWF in Madison Square Garden. Well, notice I said he snuck into the garden. Ah, there you go. There you go. And then later in life, you somehow got, you were to four.

before we stop with Terry Funk and you guys ended up hanging out, what's that about? So, I love your style of questions now. The, I did a, this was before the Wonder Years, I did a series on ABC, did 13 episodes. It was called Wild Side. The actress, very lovely lady, Meg Ryan, played my mother. And Terry Funk was one of the stars. And I played this, you know, town kid named Zeke. And, yeah, we did 13 episodes.

We went up against the Cosby Show, so we did not do more than 13 episodes. We got canceled because everybody was watching the Cosby Show. Exactly, exactly. But I'm telling you, when I did, it took us about eight or nine months to do these 13, one-hour episodes. It was a Western. And I'm telling you, I was probably the biggest thorn in the side to Terry Funk. Because at that time, remember, I'm a fan. I watched it on Saturday mornings.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, how did they cast a Jewish kid from West L.A. in a cowboy movie in a Western? What? Hey, just put a hat on me in some boots and, you know, put a little, put a little... Did you make all the rest of the actors look taller? Was that it? Put a little schmutz on my face and it looks like I was hanging out at the corral. I don't know. Oh, that's awesome.

So, yeah, man, I'm telling you, between every take, I would go up to Terry Funk, It was just, you know, he didn't have, you know, the gift that I had of memorizing, you know, five and six pages of dialogue in 20 minutes. You know, he's sitting there between each tape, like, trying to memorize. He probably didn't want to be bothered. And I'm like, did you ever wrestle the junkyard dog? Say, how long did it take him to want to adopt you? Well, yeah, he, yeah, I was just asking him so many questions. Did you ever wrestle Tito Santana?

Well, what about Hulk Hogan? How about Andre the Giant? You know, it was. I just must have been such a pain in the side, but he couldn't have been any nicer. And then when we wrapped the show, he actually, he flew me out to the double-cross ranch in Amarillo, Texas. And I spent about a week there and just had a ball. And, you know, he was showing me old wrestling tapes and all kinds of stuff. We really had a nice time.

It was fun. Hey, so what I want to do, because I've just got to take a leak. There's no other way around us. We're live right now, and I'm not going to try to make some stuff up just to make it sound good. Do you want me to take questions while you go to do it? Here's what I propose. Okay, God. I want to hit Effron's comment because he is one of the best people I know.

Okay. I'm very grateful to him. There we go right here, Ephron. He loves you, and he's thanking you for being a part of the game event at Top Guy weekend. He was our game show host with the most, and I'm telling you, Jason. Oh, he was great. He was great. He is beyond great.

Not only one of the nicest people in the world. He's so talented. And I'm telling you, this guy is a game show waiting to happen in today's market. I'm going to take a leak. Super Dave, could you give Jason some questions from the crowd? Well, I'm taking care of business, so to speak. 100%. All right.

I'll be back in just a minute. All right. I'll try not to wreck your show. I'll hold down the fort. I'll hold down the fort. All right, let's go. Have some better sex with Bluetooth, why don't you? Blue Chewable Tablets for Better Sex.

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Okay, here you go, Jason, from Coach Ramsey. What are your cardinal rules when negotiating a deal? Oh, okay. So, um, I got a, put over Eric here for a second. Eric told me long ago that when used correctly, the word no, if you really, really mean it, the word know is the most powerful word in the English language. And you have to know what you are willing. You have to be willing to walk away. okay so that's that's one of my cardinal rules you have to have the ability to i like to say sometimes

the best deals i've done are the ones that i didn't do okay because it just for a variety of reasons whatever you have to know when to walk away you have to know and you have to do that in advance and whether that's a dollar amount whether that's a time commitment whether it's something you know creative that you feel passionately about you know you in advance of that negotiation you have to have the ability and to know when to say no and what your walkaway point is and you have to mean it and when you're dealing with someone on the other side of the table if they know that you really mean that okay and they don't think that they can kind of work you and you know and have you compromise okay even though the art of a good negotiation is compromising

because I was also caught that sometimes if the knife is too sharp, it won't cut, meaning that you should feel a little bit of pain on your side, and they should feel a little bit of pain, you know, on their side. That really is the mark of a good deal, to be honest with you. You know, you're not going to get everything you want. And by the way, if you did get absolutely everything that you want, that person on the other side at some point or another is probably going to resent you and your working relationship is going to collapse because you got over on them and you got

everything that you wanted and they're going to remember that. So any good negotiation, you got to give something up and then, you know, the other side has to give something up in order for both sides to feel good. But know what that is before going into it so you can say no and mean it and walk away if you have to. I wish we could have figured that out long before we did. there's something to be said for learning shit the hard way I could have had two Harvard educations by now

well as they say it's an applied science not an exact one there you go all right where did we leave up we left off with Terry Funk and him wanting to adopt you because knowing any professional wrestler who is in the position that Terry Funk was in at the time and seeing some kid that could come in and look at a script, eat a candy bar, and then memorize it. You'd want to get as close to that kid as you possibly could.

Just, you know, from a wrestler's perspective, you just won't get to rub. Come here, kid. Come here, kid. Let me rub your head and see if it works. All right. So further as I, you know, hit into warp speed and zoom through the, time tunnel that is Jason Hervey's life. You and I form BHE.

We'll talk about it in depth in another time. We've probably covered some of this already. We formed BHE sometime. I don't know what was. 2, 2, 3, whatever, 4, I can't remember. Somewhere in that early time. You're living, Bish it up, there it is. There it is that beautiful load.

I remember that. Big, beautiful, look at us. I still had black in my beard back then. Those are the good old days. women would still look at me when I'd walk into a room. Now she's like, oh, make room for the old guy. You don't want him to fall down and break his hip. But we fast forward.

We get to B.H. Now I'm going to type back into your mom again because this is why I developed such a lovely relationship with her. You know, money is no problem for me at this point, neither for you. You're transitioning from Huntsville, Alabama. A pretty interesting story and scenario there. You haven't even made. it back to all. All your stuff still in Alabama, you and I eat some moisture, shoot some

tequila and decide we're going to launch a production company in Seattle at WrestleMania. That's right. And we get to work right away. I didn't even have an apartment at that time. I was staying at the Radisson Huntley Hotel down to San Diego. Oh, my God. Do we have stories to talk about? Oh, do we ever? I was fun. Living at the Radisson Huntley, which was like one of the coolest bars. And going and going to Michael's. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was no fun at all. But we do all this, and we're hustling, but we have to borrow your mom's car.

Because your stuff is still at all in Huntsville. My stuff is in Scottsdale, and we just said, no, let's get to work now. I didn't, I didn't buy a car. I stayed in a hotel. We borrow your mom's car, and we're zooming all over, pitching throughout Hollywood. We open our first office in your mom's apartment building that she owned. Somebody moved out. Eric, my grandmother passed away.

I didn't want to say that. I didn't want to say that. That's okay. In case it came off cold. I don't know how I come off sometimes. Sometimes I know exactly how I'm coming off. And other times I think I'm coming off kind of nice, but it's actually a little rough around the edges.

