83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 372: RAF - It's About To Get Real

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

On this LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss the origin of #RAF (Real American Freestyle) and his partnership with Hulk Hogan and Izzy Martinez. The guys also cover Stone Cold's interview with Ariel Helwani, Mercedes Mońe's $99.99 texting service, AEW opening residency at the former ECW arena and so much more. TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/83WEEKS  ! #trueclassicpod BLUECHEW - Visit BlueChew.com and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. PAINT YOUR LIFE - Text WEEKS to 87204 to get 20% off and FREE Shipping. Paint Your Life: Celebrate the moments that matter most. 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 SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://nationsgo.com/conrad/ ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 WEEKS You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at https://adfreeshows.supercast.com/  

For the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency health can be requested even when you're not home. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed.

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Save with Conrad.com. Yeah, I'm Justin. We're up from Nashville, Tennessee. What got me to Save with Conrad was the 83 weeks podcast. I really wasn't thinking about getting rid of any debt. I just wanted, like, to cash out somebody in the house to do remodeling. But I did both, so that was pretty awesome. Worked out, right?

We redid the foyer, built pantry space, and it was like little eyes and ends when I first bought the house that I wanted to take care of. And we were able to take care of it. Yeah, paid off two cars and some credit card debt. So probably all in all, get $30,000 and that. And then I got some $30,000 more equity out of the house and got so plenty of after you left over. So, hey, it's good. I lowered my interest rate in a much better spot than I was. Super easy.

Everybody is great. Very, very awesome people. Francis and Steve were great to work with. They were awesome made it through a very easy, seamless experience. I'd probably say all in all, probably a thousand a month at least. I'm lowered my interest rate, especially the way the interest rates are. right now, which is, you know, that's amazing. I'm Justin Brooklyn from Knoxville, Tennessee.

I saved over $1,000 to save with comrade.com, and I did a lot of renovations with that money as well. And that's number 212-9-Aqual housing lender. Save withconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and we are live at 83 weeks.com. And of course, we couldn't do it. Without the Hall of Famer, greatest of all time when it comes to a promotion. He proved that this week, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only, Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you, man?

I am doing well in Monroe, Michigan, just outside of Detroit, got in here late last night from New York, but all is good. Glad to be with you guys. Monroe, Michigan. Did you know that Rhino owns a marina in Monroe, Michigan? Yeah, we talked about that. We had them on a show a couple weeks ago. And we talked, I didn't know that. And what a cool thing that is because boating, recreational boating and fishing and all that,

such a big thing here in Michigan. So I'm sure Rhinos doing well. You know what? Another little tidbit about Monroe, Michigan, you may not know. What's that? George Huster was born here. Oh, I did not know that. I don't know that.

Maybe he was, I think he was born here, but he lived here. He's from Monroe, Michigan. And, yeah, went on to me. his demise just about 80 miles from my house and Cody as a matter of fact we're going to be live here so if you guys have questions for eric bischoff keep them coming we appreciate our live studio audience hanging out with us want to give some love to uh dan who says eric just wanted to say thanks for putting on the show 83 week show for us the fans i love hearing the stories that took place back in the 90s and early 2000s i hope you and your family are well how about that a little nice comment

Thank you, Dan. I appreciate that, Dan. I'm grateful for this podcast, too. It's brought a lot of good things into my life and a lot of good opportunities that were indirectly or directly the result of 83 weeks. So, you know, in fact, just to give you a perfect example of what a community 83 weeks is, not just here, the podcast, but the YouTube show, certainly being a part of ad-free shows.

you saw the Who's the Third Man video that Hulk Hogan and I produced along with Izzy Martinez last week to kind of promote Real American freestyle and the music that you hear in the background it's all original music

produced created and produced exclusively for that particular video and it was produced by a Grammy award-winning music producer by the name of Isaac Rist and Isaac Kristen is become a friend of ours and now we're doing business together and it creates some really, really cool, cool music, but none of that would have happened if it weren't for 83 weeks at freeshows.com and all of you. So thank you guys.

Well, you mentioned it. You have taken the internet's interest this week and put it in your back pocket. This is the first time you and I have been speaking while the microphones were hot. Tell us about the inspiration for the NWO style video with you and the Hulkster and how all of that came to be. Yeah, we've been, when I say we, I mean, Hulk, obviously myself, Chad Bronstine, our business partner, Izzy Martinez, also our business partner in Real American Freestyle. We've been talking about this launch for this week for, oh, about a month or so now. And another one of those things, you know, I don't know whose idea it was originally. I know it started with Hulk because we were, the conversation between us was like, how do we announce this?

