83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 366: The John Cena Promo "You Get Nothing"!

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

On this LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss and break down all the very latest in the world of professional wrestling. Plus, the guys take a deep dive into John Cena's epic address to the WWE Universe and hold it up to the impact of Hulk Hogan's promo from Bash At The Beach 1996. All that and Eric will be answer questions from our 83WEEKS.com LIVE audience. FACTOR - Eat smart with Factor. Get started at FACTORMEALS.com/FACTORPODCAST and use code FACTORPODCAST to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping.  STOPBOX - Get firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code 83WEEKS at https://www.stopboxusa.com/83WEEKS #stopboxpod TUSHY - Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with code 83WEEKS at hellotushy.com/83WEEKS #tushypod CHUBBIES - Your summer wardrobe awaits! Get 20% off @chubbies with the code ERIC at www.chubbiesshorts.com/eric #chubbiespod MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code 83WEEKS at shopmando.com #mandopod ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS ENVISION - Save money and grow your business with Envision Marketing—visit ConradsGuy.com today! MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/83WEEKS Magic Spoon—hold on to the dream! BLUECHEW - Visit BlueChew.com and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping.

As an adult, don't we all miss spring break? Nothing like taking a week off from all your responsibilities. Well, here's the next best thing for adults. A spring break from house payments. Savewithconrad.com can help you get rid of all your credit card debt, just like that. We're routinely helping our listeners, say, 5, 6, 7, even 800 bucks a month. And you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to do this, but check this out, no house payments for two months. At savewithconrad.com.

In a list number 212-9, Equal Housing Lender. Savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric fish off, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I've learned a new breathing exercise, and I'm doing it, and I'm doing it. And I love it. I'm adding it to the list of all the fun stuff I could do to make myself feel better. It's really fascinating. Breathing exercises are pretty good. But other that, I'm doing great. And breathing well, having a good day. Well, we're excited to be live with you guys here

at 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already, be sure to hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. You don't want to miss us the next time we're live. But if you've got a question for Eric, throw them this way man we're going to talk about the good the bad and the ugly of professional wrestling you know you and i haven't spent much time talking about it i do want to get your opinion recently saw maria may have a fabulous match against tony storm at a ewe revolution and i guess it created a bit of an online discussion about women's wrestling what belongs and what doesn't and maybe where this one ranks all time. A lot of people think this may be the greatest women's match on pay-per-view. Others say

maybe they took it too far. I can kind of see both sides on that. I mean, but this was on pay-per-view, but what a spectacle it was. I mean, channeling her inner cactus jack there is Tony Storm with a crimson mask, as Gordon Soli might say. What'd you think of this, Eric? Did you see it? And what was your reaction? I didn't see it live. I've certainly seen coverage of it. You're probably going to hear me say this a lot, most likely today, if we're talking about what's going on in current stuff and we're being fair about things and covering all things. Look, nobody's going to be surprised.

It's not my cup of tea. I think it's bad for the business in general, because I think it's just one more thing that gives permission for people in the industry. I'm talking about Madison Avenue, the advertising industry and the agencies that represent them and network executives. It just gives them one more reason to have a bad taste in their mouth about wrestling. And it doesn't draw money.

It's satisfying a certain percentage of the audience. And I guess if that's your goal and you want to check that box, and you're willing to go that far to do it, that's your business model. The good news is it doesn't matter what I think, or frankly, what anybody that thinks that's the greatest match ever told. It really doesn't matter what our opinions are, because at the end of it, the market will determine it. If that kind of thing works, the audience will grow,

people will spend more money, the ratings will grow, the networks will be happy, all strategic partners will be happy, because the business is growing. If the business is not growing, this is probably going to be one example of why. So the market will take care of itself and nobody's opinion really matters. We'll find out in the long run. It seems like everyone has an opinion about the big spot on dynamite.

Of course, most everyone knows what I'm talking about. John Moxley had a board filled with nails stuck to his back. Live on Turner stations this past Wednesday as he was wrestling cope and we see now if you're watching on YouTube, Wheeler, Yuda, trying to remove the nails from the back. This is something I've never seen on television before. I don't even think we can show this on YouTube. Just go back and replay everything I just said and multiply it by five.

it's just whatever man if it works for that audience go with god i don't get it i don't see any evidence that it's working um in terms of growth and audience uh and brands but it's just i don't know man i used to think maybe it's because my tastes have changed so much that what really works in my mind isn't really working with the audience but that's not it that's not it this is a very specific audience that likes this kind of thing and like I said AEW check that box in spades I want to ask you about somebody else that has been making some headlines as you and our recording last night homicide had his last match for a long time wrestling fan of the independence or maybe an old school TNA fan

you'd be very familiar with homicide, but if you're not a hardcore fan, maybe you don't know the impact that he made on the wrestling industry. The who's who of professional wrestling, credit homicide with a lot of their success. Guys like Brian Danielson, see and punk, Samoa Joe, Eddie Kingston. I mean, on and on and on. He's been in there with a who's who. But I guess the news is he's had some health challenges and maybe under doctor's advice, he's going to call it a career and it feels kind of all of a sudden on a Thursday night

but if this is really it for homicide is he one of the great what-ifs in the history of wrestling Eric I think so I had a chance to work with homicide for a bit in TNA and extremely talented a joy to work with I mean couldn't be more cooperative um and and just when he turned it on in the ring he was special uh so yeah sorry to hear that that. It's such a, you know, anybody that experiences a health issue that becomes a crisis at one level or another, that's horrible. It's really bad. It's scary. It disrupts your life in so many different ways. Sometimes your career, stress on a family. It's a bad, bad, bad situation for anybody. And then for a performer, professional wrestler, specifically, or an athlete,

to have both your health and the security of just knowing you're okay to get walk back and do stuff and that's taken away from you and then oh by the way so is the career and in many respects part of your identity because it becomes who you are as a professional wrestler it has to or you know you wouldn't be able to get through it sacrifice a lot and it's such a big part of your life that all of a sudden you're going to lose your health, status at least for a period of time. Oh, and by the way, you're going to lose your career too. It's hard enough for guys to walk away from the limelight, whether it's a rock and roll stage or a Broadway stage or Hollywood set or professional wrestling ring. When you get hooked on that performance drug

and it's taken away from you abruptly, not by your choice, that hurts. And like I said, health care on top of it so a lot of empathy for homicide he's a tough kid I'm a kid there's a lot more kids around because I get older how they worked but tough guy and uh wish him the best got speed shout out to homicide such a great contributor to the modern wrestling scene and we hope that he buys peace and contentment post wrestling we're live here with eric bischoff so if you've got a question for eric keep those question that's coming and don't forget to hit that subscribe button turn on the notifications bell let's go right to a question from aotv productions who says eric somerslam 2025

takes place at metlife stadium where senor rock two took place any chance the third match happens there that's a good question what do you think eric could we see that happen later this year maybe what if sena does become the champion and he wrestles rock at somerslam at It feels like a big main event, doesn't it? Of course. And then what if Rock beats you? He's got the title. Now we've got Rock and Cody.

There you go. Because the story, you could keep both stories going at the same time. You could be building into, you could be fighting his way for an opportunity to get to the Rock. Yes. And that story could last a year easily. because what's the Rocks name? Remember, the final boss?

Yeah. We just booked it right here. Come on. AOTV productions has a great follow-up question. He says Vince Russo has said that he finds Triple H's creative boring and he wasn't intrigued until Rock and Growitz came back

in. Do you think he has a personal grudge against him? What do you think? Do you think Vince Rousseau has some sort of vendetta with Triple H? What do you think of that, Eric? I don't know why he would. He didn't work with him. I mean, he worked with him, you know, as a part of the creative team with WWB, obviously,

but it's not, I don't know. I can't imagine, but who knows? You know, I just, sometimes I wonder, if people just make up this drama in their head for something to talk about? Is it just, is it just good commentary? Is it something that he can go off on one of his New York rants and get what he thinks is his character? director over I don't know I guess must be working he's still doing it at some

level how is his podcast doing anyway is it is it is it a number oh no yeah he has he has his subscribers it's his full-time job he does well with it good good for him he's good at something okay that was a backhand to compliment Travis wants to know Hey, down the triple, uh, triple threat mania match with Raines, Rollins and punk doesn't have any real stakes, no title. Surely Paul Heyman somehow becomes the jeopardy without any stakes should it made event. Has that match been officially announced?

Silva, if you know, Chalman audio wise, so we can hear you because I don't know that that match has been announced. No, not yet. Okay. I didn't think so. So Super Dave knows him. He said, he didn't say, no, it's not been. advertise set up he said not yet well but here's the deal that has been mentioned since the royal

rumble it's been spoken about as if that three-way dance was going to happen i've never been sold on this match though even though it's been long speculated and a lot of the others you know people have nailed like cody and sena that was suggested a long time ago tiffany stratton and charlotte clear that was suggested a long time ago but i think this one one could still be in flux, I really wouldn't want to see them in a three-way. You're not really saying the three ways, are you? Well, I think three ways. I've said it a bunch of times on his show.

My opinion, it's a cop-out. Yeah. Unless there are three really good stories that need to collide in the ring in order to to come to an end, it's just an attraction. It's, it's an excuse to get big names in the ring. So you got headlines, so to speak, from a more promotional point to view. These are your top guys and are all going to be in the ring at the same time. But unless there's a reason for it, if you can't tell me why they're all in the ring

and why it should be a main event, then it shouldn't be a main event. It's all about the why. Why would they do that? And then, no, you've got the issue. I don't know. Maybe I should just step back for a minute, think about it from a more positive. angle. Let's ask the question. What would any three of those guys, how would they benefit from being in the ring with each other from a perception point of view?

Short answer is they're not. They won't. Because we're already at such a high level. Is Roman reigns going to become more over as a result of being in this match? Unless there's someone kind of wacky, important finish. Is Rollins? Is punk? No, they're already as I can say as over as they can get, but they're not going to benefit from this trifecta. Well, if there's not one talent that's going to get over as a result of this, above the others, if there's no motivation in that regard, why do it? Because it kind of dilutes all three. If there's no story, there's no emotion, because there's no why,

there's no reason for anybody to get behind it one way or the other, then it's just an exhibition or it's just an attraction match. And yeah, it'll matter a little bit. People will be happy to see it because you've got three big stars, but it won't be much. I'll tell you what does mean much in 2025. Optimizing your nutrition and factor has chef made gourmet meals that make eating well easy. You see, they're dietitian approved and ready to heat. and eat in just two minutes.