Well, we weren't rooting for her to die. She just did. No, I know. But sometimes you never know how people feel about certain things. It could be a soft spot still. That's true. Anyway, okay, let's talk about Hong Kongan Championship Wrestling

because we're over, we're one hour into the show, we haven't even touched it yet. So with Bishop Hervi Entertainment, a lot of success right off the bat, a lot of that owed to the quality of relationships that you were able to come to the table with, your understanding of business

and also your skill and your experience, more than skill, actually, of being an actor-producer. because that's really valuable in a lot of different ways. Also than even being a good producer or a good actor, if you're a good producer actor, wow, you've got advantage. It's much like probably writer-director, same way.

Yeah, yes. Because you get your hands on it. Yeah. We end up going, we sell a bunch of shows. We develop a great relationship. All this is happening over the course of five or six years. We're selling a lot of shows, developing relationships with networks, one of whom was one of the coolest people that I've ever gotten an opportunity to do with

business with that I met through you that would be Melanie Monroe Melanie Moreau that's right that's right that's such a Melanie briefly Melanie and Rose she's such a cool chick actually she came out here with her two daughters to visit Lorna in Wyoming they stayed at the house like for five days yeah yeah yeah in the bunk house right no they stayed in the main house I mean it was they were the only ones here so we developed a good relationship but i met her through you what's your first contact with Melanie at CMT so um you know and again Eric you know to your point is it's it's all a relationship based uh based business and you know at the time we're growing VHE where you know we're selling

shows we come out of the gate you know with Scott Bayo and I you know I want to be a hill and you know some some other you know projects but we didn't quite have the infrastructure and when i say infrastructure it's we didn't have the lights the cameras all that oh no oh no he'll be back he'll be back super neighbor you with me i am with you and yes he will be back but while we wait let's take questions here our fans there he is He's already back. Oh, he's already back. Okay.

Are you there? We're here. We got you, brother. I can't hear me. I'm here. You can't hear me. It's got to be on your end. Oh, weird.

Yeah, I bet you his earbuds died. There it is. There it is. Okay. Yeah, your earbuds were crapping out on you. Yeah. So we were having to partner with, with other companies, if you remember that point in time, okay? You know, because we didn't have the light, the gear, the editing, the

infrastructure that goes into, after you sell the show, then you got to make the show, okay? And we were partnering, you know, with a couple different companies. And we knew that if we really had to grow and we really wanted to grow and control more of the process, we were going to have to take that step. But you can't take that step unless you have the business, you know. It's the chicken and the egg. There you go. That's right. So met Melanie Moreau because we had done, you know, a fantastic job, you and I on the Scott Bayos 45 and pregnant, Scott Bayos 46 and, or Scott Bayos 45 and single, Scott Bayos 46 and pregnant. We got a phone call from Melanie Moreau at CMT. And I think, you know, we had taken a couple general meetings with her.

If you remember, Eric, we had a power vote racing show. Yeah. okay so that geico was going to sponsor that's right that never happened remember that crazy bastard that was like the broker between us and a decision maker at geico yeah he had us run in circles for six freaking months oh yeah it was it was terrible but yeah it was called h2 overdrive yeah um and um and so you know Melanie had tried to work with us on a couple different projects for whatever reason they didn't happen but then you know So we really, really, you know, hit gold with a second season order with the Bayo franchise.

And that was on VH1. Well, CMT is a kiss and cousin of VH1, because it's all under Viacom. So we get a phone call for Melanie and she says, hey, look, we just had a meeting with Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley Cyrus. And they very much want to do a reality show. Now, I spoke to Brian Graydon, who was in the meeting. who at the time, the way that Viacom was structured, they had like group presidents, okay? And, you know, Kevin Kay had a cluster of networks.

He was president of, you know, Brian Graydon had a cluster of networks. He was president of and so on and so forth. And the only note that I said, oh, that's, you know, that's terrific. She goes, well, I need a production company, you know, and she's like, can you guys do it? Well, of course we can do it.

I'm sure we can. And I said, well, what do you want the show to be? And this is just how funny how Hollywood works, because sometimes you have to work so hard to flesh out an entire idea. And here was the pitch. She goes, Brian O'Greenlight a series, if you could just do with Billy Ray for CMT, what she did with Bayo for VH1. Like, that was it. Like that's the show. And it's like, wait, what?

And she goes, if you guys can do it, I'll give it to you. And at that time, Eric, you and I had to, you know, make a real serious business decision. If this was the direction, we wanted to go in, and you and I both, you know, probably over 1, 2, 10, 100, you know, course lights were like, it's either now, you know, or never. And, you know, we made that decision and, you know, and it worked. And, you know, from that, from the Billy Ray Cyrus show, you know, came the Ted Nugid show, came the PBR POSCy show. came the PBR posse show you know came several things and of course Paul Kogan's celebrities tell me specifically what you remember because I remember a couple of the early just you and I going okay they're interested in doing something in wrestling I think

that was like the lead in but they want to do a competition elimination and I'll just give you what I remember and you tell me if I'm close yeah you must have got the the tip from Melanie, what they were looking for through either our agent or your relationship, one way the other. Yeah. But it was big in general, wrestling, wow, you know, dancing with the stars was real big back then. So it was like, can we get our version of dancing with the stars?

I think that was the take, right? Can we do that? Something along those lines, yeah. And I wanted to do real people. I didn't want to do celebrities. I remember you and I were in Harold's Bar at Scottsdale. Yeah. We're talking about this at the main bar.

Yeah. And we both wanted to do the show. I felt fairly strongly about real people. You felt even more strongly about doing what the network wanted to do, which was celebrities. So you and the network one. Well, no, I mean, it was, and because I think if I recall, I remember, you know, being at Harold. And, you know, like, celebrality, right, was. was so popular you know every network was you know was trying to have their signature show that you know

and and celebrity was happening and the surreal life was popular you know but they didn't want to do like a house-based celebrity show and they did they were like kind of like you know what's our these are these are these are these are their words not mine you know what's the redneck version you know of um of uh of a dancing with the stars i mean that's exactly it and for people i know you have to always say a disclaimer right because you don't want to offend anybody unless you're me and then you really don't care but you just got to be honest about stuff but that's how they would characterize their own programming that's right the redneck version of so that's right there's you know a real highbrow you know competition elimination show that

who are like killing it on the network level. Right. They want the redneck version of that. That's right. That's right. So, yeah. And, and, and, Eric, what was that? Because I remember when, when we were talking about, do we use celebrities?

Do we not use, you know, celebrities? Even though that's what the network wanted. And you and I were never shy about trying sometimes to either talk in or talk out of, you know, a network's position and advocate for what we believe. creatively but of course at the end of the day we're going to do you know go where the business is but what was that show that the wwe did a billion years ago um where they were taking real people turning into wrestlers house no was on what was that show called oh super dave what was that tough enough thank you he not only knows he's got the graphic in his freaking fingertips

how does that happen what kind of a clairvoyant mexican are you he's super dame that's why he's Super Dave. Now you guys know, I call him Super Dave. I'm stumbling around for words and a name and a title. I stutter it out like a half-ass think I know I'm right. There it is in the graphic. That's right. Listen, if you enjoy this show, I know that you love nostalgia. And when I think about nostalgia for my life, yes, I think about wrestling. I think about Saturday morning cartoons. And I think about a big bowl of cereal. Well, there's now a nostalgically delicious cereal that tastes just like your childhood favorites, but without all the sugar. You know, when we get older, we realize what we really need the morning is protein.