Because we want to take advantage of the fact that, you know, Hulk's got a pretty big, you know, a cue score, as they say, in the industry. At least they used to. I mean, people know who he is. To a degree, a lesser degree, obviously. people on who I am, at least within the world of professional wrestling in that portion of the audience. We thought, how do we get the audience, how do we get the attention of the, you know, sports entertainment wrestling audience, but still make sure people understand that this is not sports entertainment. So it was really Halts idea, I think, originally to use the Who's the Third Man, NWO,

black and white kind of presentation. And I think it was a really smart idea. It was good instincts. Because it, in a way, it's kind of the same thing that we're trying to do with freestyle wrestling. You know, we changed professional. I'm so tired of even saying it myself, but we really had a significant impact and shifted the way professional wrestling was presented. Really, as a result of these black and white interviews, they were a big part of it, just a different way of doing things. And that's what helped Nitro become Nitro. That's what helped WCW do what WCW did for such a long time, well, relatively short time, but it felt like a long time,

is shifting or changing the presentation. And that's exactly what we're here to do with freestyle wrestling. The sport has been around since the beginning of time, really. And it's one of the oldest combat sports in our culture. But we're going to change the way we present it. And we're going to bring some elements of a lot of elements of entertainment to it and to bring the drama of the competition to the audience in a couple different ways. So, so many parallels is such a fun project, but I think the idea of getting everybody's

attention with the black and white videos, who's the third man, and then following that up with what we did on Fox and throughout media over the following days, I think it was a pretty cool idea. We got a lot of impressions. Somebody told me yesterday, before I left New York, there was over 360. 60 million unique impressions over the last couple of days. So I'd say it worked. Now, we'll, we'll find out how well as we go.

You know, what's lost on everybody, I think, is that promotion at the end of the day is about courting attention and people can be critical of you or Hulk or the idea all they want, well, step one is to, is to get the word out there. I think you guys did that pretty damn well, Eric. you know we've talked about it here it's like what percentage and i don't know it's a question i wish i did know that being what percentage for example my social medium i'm going to use text it's what i use primarily if i look at that first tease the first one where we tease the third man not the second one where we reveal is he but the first one right i got over two million

600,000 views, just on my post. On one platform. On one platform. Yes. There were about 12,000 likes. Okay. If somebody likes something, if they take the time to go, ooh, this is fun, I'm going to hit light.

That's an engagement. That suggests to me that these are positive reactions. It's not scientific, but it's kind of common sense. Then I go over to the comment side. Now, I'm going to assume, for the sake of this discussion, we'll assume that 100% of those comments were people expressing a negative reaction to one degree or another. Some of them were pretty extreme and funny to watch or listen to read.

But nonetheless, let's assume that 100% of those comments were negative. Again, I think it was probably 60, 40, 60 being negative, 40 being positive. But let's just 100% of those. There was 1.4,100 comments that will assume for the sake of this discussion are negative comments. there were 12,000, just under 12,000 as of yesterday, likes. So that's about 10%. Right? Yeah.

And that falls directly in line with what I've been saying for years. And not that I'm saying, I'm right. But because we don't know, I've been saying for years that the 90% of the noise in social media is created by 10% of the audience. audience. And ironically, that's exactly the numbers that at least, this is anecdotal. I know that. I'm not trying to present this as critical, you know, research. But anecdotally, at least 10% of the haters make 90% of the noise. So you'd just take it with a grain of salt. I think it was very effective. Look, the fact that yesterday morning, and I didn't know they were going to do this, Fox News actually used that video. to open up our segment. Yes, they did. I'm one of the highest rated morning shows in the United States of America. So people can be critical if they feel the need to be the in-net, you know, 10% product.

That's cool. Whatever it gets your dopamine hit, I don't really care. But it is kind of interesting that, you know, 90% of the people are really supportive of it. 10% made a bunch of noise. We are going to be taking your questions about everything that Eric is doing. I guess we should start at the. top. You know, we're talking about this as if everyone has already heard it and knows exactly what's going on. I know you just realized there that your notifications are on. Um, the big

announcement is real American freestyle. Of course, we all know that Hogan has a beer called real American beer. We've seen it all over WWE programming, but now we see real American freestyle and it's described as being freestyle wrestling built for the big stage. And I think this feels a niche without me even really knowing the full business plan or model because I've had conversations with people and actually Rhonda did interviews about this, you know, and I know that she was in the judo world, but she was pretty clear in saying that it's not a glamorous lifestyle to get ready for the Olympics. I mean, you find yourself really sacrificing for that Olympic gold. And she, of course, didn't make gold. I think she got silver or bronze or what have you.

She did well. She meddled, but it wasn't the goal. So she felt just short of it. But afterwards, I think, and I've heard this story from a lot of folks, they wonder, hey, what's next? And there's kind of a few different options. You can go the Kurt Angle route and go into professional wrestling like WWE style, you know, sports entertainment, or you can go the MMA style with maybe the ultimate goal of being, you know, you want to be in the UFC. But if you don't want to learn jujitsu and get punched in the face, and you don't want to learn how to be a sports entertainer and you just really want to continue to pursue your lifelong passion of amateur wrestling which is something you've dedicated your life to which at times is not glamorous with weight

cuts and things like that it's impossible to make a living in that prior to real american freestyle right eric yeah it's been difficult you know and and if not impossible but here's what's here's what's really fun for me and i and i know people are looking on what we're doing because not that Many people are familiar with freestyle wrestling. I mean, from a distance, most people are aware of collegiate wrestling because we see a lot of it. People talk about it. It's obviously, you know, high school wrestling. It's cool, you know, folk style.