So you can fuel right and feel great no matter what life throws at you. Factor arise fresh and fully prepared, perfect for any active, busy lifestyle. You can lose up to eight pounds in eight weeks with factor keto meals. Of course, this is based on a randomized controlled clinical trial with factor keto, and your results will vary depending on your diet and exercise. But with 40 options across eight different dietary preferences on the menu, each week. It's easy to pick meals tailored to your goals. Choose from preferences like calorie smart, protein plus, or keto. And Factor can help you feel your best all day long with

wholesome smoothies, practice, grab and go snacks, and more add-ons. Reach your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience that can't be beat. Eat Smactor. Eat Smart with Factor. Get started at FactorMeals.com slash Factor podcast. And used Factor Podcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code Factor Podcast at FactorMeals.com slash Factor Podcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. Hey, can I talk about this minute? Yeah, please do. This is a great, great product, great service, by the way, both. And the reason I'm so hot on this is, as you know, I'm in the health rabbit hole and I'm reading a lot of great stuff and there's so there's an avalanche of

clinically based research that peer-reviewed all the other good stuff talking about the benefits of the keto diet, geogenic diet specifically and the positive impact it's having not only on your overall health and your blood work and your cholesterol and all that but even Alzheimer's I mean, the benefits of the keto diet are just now beginning to emerge. And I've been on a keto diet for about six months before I went carnivore. I'm a big believer in it. They both kind of operate on the same principle, just a little bit. In my case, carnivores absolutely no carbs.

Keto, there are carbs in the vegetables you eat, and that's allowable. That's the only difference between the two. And I feel so much better. I feel 20 years younger. and most of it just has to do with the diet. So read a little bit about ketogenic diets. This is a great way. And here's the other thing.

It never fails. When you get on a diet, it's working for you. If you're busy, something is going to screw up your day. You're going to work late. You're going to miss a plane. And you're going to end up eating junk. Or you're going to get home so late from work, you don't feel like making anything. The doctor's got a great selection of keto meals so that if you do miss a prepared meal or what you want to eat,

Really easy, man. Goat in the oven. You're eating in five or six minutes and you're eating healthy. Factor Meals.com forward slash Factor Podcast. Don't forget to use that promo code, Factor Podcast. So listen, Eric, since we've gone live, there's been some breaking news. Maybe to the surprise of no one, there's been a new signing to WWE today. The news is out that Ray Phoenix is the newest WWE superstar.

that story was broken by Sean Ralph Sapp over at Pfeiffer.com as he tweeted Ray Phoenix is officially signed by WWE or details on both the English and Spanish select pages so yeah I guess this isn't that big of a surprise the rumor and innuendo is that he wanted out of his AEW deal we had heard he was released I guess it was only a matter of time before he signed but now the question is Eric do you make him a tag team partner for Penta or do you keep him separate? What would you do if you had Ray Phoenix

fall into your lap today? Without knowing what their tag team landscape looks like or the plans for it, you know, the next six months. So given that we don't know that, I would, I would want to keep them apart until I figured out exactly. No, they may know. Look, this is not a surprise to anyone, including WWE. So let's just be real about that. I've known about this months before it

showed up and in the press. So he's been working at this for a long time. And I'm sure WWE was aware somehow of the progress and where they were all at. They may already have a plan or at least an idea,

a premise for a plan. But if they don't, keep your options open, there may be the right time to bring them together, because that's what everybody would be kind of interested in seeing, I would think, those that are familiar with those two and they're going to want to see them together as a tag team. Well, don't give it to them right away. If you know that's what they want to see, make them want to see it even more. And that takes a little bit of time.

And then you could have, then you've got an option. Bring them in, you could start out working together and whatever. you can book that yourself. It's easy. But yeah, I'd hold a lot just to keep my options open. We've got a lot of questions here. We're taking your questions live here at 83 weeks.com. If you've got a question for Eric, pay this up now. We want to hear from you. AOTV Productions is coming in hot. I asked this the other day when we had Lex Lugar with us, but I didn't feel it was appropriate.

But I guess I'll ask it now, Eric, a little forward. Hey, Eric, Brian Last, who, if you're not familiar, Eric, is Jim Cornetsco host, recently said he believes DDP is exploiting people instead of helping them with everything being filmed. How wrong is he on that? Now, to be clear, I haven't heard Brian Last say this, but I don't know why this fellow would make that up. I mean, I guess I could understand that, you know, in wrestling, everyone wants to demonize

everything but in dallas sure has legitimately helped people it's hard for me to get behind calling that exploitation erring huh the fuck i feel like he's firing people by filming i gotta be careful because i my re at my visceral response and you can already imagine what that's like if you can hear what's going on inside of my head right now you can we don't know the context, right? That could have been, those words could very well have been spoken, but unless you kind of know the context of it, I'm not one,

I am one to jump to a conclusion I'm trying not to be. Right. So let's just give Brian last the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, I'll not give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's go there first. Maybe he feels that way. He's wrong.

And even just a little bit of, of, I don't know, conscious thought and maybe a little bit of intellectual curiosity. Like if you feel that way, maybe just go to his website and look for a reason that proves your bias and improves the way you feel. Just pull something off his website. The problem is you won't find anything like that. What you find is a lot of people telling you in their words how much DDP has helped them. Yeah.

That's the only thing you're going to find. mind. And if you say, well, yeah, of course he's only going to put good things on his website because, you know, that's what people do. Okay, I'll give you that. You're right. Go to social media because that's like the most toxic success pool in our culture. So, well, let's go there. Nobody's going to just say nice things for the sake of nice things because that works. So let's go and see if we can find anybody who has gone through DDP's program. that has anything bad to say about DDP. I shoot.

There you go again. Can't do that either. So maybe there's a little bit of thought and given DDP the benefit of the doubt, just talk to the people that he's worked with. There's a lot of them that'll be happy to talk to you. I'm sure they got a great story to tell. And Jim Cornynana is a great storyteller,

so he'd probably appreciate it. I don't mean that in a smart-ass way. But, eh. take it with a great insult well let's get the negativity out of our system a o tv productions he clearly wants to be w downer today says hey eric chris cruz recently posted about how lex luger mistreated him and he doubts that he's a different person does he just need to let it go holding a grudge for 30 plus years is unhealthy and maybe we should be careful how we answer this one because we know how litigious Mr. Cruz is.

I don't care about it. They need. Um, I don't want to go off too far in this direction, but isn't it, this is, we know what I did the interview with you and with, with, with, we did it and yeah. I kind of told the story about how I, I judged him and I was angry. at him? Yes. Just

just didn't want to be in the same room with him. Because I judged him. Because I thought I knew everything. I was so sure I was right. Until I realized I wasn't. Because I got to know Lex.

It's just, it's, and the reason I'm not going to go off on Chris, is because I, I've done that. I've said stupid shit like that. Without having any idea of who the person I was referring to who they really were, what they really went through, what they really had to overcome. Sometimes it's not as obvious and drastic as what

Lexus had to go through. But still, to them it is. So yeah, it's unfortunate when people are really quick to judge. And I take particularly particular umbrage at those who question people's faith. That's really taking a little too far. Slowly roll, bro. slowly roll ask a bum is here with us live and he wants to know do you know nails also got any main stories did you meet nails kevin walkolds when he came through with wcw i think briefly he was known as the prisoner for one paper i know i i worked with i worked with uh kevin in a wa there you go okay

want to hear funny why i do have a story i'm not the story guy i hardly ever have stories because you got one i didn't travel on the road and you know nobody ribbed anybody in front of me back in the locker like i miss all the good stuff right however now you may have heard this story but when i went to work for a w a august of 1987 August 15th 1987 i remember it forever and i got first i got there and i got my job and i didn't they didn't have an office for me. So I went into the TV studio, which is on the other side of the building was split in half. It used to be a big Lutheran church. So the church, the worship area became the studio and then the rest of the offices were the former classrooms and offices

and things like that. So those offices were all occupied and there was no office for me. So I built with my own, with my own two freaking hands and hammers and nails and drills, rulers, or tape measures, I had all the gimmicks. I was like, Tim, the toolman. And the reason that's important and the reason you don't know why it's so funny is, I'm the least handy person you've ever met in your life. My wife won't let me touch any tool other than a hammer. Like, if it can be fixed with the hammer,

you i get to have a hammer other than that i'm not allowed to touch anything so but in spite of that i took it upon myself to build myself in office so i got the two by fours in a drywall and i did a damn good job those six or eight classes i took my senior year in shop at the end of the day just so i could technically stay enrolled so i to get kicked off the wrestling team those suckers paid off because I knew how to measure stuff. I knew how to saw stuff. I could hammer. I could nail.

Awesome. So I put three walls up, right? Because it was back against the wall in the window. And I was so proud of it. It was like about the same size as the treehouse I'm in right now. But it was really cool. I painted it nice. And I have a deer heads hanging up.

I got a big white tail, just a beautiful mound of a deer I got in Montana. Beautiful, beautiful. buck and i had that hanging in my office because i was proud of that buck and verna gregg liked it makes me feel like part of the team because they're impressed with my deerhead and whatever so anyway i'm all settled in and it's tv it's tv taping day right they had flown in all the talent they did it once a month or twice a month they'd play all the wrestlers in from all over the place ddp would fly up from florida and you know guys would come in and they would shoot interviews all day long and we'd edit them into the respective TV markets that we were promoting it.

So it was like a full day or two of these interviews once or twice a month. Anyway, they're doing the interviews. So all the wrestlers are in there, they're cutting their promos and they're screaming and they're yelling. I'm like a week on the job, maybe. I can still smell the paint on the walls that they just put up, right? I'm sitting in my office. I can't really concentrate on anything because everybody.

Everybody's threatening to kill each other. Next time we see each other in Sioux City, Iowa, or whatever. And I'm sitting up, but I'm just listening and laughing and just, wow, this is crazy. All of a sudden, I hear Sheik and on LKC and Kevin O'Walkouts just yelling at each other. And I'm going, wow, this doesn't sound like a promo. I couldn't see anything. All I could do is hear shit, right? Going, oh, that's not a promo.

You could never say that on TV. And sure is I get a thought out of my head. and Sheik Adnan Elk.C.'s head went right through my brand new wall. And I'm sitting in my office. I kid you not. I'm sitting at my desk. I'm sitting at my desk. And I look up and all I see is the top of his head and I knew his chic because he still had his gimmick on. What am I doing here? I mean, I'm used to this happening. This is this kind of stuff happening at closing time. You know, it's some rat hole bar on the other side of town, but this is odd. Yeah.

And it was Kevin. Somebody, somebody ribbed Kevin either put his lights on and left him on so his battery was dead when he went out or some kind of, you know, Kurt Henning like rib. Kurt wasn't there. He was already gone with it. Some kind of Kurt Handy like rib and somehow somebody put it the figure in the chic and it wasn't chic. It wasn't chic. Anyway, that's my story. So yeah, I knew them.

That's why you got into WCW. Well, something we're going to get into or maybe not getting into, depending on are you a good guy or a bad guy, stopbox pro is here to help. I'm such a big believer in this product. I have had handguns in my house for a long, long time. But when I had a little kid running around, I had to make a decision. I want to mess with batteries and hope they don't die. or I want to fumble around with keys.

Stopbox Pro solved all of that. See, it's easily accessible in case of an emergency, and it's still not vulnerable to just anyone. You see, the Stopbox Pro is 100% mechanical, so you'll never have to worry about it working when you need it the most. You won't have to fumble around with your keys. You don't have to worry about the batteries dying. It's going to give you more peace of mind.

Not only that, but we can all support this. All of Stopbox's products are proudly made right here in the USA in their own facility. Not only does this ensure the high-quality craftsmanship of every product sent out, it also creates meaningful jobs and opportunities for American workers. By the way, traveling is a breeze here because the Stopbox Pro is TSA compliant. They've got a whole variety of us. other innovative products at Stopbox, things like the vehicle safe or the chamber lock. But check them out.