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TMT's version of tough enough and they wanted oh Eric remember this note we want to do something loud and buzzworthy that comes with its own built-in audience how familiar sound familiar Real quick. Both Jason and I were represented by one of the coolest agents that either one of us ever worked with. His name is Hans Schiff.

Yeah, I think he's retired now, but he was like, and he's retired because he was good at his job. That's right. And he's super cool guy, very young, you know, as agents go at that time. We're all 20 years older now, so things are different. But cool guy. Where was I going with Hans? What was the point you just brought?

up. Oh, we're talking about buzzworthy. Oh, Buzzworthy. So when you have an agent, if you're a production company like we were or recognized as producers and were represented by an agent, then they would send you, you know, these emails throughout the week of what the latest updates are from your interface with different network executives and various pitches that they're in throughout the week. So it's really, really good intel. If you can skip through the gaga of it all. Yes. Yes. And the Gaga is the opening line that was at the head of every one of these emails, you know, so general. Everything had to be budd buzzworthy, you know, water cooler potential. All these really, you know, beautifully sounding, you know, phrases that sounded like, well, hell, that's not hard. What is it? 18 million people dropping what the fuck they're doing so they can watch what we think is a good idea. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they would tell you everything that they wanted it to be, but with the exception of what it is. Yeah, because they don't know what it is. Until it walks in their office.

That's how that town works. Nobody knows. Nobody has a freaking clue. They're walking around, like with their eyes closed in a dark room bumping into shit, hoping that they're going to something that actually feels good. Yeah. That's what they're doing. Exactly. And your job as a supplier or an independent producer, whatever you really want to call yourself to get yourself through the night, make yourself feel better about life in general, whatever you think your job is, what your job really is is just to drag shit in and see if you can find something that they think is exciting. And by the way, and hiding the fact that nobody knows just a little bit better than the next guy to keep your job. Yeah.

Because they'll never tell you, we got no clue. What are you talking about? It's a fascinating business and it's fun to make fun of because the process is so subjective. It's crazy. It's so non-analytical. Not even analytical. There's just no rhyme to reason to some of it. Yeah.

It's so subjective. Anyway, so we get the word that we need a redneck survivor or something. Dancing with the stars. Yeah. So we, you know, much to our internal discussions and debate, you know, what we got to do. We do Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling. That's right. Did Viacom say we want Hulk or do we pitch Hulk?

No. I think we came out and we, you know, kind of. Yeah, we put the cherry on top of the format of the Sunday. Yeah, so we put them in the pitch, let's be real. So we put them in the pitch, plasted them all over the deck, knowing we didn't really have him, but he might be interested. And we use that to sell. That's exactly right.

Welcome to Hollywood, good. Welcome to Hollywood. That's right. That's right. Yep. And we actually had a small bidding war. And, you know, that means when one network and another network wanted at the same time. And we were able to get a couple of other, you know, extra things in our deal that we normally wouldn't have.

But we had a great executive in Melanie who was fighting for us, you know, She was awesome. And even on location, she showed up. I mean, she wasn't just a typical network executive that would show up on her cell phone. And, yeah, they're there. Hey, everybody, I'm here. Everybody notice, I'm here. I'm actually showing up on the set because, you know, I'm here to make that impression.

So you all acknowledge it when I leave and say hi, do a couple handshicks and out the door. She stayed on set. And it was a grueling set. It was really. All right. We're going to speed this along a little bit. We're going to be here until tomorrow morning. So we get the show.

Melody goes, swings the bat. We get Hulk Hogan. I remember that process. It was fun. Doing the Lord's work. Oh, my God. But you, I had my hands, I had my work cut out for me with Hulk. Anybody that's ever does business, did business with him, knows that.

And that was just the easy part with him at that time. Because what he was going through in his physical state. So it was just all train wreck But you had your own train wreck You had when I say trade wreck It was a labor of love Don't get me wrong But it was tough

But you had your own labor of love And train wreck because you're now dealing With celebrities, many of whom You grew up with Start with And hold on And taking a half a step back Okay

It's one thing It's one thing to sell the show Okay It's another thing thing to cast the show. Okay? Because, you know, in a deck, oh, we could get this one and that one and oh, I think this one will do it. Like we did it at all. Same thing. That's right. So now, you know, we have to, you know, hire a casting director that we would work with. You know, I'm sitting there going through my rolodex of, you know, who can we call, blah, blah, blah. And, you know,

at that time kind of top of the list for you know for every for everybody was danny bonaducci and you know he was he was hot radio show in chicago that back then yeah and he um and he also had his um his own reality show on bh one that's right did well and you know Danny's one of those people where he's kind of like you know crazy like a fox or crazy smart it's like it's a it's a work it's not for real it's you know it's kind of a show stick that he puts on and you know once we got um you know we had hulk which made it easy you know easier you know to get danny which made it easier you know to get some of the other people that we got and you know you also just so let me let me interrupt you a few times along the way yep yeah so when

you say it makes it easier is it just like is it confidence is it like well if Danny bonnie ducci does it because we know he's got a good attorney and he's making big moves right now and he's getting a lot of attention so hell yeah i'll do something he's doing is it more for the rub or is it more just on a personal level because they're getting a chance to work with someone they know no it's the first one not the latter it's definitely because you know you want to put some heat on the project you want it to get some momentum you want you know people to to to want to also be in the show and you know there's kind of an art form, you know, in doing that because otherwise, you know, we're sitting there and making those calls. And nobody wants to, you know, especially, you know,

in Hollywood, nobody really wants to be the first one in and there's safety and numbers. So it's like some people are going, hey, even if I don't see it right now, that guy's hot and smart or that gal is hot and smart. So I'm just going to do it because they're doing it. And yeah, I'll get that rub and maybe they see something in this that I don't see, and I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go for, you know, I'm going to go for it. You know, the other thing was our pay structure, you know, even though it was, you know, a reality show and people were guaranteed a certain initial compensation, every episode that they survived, they got, you know, another paycheck.

So they got a base and then they got, you know, bonuses for. It was just basically pay as you go. Yeah, for not being eliminated. Exactly. And, you know, in managing, you know, those people, so we had Frank Stallone. We had Aaron Murphy. We had Dustin Diamond. Slow down.

Slow down. Slow down. Man, you're like a racehorse. You're so excited. Well, I thought that. You said we've eaten up so much time. No, we are, but it's with good stuff. But I don't want to skip over some of the cool stuff here.

Aaron Murphy, I grew up watching Bewist. I don't know how old I was. What was that? Like 1968, 1969. Something like that. Someone in there. So I'm probably 14 or 15 years old. But I remember her as a little baby in Bewitched.

And now I've got a chance to work with her. I know that people listening to this right now are going, he's getting all excited about Aaron Murphy. Yes, I got really excited about Aaron Murphy. I couldn't wait to meet Aaron Murphy. Because even though it was 14 or 15, 13, 14, 50, somewhere in it, whatever it was. It was still kind of part of my childhood. Yeah.