That's a part of, you know, our culture for sure. But people don't really realize, you know, for example, let's just take MMA. Some of the names, and I'm not an MMA expert. I'm not trying to pretend I am. But just off the top of my head, Daniel Cormier, amateur wrestler. John John, amateur wrestling. I mean, even Khabib, you know, although he didn't come from a traditional amateur wrestling background, a lot of his training has been with freestyle, amateur style,

wrestling, collegiate Olympic level, elite wrestling athletes to get them to where they are in MMA. Freestyle wrestling, map wrestling, whatever you. want to call it, Olympic style wrestling is the foundation for a lot of the biggest names ever in MMA. So I think while we're not, and I think this is what Hulk was trying to say in one of his interviews, we're not trying to be competitive with UFC. That's not going to happen. It's its own sport. We're certainly not trying to be competitive with WWE because that's a different business model. But we do think we have a very cool legitimate sport. You'll be able to bet on this sport. We will have a gaming burger, a casino burger. So it's a legitimate sport with elite

world class athletes, any of whom could easily, you know, migrate into UFC or migrate into WW. So I don't want to suggest that we're looking forward to being a conduit or a PC center or anybody. But if that happens, we went. If we can establish ourselves as a television property that's exciting to watch. And we look, absolutely know the challenges of making something like amateur wrestling. We're going to refer to it as that for now, amateur or freestyle wrestling. Making that an interesting and exciting television property is a massive challenge. Fully understand it. That is my prime focus. But when we're successful, because we will be, I promise you, we will be successful, when we're successful, and we've created this professional league of freestyle wrestling that has never really existed before, and create those stars with the same, using the same principles of WWE, for example, of creating and defining characters and bringing those stories to light.

But unlike WWE, which are scripted stories, for the most part, sometimes they weave in reality, which is always kind of fun. But we're going to build on the reality of these athletes, their lives, their challenges, their successes, their failures, their dreams, and all of the above, much like you would see in a documentary or a sports documentary, or you might even see on The Voice, which is a perfect example of what we want to do.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, but this is important to me right now, and I'm passionate about it. If you look at, for example, the show The Voice on NBC, it is a musical competition elimination format. It's been around since the 50s. Dick Clark, I think, produced some version of Battle of the Bands.

Those types of competition elimination shows in one form or another, Obviously, the formats evolved, but musical competition, elimination has been around forever. The voice has turned up the production values on that. It's done a much better job looking for the best performers they can find around the world and they're casting. But what they've really done is they've told us stories. Because I've watched that show a lot. We have a family friend who was in charge of all the background singers. And that's why we watch.

We watch her because she performs as well and became really familiar with that show and the format of it. And when you look at those background packages, they make you start cheering for certain people into cast, certain competitors, right, performers. And that's what we want to do here. We want to bring those real life stories in a unique way. We want to bring those real life stories to bear to help define these characters. to support the kind of athletes they are and the way they approach their matches. Everybody's got a different approach. So I think it's going to be a fascinating journey.

I'm confident. We've got a great team around us. Izzy Martinez just is the best. We've got guys like Ben Aspirin on our team who obviously know the sport. USA wrestling is behind us. So we've got enough of the right people behind us that can help shape the presentation of the sport itself. and stay within the freestyle wrestling rules and formats, but you have to bring the elements of entertainment that we know that works,

whether it's lighting, music, the bio packages, all of the above, different combinations, unique ways of shooting freestyle wrestling, which is what we're exploring right now. All of these are going to combine to hopefully create something that's pretty exciting and is a big benefit to amateur wrestlers all over the world. Eric, if you think, uh, I mean, hypothetically, if real American freestyle, your new promotion, if that existed in 2004, when Brock Lesnar was looking for an out in his WWE contract, I tend to think he would have went to real American freestyle rather than UFC. I mean, I know ultimately he started with, I think it was K1 and then UFC, but a guy who, you know, didn't necessarily have a boxing background. He didn't necessarily have a.

kickboxing background or karate background or a jujitsu or a judo background he was a tried and true badass NCAA champion wrestler i think in that alternate timeline if we could go back and say hey let's rewind and and announce r a f 20 years ago i think that's the route brock could have went right it would have been interesting and and absolutely would have been an option for rock but imagine even today if there was and i'm going to pick a name out of the hat there's been no conversations okay so don't anybody jump to any conclusions and go wow with your internet wrestling bullshit i said that just like larry today bullshit but you can take somebody like chad gable right now that could step in

and compete, you know, and certainly somebody that, you know, was cycling out of necessarily WWE that were still in great shape, and still had the edge to compete, absolutely. So I don't know, I'm excited about it, man. I don't know if I'm excited about just the fact that this is a pretty big challenge, you know, to create something that's never been created before, creating a sports league, just kind of in general is a pretty big challenge, but to do it in. this particular genre is it's really a cool challenge i live for this kind of i love it when people say oh you'll never be able to do that just like they said you know

going head to head to head with wwee going head to head with monday night raw there's no way wcw is going to be able to finish off a fail so then something else happened and we're going to have fun with this man we're going to have fun well something else i know you love is true classic and true classic has one mission to make sure guys look good and feel even better. And man, they've nailed the fit, the feel, and the price across your entire wardrobe, not just tease, but hoodies, jeans, active wear, everything you need to level up your everyday style.

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throwaways. True Classic delivers premium essentials built for life. Grab yours at Target or Costco, or for the best deal possible, head right now, to true classic.com slash 83 weeks to get hooked up today. One more time. You're going to get a great deal and you're going to support the show and you're going to love the way this fits. I'm talking true classic.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, let's let's talk about it. I think the first event is being announced as being in Cleveland, Ohio, August 30th. Do I have that right? Do you have that right? We're going to be at the Wollstein Center in Cleveland.