But right now, for a limited time only, our listeners are really getting a crazy deal. Not only do you get 10% off your entire order when you use our code 83 weeks at StopboxUSA.com. They also give you a buy one, get one free for the Stopbox Pro. That's 10% off and a free Stopbox Pro. all because you use the code 83 weeks at stopbox usa.com discover a better way to balance security and readiness with stopbox tons of questions coming in here Eric and we got one from Jake from the windy city and he says hi Eric general question are you a fan of

any other sports outside of wrestling I believe I heard you were a big NBA fan years back what do you like outside of wrestling is there a sport that catches your attention eric i i'm not a big NBA fan i'm in you know i like to watch the NBA during a towards the end of the playoffs and obviously in the finals um i really don't watch it much during the regular season i do enjoy watching the NFL uh it kind of is a little bit like comfort food for my brain, I guess, just something I've always enjoyed doing. But I don't do it as much anymore. I'll watch maybe one game a week.

And even then, you know, I'm doing stuff while the game's on, so I'm not sitting there staring at the screen. But I do enjoy it, especially that time of year. It's just part of fall. So probably why I do it. I love amateur wrestling, freestyle, Greco, mostly freestyle. um i'm learning about cricket yes i said cricket oh hey now cricket yeah did you i mean if you look into the popularity of the sport of cricket globally it'll blow your

freaking mind yeah and rott sandracian my soon to be podcast partner on our soon to be named new podcast tentatively called stumps and bumps oh what a great name stumps for the cricket side bumps for the wrestling side i love it right is one of the top cricket journalists in the world i just saw a documentary on them they did in australia i'll send it to you unbelievable story oh he sent me that yeah you got to see that it's it's only a half hour and you'll get why he is such a a great, great co-host and while this is going to be so much fun, but what we're going to do is Barack because he covers cricket and that's all year round, right? So it's, he's going all the time, but he's going to be covering cricket and I'm going to be covering all things

WWE, just in terms of what's going on, breaking down matches, talking about pay-per-views coming up, topical stuff, right? No, no, no dirt, no rumors in any window, no that, none of that. It's just all going to be what's going on. So Barat's going to be covered the cricket side. I'm going to be covering the wrestling side. And a reason we're doing this is because I learned that there's 355 million, not wrestling fans, WWE fans.

Wow. And now that Netflix is landed in India, so to speak, we just thought it'll be an opportune time to take advantage of whatever footprint I have. Obviously, the footprint that Brat has. We're going to target the show a lot for the, You know, the cricket audience are going to give betting lines and all kinds of great information. And we're going to all learn about the sport of cricket together because I'm learning. It's a very amazing sport, really.

If you look at the history of it and its impact on different cultures and how the game is played in, the formats, it's really quite a fascinating thing. So, yeah, we're going to be doing that. So cricket is on my list of things that I'm interested in in the world of sports. The rest of it, man, sometimes I like watching gymnastics. I'm always amazed at what people capable to do with the bodies. It just fascinates me, particularly floor exercises. It's my favorite.

It's about it. Oh, yeah, you know, obviously, MMA. Boxing sometimes. I love the art of boxing, the science of it, footwork and all that. But, you know, definitely MMA. In your younger years, did you or Garrett ever do any amateur wrestling? I did. Really?

I wrestled. Yeah, I started wrestling in eighth grade. Yeah, eighth grade while I was in Pittsburgh for two years there. And then when I moved to Minnesota, the real estate agent that sold my parents in the house, his son was the captain of the wrestling team in my new high school. So the real, you know, because of the real estate agent, I was trying to sell my parents a house, right? He was like, oh, you're a wrestler. You're moving for Pittsburgh. Okay, my son's captain of the team.

I'll get you two together. He'll show you the ropes, you know, kind of make me feel at home. And he did, and I did. And so I started wrestling in Minnesota in 10th grade, all the way through my senior year. And then after that, I wrestled for a couple years as an amateur in open, like, I don't even know if the AEU was still around. It used to be kind of a sanctioning body for amateur sports. uh and there was an aAU freestyle team and an aAU recco team and i wrestled for a couple years on both teams and in tournaments um a lot of open tournaments and then i got into martial arts

and i kind of just lost my interest in wrestling i didn't have time to do both and it was no such thing as mma back then so it's like pick one and now you get to do both yeah i mean i guess back then or heck even now, like, if you have a lot of success in amateur wrestling and you don't go into MMA, there's not really much to do besides it's called WWE, right? Yeah, well, you can, you know, you look at a lot of the, you know, elite level amateur wrestlers that, you know, are not going to make the Olympics or maybe that's not even their goal, but they're not ready to hang it up yet. and I'd like to make a couple of bucks doing it.

The other option is MMA. And here's the truth from my perspective. And it's not just as a fan, not anything else other than just me as a fan. I love watching the ground game in UFC because it is chess. It is so intricate and nuanced. It fascinates me. But for the average, well, for a lot of the audience, not so much.

It's the striking, the kicking, the punching, the elbows, you know, stuff that you know really, really hurts that you can relate to. You don't have to have been in a match like that to understand it hurts. And that's, you know, that's, that takes a lifetime to get good at. Those guys who are good at both their ground game, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, whatever, and our great strikers, it takes a long time to get that good. So if you spent your entire life from the time you were probably five or six years old, like a Kurt Angle might have,

somebody that starts out young and makes it to that elite level, you've probably been wrestling almost all of your life. And you've gotten very good at that, but you haven't learned the other skills that you need to learn to compete at the super high level in the UFC or MMA. So you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. can get there. You can get into the UFC with a great ground game, but I don't know how far you're going to get if you haven't spent an equal amount of time going to go with your hands

of your feet. It's tough. So that you're right. There's not a lot of options. I mean, there are some tournaments that you can win some money at and things like that, but, you know, not like a pro football player or basketball players. Those options aren't available. I want to give a shout out again to Lex Lugar, who recently joined here at 83 weeks.com. We had a fabulous time chopping up with him. Of course, it was recently announced that he's the latest announcee as to be inducted into this year's edition of the WWE Hall of Fame. But there's a bit of a controversy online this week, Eric. Of course there is. It wouldn't be professional wrestling if it wasn't some controversy.

Some drama. Give us drama. We need drama. I think it was reported by Sean Ross Sapp and the folks over at Bifle, that the WWE was planning to make overtures. If they haven't already, the CFAEEW would allow Sting to induct Lex Lugar into the Hall of Fame. Of course, we found out here at 83 Weeks.com that Lex's preference is to have both Sting and Diamond Dallas Page induct him into the Hall of Fame. And I guess Lugar and those close to him have informed WWE that Sting is the preferred choice to induct him.

and it's worth noting, according to Fightful, that Sting had told people he probably wouldn't do it because it was the EW deal. And now there's a lot of speculation. I guess I maybe kicked the Hornets Nest because I quote tweeted it and said, Hey, I know we counterprogrammed your stadium show with a free Saturday night's main event

and booked the whole tour around your London show. But can we borrow one of your talents for our thing? I know it defies all logic to even entertain the idea of helping us out, but it'd be cool if you did. And over 400,000 people had a strong opinion of that tweet. It feels like it was a little silly to me. What do you make of this report? It falls into the stupid shit category for me.

It's just silliness. First of all, WWE I don't want to say this because it'll come off wrong. But the person that wants Sting to induct him isn't Triple H. It's Lex Lugar. It's not Nekon, it's not Ari Emanuel. It's Lex Lugar.

That's his privilege. It should be. It's important to him. So if I were Tony, Even in light of the real and perceived pissing contests that they're all in, from time to time, if I was Tony and positioned the way Tony is positioned right now, I would be the bigger man. If Tony believes, like Dave Belcher suggests, well, you wouldn't do it for me,

so I'm not going to do it for you, if you're going to take that kind of infant attitude to your business, then you're going to get what you're going to get. If I'm Tony Kahn, and I really believe that, like they're the bullies and have been beating me up and trying to run circles around me and disrupt my tours and my big events. And if I really believed all that, now is the time that I would prove I'm bigger than that. If he really believes that they're trying to attack him personally or his company personally from a business perspective and everybody knows that because he likes to tell everybody that as often as he can this is a great opportunity to counterpunch and come off looking like

the better man because you're not doing it for wwe you're doing it for lex luke that's what would make the better man just might do sense we want to hear from you guys we've got a poll active right now so if you haven't already kick us that vote and by the way i want to remind you that march madness is here you know what that means buzzer beaters high stakes hoops watching everyone's bracket predictions completely implode it's a time of excitement a time of unpredictability and a time where legends are for in other words it's time to wear chubbies pretty good Segway, huh? Chubbies has mastered the art of stylish casual wear that doesn't skip out on performance or durability, whether it's their bright and stretchy polos, their iconic

high-exposing shorts, or they're one-of-a-kind swim trunks, aka the perfect threads to wear, as you helplessly watch your bracket predictions just utterly fail. Maybe you're watching these games with your friends. Well, Chubby's original shorts give you that classic feel with the modern look. Hitting the gym is a way to make up for all those pizza and wing bikes that you had and Chubby's ultimate training shorts are built to sweat in. If you even got advanced fitness features, we could keep going, but you know, we're only going to do this ad for so long. All in all, you deserve a wardrobe upgrade for springtime in beyond. So to sweeten the deal for a limited time, Chubbies is giving our listeners 20% off your order with our exclusive code.

Just use the code Eric at chubby shorts.com whether you're getting dressed for your workday or maybe it's a workout or even a weekend getaway. There's Chubbies for that. And for a limited time, Chubbies is giving our viewers 20% off your order with our code Eric at chubbyshorts.com. That's code Eric at chubby shorts.com. Support our show and tell them we sent you and be your own Cinderella story with Chubbies. We got a question here from Instagram, a wrestling historian who says,

How are you going to end the Millionaire's Club versus the New Blood storyline If you hadn't left WCW in 2000 I don't even remember Which tells you two things One is I can't remember stuff from 25 years ago that well And It wouldn't have been very good I knew it.

It was awesome you'd remember. Yeah, we'd be talking about it for the next 20 minutes, and I'd be getting little notes of my comments here. Would you shut the hell up so we could get an ad in? I love it. I love it. John wants to know.

Jump away, Eric. He straight up said, DDP doesn't help people unless he can film and exploit them word for word. Last is a terrible person. I don't know where all this Brian last hate is coming from. Again, I didn't hear this,

but I think we. disagree but maybe that's because Brian doesn't know Dallas maybe he's just what he sees online and he's sure it's it's hey look it's easy to jump I mean if if you're if that's the way your brain works right usually people that look for the worst and other people have a lot of ship they're dragging around themselves which is why they're looking for a reason to feel better about themselves because they know they got their shit to deal with. But whatever.

If you're looking for a reason, you can probably create one in your head. But I just know he's wrong. It's so easy to judge people without knowing him. I just know that he's wrong. It's almost silly. Look, is DDP a incessant self-promoter? Yep. Has he been that way for the first time I ever was in a room with him?

Yeah. In fact, it's gotten worse. It's not gotten better. Stop. But guess what? He's nonstop promoting something that, yes, it does help people. Now, Brian is adding the little twist that there's some kind of a, some language in the contract that says, unless I'm able to exploit you, I'm not going to help you.