Like before I got a driver's license and all I wanted to do was chase women and drink. It was before that. I was as close to being, you know, kind of pure as possible and went off the rails after that. So that's still represented kind of part of my, you know, early, early childhood or childhood. So I was really excited to meet her. Here's the best part. She's an absolute sweetheart. Yeah.

She's the nicest person I've ever met. And I still follow her to this day and we just stay in touch randomly. But she's a really, really, really nice person. Yeah. And she had the right attitude. You know, she was pretty game, you know, for going through these challenges. She was competitive. That's what surprised me about her, Jay.

And she was like not, when it was time to work out, it wasn't like, oh, well, you mean I have to do this? Yeah. Okay, show me how to do that. Yeah. I don't know if nasty boy was straight in her right now or beef cake, one of the two. Oh, yeah, either one. God, flip a, how'd you like to have to flip that coin every morning at which one you wanted to work like? Oh, my gosh.

Talk about flip a coin. Heads you lose, tails you lose, you're just screwed. You're going to get one of these two knuckleheads. By the way, speaking of. knuckleheads Eric do you remember during that time uh when hulk got his grateful tattoo you got your grateful tattoo and of course you know mr beefcake didn't want to be left out and he got his grateful tattoo except he put one extra l on there and his yeah he misspelled it so yeah quick back story of that how can i at the palm so tell in Las Vegas for something some meeting or

some of there was a reason why i flew in for me phoenix hulk flew in from tampa so we were there together for a meeting of some kind i don't remember what the meeting was but help is going through some tough tough of tough times back that between his back what was going on with his son his wife filing for the course everything kind of collapsing all at one time it was a tough time for him he's come out of it amazingly well and i admire him for how he's come out of it same and and all that but that was a dark period of time so i'm with hawk and i'm you know he's trying and i didn't know i was i wasn't in any kind of a bad spot but i i felt bad for for hawk

and because i knew what he was going through that a lot of people didn't see or hear about and i'm trying to prop him up i'm trying to keep myself propped up to be very honest about it he walks by what was i can't remember the name of the tattoo shop that was in the palms because they had their own TV show for a while. Oh, Hart, and Huntington. Yeah. Tea was tight with those guys.

You know, he had an apartment, our condo at the top, you know, and all that. So he said, come on in. I'm going to get it. No,

grateful on my wrist. I said, well, hell me too. So we had probably both down the fair share of beer before that, but we sat there and got those tattoos. But yeah,

I remember Brutus. And then we said, look, look, look at mine. I'm just like, look at mine. And we're like, you spelled it wrong anyway

Aaron Murphy was a sweetheart but yeah putting that together how tough was it how tough was it to get Bonaducci um Bonaducci you know he had some initial questions his agents

at the time Richard Lawrence who also represented you know Judge Judy they did you know his radio deal and you know everybody comes in and you know oh you know we want you know, $150,000 an episode, $250,000 an episode. Like, that's not the, you know, that's not the precedent.

So you, it, there was some people, it's either a money play or it's a creative play. And you, you know, or a passion play. And in the art of the negotiation, you really have to know which button if you're going to push, okay? Now, if you have, you know, a huge budget, well, that's great. You can push the money button and if it happens to be, you know, a passion project, you know, then so be it. And that's wonderful and you have the best of both worlds. Well, you know, at the time, reality TV was born in a writer's strike.

You know, it was born to be almost the disposable camera of entertainment where they needed to fill those time slots and they couldn't, you know, do it with like the big budgeted, you know, scripted stuff because there was a strike going on. So they needed this alternative programming, this reality stuff. Now, people thought it was just going to be a phase. People thought it would just get them through the writer's strike, you know, but little, you know, they know that it would take off, you know, in the way that it. Yeah, and you also had Survivor coming in an international format coming in right around the same time. Yeah.

Nobody wanted to buy it. Mark Burnett, you know, give him a lot of credit for this after he. He got shut down everywhere. He said, screw it. I'll pay for it myself. Went out and sold the sponsorship to offset the expense of the show and bought that show on the air for about five minutes until it became a hit. Then that'll change. But it was an interest time in reality.

But, again, tie it back into how tough was it to get Danny Butter do, Chief? So, you know, his agent and I, you know, because most of these people that were on the show, I have, you know, a personal relationship with. And usually it would start with, you know, a. text or, you know, a phone call, hey, you know, want to talk you about this project, see, you know, if you're open to it. And, um, and with Danny, the thing that really closed him, because his agent, as a good agent should, it was all about the money. But I have to say that all Danny wanted to do was work with Hulk Hogan. And he, and he literally even said, I would do this for free if it meant getting the chance to work with with halt so so so how did that how

how how did that get by anybody without getting nailed down yeah so basically um yeah I told his agent uh he said he did for free he said he's like holding you do it exactly I'm like he said he wanted to do it for the privilege to work with Hulk um so I ended up having to actually tell Danny. I'm like, Danny, I'm like, your agent is killing me. I'm like, can you please, you know, tell him how important this is to you and how much you want to work with Hulk? And, you know, usually sometimes, you know, talent will hide behind, you know, their agent or their manager because they don't want to be the good guy. They want to be the fun guy, right? But Danny, Danny was cool. He was willing to jump in and call his agent and say, hey, just whatever

they say, just say yes to it. All right. Let's move it along. We got a lot to talk about. So out of the, and we'll talk about each one of them as we go. So nobody's going to get left out of the equation. But within the context of the dealmaking process, who is the easiest, who is the most difficult and who is the most fun? Oh, boy, that's a good, that's a good question. Well, you're playing with that. I'm going to take another leak.

Have at it. You got it. I would say that, um, that Dustin. gosh, may he rest in peace he was very he was difficult to get a deal done with and he was a little bit difficult to work with

behind the scenes but I think it was because he really cared about professional wrestling and he was very specific in particular and he had his own ideas and you know we're tasked with executing a certain vision that we sold to the network and not

all the talent is free to that information I would say that the most fun would, it's kind of a three-way tie with like Vanaducci, Todd Bridges and Butterbean. Those guys were a ball. Dennis Rodman, of course, was always a lot of fun. And he actually took it seriously when everybody else was goofing around and doing whatever, you know, because we had a gym that was also set up in our, you know, in our CCW compound, which was a old convention. inverted Michelin tire factory where they made tires in a very bad part of Los Angeles. That was like 150,000 square feet that we took over for a couple of months.

And I would say that Todd Bridges was the shit. I smelled like that place. Remember? That place was so, it was huge. And it degraded in a lot of ways because it had this really cool fight. Yeah, exactly. Yes, yes, yes. But it was freaking filthy.

Yes, it was. It was August in L.A. Not near the water. That's right. A whole different part, a whole different thing about L.A. When you're not near the water, it just feels different. Yeah. And it works.

But anyway, so Rodman, yeah, he took it seriously. You know, we had this gym that we had built in there. And he was working out. He was on the life cycle. He was doing his thing. And, yeah, just remember. that he took it, he took it pretty seriously. So that was fun, you know, for me to see him take it seriously.

Frank Stallone, who's a friend, I love Frank. If Frank sees this, I'm sorry. But he was the biggest baby. I don't want to hurt my neck. I don't want to jump from that scaffolding. I don't want to do that. What do you hit? The ropes aren't meant to be hit.