And I know Chad, our partner, Brostein, is talking to some different musical acts. So where are you even thinking about a halftime kind of presentation? I don't know that we're going to nail that down yet. But we're, we're, it's going to be a big show. It's Cleveland's going to be rocking. Let's put it that way. Yeah, the Wollstone Center is, uh, it's a pretty good size venue. That's, uh, that's a fun one.

I think, uh, the capacity of that is, is pretty big. It's like 15,000 with floor seats, 13,000 just using the permanent seat. So it's a big arena. It's a big deal. And I think everybody wants to know, do we have an on sale date yet for tickets, Eric, or is that still to come? Still to come. Still to come.

We'll be releasing those details shortly because believe it or not, it's right around the corner, right? In August 30, it sounds like it's a long way away, but when you're building something this big, and there's a million moving pieces. and every one of them is just as important as the other. However, big and small, they're all important little pieces. There's a lot of them to take care of. So it'll go by fast.

We'll be announcing soon. There's lots of names that have already been associated with this, like David Carr, the National and World Champion, Kennedy Blades, the Olympian and World Champion, Ben Ascran, as you mentioned, the Olympian and Pan American champion. For all the details about what's going on with Eric's new promotion, in Real American Freestyle, you can go check it out at real American Freestyle.com. Eric would now be appropriate to give a shout out to some folks who've been working on this behind the scenes

because you guys have amassed a pretty sharp team. We have, obviously. And again, you know, tip of the hat to Chad, Bronstine, our partners over at Leplaine Venture Capitals. They've been involved in micro leagues and, you know, sports and really, really excited about this. And it provided the funding, which is, look, we're not the only people that have tried this, but everybody else that have tried it has never had the kind of financial backing and support that we do. They not only brings, you know, obviously the venture capital to the table, but strategically they're really well aligned with all of the support mechanisms that we need,

whether it's, as you saw, public relations. They did a great job for us. and a lot of finding the right sponsorship groups and things like that. They're strategically really well aligned for us. So just tip of the hat to everybody. And Izzy, man, you know, I didn't know a lot about Izzy Martinez until I got involved in this project. But I was at the U.S. Open freestyle wrestling championships in Las Vegas last weekend, meeting some of the athletes and just getting a feel for that event.

and seeing Izzy in his element, coaching his wrestlers, he is a machine and he's so well respected within the industry and so knowledgeable that a lot of this really wouldn't be possible without a guy like Izzy. So to that. Left Lane, by the way,

has invested in a lot of brands that maybe some of our listeners would be familiar with. Like Hello Fresh, like Chrono 24. I mean, it is a who's who as you're scrolling through their website. You'll see tons of names that you recognize like Masterworks or Built or Fight Camp. This is a major opportunity. And I know that sometimes inside the wrestling bubble, if it's not necessarily on their radar,

they don't necessarily recognize it. But people behind the scenes who I know are going to be helping you move tickets and things like that, they understand sales and promotion. And some of them actually cut their teeth in pro wrestling. And I'm fascinated to see this. I'm super motivated. I see the vision.

I see the investment that Saudi Arabia has made with TKO to launch TKO boxing. I mean, just taking a look at TKO now. I mean, they've got an MMA league in the UFC. They've got a sports entertainment league in WWE. And now they've got boxing. You know, as you look at all the other disciplines that make up mixed martial arts, one of the most critical pieces has always been amateur wrestling.

And the idea that we're going to make amateur wrestling feel more like pro wrestling without the sports entertainment just the presentation i can really get behind that eric i think this is a home run idea and i'm pumped for you guys what was it like being on this media tour eric i mean you haven't really done a full scale media push like this in a while and you were jet setting all over the place uh was that was that fun was it exhausting just recap that for us number one more than anything it was fun it's exciting to have an opportunity like that. And to be in the middle of the energy that it creates is that's a blessing. There's no other way to say it. So I enjoyed every second of it. You sent me a text.

I think it was yesterday that said, you must have felt like you were shot out of a rocket or out of a cannon. It's exactly how I felt. And it's like, you wake up one day and then you just hit the ground running. And it's really exciting. It was fun. I was a little exhausting because I've, you know, out of the last 16 days, I've been gone 13 of them. So, yeah, it's been a bit of a drain physically, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's a, it's a blessing to be able to be a part of something like this at any stage of your life. But at a time or a stage, I should say to life in my life where I thought, you know what, I'm just not going to sink my teeth into anything big again.

And here I am. That's fun as hell. as I understand it you know maybe the timeline has changed but once upon a time a few weeks from now there was a date on my calendar circled because I know you've really been working on something privately that you haven't revealed to the world yet and all I think was your efforts in that thing that you've yet to reveal really probably allowed this PR tour to hit on a different level for you I mean I can't wait for you to have that big reveal but it's It almost feels like, as I saw the media press tour and all that you were doing,

man, it all just sort of fell into place the way it was supposed to for you right here, didn't it? I've thought about that very thing. Like, we don't need to be cryptic. You know, last year, when I turned 69, I really motivated by my grandson more than anything when, when Whalen came into our world, of course, you get excited, you know, you get excited. And it's, you know, the first grandchild and all that. We had, we went through all of that. But, you know, six months or so later, whatever time was, about a year ago,

I'm looking at Whalen, I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to be, a year from now, I'm going to be 70 years old. And if I want to be around when Wayland's, you know, 12, 14, 50, 16, you know, years old, and I want to be around to take him hunting and fishing and camping and all the stuff that I love doing when I was a kid. I want to experience that. I want to be sitting on the couch looking out the window, watching him do it. it. I want to be out there with a plane, too.