I don't think that's probably there. I can't imagine this. But that's what Brian is suggesting. that he's only going to help you if he can exploit you. I know that not to be true. And I think it's an unfortunate position today. And fortunately, it's one of the things I love about podcasts, not just ours, but everybody's. Because now everybody's got a platform.

Everybody can call each other's bullshit out. Have at it. You'll go a long way before you're going to find anybody that's got a bad thing to say about time in Dallas page. But you go ahead. Well, said. uh sky legend 96 has a question here hey eric if you were booking john seen this last match who would you put him up against and why let me jump start you there was a suggestion made recently

by mr tom carlucci and he suggested randy orton probably got to be one of the last matches Ooh. I mean, I'm a Randy Orton fan. I think Randy Orton is one of the best talents of our era. Overall, he may not have made the most money and probably came damn close. Consistency really matters after 20 years of being on top. But as far as being an overall performer, I love his promos. Sometimes he doesn't have the greatest material to work with, but when he does, nobody more believable, his entire body is a freaking entertainment weapon. He's built like he came out of some kind of AI central casting application.

hey, build me a wrestler that looks like a Greek god but has a great-looking guy, but it's also really intimidating. Oh, it can act and wrestle too. And then he spits out of Randy Orton. I mean, he's so fluid. That's the thing that really, the rest of the things that I'm talking about are really important. But he is so fluid in the ring that he makes it look so easy. More than anybody else.

that I watch he's so fluid yeah that would be great I watch it I may even go watch that one live we've got the results of our poll in and it turns out that 73% of the folks watching here who voted in our poll at 33 weeks.com said if they ran the AW they would let sting

and duck Lex Lugar into the WB Hall of Fame only 3% said they would would not let Sting and Duck Lex and 24% so they'd have no choice but to let him go as the PR optics would be so bad if they said no I mean I said this the other day on Twitter I think it's inevitable that Tony Kahn says yes and allows this I don't even know that he's been asked yet but there'd be some there could be some compromise perhaps don't be surprised if you that. And by compromise, meaning maybe he'll be there alive, maybe he won't,

maybe some representation of staying there. But I hope he's there live. I really, really do. I think Tony would gain so much goodwill from people who have lost faith or just kind of been disappointed. And there's a lot of them out there. You've got to be real about life. Now, there's a lot of people that wished AEW would have lived up to their expectations. This is a chance to do a make good in that department. I really, I mean this sincerely. I hope. I hope that's because Lex will be the ultimate winner. Tony will come in a very close second. I got to ask, this made the rounds. A lot of people were kind of surprised at the beginning of the week when it started to circulate that Vince McMahon sat

courts on for a Knicks game on St. Patrick's Day. Thank God. If you wouldn't have thrown in the same Patrick's State part, I would have thought, what in the hell did he hit his head on? With that shirt, not a fan of that shirt. I mean, that's bright green. Come on. I mean, I get one and get a little of attention, but you're wearing fluorescent green

setting next to a bright red ginger. Like, who's watching the game? it was kind of for real to see Vince make public appearances last month at the Super Bowl this month at the next game what do you think can we read anything into that he's normally been a pretty private person it feels like we're seeing him out and about with his girlfriend more often now and I think even Shane and his grandson Declan were there is this strategic did Vince want to be photographed and after being such a private person for so long it feels like we're sitting courtside you know they're going to acknowledge

you right that's why you sit inside it's not like he's got season tickets right so that that was a there was a lot of intention there he's working i don't know what he's working at but he's working otherwise he could be like on a yacht he could be on an island he could be traveling the world in his own jet he could a million different things And I've never, in all the years I've been aware of Vince McMahon, other than the XFL experiment, I've never really in bodybuilding, of course, I've never really associated him as much of a sports fan. That's exactly why I asked, because it feels weird, Super Bowl last month, next, this month.

That's like, I don't know about that. Let's show that photo again. He looks like, I don't know if you're a sopranos fan, he looks like Benny Walnuts right here but a polly walnuts that's viny walnuts right there i i like that uh tulsi gabbard thing he's got going on the hair i don't even know you don't know who telson gabbard is i guess i'm behind all right boys let's talk about a sponsor that i'm super proud to have here on the program it's been a long time coming i'm talking about tushy i've been a big tushy fan for a long time i've got a tushy in every bathroom in my house and we might be thinking

thinking, hey, I only have a Tushy in my bathroom when I'm in there. Well, let's correct that. Tushy's the real deal, man. I'm such a believer in this, and I've got to tell you, I think this is, what's the stealth wealth is maybe the way I used to think about the days, but that's not the case anymore. You know, gone is the way we used to think about the days. I'm specifically talking about a Tushy.

This is the best version of yourself. That's what I'm really mean. Like, well, don't you feel, is there a time where you feel better about yourself and when you get out of the shower? Like, I think when you're fresh out of the shower, you just feel better. And that's because your body knows that, hey, this is the natural order of things. This is the way it's supposed to be. And you just stick in dry toilet paper up your ass thinking that's going to make you clean.

It's not going to. Okay. Tushy is here with the wet damage. That's what they're here for. They're here to do damage with that water. Now, not really. It's not really going to hurt you. but it is going to make you think,

what have I been doing for the rest of my life? I'm such a big believer in this product. It is the modern bidet attachment that instantly transforms your bathroom habits and your butt health for life. I'm talking about the tushy bidet. It easily attaches to your existing toilets. You don't need any additional plumbing at all,

and you get a precise stream of fresh water, right up the old poop chute there. It's going to remove 99% of the bacteria as compared to just smearing that shit around with toilet paper, which is what Dave Silva used to do before I introduced him to Tushy. Now, my buddy Mike Dawkins tells me the installation is simple. It only takes about 10 minutes to complete. I say he says that because I got him on Tushy.

He came to my house, tried it one time, went right home, bought it. His entire wife and family poked fun at him and laughed at him. And then they tried it. And they said, uh, dad, can I get a Tushy for Christmas? Christmas. His 10 year old kids ask for tushies for Christmas from Santa Claus. It is a life changing, game changing thing. And when you try it, you're going to be like, why wasn't I doing this a whole lot sooner? First of all, you're going to reduce irritation and you're going to prevent micro tears. And you're going to have soothing water instead of scratching toilet paper or damaging wet wipes. Ask your favorite plumber, how good for your toilet system those wet wipes are. It's also easy to use. You just sit down. You handle your business. then you turn the knob and you get a refreshing stream of clean water right up the old poop shoot and once you're done you simply pat it dry with toilet paper and you're good to go the toilet paper is here to dry you off like a towel out of the shower it's not there to just smear the poop around and you walk around with infectious diseases dripping out of your butt all day people who have made the switch to tushy save up to 80% less tp they also have no more clogged toilets save your money and save your ass at the same time. Every hello tushy bidet by the way comes with a 30 day hassle free return and a 12 month warranty. Shit's not going to go wrong with tushy. Shit's going to start going right.

Instantly improve your health from the bottom up. For a limited time, our listeners can get 10% off of their first bidet order when you use the code 83 weeks at checkout. That's 10% off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com with the promo code 83 weeks. That's hello tushy.com. That's Hello, Tushy.com, and the promo code is 83 weeks. Let's get some shit done. Hey, I wanted to bring it up to you. Of course, it's the talk of the internet going right now. John Cena did his promo this past one day, and it was live on Raw.

Of course, Raw was international. So it aired in the afternoon, and we had a raucous crowd for John Cena's promo. And of course, you and I have broken down. and basically a dozen different ways. The iconic speech where Hulk Hogan turned heel at Bash at the Beach, 1996, he dropped the big leg on Randy Savage. But that's not what people talk about.

It was the promo afterwards in the ring. All the garbage was flying into the rank. That's what people remembered. That's what people talked about. Well, we finally heard from John Cena, not an elimination chamber, but a couple of weeks later. And it happened this past Monday on an international show, Eric.

I bring that up to you because I don't know that everyone has put this together. Yes, it was a hot and lively crowd, but English wasn't their first language. I can't help but wonder what his promo had more heat and felt more significant if they actually understood what he was saying, Eric. Do you think? Yeah.

Wow. now let's explore just for a moment benefit of the doubt perhaps but i know you go to europe now you go to germany 70% of the people you meet on the street speak english to do one degree another it's not a second language but it's damn close it's it's almost mandatory in grade school and high school. It's not an option like foreign languages. I don't know what they're like now, but it used to be an option. You didn't have to take one when I went to high school. But in Europe, it's been mandatory for 40 years that I'm aware of. It's it was. So you got to assume they kind of understood, but certainly not to the, and then you've got the audio issue. Even if you

You know how it is when you're at the airport? If you're having to be in an airport, you get somebody on that's native tongue is not English and they've got a heavy accent wherever they are. It's, you know, you got the audio, you know, because it's not the greatest speakers in the airport. You can't hear all that well anyway, even if it's perfect English and an accent you're used to. So that could be it. It could have been lost, some of that promo, a lot of that promo and the emotion just should go with it.

It could have been lost on that audience between. mean the audio and the English challenge. Yeah. So we should have thought of that one. Well, I'm of the opinion. The reason they did it over there is because John Cena is in Europe shooting a movie. So maybe it was a necessity for his shooting schedule that they did this

tour and that way it makes sense. But I couldn't help but wonder, man, if he would have done this promo for Madison Square Garden, what would the heat have been like? Well, special man since we're just there yeah yeah now you're right man isn't that fascinating no let's back up for just a second so think about the

commitment that was made here for seen it to be able to be a part of wwe right now because they knew he had this movie this just didn't get booked that's not how that's right that's right so they probably had this on the books for over a year well at least pennsylvania for over a year John did. So WWE went, huh, well, the only way we're going to make this work is if we create a tour around his movie schedule. That's when you know you're over. That's when you know you're over.

When they create a tour overseas to work around your movie schedule. You're over, brother. Hands off John Cena. you know i will say i was disappointed that we didn't really hear the why i mean we know why he turned his back on the fans but we didn't hear why he attacked cody we didn't hear why he aligned himself with the rock in charles d griffith is with us here live and he says am i the only one who thinks besides cina roads the buildup for mania four weeks out has been kind of cold it looks like a lot of triple threats at mania i'm seeing this critique a lot eric

but even i have to say as much as i'm looking forward to sing john sena and cody rhodes at russomania i don't know that the sina match made me want to see or the scene of promo made me want to see that match anymore do you think they have time to correct it down the road or is that the story they plan to tell sure what they got four weeks of tv yeah so sure if they agree that that's a problem. And I do agree with it was either you or the man who asked the question. There was no, I said the same thing to myself. I read, why?

I mean, I'm in. I want to see it. Give me a reason why that I can feel comfortable with. It doesn't have to be an overwhelming motivation, you know, Right. There's got to be a reason why. And if you start an angle out and that element of the story, that inciting incident, that thing that happens that sets you upon your journey,

if that's a dud, it's a little harder to gain that momentum later on. You need to start out strong with a why that people can relate to. Understand, connect with whatever. And I agree with you. It was exciting. John's seen his turning heel. Oh, the potential. But there wasn't anything dramatic about it other than the fact that he turned heel.