What are you talking about? And like Brutus and, you know, or Brian, they would just like kick the shit out of him in training and he would sit there you know with like you know ice packs and gau and bandages and like he was just a wrecked i think he was out on like he was like out on episode like two or one and like you see his instagram and he's a boxer and you know and all this stuff oh yeah and he was like what you want me to do you know how high it is off that top rope what he's crazy yeah so but i i love frank he's he's a friend but man he he was not long for this world in this uh format um and then uh trichelle canatella uh she was game she was a lot of fun um and uh and her and nicky's

hearing you know they had a little competition going with each other so that was definitely fun to to watch uh i mean let's just call it out it is what it is she was not yeah there's more to this casting then, you know, who we have in our Rolodex. You know, we need a really, really hot one. How do we find that? Well, you know, I'll tell you a quick little behind-the-scenes story that nobody knows because it didn't happen. But we were this close, this close to getting Chloe Kardashian to be on the show.

Oh, wow. Who would make TV history? You and I would be an extended member of the Kardashian family somehow. That's right. That's right. Oh, that would be fun. That's right. It ruined more guys' lives than any family that I know. You know, like, if you're a guy and you get within, you know, like cold catching distance of one of those women, you're done.

You're just saying goodbye. Your life, your career. Your existence, as you know, it's just evaporates. Well, you know, they have built one hell of an empire that you can't argue with. Yeah, but they can have it. man i wouldn't want i wouldn't want to trade places with those knuckleheads that's a that's a crazy life that they they're happy with it i would assume and i mean they really have done a magnificent job building an empire based on i don't know no challenge but well i'll tell you

their uh their mom uh chris jenner was actually who i dealt with um and and honestly i got to say for all jokes aside whatever uh she couldn't have been sweeter she couldn't have been more I'm sure and she really she really tried to make it happen she's like you know I think this could be really good you know for um you know for Chloe because you know no one would expect her to do this and you got to remember back then it you know it wasn't this multi-billion dollar empire yes they had a a hot show keeping up with the Kardashian but it's not like they were getting paid you know a million dollars they weren't the Kardashians then that they are now exactly correct so you know she was open to it and she was she was trying to push

to make it happen but you know chloe was a little bit just worried about you know hurting herself and um she was very sweet very professional when i talked to her and it was like hey like maybe if there's a season two uh you know so that was kind of a fun story um yeah but i didn't know that either see that's news to me there you go i didn't get to have any of good i didn't get to have any of those fun kind of cool people calls i was in the back with brutus and and nasty boy knob laying out matches yeah yeah that's what i got to do hey wait don't forget jimmy hart man you sat on the judging panel jimmy heart oh baby baby baby i love you baby oh yeah everything's wonderful so wonderful baby i give jimmy heart crap because he's such a character in real life i mean

he really is jimmy heart when you see him out on the streets i don't think he leaves the house without it being obviously, he's Jimmy Hart. Of course, that dyed black hair and a goate and the sunglasses that have the piano kind of rims, kind of give it away. It does give it away. But I do say Jimmy is a great, he is a great human being at heart. He's got an amazing history and life and experiences in the world of wrestling, and he's a good, good guy.

And he's really easy to have fun with. All right, what else we want to talk about? What was the most fun part of it for you? What? We're shooting the shows where it's grueling. It's tough, but it's working. Yeah. When did you go?

Like after you first start, because your first day or two, it's like, oh, God, what's going to go wrong next? Right. But when did you finally go, ooh, I think we're going to pull this one off? You know, I think when everybody got excited and we did like the first rehearsal and seeing, everybody, you know, vibe. And then, you know, seeing them when cameras were not rolling and they're all going over their matches. Because if you remember, Eric, we had three wrestling rings. We had the two practice ones. And then we had the main event ring where they would, you know, perform their match that they learned that day. And just so people that

aren't familiar with the show, there was a little bit of a competition within the competition because there was Team Nasty Boy and Team Team Brutus. So they were, you know, the coaches were competing. That's right. The rings were separated. So they didn't get to watch each other train either, which is another interesting aspect of the show. Yeah. We, yeah, we really, yeah, we really, we really sequestered, you know, them in a great way where we tried to follow our own, well, we did follow our own rules of our format, which is they're going to train separately, you know, the coaches are in it for bragging rights, you know, and pride and, you know, and whose match, you know, goes.

over and you know and all that stuff and the audience reaction but you know i definitely had kind of a you know a few celebratory um moments when i would see when cameras were not rolling even during their lunch hour when they would be in their respective you know uh training centers and they were working on their matches i know and at one point i was like i think these people i think they really want it like they really want to look good like they're really taking this seriously. And they were having fun, I think, because it was so different than anything else they'd ever done before.

Yes. This was not like, you know, typical structured reality shows where the producers created an environment and create a situation. And yes, it's technically speaking, there is no script. That's right. There's enough construction of artificial situations that are predictable that you can see any want. this was different than that this they had to actually participate in they can't they couldn't

call it in that no you're right and people and by the way you know these people are you know are our performers you know but they're they're they're not wrestlers and i remember one the only personal experience i could kind of compare the two is when i did circus of the stars you know i did this with the russian swing act uh who was for a b you did what i circus the SARS. Oh, I thought you had said you were, you were hanging out with Russian swingers, and I went, what? You're ridiculous. Oh, my gosh. You're like, I know that place. You're like, it's in Vegas. Anyway, no, I said, I said the only thing that I can compare to from a personal experience is when I trained for a circus of the stars and I did the Russian swing act and I had to

train. Please stop smiling, Eric. You're never going to tell this story and say Russian swingers ever again. Ever again. And I ever again. And I had to train for like, you know, like eight weeks. And I remember having to take two of those weeks off because I couldn't move. So and I was and I wasn't like hitting a mat. I was on a trampoline and I, you know, practiced, you know, things on me and blah, blah, blah, and doing flips, but nowhere near, like taking bumps, you know, getting clothesline, you know, running the rope, doing all that stuff. So the more the show went on, the more beat to shit are telling God. And again, these aren't wrestlers. You know, these are actors. And just to add some, just to add some sauce to this, there's Todd

Cadele in the background. He was a rig and asser. Great guy. Great play by play guy. I don't know why he's never made it to the big show. I think he's got a ton of talent. I got it was playing TNA for a little while, but it was too late in the game for it to matter. But anyway, um, the training was way harder than I thought it would be. I mean, Brian and, and, uh, Brutus both physically put this cast through more than I thought they would. And I think they actually put them through more than they thought they would. because I don't think they anticipated a cast to come in and be that willing to dig in and actually do shit that hurts.