So I just said, you don't want to get myself in shape. And I've been working fairly hard at it. You know, I went on the cornerboard. I had anybody that follows me knows that. I've been really grateful for that. It's been the absolute right decision for me for a variety of reasons. But then I started working out. I thought, you know what?

And this is about a year ago. I thought, you know what? I look like shit. I'm out of shape. I haven't worked out in decades. If I want to be around and play with my grandson, I'm going to get to it. And I did. And then I thought, you know what? I want to see what I look like a year from now. So working out for only about six or eight months, really, as far as working out, but really

watching my diet and giving up a lot of the things that were slowing me down. For one goal, to your point, Conrad, has actually prepared me for this because this isn't something you can do. I could do if I wasn't feeling 100% if I didn't have the maximum amount of energy that I'm capable of having. If I was slowing myself down with a bad diet and drinking and partying and staying out late, all this stuff that I've done my whole life, I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do right now because this is going to be a big time effort.

I almost feel like that decision to get myself in shape, whatever the motivation was doesn't matter because it was preparing me for six months to do what I've been doing and what I'm going to have to do going forward. So that's a cool observation on your part. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment, to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living,

to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me. Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.org. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits. mentioned here. I can't wait to see what's next. And I think everybody is going to be asking, I'm going to put you on the spot here, Eric, are we going to be able to watch this or do we have

to buy a ticket? Can we stream it? Is it going to be on TV? Is that those details still to come? Do we have to wait for that information? Or can you give us a scoop, Eric? Yeah, there's no scoops. Look, we're going to be on a streaming platform. We are currently in the process of very early on. There's one thing I'm not going to do here. Look, sports entertainment, sports entertainment, and there's a way to talk about it and present the information in a very promotional way, creative way. I'm going to be a straight with everybody here as I can be about this because this is a legitimate sport, a legitimate business. But don't have a deal, early conversations with two major streaming platforms,

but they're so preliminary that they almost don't matter, right? Very, very early. But I'll tell you what the ultimate goal is. The ultimate goal is a strategic relationship with either a streaming platform or a network, cable or broadcast. That's a long-term strategic relationship in the sense that we're built. building this business together, both as a broadcast entity or streaming platform and, of course, our league. That has to be, in my mind, for it to be successful, long term, in a big way.

There has to be a strategic relationship, not just a transactional one. By that, I mean somebody that we can partner with to help grow the business as opposed to just putting it on television or putting it on their platform. And that's going to take time. We also know that in order for that goal, for us to reach that goal, we have to showcase our ability to do exactly what I'm saying we can do, which is to bring these athletes to life, to create backstory and interest and compel people to want to watch

and to provide coverage of the sport. that is a lot more exciting than people perceive it will be. If we can do that and we can showcase our production abilities and what we're capable of doing, it'll just get us to that long-term relationship that much faster. So yes, you'll be able to watch it on a streaming platform to be determined, but the long-term goal is a major platform or network outlet. I do want to we are going to be talking about pro wrestling folks but I felt like we needed to address this and before we move on Lauren McClure has a great comment here she says congrats happy for you but I thought you said you didn't want to get back into the business that you were good on your farm and Cody did you just really want a new challenge I think that's a fair question I mean we've all heard that you enjoyed spending time with your grandson and but I think most of that was framed

in the pro wrestling conversation. I think usually when you're asked this question, it's like, would you want to go back to work for WWV or AEW or TNA? Right. But this is a different challenge. Is that the way you viewed it? Is Mr. McClure or Mrs. McClure on top with that question? Very much, though.

I get it. I mean, and I have said I have no interest in getting back into wrestling, but in the concepts of those answers or those comments, me answering a question or just making a comment in general, I'm referring to sports entertainment. This is going to get really confusing because VWE isn't really professional wrestling.

It's professional sports entertainment. Yeah. What we're doing really is professional wrestling, but we can't call ourselves professional wrestling because it'll confuse this with sports entertainment. But this is a different business. This is a different goal. And while I would not want to go back in work in sports entertainment for any company,

for any reason, realistically for any amount of money, because, number one, I've been there, I've done that. I'm not passionate about that. I'm not passionate about doing something I've already done. I am passionate about doing something nobody else has ever done. So there are two different things, and the motivations would be, are two different motivations. So, yes, I said I never wanted to get back into wrestling again. I was referring to the sports entertainment version of it.

And as far as, you know, time, my desire to spend time with my grandson and more time with my family is probably, I'm probably going to get more opportunity to do that as a result of this. Yes, I'm going to be working hard and I'm going to be busy and all that. But there's a good chance we'll be based in Tampa, Florida, or at least for a portion of the year. um so i'll i'll be able to do both but i appreciate the concern well eric has no concern that he's going to be ready to answer the call thanks to our friends at blue chew blue chew max has arrived and it combines the active ingredients of viagra and cealis into one chewable this is like a hot tag for your wiener and now you can be ready whenever she or he needs it so get your first month of blue chew free great sex is just a few clicks away sign up at bluechew

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Try your first month of blue chew free when you use the promo code 83 weeks. just pay the $5 shipping. That's promo code 83 weeks when you visit Bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Choo for sponsoring today's podcast. Eric, we've got a ton of different questions that are coming in. And I can't wait for us to break through on some of these. Let's start with one about Real American Freestyle.