It was interesting. Even, you know, and I did see the clip of his promo. I didn't see a lot. I saw the clip of it. Okay. I mean, the delivery was great, but just, the message was kind of weak for that hope did you like the idea of keeping the look and the feel the same

and going with the more human approach of you guys turned your back on me or would you have liked to have seen a persona change like we sort of talked about like if he was bald and changed his gear and maybe he had the scruffy jeans or whatever you described, maybe the John Moxley look. Would you have preferred to see them switch the look up or did you like keeping the look the same? I think it's a really interesting question and my view has changed. You know, going in, I was hoping that I would get a, a look, a different look for John's character that somehow represented this new, you know, character in some way, shape, or form.

I didn't know what that is necessarily. But I think they're doing it the right way for John. Because here's the downside. If you completely change his character over, it's almost too drastic. It's almost too, it's not authentic at all. There's absolutely no degree of authenticity when you go in the room, dress like one character, and you come out of the room, dress like another without a reasonable amount of time and transitions.

it just becomes jolting, creatively speaking, without a reason. And therefore, in the process of doing that, you lose any connection to authenticity. It didn't feel organic, didn't feel like it was happening in front of our eyes as we're on this journey. It just happened. Like you walked in and looked in one way, walked out, look at another disconnect. So I probably, a week ago or two ago, I would have said, give me a different look. but I think especially with the creative that they're giving him is they're giving them kind of nuanced creative there's no why so we got to look for the reason which

means it's a nuanced motivation and I think keeping him in that same character the way they've introduced this story probably the best idea well the best idea is for you to hit the subscribe button turn on the notifications bell now here at 83 weeks.com. And if you've got a question for Eric, we want you to keep them coming. Eric, I do want to follow up. You know, when you think about this match with John Sina and Cody Rhodes, as it is now, we'll call it a month out, four weeks out. Would you switch the title here? Would you let John Sina make history and become the 17th time world champion, maybe with some help from the rock and set up

some future business? Or do you think it's important that Cody retains at this show Eric? I don't think it's important that Cody retains. I think what's important is there's a great story that leaves everybody better off than they were when they started. That's entirely doable here. And I think we could go back to the brief discussion we had a little while ago about Sina Rock. Let let Sina take it off, Cody, let Rock take it off, Cota, let Rock take it off Sina, bring Cody back, if that story is laid out and committed to in a way that everybody believes it's going to happen, I think that would be awesome. You get the next year booked.

You're not even there yet. You haven't even gotten on a plane to go to Vegas in your next year's already booked. Could be. So in that scenario, would I see John getting the belt? Yeah. I would. be interesting it'll be good for Cody a lot of look you're not going to get in my humble fucking opinion wow you're not going to get a lot more over than he is staying on top but he's such a good

baby face, such a good face for the company, he'll get more over getting it back than he will holding on to it. That's the best way to say it. He'll get more steam, more momentum, more opportunity to get himself over in a different way if he's chasing that championship for the next 12 months as opposed to defending it. So that's your fucking opinion. And you have a non-fucking opinion. No. My opinion is a fucking opinion in either case. All right.

Let me ask you this. Real question. Actually, pop question. What's the worst you think you're nuts ever smelled? Junior high school wrestling team. Brutal, brother. Brutal. And it had everything to do with my jockstrap.

Because I didn't take it home every day to wash it. So that, it was. I mean, that thing would hang in my locker. Not just me, everybody was like, yeah, I don't know, just hang it up. It'll dry out. Yeah. High school was rough on my hands. Nothing worse than the dick care stink.

Whole body deodorant is what we're talking about. Thanks to our friends of Mando. It's safe to use anywhere on your body. The pits, your balls, your thigh folds, your belly buttons, your butt cracks, even your feet. It was created by a doctor who went to school with Eric, by the way, who saw firsthand how normal B.O. was being misdiagnosed and mistreated. Holy shit, I just realized.

Maybe the chick who created this smelled your jockstrap and said, I got to fucking get to the bottom of this. It's been clinically proven to block odor all day long, talking about Mando. It even controls odor for up to 72 hours. You can even check it out in a few different product options. You've got the solid deodorant stick, which has been formulated and powered by mandelic acid in order to stop odor before it even starts.

And you've got the spray deodorant. It's aluminum free, and it's ideal for those hard-to-reach places. especially if you got those little T-Rex on, it's like Dave Silva. All the products are baking soda free, their paraben free, and you can choose from a variety of fresh scents, like bourbon leather or cloverwoods or pro sport or even Mr. Fuji. Oh, sorry, Mount Fuji.

Mando has been proven to control odor better than just to shower with soap alone. And if you're ready to try America's number one whole body deodorant formula right now, I've got good news. You can find them in Walmart, Target, and other retailers across. the country, but for the best deals and to support our show, go to shop mando.com. That's where you'll

find the Mando starter pack. It really is perfect for new customers and it comes with a solid stick deodorant, the cream tube deodorant, and two free products of your choice, like the mini body wash and the deodorant wipes, plus you get free shipping, and that's a special offer for our listeners, new

customers, get $5 off the starter pack with our exclusive code. That's like 40% off your starter pack when you use our code 83 weeks at shopmando.com. That's S-H-O-M-A-N-D-O.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Smell fresher, stay drier,

and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. You know what? The lady that invented that, she's a doctor. She's a gynecologist and he was Dr. Shannon Klingman. She lives in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where I went to high school. I mentioned that on the ad. I'm sorry. Did you?

You missed some great stuff. I said she actually created it because your jockstrap smelled that bad. Oh, yeah. Well, she might heard about it. In fact, you know, I'm looking at her age thinking I, you know, obviously didn't know her when I was in high school, but I might have known her mom. So it might have been past long.

Yeah. Maybe you got to get to the bottom of these guys thinking of. Travis Medway wants to know. WWE tickets are so high. Eric, did you have a say in ticketing prices for WCW? WWE even has crowds cheering for paying high. prices are the current high prices short-sighted yeah let's start with the last question first do you think WWE has priced themselves out of the market is their

price increase and the level they're at now short-sighted just to give you some context Eric if you'd like to have lunch with John Cena at WrestleMania you can do that for $25,000 if you'd like to get Steve Austin to sign a sheet of paper for you and write Stone Cold Steve Austin on it, that'll be $800. If you'd like to have a beer with Mickey James and Austin Theory, that's only $8,000. Now, if you'd like to get a photo with Lex Lugar and Triple H at the same time, just running a cool $8,500. You can even watch one of Sean Michael's favorite matches with Sean Michaels,

the low low price of $8,000 per person. And I guess there's some people who think, maybe they've priced themselves out of the market. what do you make of this here we've seen crazy high prices like this at comic cons and the UFC and now we're seeing it for w to be maybe not surprising under the tk o banner what do you make of this eric good for them um here's what do you know you've priced yourself out of the market when you stop selling tickets there it is come on now just i mean it's just the answer to the question it's so easy And the first part of the question was, did I have any say? Yeah, I did. I did. I, you know,

I relied on Zane Bresloff and it's pretty much it when it came to ticket pricing. Because Zane had his finger on the pulse. Zane knew what the wrestling market could sustain. He was well aware of WWE pricing. So we had to be cognizant of that. Couldn't go do our own thing. So yeah, I had some say, but, you know, I left it up to other people uh a tv production says i wonder if we can set up a meeting with vince russo and eric so eric can tell him how wrong he is you've said it before have you yeah i thought you'd say that why would i do that what would it wouldn't be fun i have no need to explain myself in any way shape or form to him and there's absolutely nothing he can say

that would change the way I feel about anything in life, anything. So given that, why would I spend five minutes? I would spend five minutes with anybody that fell into that category. Josh Henney says I was at Omaha Wednesday in a match tape went to a time limit draw, not hearing the commentary, the finish killed the audience. Eric, what do you think of the time limit draw? I mean, we used to see this all the time back in the day, but. I remember when they were doing them in house shows back in the day, the ring announcer,

you know, you probably remember this, Eric, 10 minutes past, 20 minutes remaining. And then you get closer and closer, five minutes remaining, one minute. So that added to the drama. But if they did that on television, and again, I haven't seen it, without that going through the house, I could see how that would take you out of it if you don't know that there's this added sense of urgency that the audience at home knows. right absolutely absolutely and i like the idea look there was a time and this is you know after i got the w i was still talent or still just a talent this is before i got into management

but looking at the wcdb format and just talking through it you know with with either jim ross or tony shivani or keith mitchell or dusty i talked a lot to dusty um I liked a format that mixed things up enough where you couldn't you couldn't predict every single thing. You know, wrestling is so formulaic in many respects, like any story is. They all have a formula. Really, really good stories have really, really defined and discipline formulas and stories that connect them. And wrestling does too. You get into a familiar pattern, the way you set a match up, angle going into it,

the promos after it. Everything starts developing a rhythm that's unique to whoever the writing team is. And it's always nice to break that rhythm up because you get people used to that rhythm, they start feeling like they can predict what's going on. And sometimes it's just subconscious. They just see the same pattern so often. and before long, they feel like there's not going to be anything surprising. So it's nice to do something that just kind of breaks that chain of monotony.

Just cut a link short. No, we can one of the links. So it's, whoa, that's different. Okay, I got to pay attention. Why did that happen? I know that seems like really, really nuanced and maybe sounds stupid to sell, but you've got to figure out a way to break up monotony. of wrestling is if you really sit down and think about it, you're seeing, I don't know how many

moves we see during a show, unique individual moves that you only see once during the course of a show. It would be a real interesting exercise to watch an entire episode. Okay, we've got to have some interns out there. Somebody that's out there that watches wrestling, that loves wrestling, that has the time. Maybe they're AI masters, so I challenge you. You can go to Ericbishop.com, contact me, leave me your email address and tell me how you would do this. But how would you watch a show?

Let's say Smackdown. So you Smackdown first. Use AEW, either one, whatever your favorite show is. Watch it and track every single individual move you see during the course of a show. It would be hard, but do that. I wonder how many different moves you see through the course of a show. I wonder if it's like really only six. Or maybe it's 60.

I don't know. I've never thought about it that way. But something tells me that if somebody actually does this, we'll be shocked at how many times we see the same move over and over and over again. Now, it's performed by different people in different. situations with different impacts or effects or whatever but in terms of the move sets you just don't see a lot of different moves so anytime you can break up that monotony in any way the better because otherwise wrestling starts feeling too predictable and that's one of the things

wrestling fans i talked about this and some of the research that we did when we launched nitro is one of the things that fans talked about how much they love is spots and aides and surprises the thing that they got bored with the most is when it got predictable. Venice Beach Dub says, Breaking News, Brian Cage injured an OWA show in Hollywood. Looks like a blown quad. I haven't seen or heard that.