You're a thousand percent correct. And, you know, you have to remember, even though it was, you know, eight episodes, it takes a lot more than eight weeks, you know, to do eight episodes. So for, you know, a couple of months, you know, these people are, you know, our talent have dedicated themselves, you know, to training every single day, rehearsing their matches, performing their matches, recovering, and going through all of that, you know, training again. And what's funny is a picture that Super Dave showed earlier with, um, uh, with, uh, Dustin and, uh, Danny, when it got towards the end, I mean, I remember like butterbeam

Todd Bridges, Rodman, Bonaducci, Dustin, these guys really wanted it. And there was a physical altercation, you know, on the set between Dustin and Danny, you know, that it certainly wasn't scripted. It was born out of, you know, the heat of the moment. Now, Dustin, rest his soul, we lost him. But Dustin, am I correct in saying he was an amateur wrestler? I don't know. I don't think he did.

amateur wrestling, but I think he did a couple of appearances for maybe some indie stuff where he did some one of them, one of them I found out after the fact had some, some amateur wrestling experience. Yeah, some. And maybe I got it wrong, but I thought I remember that. 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. And I thought, hey, man, this guy knows all about advertising. He knows what he's doing. Ah, ah, it turns out those people who work at the radio stations and TV stations who are trying to sell you digital. And what I mean is, Hulu ads, Amazon ads, YouTube ads, maybe SEO, maybe pay 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 Nichol. 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 doing. We'll find out for yourself and grow your business with my buddy. You're going to love him. I'm telling you, go out of your way.

Check out Eric Nichols and Envision Marketing Consultants. If you're really trying to grow your business, you're really trying to get it to the next level, just use my guy. Go right now to Conrad's guy. That's C-O-N-R-A-D-S-G-U-Y, Conrad's Guy.com. They came to play. And look, they were all smart to the reality show business. They understood the goal, the ultimate goal, and knew when they needed to step up in their performance or depending on the scene that was going on.

So there was a, you know, say what you want about. you know, e-listers or whatever, however people this, I think, disrespectfully tend to classify talent, particularly since most people don't have any. But there was a lot of natural instincts there that we had to work with. It made this unique type of show, meaning a physical narrative, as well as the spoken word, it made it possible because this cast had the right attitude.

if they would have been like trying to phone it in yeah not caring this show would have shit the bed so bad yeah because it would have been no hiding that yeah no with without a doubt and I think you know to answer your earlier question when when I saw them very very early on during their you know lunch breaks in their you know respective training centers going over this stuff I was like I think we have something because if your cast is into it and they want it, they're going to carry you, to your point.

If they phone it in, everyone's going to feel it and it's really going to be bad. I think for me, it was seeing the talent the very first time after spending an afternoon training. Yeah. Because of the day show, I'm not going to go into the whole format of the show because we'll be here too long. It's not that exciting for people who aren't in the business. But in addition to, no, that wasn't. I mean, I'm making a note. You know, discussing a format is something you and I could talk about for two hours.

The average person listening to this would get lost just because it's not interesting unless you do it. Agreed. But the, I went into it with such low expectations only because I didn't know what was and wasn't possible. So I managed my expectations when it came to what these people were going to be able to do in the ring. Yeah. And because I had managed my expectations, I think appropriately, as low as they were. It was appropriate. I expected nothing.

Yeah, well, a little more. But I know I make jokes about Brian Nomsen and Brutus. Well, Brutus, it's not a joke. I'm serious. But with Brian, I make things a joke. I like Brian. Despite all of his flaws, he too has them, like all of the rest of us. But he's a really good guy at heart.

Believe it or not, he gets in his own way. but he really is a good heart. But both he had Brutus put in a lot of effort and really stepped up and over-delivered, way over-delivered on even Hulk's expectations because Hulk had more confidence in them than I did. But, man, they both really over-delivered. Well, you know, and here's the thing.

I gained, okay, so when you were like, And Hulk was saying, okay, you know, and, you know, answering to the network and their format, like, hey, we need two coaches. We need two, you know, captains for this, right? And, you know, you just kept referring to it in the way you were like, okay, and they're going to, you know, captain and coach these teams, whatever. I, like, in my head, I knew, I knew what that meant, but I didn't know what it entailed. Okay. And those guys would, because they had to lay. out, you know, several different matches, like a day, you know, for, for these people. And then the talent who had no previous experience had to know how to perform that match in front of a live audience. Yeah. And I got a whole entire new respect for both of those guys for the role that they really played. So, you know, because that could have been, by the way, where it fell apart.

So it's like, okay, we've got a cast. their game, they're going to give us everything and maybe even a little bit more because some of them, all of them, they want this. Okay, but then who are the coaches? Because they're only going to shine, you know, as good as, because, you know, you have to, it's that balance. You've got to make the match for their limited ability and there has to be spots where they shine. There has to be, it has to be entertaining with a limited move set, you know, and they were going through those matches. And then they have to train each one of those, you know, you know, couples, you know, teams, wherever separately.

And yes, just like in live TV, we had to hit our times. That's right. Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, you're right. I'm glad that you took a pause and really saluted those guys' efforts because if we had the wrong coaches in that spot, that's where we would have really fallen down. Yep, because it could have got bad. So when the first time I saw, well, you know, when we shot live,

Because these guys were training right up until an hour before showtime. I mean, we were really cramming a lot of preparation of pre-production into a day before they even got dressed to go out in front of the ring. That's right. It was tight. And they were training right before showtime. Finally, it's live. We got a live studio in there. You know, it wasn't like 800 people, but there was probably a good 7,500 people in there.

It's still live. Yeah. And you're, they go out there. And I was shocked. what a great job they did. Oh, shut. Yeah. And remember, also, in between the training, we had challenges.

Like, okay, in this episode, you're going to pick your wardrobe for your character, you know, and you're going to have to do like a promo. So we kind of, you know, broke down some of the things, you know, in wrestling from going to promo school, you know, creating, you know, your character and your wardrobe. So we had them doing a bunch of schick, you know, in between. they're learning to do the matches. They had a lot going on.

Yeah, they did. We're going to wrap this up here. Not the show. We're going to wrap this discussion up about the Hong Kongan Championship wrestling before we segue into some real Q&As. I know there were a lot of people sending their questions and we didn't get to a lot of them

because I didn't want to interrupt the flow of this conversation. It was too much fun. It was too good. So what was before? we wrap up this part of the conversation, what was your one favorite takeaway? What did you enjoy? What now do you enjoy looking back the most about that experience? I think that I had the opportunity to take something that was personally meant a lot to me, still means a lot to me. and you know it was something like I said that my father and my brother and I you know came together so to wrap up a you know a personal passion you know with a business opportunity and then do it you know with you know with you know my partner my brother who I love with Holt our partner our brother who I love you know with some of the cast that you know or you know friends of mine some of you know the B.H. staffers, you know, that we worked with. It was just kind of like, we had a good team.