Stellar Steven says, will Izzy open up the brackets to catch and submission wrestlers? I don't think so. I mean, we haven't talked about that. We're going to focus on freestyle wrestling, freestyle wrestling rules. There are going to be incentives that are being developed right now with guys like Izzy, of course, leading the charge, Chad, who also has a significant amateur wrestling background, Chad Bronson, our partner, and guys like Ben Ashwin and others who really, really understand the sport. We're going to retain the integrity of freestyle rules. But in a similar way that the UFC does by creating incentive or bonuses, for example, for certain types of offense that tends to lead to a more dramatic takedown, for example.

There's nothing like, go back to Google Kennedy Blades or go on social media and look for Kennedy Blades in some of her videos. I've reposted a lot of them over the last month or two because she's a very, very, very. very special athlete, silver medalist, Olympic silver medalist, just won the U.S. Open in Las Vegas, and is going on to the finals here in a couple of weeks in Philadelphia, I think. But go look at her videos and watch some of her, you know, her versions of a suplex. Pretty dynamic. So we're going to be creating incentives to hopefully see more of that, to incentivize the athletes financially to display some of the more. progressive and just visually dynamic aspects of freestyle wrestling.

That's one of the things that we're going to do to bring the entertainment, you know, to the sport. So, um, yeah, I covered that. Eric, we're getting a lot of comments like this that you and I normally, uh,

run from negativity, but I want to address this one head on. We're seeing a lot of comments like Marv Ellis, who says there might be a reason it hasn't been done yet. They don't flock to see freestyle wrestling in the Olympics. And I'm seeing a lot of people saying, Hey, you know, the Olympics almost scratched this. Hey, guys, respectfully, you're not, you're not on top of what's happening in amateur wrestling.

If you just go to the Sports Business Journal.com, you'll see the headline from March 20th of this year. So we're saying five weeks ago. And it was Wells Fargo Center seeing record ticket prices for NCAA wrestling championships. Here's the first line of the article. The NCAA wrestling championships this weekend at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philly will, quote, draw more than 100,000 fans for multiple sessions and has already seen ticket prices climb higher than ever. We're talking 104,260 people who came to this event in 2011.

They're thinking over 92,000 appeared at this event this year. And the GM for the Wells Fargo Center says, this is the highest demand ticket we've ever had in the history of the Wells Fargo Center dating back to 1996. It is completely sold out for each day. The demand for this is unlike anything we have ever seen, and that includes other sporting events, concerts, and championships. The NCAA chose Philadelphia as this year's host city in 2020,

and they began planning immediately. But still, we're talking about the GM of the Wells Fargo Center, saying this is the highest ticket demand in the history of the building going back 19 years to when it opened in 1996. So to say there's not any appetite for this sort of product is just not true, Eric. Well, it is and it isn't. There's not an appetite for a television product because one doesn't exist. And nobody's been able to do it.

Nobody's been able to figure out a lot of people have tried. And the point is a valid point. You know, pre-sale wrestling, as a, as a professional, professional sport does not currently exist. Therefore, someone who isn't paying attention or doesn't really understand what's going on in the world of amateur wrestling, as you pointed out, doesn't realize that there's a massive appetite for this product. There's just not, nobody's servicing it. Nobody is servicing the client, the client being 18 to 49 year old males primarily, but also females, because one of the fastest growing segments of freestyle wrestling, amateur wrestling, even at, you know,

the high school level is the women's participation. And I mentioned Kennedy Blaz, and you're going to hear me talking about her a lot because she is a superstar in the making. She is a wonderful, wonderful person. I watch her reacting to fans. I watch her interacting with kids that were who, you know, just wanted to meet her.

She is an extraordinary human being with an amazing gift athletically. She's going to be a big star. But we have to bring that out. And I think when we do, there will be an appetite for this product. We will have done something nobody else has been able to do so far. So from the outside looking in, it appears that there's no appetite. The appetite is there. Nobody's just bringing the pie to the table.

Well, let's transition. We've talked enough about Real American Freestyle for now. By the way, if you've got a question for Eric, hit us up with that. It's not like this is the only time we'll talk about it. This is going to be a big part of Eric's life moving forward. So you can't expect us to give you some updates as we progress things with real American freestyle. One more thing.

This caught me out of left field. I was in a meeting or I was otherwise unavailable. But when I see like an hour later, I got two video text messages from you. And you never send video text messages. That's not an area of a thing. And I see you standing on the street in Manhattan right in front of the Madison Square Garden building. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Hulk Hogan has a sports bar that's going to be opening by MSG.

Is this right? You know, yeah. And I guess I knew, you know, I guess he mentioned it, you know, in passing as we've been talking about launching this initiative. So I was kind of aware that there was something going on in New York with, you know, a Hulk Hogan sports bar. And maybe I heard it was right across the street from Madison Square Garden, but I just didn't either pay attention or I forgot. one way or probably both so as we're there the other night uh in town wednesday night in order to do the fox and friends appearance and a couple others looks says oh we're going to go by and and see my new bar and went okay great because it's being you know it's being remodeled so we go

and it's exactly across the street from madison square garden it's called hoghogan scores sports Sparer. It was the former Scores Gentleman's Club. Oh, my God. That's what I was wondering. It's the same building. It's the same building. Oh, God. But the, it was purchased. And the guy who's, his name is Rich. I don't want to butcher his last name, but Rich bought it. It went to Hawkins. So this is what I want to do. I'm going to create the coolest sports power in New York City. I want to put it right across from Madison Square Garden. And it's going to be a billboard for, you know, Hulk Hogan. right across from MSD and I thought wow that's pretty cool and then I got there and I saw

it and took a tour with Rich and and everybody else and what they're doing inside of this sport bar is mind-boggling and on the second level yeah you're standing there where the video was that I sent you looking out the window right across the street from Madison Square Garden it's crazy it's unbelievable also unbelievable is some of the news that's broken since we've been live on the air this morning let's just start with a big announcement, and this maybe is the most recent one, AEW posts, as announced by Philly Inquirer, AEW is coming back to the 2,300 Arena for the first time ever.