I don't know if I believe that. But he did say questions for Eric. Can you talk about WCW Cruiserweight Blitzkrieg? I don't know if you've seen this Eric, but Blitzkrieg almost became like an internet sensation. People became obsessed with his story. It was like he came out of nowhere. was received pretty well as an innovative high flyer and then poof he was gone we've

heard things like oh he was a computer programmer and he just left the business do you remember blitzkrieg at all oh no i mean the name sounds familiar like but it's no it's no it's what i heard it from but i don't remember the individual i think his last match believe it or not was actually October of 99 it was a thunder and then he was done over at cagematch.net they've only got 53 matches for him it was like you only had a handful of matches and then poof he's uh on wcdb programming so yeah we got to get to the bottom of blitzkrieg one day if you're listening to this and you know about blitzkrieg and where he's out these days we'd love to chat with him speaking of chatting with him i don't know if we've promoted

to announce this yet. In the coming weeks, we're going to be catching up with Mark Merrow. He's got a brand new book out. I can't wait for you to read it, Eric. It's quite a page turner, and he pulls no punches. He's brutally honest. A lot of times in wrestling books, you got to wonder, is this a corporate book? Are they taking care of the company? Do they have an axe to grind? Are they going to deflect? Mark Merrow tackled every tough subject, and I mean all of them head on in the book. I highly recommend. end it. It's available now on Amazon, but I'm looking forward to you guys chatting because we actually sort of freestyle the other day on 80 or on ad free shows.com. What if he wouldn't

have left? You know, he leaves in March of 96. Two months later, Scott Hall comes down the stands and the NW ball starts rolling. It would have felt like he could have been a got to sort of wave the banner for WCW. And he would have been with the company when they went from to the number one wrestling company in the world, but instead he switches teams and well, it just didn't end up exactly how he hoped. That'll be an interesting conversation, you and him catching up here, don't you think? Yeah, and we haven't spoken to each other, even socially, you know, because I see people all the time and I was in New York last weekend and, you know, I did get a chance to talk to

Rick because he had quite a big line and I didn't. but we didn't get a chance to connect. Talk to him this morning, though. That was interesting, fun. But we see each other at these different conventions and autograph signings, but Mark is one guy that I've just never crossed paths with since you and I had a conversation in the airport

and he told me he wanted to leave to go to WWE. So it'll be a really great time for me personally, great experience for me, to reconnect with Mark. I think Mark, and I know this because, a mutual friend who shared it with me recently that Marcus kind of felt like he had heat with me and that's not true but I'd like to know why he felt that way and I'll ask him that question but yeah I'm looking forward to it'll be a great conversation I'm very excited well we're excited to catch up with Mark here and I'm excited to tell everyone

listening about Magic Spoon but now you're already know about their nostalgically delicious cereal you know it tastes just like our childhood favorites but you know what we used to eat as a kid was really a bowl full of sugar and now thanks to magic spoon it's a bowl full of protein and they've also launched a brand new high protein granola and true to the magic spoon promise it's packed with protein and it's so crunchy you've heard me brag about the treats here for a while they're crispy they're crunchy they're airy and they're an easy way to get 12 grams of protein on the go so we'll get a shot of me right fast just before we went live here on the program today i crushed a double chocolate i've talked about it for a long time

and there you see there's proof no surprise but 12 grams of protein how about that they come in mouthwatering flavors like marshmallow chocolate peanut butter and dark chocolate i just smashed the double chocolate i highly recommend you check it out and while you're there check out magic spoons brand new granola packs to pack in 13 grams of protein but zero added sugars with a ton of delicious flavors like dark chocolate almond or how about honey almond or even peanut butter to get $5 off your next order at magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks or look for magic spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store that's magic spoon.com slash 83 weeks for $5 dollars off.

Uh, fixed dream Bob wants to know. Eric, did you ever have any interaction with Jamie Kilner when he was ahead of Fox or the WB? Of course, we know what he did to WCW at the very end, but did you cross pass with him at Fox or WV? I did not. I did not. I, you know, I knew who he was, obviously, but I had never had an occasion to

meet him or in a meeting with him or anything. 82 atlantic has a kind of a weird question when you parted ways with wb in 2019 what happened with the lease on your connecticut apartment were you forced to pay rent on the remaining months no it was a short-term lease and i think uh i had like two or three months uh left we were looking at another apartment a bigger one uh in a different building so we had just uh I found a apartment that we were going to move into, but we had like two months to do it. So, no, and it was, WWE was paying for it anyway. Whatever it was left in a lease was a WWE obligation, not an Eric Bischoff obligation. But I think there was only about two months left. And I had the option to stay in that one if I wanted to, and WWE would have kept paying for it. But it was, don't get me wrong, it was not a bad place, but it was a corporate apartment.

furniture wise and everything. So no way I could stay there. Liquid Fox says, Hey, Eric, you were one of the best heels that you ever want to be a face in WWE, or is it true that it's more fun to play the heel? I couldn't tell you because I've never played a baby face. So I don't have anything to compare it to. But for me personally, I can't imagine being a baby face. I can only relate to being a heel because it's

and part of it is because I'm not a wrestler how do you how does a baby face non-wrestler get over eh weak shit not interested doesn't feel right it's just not possible really if you don't have that

you know physical threat to back it up and keep people on their toes just too I don't even know if it's possible certainly isn't for me sure Virgil Dawkins says if WWE did decide to relaunch WCW as a brand alongside raw at Smackdown who in w.E would you like to see on the roster and would you ever be involved if asked okay now that's interesting let's say they announced that they're bringing WCW the brand back and your phone rings and that's our great, close personal friend Bruce Pritchard, who says, hey, Eric, what if those famous

Bruce Pritchard words, how would you receive that? Depends what follows the what if. Okay. It, I can't imagine it. I mean, it's fun to think about, don't get me wrong. Like initially, my first, as the neuropathways in my brain start firing and flooding with information. of course, I'm going to go, wow, that'd be fun if it was 20 years ago or if it was 15 years ago.

But now, oh, I'm good, good. That part of my life, I say this with so much joy and respect and gratitude, mostly gratitude. I'm so grateful for that time of my life, but I absolutely have no need to relive any. of it at all other than what we do here. This is fun. I like doing this. But I don't feel, you know, you hear me talk about that performer's itch. I think I've scratched that. I think I'm good. I'm grateful for every minute of it, but I don't feel that need anymore that I probably would have five years ago or 10 years ago or 15 years, certainly 20 years ago, but not anymore. And it, And taking that aside, what would that look like?

I mean, there's no talent left. No Goldberg's, you know, touch and go. He's still waiting to get cleared. What else is there? There's nobody that represents WCW that's still active in the rain. Now, could you come up with a second generation of or, you know, some kind of a tribute to WCW thing? Could it be done? Of course it can be done.

But would I be interested in doing it? Absolutely. I'd be interested in watching it. Sure. But not being a part of it. Let's do an old WCW question. SDO is with us here live and he says, Hey, Eric, who do you think should be Goldberg's last send-off match?

And where does he rank in all time over baby faces? Let's start with the last one first. What do you think of great baby faces in the history of wrestling is Goldberg in your top five top 10 from 1990 whatever for the two years or three years that 98 99 maybe yeah yeah he was hot down he was one of the top baby faces in a business at that time in some respects not in all respects but in some you didn't have the merchandise sales of stone cold C boss and clearly didn't have the paper buys of Stone Cold C-Bossohn, clearly.

But ratings-wise, yeah, we were at neck-and-neck, 97, 98, even early 99, I think. No, I think by 99, we were hurting. But yeah, for a period of time, but if you look at the last 20 years, he's not in the middle. He's in the middle of the pack in the last 20 years. A lot of talent. Now, that's not fair. I would say upper third.

but there's been a lot of great talent that's come through there and gotten really over in the last 10, 15 years. But during that, but during that two-year period, man, he was, he was a, yeah. Shout out to Derek Zoo, who's just joined us to be a member here at 83 weeks.com. We greatly appreciate you joining us. Welcome to the club, Derek. And keep doing your thing. We love hearing your stories.

And I don't know if you've seen, but, you know, Derek has a stand-up comedian Eric and he's got a cool t-shirt that says hello I'm rooting for you I think that's a cool little phrase don't you think I'm reading that's cool shut out to Derek Alex says was there any consideration to put the big gold belt on Booker T in 9798 was that a missed opportunity or did his WCW career go as it should have and I want to remind you Eric I know you probably already know this booker T is actually the most decorated wrestler in WCW history. No one won as many

championships in WCW as Booker T. So when you're saying, did his career go as it should have, I know he didn't win the big gold belt until the very end there, uh, goodness gracious. He had every belt, right, Eric?

He did. And he got a tremendous amount of TV time. He got himself over. Took advantage of every opportunity and he made the most of every opportunity because he's a pro. But to suggest that we missed an opportunity by not doing something other than what we were doing in 97 and 98 doesn't make a lot of sense. It was a missed opportunity for perhaps for Booker because wouldn't that have been nice to be able to just get plucked right in the middle of the hottest roster that would, was making more money and generating more revenue and more ratings than anybody in the world

at that time. And yeah, to be plucked out of the upper third and be pushed right on top would have been a great opportunity for Booker, but wouldn't have a smart business move. And a long right, I don't think it would have been good for Booker. It was not that Booker didn't have the talent and the ability, but just where WCW was and where the audience's head was at and just where NWO was, could it have been done? Sure. Is it a missed opportunity? I don't buy that. It was an opportunity, but I don't think it was a better opportunity

than some of the ones that we had at that time. Eric, I saw some silly reports earlier today. I don't know if you saw these, but have you seen the reports that they're actually going to start offering financing for food delivery? So if you were using something like Uber Eats or DoorDash or something like that, you're actually going to have an option or you can finance the purchase and just charge it as opposed to paying for it. I don't know if you've seen that,

but I've seen some funny tweets online that say things like the year is 2026. I have now defaulted on my burrito loan. I mean, can you believe this is where we're doing, how this is going right now? And it's what we need is more debt, right? I mean, as a country, come on, don't we need new ways? Let's invent some ways to keep people completely financially underwater for the rest of their lives. If it wasn't enough that we could force him into near bankruptcy with the cost and the ease of access to student loans, if it's not enough that we send a doctor out of medical school with a half a million dollars of loans and he's never going to be able to pay back,

let's make him go into debt for eating the only thing he can afford to eat which is a freaking burrito and a hamburger because he's got to put that on his credit card 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, he can help you too. And I mean, no matter what you're looking for, B2B, retail, food and beverage, manufacturing, non-profit, even small business owner. I got a buddy mine who cleans windows. I got another buddy who's got a restaurant. And everybody I know is talking about and bragging about all the great work they're getting

from my guys at Envision Marketing Consultants. This is a true endorsement for me for Eric Nichols, so much so that when you look for envision marketing consultants, check this out. Conrad's guy.com. And they got this name because so many of my friends would say, hey, call Conrad's Guy. Hey, I wonder what Conrad's Guy's doing. Well, 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.com. That's C-O-N-R-A-D-S-G-U-Y. Conrad's Guy.com. We got a question here from Fat Factor.

He wants to know Eric regarding cricket. It's the world's biggest league, the IPL, and it's starting tomorrow. Who is your team this year? I don't have a team this year. I'm going to learn, I'm going to determine my team this year once I get. By the way, the show is going to air tentatively scheduled for April 18th. So that's penciled that in, April 18th. Right before WrestleMania.

Yeah, right before, you know, we're going to celebrate WrestleMania. Hopefully we're going to be ready by that. And we're going to kick it off on Friday, April 18th. So we'll see. We'll see. I'll be taping the show in the morning because I'm going to be going to the Hall of Fame that night. And Mrs. Bee is going to be with me. So I'll be taping the show Friday morning and we'll be released shortly thereafter.