We had some good people on our crew. Yeah, we really did. It was just like, you know, a coming together of, and as a matter of fact, on that show, my, my son worked on it, my cousin David, worked on it as the first AD Howard's son. So like, you know, it was just like a coming together, you know, of personal and professional interests, you know, converging in this really fun business. opportunity very cool very cool so let's take a couple questions we got a lot of them super dave you got some stacked up here yeah travis midway travis is my guy he lives over in the uk he stays up he does things all the time hi guys i've since the change now the public see celebrities since a pandemic and their political preaching do you think a modern day ccw would spawns

some great heels if they played up to that uh what's your take jay i'll give you mine um you know when he says on some great heels, you know, I, Eric, you got to answer that one. Do I think there could be, you know, a fun climate in which we brought a version of this show back? Yes. But do I think it would be more than what that is? I'm not sure. I don't think so. Yeah, I look, Travis, it's a great question. And look, political heat is like cheap heat. It's easy. It doesn't take much creativity to generate a reaction it's really simple to come down strong make a big bold statement and know that at least half the audience is going to hate you and half the audience is going to probably agree with you and that's exactly how professional wrestling works

the unfortunate part though i think is that people have had so much they're so full of it they're so tired of it yeah they don't want any more uncomfortable political divisiveness or any conversation when they make the choice to be entertained. I myself will make a choice to do a deep dive into current events because I'm choosing to spend my time, however brief that may be or long that may be because I am interested in something I feel a need to get that information. But once I go, okay, I'm done with that information. Now, I want to be entertained. Do not try to keep political with me the matter. Even if I agree with you, I'm going to turn the other way. Right. It's not what I'm

in the mood to hear. And I think that's the risk when you use things that are pop cultural, hot, controversial, if it's going to be involved in wrestling generally, you take a big risk. And I don't think the risk is worth a reward. I would. But great question. I appreciate that. Thank you. production says Eric what's your favorite thing about Jason I was telling my wife this earlier today um Jason I haven't worked together since what about 2015 16 somewhere in there and I think it's more like 17 because I think dope man for a yeah yeah yeah yeah but by then we weren't really as working as close together as we did when we started out when

we started out we were in we did everything together we were in all the pitch meetings all the development we did everything together and then we got bigger and Jason kind of took over one side. I kind of took over another side. And we were still operating as a team, but an independent kind of. And we'd meet once a week in Orlando. Yeah. Yeah.

To do wrestling, which was the Calvin denominator. Right. But anyway, let's move on in the next questions. Oh, what did I like? Oh, wait. Hold on a minute. Dude. No, yes, that amazing balance that I've already referred to once in the show.

In my life, I've known a lot of people who are really, really, really smart people. So smart that they're almost in that special category. They don't really have a creative porpochle in their bloodstream. I've known a lot of people who are super creative. Couldn't run a Kool-Aid stand. Jason's one of those unique characters that's got both a right-side, left-side brain going on and has equal kind of equal energy and talent, both on the creative side or the business side. And that is a very rare combination. Very rare combination. So that's, that's aside from the

fact that we can just, you know, we think alike a lot of things creatively. If we're trying to come up with an idea, if we're formatting an idea, if we're taking a big, broad idea, breaking it down into little pieces and trying to figure out how to put it back together in a way that makes sense. We work really well together in that environment. And Jason, I don't like dealing with people. I just don't.

I like hanging with people and having fun with people. But when it comes to negotiating or, you know, if I can't get somebody to see what I want them to see and I have to, you know, spend way too much time working at it, it's like,

eh, I'd rather not do it. and that sounds arrogant but one of the reasons I like working with Jason is because if I push and I push and I push and I push and I push and he still wasn't given in I knew he was right a lot of times if it's not the if you don't have that confidence and sometimes it's just faith and confidence because I just don't see it I see it the way I see it I'm 100% sure right no one's going to convince me I'm wrong but Jason sees it a different way there comes a time when no matter how right you think you are you got to go okay i could be wrong and i trust

his instincts too and it works both ways it does and it does and that's the magic when you find that kind of a working relationship because nobody's going to always be right i don't get who the fuck you think you are you're wrong you're never going to always be right when you can surround yourself with people who you trust and i mean trust i don't mean trust by like i don't want to leave my wallet in the I mean trust like instinct trust right it's it that's that's when the magic happens okay another question like a burn do you all have sales process if so what is it I don't I just start winging shit yeah I'm with you I mean you go in look you know what you know what you're selling now Jason you can speak to this go into a little bit of detail not much but a little bit of

detail of just kind of that your psychology when you walk into a room with a buyer and you're presenting an idea they have yet to see it hasn't been pre-pitched by your agent or anybody else you're walking in cold but you've got something you want to get them interested in how do you approach it um i think you always have to try to find something that you can point to in a similar space that has success, okay? And I'll just give, you said make a brief, so I'll make a brief, I'll just give two quick, two quick answers. I'll start with the easiest one first. You know, Sons of Anarchy was, you know, a massive hit for FX, okay? So the thought was, you know, what can we emulate in reality television that could be our,

version of an unscripted son's of anarchy. So in other words, for the laymen out there, Jason, I'm just having fun with this. You're doing a great job, but I got to just have some fun with it. So in other words, this is Hollywood speak for some people would call it an homage.

Other people would say, fuck, they got a good idea. How can I take that to make it mine? Right? Sure. That works. Because that's how the networks think. Yeah. They want their version of that. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And it's the same, same story, different instance. VH1, we had this show that Montana, well, Montana worked on a bunch of our shows.

But she really, really helped me prepare for the pitch. And, you know, she was my right hand. It was called Beverly Hills Fabulous about an African-American hair salon owner in Beverly Hills. Great people. Yeah, really fun. Yeah. Yeah. And basically, there was a show on Bravo called Blood.

out and VH1 had yet to do one and their bent at that time was, you know, was urban. So it was taking something from another network that worked and putting it a spin that made it right for them. So if you can always point to something that works somewhere else and bend it and then shape it as your own and pitch to them, it's better than, you know, having no accolades to point it to and go, I know this is a crazy idea. But, you know, it's funny because there's a fine line, and we're going to get to more questions just a minute, so don't think we're done on the questions yet. I promise. We're going to get right back to questions in the next 30 seconds.

But there's such a fine line between, but you know what, I'm going to get into the weeds. No, you're going to say there's a fine line between being original and being direct. Yeah. Yeah. But here's, okay, now I can't help it. Yeah. And everybody that's ever listened to me on this podcast probably knows exactly what I'm going to say right now. This is why I was hesitated to say it. But it's so much just about stories and stories about formulas. And once you figure out the formula, the ingredients that combined within a certain trajectory

and period of time throughout the course of the arc of a story, the telling of a story, Once you figure out what those elements are, you can interchange your own ideas into them. You can make those elements of a story work for you. So you can look at a, you can look at Sons of Anarchy, which is what we did, right? And creating a scripted version of the Sons of A, or a non-scripted version of the Sons of Anarchy. You're seeing all the elements of that fictional story, and now you're going, okay, we need this element this element this element yeah and if we combine it all together we can put it against this completely different narrative and background right completely different type of cast right

and it's going to feel like sons of anarchy but it's going to be unique enough in its own ways that it feels original that's a very fine line yes and yes when you find it you win yes if you get if you go too far one way or the other it's a copycat or this is crazy you're going to wish you didn't do it yep bingo well a couple more questions here man james sorens and james is a good dude man he's with us all the time you probably saw him last time we were down with us in a huntsville or wherever we were together thoughts on producing today is it more difficult to pitch and get a show sold on the air and jason uh give mrs b's podcast listen over at we're talking ship thank you for that brother. I appreciate you, James.