From August 27th to September 11th, Philadelphia's historic venue will host a residency of AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision as well as Ring of Honor, death before dishonor. Of course, this is the former ECW Arena at the corner of Swanson and Rittner, and August 27th is an important, at date in ECW history. That's the day where Shane Douglas threw down the NWA title and proclaimed himself

the new ECW world champion instead. And it's when they actually debuted on TNN years later. They got their first national television deal. And now on August 27th this year, AEW will be at the former ECW arena. This is clearly the smallest building that AEW has ever done television from. but I do think it is a neat idea for wrestling

fans around the world who maybe were a little too young or just missed their chance to go see wrestling live at the ECW arena there's only a handful of these historic buildings and if once upon a time WCW was going to say hey we're going to run a series

of shows at the Sportatorium I probably would have found a way to get there because that's a building that I heard about but I never got to experience and even if it wasn't exactly the same, the idea that I get to go back to a famous arena, that seems cool. I mean,

usually when you're going to see a wrestling show, Eric, you're going just because you want to see the performers or the matches or you're just looking for something to do and you're bored. But in this case, I think there's, there is a contingent of fans who've always wanted to go see wrestling at the former ECW arena,

but maybe they haven't. This feels like a way to check that box. What do you think of this announcement from AEW about a residency at the corner of Swanson and Writtener. You know, what do I think about it? I think it's probably a smart move for AEW for a couple of reasons. One is, yes, as you just pointed out, they can potentially, I don't overestimate the value of this,

but they can potentially tap into, you know, that nostalgic factor that we know works in professional wrestling and you described really well. So there is that potential. There's also just the efficiencies, production efficiencies, cost efficiencies of not transporting stuff all over the country every week. So I understand that. That's a really smart move. Pruent is a good word.

It's a prudent move. I don't think I've ever used prudent in a sentence, maybe ever in my life. So shout out for Ross Perrault and Dana Carvey for that. There you go. Prudent. Like, but I think it's smart in that respect. You know, do I think it's risky in it to a degree? A little bit because you know, whether you intentionally are doing it or not,

and you can frame it as paying homage to ECW. And I think we've all, at least I've read that, you know, Tony Khan was influenced as a kid. very heavily by ECW, so I get that. But subconsciously, people are going to compare you. And if you can meet or exceed their expectations, if they're kind of expecting a ECW version of AEW as a means of paying homage to Paul Heyman and the team from ECW, if you can do a good job at that, it can be great.

And also backfire. So we'll find out who is in the pudding. never used that either trying some new things joel clements has a great question i know we said we were moving on from r a f but i do want to ask because he's asked a few times and i guess that's a valid question hey conrad could you please read my super chat and ask eric from your point of view does this have an impact on 83 weeks wise choices or stumps and bumps eric now that you're doing real american freestyle are you abandoning the podcast no i'm never i'm never going to step doing this podcast. The only way, if I stop doing this podcast, now I may miss a week or two here and

we maybe have to do a best of because of travel, you know, technical issues. But if you ever hear that Eric Pischoff has stopped doing his podcast, you can send donations to my favorite charity and my memory because I'll be doing this as long as anybody wants to listen. I love doing it. It's fun for me. In many respects, it's helped me prepare for what I'm doing now because I'm more comfortable doing it, partly as a result of this. So no, I'm never going to stop doing this. As far as stumps and bumps, we've hit a bump in the road, so to speak, only in the sense that we're hearing that there's some translation opportunities that are opening up at YouTube, and we want to explore those because of they're imminent, and we can launch in language

other than English, because this is cricket. My podcast partner in this respect, respect is Barat Sandracian, who's Indian, and although he lives in Australia, and covers cricket all over the world. So we see a big advantage in a Hindi language version of this. And if that translation is available, then we want to kind of take advantage of that for the launch. We'll know more about that in probably the next week or two. Also, Barat messaged me last night. he's got a digital radio platform that's very interested in us in as well. So we're going to explore that. So stumps and bumps is still happening exactly to be determined.

Wise choices is just a spur of the moment thing. I made that clear when I launched it. If I've got something I really want to get off my chest or I'm interested in or I want to talk about it fits into the wise choices kind of brand, I'll still do those. I love doing them. It's what I do for fun. I don't play golf, right? I don't have any other hobbies.

So this kind of stuff is fun for me. Now, I'll continue doing it. So you're not going to stop here. You may want to, but you won't. I was going to say, I can't imagine you and I not having fun doing this show.