So I'm kind of excited. Stumps and bum. or bumps and stumps. I'm not sure yet. We'll flip a comment. Just stay tuned. We'll keep you a breath. We'll make sure you have all the information right here at 83 weeks. I'm Alex wants to know what's the most painful bump you've ever taken?

Off the stage, Kane, when he chokeslam me off the stage. And it was minor. It was self-inflicted. Because I didn't know how to take a bump, especially off the stage. And,

I made a rookie mistake as I was going down. I was concentrating on tucking my chin and all that. But I reached back to try to find the floor before I hit it. And when I did, I broke my thumb. Stupid rookie move. That was it. Other than that, I never, ever. I took a power bomb from Sid that loosened me up pretty good.

If you go back and look at that, you'll understand. what I mean. That and I took a spear from Goldberg in WWE and I should have positioned myself in the center of the ring, but I kind of paced when I cut promos and I move around a lot, trying to face as many different directions to the audience as I could. And I had worked myself back towards the corner, too close to the corner. So when Bill turned around to spear me, I didn't leave myself any room. to get blown back and I ended up bouncing my head off the cave off the ring rope bottom ring rope

now that loosened me up pretty good too that was it it didn't hurt I just I didn't knock me out but you know it's like that split second or two like he played football in high school you know you get hit well enough you know you don't go down you're not unconscious but you shouldn't be driving a car right then either that's all hey well we were talking earlier about what to do with WrestleMania and our buddy Kevin Nash over him on his fabulous podcast clicked this suggested hey you know who should be the third man that the rock was seemingly referring to if he's one and John Cena's too what if the third man was Randy Orton Kevin Nash likes that idea and listen as far as being long time

some WWE performers who have seen the fans that'll go back and forth with them. If that's the story they're trying to tell, Randy Orton checks that box, doesn't he? Sure, yeah. And for all the reasons I talked about earlier, I'd love to see that one too. That'd be awesome.

Get the attitude. He can sell it. believable. Good chemistry, too, I think. You'd have some, I'd like to see the chemistry between a rock and Randy. That'd be fun to watch.

good call keff uh anthony manzano says looking back on it now do you wish wcw instead of focusing on more established talent started developing more younger talent for the company to survive is that a regret eric if you had it to do over again would you have pushed the benwas and the jericho's and the guerrero's further up the card sooner like in 96 and 97 and 98 like when we're making money handle over fist yeah i would have taken all the top guys that got us there i would have taken all those tough guys you know when i talk about tough guys i'm picking on sting and hogan and flare

yeah i'm piper and randy savage and lex luger yeah i'll take those guys say look you guys are too old it's not working out anymore we got we gotta you guys gonna help get this younger talent over and yeah i would have thrown christbin while right is the world championship 98 97 man that would have been the smartest thing ever wouldn't it i say jokingly. Oh, so easy to fantasy book a rationale that you think would work or you think would be fun to watch. But it's not real. It would have been good for it. And even though they would have wanted it, I mean, Jericho really wanted it. Jericho wanted him bad. He wanted was so bad he left and went to WWE to get it. But at that time with our roster from a business

perspective, it would not have made any sense. What did make sense is to bring guys in and give them a national primetime platform to help get them over so that they would be ready at some point. I don't know, like aforementioned Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Volenko, Chris Jericho, Ray Mysterio, any number of, I know Shane Helms, you know, we had a lot of young talent that we were developing. But the idea that the way to get one of those talents over that's really got talent and you know is going to eventually be there someday is to thrust them into the limelight, give them that opportunity to get over.

Sometimes the worst thing you can do. If the timing isn't right, they're not quite ready, you're not doing anybody any favors. All you're doing is fantasy booking, 20 hindsight. well we all have 20 20 hindsight but sometimes we don't want to wait until it's too late that's where rocket money comes in rocket money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions that helps you monitor your spending and helps you lower your bills all so you can grow your savings you'll see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going for the ones you don't want anymore well rocket money

can help you cancel them. Rocket Money's dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts, and you can easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help you keep your spending on track. See your monthly spending trends in each category and know exactly where your money is going. You can even get alerts in case your bills increase in price, maybe there's unusual spending activity, or if you're close to going over your budget. And they've even got a new goals feature, which will automatically help you you save money for you. You don't even have to think about it.

You can use that cash to pay up your credit card debt or put away money for a house. Just build your saving. Really, Rocket money makes it easy. Rocket money will even help to try to negotiate to lower your bills for you. See, they automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save, and then you can ask them to negotiate on your behalf. You see, they deal with customer service so you don't have to. Rocket money has over 5 million users, and they've saved a total of 5,

$500 million and canceled subscriptions. They have members up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions today and reach your financial goals faster with RocketMoney. Just go to RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks today. That's RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, we got a shout out here from Adam Clemens, who's been a a member here for a whole year shout out to you adam and he says with lex finally going into the

hall of fame who's your mount rush for of nicest wrestlers any era and any promotion you got to have lex and mark merrow on the list right so who is on your list gosh this like i can't think about that for a long time there's a lot of people you've got to go through yeah i mean i think for sure Lex after, you know, the interview that we just did with him and the amount of joy that that guy radiates just being in the room. Yeah, definitely Lex. You know, I haven't talked to Mark since he told me in airport. He was leaving to go to WWE, so I've got to get a feel for Mark, and I'm sure that we will when we're on the phone. On the far, based on everything that I'm reading and seeing, yeah, I'm sure he is.

But Nicus Battle of Nicus is such a tough term because it means different things. things to different people. But I think of nice people, I think of people that I enjoy just being around, like the vibe is good, energy, whatever you want to call it. You guys don't know a lot of people don't know them that well, but Ernest Miller is one of the nicest people you'll ever be around. He's just a, just a sweet guy. But there's a lot of them. I feel bad leaving people off that list so I'll think about that and get back to you I'll circle back on that uh T zags says Eric can you name a wrestler who isn't in the Hall of Fame who deserves it is there a major is there someone overlooked in this time of year we

usually hear names like demolition or miss Elizabeth or Cindy Lauper I mean hell even the dynamite kid Brian Pilman is there a wrestler out there that jumps off the this to you. I mean, I could argue Jim Johnston. I know he's not technically a wrestler. I think some people would argue China as a single. We know that Owen Hart, his family doesn't want him to go in, but is there one that stands out above all else that you think should be in? I know I'm biased here, but I think Miss Elizabeth, I think the mega power story and Hulk and Randy and her role in all of that.

She brought so much class to what was typically regarded as a classless sport, right, form of entertainment. She kind of cleaned the joint up a lot. I doubt there's many wrestling fans that were alive today that were around and in their fandom, peak fandom period, in their teens, so to speak, that were a part of all that, that don't remember that very fondly, her role in it. So I would say Ms. Elizabeth.

You got to think Sid at some point, too. I mean, my man, main event in two WrestleMania. How's he not in already? Talk about that. If you look at his resume, it's kind of like, what the hell?

Why not? That's a no-brainer. Alex wants to know, from a worker's perspective, what would you say is the difference in a WCW style match versus a WWE style match was there a difference I think the precision just the I'll call it tightness for lack of a better term right now off top of my head in the end ring performances were better at WWE these were

CRISPR. They tended to mean more because there was less of them. Very generally. Not the case all the time. Don't even bother typing. Don't even bother posting your comments. Be very general here because it's a very big question. The finishes were always better.

Just finishes were always better in WWE. And therefore, the story leading up to the, the finish. So I think the crispness of the action in the ring, storytelling in the match leading up to a much better finish generally than WCW in a broad way. That's how I would describe the difference. I think there were some things in WCW that in some people's minds made it better. I think there was more believability across the board, especially the early WCW stuff. It was stiff. It was pretty stiff. So, you know, WCW had its, it's high points too.

But overall, the WWE high points kind of did the trick. We're having a lot of fun giving you guys the keys to the show today. If you've got some questions for Eric we want you to keep those questions coming and if you haven't already hit the subscribe button turn on the notifications bell we've got an old question that we didn't get to once upon a time this one comes to us from demons row he says Brett was a plan B champion he never was a Hogan without the NWO there would be no stone cold I feel like they speak on the NWO from a YouTube perspective you had to be there respect O.G Eric

B. Needler wants to know, Eric, how did you manage to play the asshole character so well? I remember hating you as a kid, but looking back, I realized it was good acting for me. I just came by it naturally. I've worked out of that character my whole life. It was easy for me because, but the audience had an impression of me. I didn't deserve the job. This guy came, he wasn't even a wrestler. who do he ever be doesn't even know how to lace up a pair boots and now he's running the

wrestling company i mean that was kind of the general consensus so kind of taking the way the audience felt about me anyway and then giving him more reason to feel even more strongly it made it pretty easy it wasn't like i was the greatest actor in the world i was just able to figure out already pretty he had a they already wanted to dislike me i just had to help him along made it fun you got another question here from um see if i have this one right rami ramy and he says you once hit it at a cody road's angle they wish you could pitch if you had five minutes to hear you out will you ever tell us what that was did you have an idea for cody i guess you teased it on a show it said you needed not so much an idea

for a match or an angle, but for his character and his direction. I know I'm not going to pitch it here. Okay. Got it. Michael Appleton says, Oh, it's one of those. Okay.

Michael Appleton says, with lots of rumors flying around about potential other superstars to join the Rock and Sena, who would you put into the new faction? So if it wasn't Randy Orton, Is there another idea? Is there another name that you like? Carrying and Cross need something.

Wow. Wow. And he's, my opinion, and I don't, I mean, I know him, we said hello together,

said hello to each other once or twice. That's the extent of it. But I just feel something, My instinct tells me something about that guy. But what I've seen of him feels a little bit. Forced isn't quite the right word. But his character, to me, feels like it's off about three degrees. It just needs to be fine-tuned a little bit.

But he's a dangerous guy. He's good in the ring. there's something a little mysterious about him, and that's projected intentionally. But I think if they dialed that back just a little bit and brought a little bit more authenticity to him, unpolish him just a little bit, I think it could be a really cool character.

There's a lot to work with there. we've got a bunch of questions about john sanna this one comes to us from michael scoggins with senna's last run being a heel do you think that they will bookend his run with a redemption sort of ending i mean that's got to be the answer right there's no way he retires a heel right i don't think so yeah and i and i and i i don't think so and be i don't think that's It would be so easy. It would be so easy to tell that story, and it would be such a good story to tell. I mean, redemption, that's, we all as a culture now, not just as wrestling fans,

but we all love to see the rise, and we can't wait till they fall. It's the journey, and it follows that pattern. I mean, that's storytelling. That's what a redemption story is. falling from grace and finding redemption. It's been the premise of so many stories since the beginning of storytelling time. So anytime you can figure out a way to apply that

to any story, but particularly professional wrestling, I think it's a cool thing. So I hope they find it. It is interesting to think about what's next. Hey, we just saw a fun little, comment here pop up check this one out stone cold stunder says what a lady fit for the third man so if we're talking about the rock being number one perhaps john seno being number two he suggests

what if the third person is a female named becky lynch becky lynch coming back and everyone assuming she's a baby face but then she heals on them boy that feels like an eric bischoff move all day right there was exciting to think about i got i got we can see that one, can't we? Yeah, and what a shocker. Yes. But I could also picture it on my head really easy. So, yeah, that's, that's pretty cool. I don't know what you do with her, but have at it. I'm sure you just limited by your own lack of imagination. Come up with something. Travis Medway says when WCW Nitro ratings were falling would a change of night been in any way advantageous

Smackdown has moved several times over the years could the lack of nightly competition against Rob helped was that ever considered Eric do you remember ever having any conversation about what if we move Nitro to Tuesday or some other day Nope. I didn't. Brad Siegel may have, but he didn't have it with me or Harvey Schiller.