What do you think? You're still pitching shows. Yeah. So, yeah, the pitch isn't the problem. Are they buying? You know, it's so pitching, you know, in some ways it's harder, you know, in some ways nothing has changed. But what has changed is, is the marketplace, you know, to a large degree. And, you know, a lot of the, it's funny. There's, you know, and Eric, you know, taught me this, you know, there's a pendulum, right? And, you know, there's when, you know, there's going to be a whiplash, right? When it goes like either, you know,

all scripted, all reality. And basically right now, you know, there has been more and more and more scripted shows that are- That's been happening for about 10 years. Yeah, it has been happening for a while. And now where there used to be more reality slots, you know, available to, you know, backfill in some of that programming, it's flop now the other way because it's dominated now more by scripted. Yeah, but even reality, you know, that category that you and I always, when we were working together, everybody knew what you meant when you said, you know, a reality show category.

But now even reality has broken down into kind of subcategories. Yeah, doc dramas, bio docs, and all these, and all of it is more based, the doc is the common denominator, short for documentary. That's right. That documentary approach to the format and the storytelling, that's what's making, I mean, sure, you've got a couple of your big tent full, you know, competition elimination shows, survival's still out there and all the big ones are still there. Yes.

There's some little goofy ones. but for the most part, non-scripted is becoming increasingly popular. What little real estate is left for it is getting eaten up by the biodox, stock drama kind of formats. Yeah, which still falls under the alternative unscripted bucket, right? So, you know, today's pitches are more documentaries, docu-style, you know, types of shows, as opposed to, you know, hardcore pawn Chicago, as opposed to, you know, those are transactional shows. That category is a transactional show.

So you're seeing somebody come in that's got something they don't know what it's worth. This is the magic of a format because when you figure this shit out, when you find a format that hasn't been done before, but you can figure out a way to make it work for television, that's when you start looking for islands in the South Pacific, right? It's the format is the key. You can create one. and copyrighted, get all the rights to it, you're making money for a long, long time.

100%. Anyway, okay. More questions. And the margins, by the way, margins are way different now than they used to be. Holy crap. Agreed. Sometimes I used to think, well, to keep this question up there, I'm going to get to it. Sometimes when you and I were working together towards the end, because, you know,

we sold Hall Cogo's Championship Wrestling, we sold for $750,000 an hour. this is pretty good budget time's eight times eight yeah it's never a bad deal and now you got to fight for 300,000 an episode and it needs to look like oh I don't know national geographic we want we want network standards on a local cable television budget yes that's right yeah fighting that space of fighting because now you're got to fight for that space in between you don't want to say no i can't do it i can't do it in that budget because now you're walking away from a deal exactly that's right so you try to convince them all along the way to squeeze that budget squeeze that budget and it's such a brutal fight and process yeah that's one of the reasons why to the day what everybody said anybody says

to me hey i've got a tv idea for you i go really i know a guy let me give you his name or now we're except for lately some good stuff is becoming my way and you know about that you're involved in it been blessed in that regard i'm grateful for it but it's been a long time since i've been excited about something like that next question oh what do we got any chance phe produces future oh the lugar movie let me tell you about the lugar movie because this came to me and i talked about i put it up into the universe the other day while i was doing a live interview with lex lugar talking about the hall of fame so i don't know what's going to go on here jason i'm just going to I'm shooting from the hip.

Yeah, go. But I feel of us. Okay. Now, Riffing was in 2000. And I'm going to pick five. That was a fun year. So I'm interviewing Lex. We're talking and he's so excited.

It's just an amazingly human story and a great story. And the subject naturally comes up. Who's going to induct Lex into the whole thing? Now, I don't know who wouldn't immediately go to Sting. So I don't know. I don't want to put any pressure on the situation. I don't have any information. It's just so freaking obvious, anybody would say it.

So it's staying. Now, I'm looking at, now I know Steve Borden, I know his personal journey a little differently. Yeah. Most people do. Yeah. And Lex's story and journey is one that we all know because we read about it in the paper. It was everywhere.

But now these two guys who started out of the business together, and odd business, neither one of them really wanted to be in in the first place. That's their kind of common ground. Steve Ward was kind of like, I guess if I have to because I can't really play professional sports. And the surfer thing's not going to pay off. So, yeah, maybe. And I don't know if that's true enough, but that's one of my impression. Lex didn't even want to get into the business.

He just did because he had to to make money. So these two come together, these two characters, neither one of them wanted to be in the world they were in, but they jumped in anyway. And then you follow their careers, the absolute start of them. They want to gem together. They're like family. Their brothers. They have perfect. Everything's perfect in their life from the outside.

And then they both, for different reasons, go downhill pretty fast and lose in different ways, different reasons, different universe. But the end result is the same and had to rebuild their lives together. And I think Lugar's story, they're both equally powerful. One is, they're both relatable. But I think Lugar's story is just so dramatic because of the, He went from Lex Lugar to God. Yeah, yeah.

And that mental thing and losing Elizabeth, going to jail, the drugs, the whole nine yards, and then finding his faith, much like Steve Borden did, and seeing these two guys in this redemption period of their lives coming together over the very thing that neither one of them wanted to be involved with in the first place, but it's ultimately changed their lives. I think that's a movie. If somebody doesn't pitch that movie and sell that movie, they're doing a disservice to the entertainment business.

I don't know if it's going to be us. I don't know if it's going to be somebody else, but somebody needs to pitch that movie because there's just too much good story there. Well, I like that. I think that has so many amazing, amazing elements. And the real story has, you know, this natural arc and it has all of the, you know, emotions that you want. copyright this conversation because I own this. Conrad and I own 83 weeks YouTube channel together. You did. The pitch is documented. The pitch is documented.

So we just created this, this, this treatment. The framework, that's right. We have the outline treatment. Yes. Which I will be able to fill in using AI while I'm eating dinner tonight. So that we can copyright it because that's fast and easy. It doesn't cost a lot of money. and it's a proof of concept of date and time that we can always lean back to if we if anybody else steals this idea of underneath this we've got a record now of the the intellectual property that was developed as a part of doing this show which makes it a legally and binding piece of property so fuck off if you think you're going to steal this idea

All right, Jay, I got to go, brother. Let's work on it. I got to go. Yeah, we can have some fun with this. And I'm actually not kidding because this whole A-I think. I know about you, brother, but I've been playing around with this stuff for about a year now. Oh, I'm having a ball. And it is mind-numbingly fascinating.

It's amazing. I'm going to be taking a class from MIT, an online course, because I want to really get smart about this stuff. I don't want to be reading about other people being smart with it. I want to be the smart sum of bits that figures out how to make that. money with it. Okay, wait, Eric, real quick, do you remember one time years ago where you and I thought we were the smartest guys in the world and we were like, okay. That was all the time. You're like, that was this. When did that not happen? That was this morning. No, but Eric, remember when you and I were like, if we could take the network needs list and put it like into some

software program that would take all that data and then tell us back what's the perfect show. Dude, that's Brock, that's Chat-GPT. It exists. We thought of it first. We just didn't have that, you know, thing called education or experience. That, yeah, all those things. We had the instinct. But there was a good instinct getting you to do this show.

Thank you very much. We'll do it again sometime for all of you watching. Thank you so much. I love doing this shit live. It's awesome. It's awesome to have you there. God bless all of you and talk to you soon. Thank you very much.

I'm out. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcast 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. How easy is that? Add free shows also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content and docu-series like title chase, Eric Fires Back, conversations with Conrad, and the Insiders.

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