No. Look, WCW was kicking WWE's ass all the way up until whatever it was it, end of 98, first part of 99. And by then, nobody was thinking anything in Turner Broadcasting other than getting it out of turn.

there was no let's find a way to save it it was they were already determining how to put a stake through the heart of WCW so no it never came up a conversation Luis Martinez is with us here live and he wants to know Eric do ratings even matter what streaming taking over now I don't know Ask any cable outlet or any television network. Ask anybody that works there for ratings manner. Of course it matters. Of course it matters. Where do you think the money comes for these TV rights?

Do you think it comes from the highly profitable streaming platforms that carry them? None of them are making any money. It's all ad-driven. Even the streaming platforms themselves are ad-driven more and more and more. So, yeah, ratings will always matter. Don't let anybody kid you. Ratings will always matter. Until they come up with another unit of measure that can be exchanged for cash,

ratings will always be. Mr. Whisper had a question we didn't get to before, but I think it warrants asking now. With Mania around the corner, what do you think was the feud of the year Eric for me this past year it feels like the feud of the year in my opinion we'll see him punk and Drew McIntyre do you have one you liked better? No and I agree with that one

um well that for now I mean it'd be interesting to see what they do with with punk and Seth that one already feels kind of good to me we'll see they're done with it they continue it i don't know i'm happy to become more more of a punk fan i know we talked about that already but he's a different player in wwee that he was in ae he looks different he carries himself different he's not saying stupid shit he's it's like a different talent and we talked about that we when there was a rumor that he was going to be leaving and would he possibly end up in wwe and you and i talked about it i thought

that he would do well there because he would be in a completely different environment and quite frankly a more professional environment and certainly done all of that and more there's an interesting question that we didn't get to once before that i know you're going to have a lot of thoughts on i want to you up here and give you a minute to think about it. The question comes to us from Cool Full 1980 Eric and he says with the rise of AI, do you

believe that AI will be used in wrestling for things such as creative? So Eric, I want you to be thinking about the use or potential use of AI and wrestling and while you're thinking about that, I want our listening audience to think about how hard you can get your ding dong. Thanks to our friends

at Blue Chew. Have better sex with Blue Chew. Blue Shoe is the original brand offering chewable tablets for better sex and starting now blue shoe is offering a combo so strong it'll knock your socks off and your neighbor's socks off you'll have to move towns with the amount of noise you'll be making blue chew max has arrived and it combines the active ingredients of viagra and cealis but into one chewable the combo acts fast and it lasts mrs b was just telling me the other day not really guys be ready when she needs it and get your first month of Blue Chew free. Great sex is a few clicks away. So just go sign up at

bluechew.com. Consult with one of their licensed medical providers. And once you're approved, you'll receive your prescription within days. Blue Chew's tablets are made in the USA and they're prepared and shipped directly to your door. And the best part is it's all done online. That means no visits to the doctor's office, no awkward conversation, and no waiting in line at the pharmacy. So make your life easier by getting harder and discover your options at bluechew.com. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Try your first month of Bluechew free and use our promo code 83 weeks. Just pay the $5 shipping. That's promo code 83 weeks when you visit Bluetooth.com for more details and important safety information. And we want

to thank Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast and Eric Swainer. And Eric, I know during the break you were chubbing it up. Do you want to show everybody how hard you got during the break? Hold on. Oh, we're good. Now, seriously, have you thought about AI and wrestling? What do you think about that? Oh, yeah, I've done it. I've used it. When AI first became a thing, and, you know, a year ago, two years ago, whatever it was,

might have been longer than that two and a half years ago. I said, who I want to try to figure this stuff out? I got on chat GPT. And it was like when you had to almost kind of wait in line, like early on, you'd register and then eventually you'd get in and they'd teach you how to use it. or guide you through it. But yeah, I did it. It was fascinated then.

I'm using it a lot now for other things, not for creative for wrestling, but in the applications that I'm using it for now, it's unlimited. It's absolutely unlimited what you can do with the guy. I would be shocked if it's not being used already in some way, shape, or not. Because you can really do a lot of work in a very short period of time. was an amazing amount of precision and yes it even applies to creed so absolutely jack d is with us here live and he says if you had successfully purchased wcdb in 2001 do you think you would have eventually tried turning sting heel

or not after the failed turn on legs if you got control of wcdb could you have seen yourself turning sting heel eric you know maybe You know, who knows what idea, you know, do I see myself listening to a good idea and going, yeah, let's do that good idea. Yes, I absolutely do that. Is there a possibility somebody could have come up with a good idea to turn Sting Hill regardless of whatever happens? That's a possibility. So I don't mean to be a smart ass about it, but it's hard to answer that question any other way saying it depends on the idea. seems plausible that somebody could have come up with one

AOTV productions really love stirring it up and he wants to know Eric what are the chances Tony Kahn will get so desperate he'll reach out to Vince Rousseau for help with creative Connor you know the answer to that better than I do but my impression is less than zero what they say in animal house zero point zero uh sad man Steve had a question we didn't get to once upon a time and he wants to know Eric speaking of bully did WCW ever have any thought of bringing over the Dudleys you know that's interesting we

saw the public enemy experiment if you will in WCW in an alternate universe could that have been the Dudley boys what would that have looked like was there ever any serious discussion not with me possibly with Kevin Sullivan maybe Terry Taylor but likely Kevin Sullivan but it never got to me so I would suggest it never there were no serious conversations happening or probably would have been run by me and I would have been interested but it didn't happen that way we we got to do another one here this is another question that we missed but I think it's a great one angry duckling institution wants to know hi Eric I hope you're weak as well at any given time

did any of your WCW wrestlers ever received the type of heat Sean received during the screw job? No. No. No. Nothing close. All right. Well, that'll do it.

Alex wants to know Conrad. Why does WW recognize Flair as a 16-time champ when in reality it's more? Why doesn't think it's talked about enough? It's actually 20. right? I think the actual number is 21, but who's keeping count? When WWE started saying 16x, player

started signing 16x, I'm not saying anybody's told me this, but if I were a betting man and Cody did drop the title to John Sina and Sina became a 17x, I wonder if moving forward if we see Rick start signing We're going to have some clarifications of the records here.

Your honor, your honor, may I approach the bench please? I have proof that my client has indeed achieved the level of 21-time world heavyweight champion so any suggestion that sure our defendant

is acting in good faith by representing he is the leader in that category is just false in it going to be evidentiary in nature my client represents that he is suffering

damages as a result oh no come on now no come on we can have fun with this can you imagine though if uh i mean as silly as this is if they start putting an asterisk by john sina he has won the world title the most out of anyone by w b except for reflair uh by the way we did a poll here and i asked what do you guys think is going to happen at russomania and 62% of the folks here with us tonight eric think that cody should get beat WrestleMania. They want to see

a heel John Sina leave with the title. A heel John Sina does present some interesting opportunities. If they go to Chicago and they get to run back Punk and Sina, but this time Sina comes in as the legitimate heel and punk is not just the hometown favorite, but he's the baby

face. That could be interesting. And it would be interesting to see if they do another Sina Rock. I don't think they do a singles match, but I could see them doing a tag match. We'll see. Luis Martinez says, Eric, did you have a harder time performing as a heel in the Northeast? Being from the Bronx, people loved heels like Savage and hated Hogan. Listen, I think that's always been the case. Whether you're in New York, New Jersey, certainly Baltimore, but my favorite, Philadelphia, my goodness, they love their heels.

I mean, even the Midnight Express were getting cheered back in the day. Did you find it harder to be a heel in front of those Northeast smart fans? Not at all. They hated me there. Maybe it's because I was an outsider. You know, WCW was the southern wrestling club, you know, kind of thing. I never had any problem getting him. Maybe it was me, but no.

I felt the opposite. I love going there. I mean, we talked about the East, of course, the ECW when I said, I think that was a special thing. because I had so much heat on me in ECW, even though I didn't work there. But then you're, I don't know, I never, that's what I have one of the reasons I really love performing in those Eastern markets is because they just, the heat was so good there. I loved it.

Well, we love chopping it up with you guys here today. And if you haven't already, I want to encourage you one more time to hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell you don't want to miss us the next time we're live and when we're back next week we've got a really really fun topic that i can't wait we're going to be talking about but you don't want to miss it and by the way if there's any breaking news between now and then you never know when eric and i are going to go live so it's real simple it's totally free here at 83 weeks dot com hit the subscribe button turn on the notifications bell and by the way give us some feedback it helps us in the algorithm if you like today's video

Throw us a thumbs up. By the way, if you didn't like it, throw us a thumbs down. Whether you're giving us a thumbs up or a thumbs down, I reckon it's good. Leave it in a moment. Tell us how handsome EZE is. Lord knows he needs that. He's got a frail ego, you know, he's been through it. Hey, this was fun today, Eric.

We got to bounce around, have some different conversations, talk a little bit about this, a little bit about that. Right now, WWE is enjoying an incredible European tour. So Raw and Smackdown are kind of in the middle of the afternoon. A lot of my guy friends, man, this is like their Christmas, you know, with March madness going on right now with just one basketball game after another. Of course, we know the NBA playoffs are going to start hitting up baseball seasons, getting ready to kick off.

There's a lot of momentum and hype just in the sports world. And it won't be too long from now, Eric. WV.E is going to break every record imaginable with WrestleMania. when you think about the scope of WrestleMania, thinking about some of the prices we were throwing out earlier for things like a $25,000 eat and greet with John Cena, I mean, would you have ever imagined at any point in history that professional wrestling will be able to, you know, command numbers like that? This feels like this is going to shatter every record by a mile. No, I would have never even allowed myself to fantasize.

about this because I would have felt like I was wasting valuable energy that could be applied to something more productive and how wrong I would have been it's amazing nothing short of amazing it really is we're going to be talking about all that and more as we get done this long and twisty road on our way to WrestleMania leave us a comment stay tuned we've got more 83 weeks coming to you next Friday and every Friday right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your

favorite wrestling podcasts every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple Podcasts or your regular podcast apps. How easy is that? Ad-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. Plus, new series like The Book with David Crockett, Monday Mailbags with Mike Keota and Nick Patrick, and a whole lot more. And you want to talk about early.

You can't get any earlier than listening to the shows live. You can be a part of the live studio audience as we record the podcast. Plus ride shotgun alongside your favorite childhood. for live watch-alongs, Q&As, and other interactive experiences every single month. Come on now, see for yourself what thousands of other wrestling fans from around the world have discovered that ad-freeshows.com is the best value in wrestling. Check it out today. And hey, when you do, the first week is completely free ad-freeshows.com.