Like we've been, if nothing else, this is a way where I know you and I are going to get to hang out and talk for two hours a week when our schedules may not otherwise allow. So yeah, we're going to keep doing this show. And this weekend off air, Eric,

I have had, And things happened this week, but we should catch up on. I knew you were a little busy. Oh, I can't wait. I love this guy. See, that kind of little tease gets me. Oh, just excited. Well, I'm excited about an interview that Stone Cold Steve Austin did with our great

close personal friend, Ariel Hawanning, friend of the show. And he's come out and said on that show that, hey, doing an exhibition match would be fun. I love that. He's still leaving it open, perhaps, the idea. that well maybe one more what do you think of that I get it

yeah he's he's still he still got that needle in his arm you know what I mean by that meaning that that that addiction to

the crowd and being able to get them to react the way you want them to react when you want him to react that way is it's just such a cool feeling that you do become addicted to it. And it's great to hear that Steve still is a little bit of that running through his veins. So I hope it's true. Brian Danielson was recently in the news in a different way.

Here's what he had to say. And I want to give you a chance to hear the quote and react to it, Eric. Quote, I don't want to put the word like retirement out there, but I'm honestly very comfortable where I'm at now. The reality is I've given 25 years of my body to wrestling. I think now it's okay for me to step back. And honestly, I don't crave the spotlight or anything like that. I enjoy being a homebody. I enjoy being with my kids.

He would later say in a different interview, I think, that this society today has a problem recognizing when enough is enough. He's comfortable with his career and satisfied with his career, and he thinks enough is enough. we all have our opinions about wrestling retirements but I think what I'm most happy to hear is that at least right now he's content I mean that's what we should want for our favorite performers

and for even our friends like we want them when they decide they're going to step away from a field to step away with no regrets and to step away with a feeling of peace and contentment like that's the goal and when I read that maybe Daniel Bryan has that or Brian Danielson has that that makes me smile Eric what's a year Yeah, I mean, look, in any work, in any job, in any profession, particularly when you reach the level that Brian did, Daniel or whatever, you know what I'm talking about.

When you reach that level, I mean, as he said, it's 25 years of his life. And yeah, I said, yeah, you give it up my body for the business. And, you know, people say that all the time. And we hear it so often that it almost doesn't mean as much as it should because these guys do get busted up. And you see, you know, guys like Brian, Daniel, Daniel, Brian, who really done it at the highest level for as long as they have. And injuries, they stick with you. They get worse over time. They get to be, you know, a bigger challenge for people over time.

So if you can get out of this business or get out of any form of entertainment when you've got your health, you've got your family, you're financially secure, I mean, what other boxes do you? you have to check. So good for him or anybody that gets to that point where they go, you know what? I've checked all the boxes. I've satisfied myself as a professional, as a performer. I've been on the biggest stage or I've wrestled in front of the type of crowds that I've always dreamed of doing, whatever your goals were. Once you reach that and you're financially secure and you're emotionally stable and you've got your family and you live somewhere you want to live, trust me, I get all that. I get most of that.

I don't get all of it yet, but I get most of it. That's, man, that should be everybody's goal. Well, I'll tell you what, if your mom and dad are still with you,

your goal should be to hook them up this mother's day or father's day. Look no further than paint your life. I've done this for both my mom and my dad, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law. This year, I'm doing it for my cousin Derek. Let me explain.

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You can add in a lost loved one to a special occasion and create the portrait of your family's dreams. and you get to work with the artist. So you choose the artist, then you choose the medium, meaning like, do you want an oil painting or do you want acrylic or watercolor or charcoal? There's a bunch of different options. You can even select a frame, but you'll be communicating directly with the artist and asking for

and requesting and receiving revisions. You'll get it exactly the way you dreamed. And you can do this in as little as two weeks. What's best, perhaps, about paint your life is that it's meaningful, it's personal and it's always heartwarming let me give you an example my cousin Derek lost his mom and dad before his son was born so they never got to really experience being grandparents and i think every young father or young mother and they imagine being able to see their parents hold a baby in their arms knowing that hey that was once me what i've been

able to do for my cousin Derek this year for father's day is take a picture of his mom and dad holding him as a baby and slide him in there next to him as an adult, but the baby is his son. We're going to make that family reunion happen on canvas that never could happen in real life. I've not seen Derek cry before, but I bet he does that day. That's about as meaningful and personable of a gift as you can give. It's the hell out of a gift card. You can give the most meaningful gift you've ever given at Paint Your Life, and there's no risk.

If you don't love the final painting, your money's refunded. guaranteed and right now is a limited time offer you can get 20% off your painting that's right 20% off and free shipping so to get this special offer just text the word weeks to 87204 text weeks to 87204 text w e eke s to 87204 paint your life celebrate the moments that matter most message and data rates may apply see terms for details eric we got to talk about some other big news that's come back from WWE today. How about this for starters? This is the new

SummerSlam poster for 2025. This was just released this morning. Of course they're going to have a big extravaganza at the former MetLife Stadium, or I guess it's still MetLife Stadium there in New Jersey. It's a two-night affair. We knew that's what happened eventually.

Real Rumble is eventually going to be two nights. WrestleMania is going to be two nights. Summer Slam's going to be two nights. And it's happening this year. The first ever two-night SummerSlam August 2nd and August 3rd tickets are on sale now and from left to right we see on this poster Maria Ripley much larger Roman rains Bianca Belair C.M. Puck and then in the front row Tiffany Stratton Cody Rhodes and John Sina. What do you make of this this poster Eric? We've not we've yet to see Cody post-Resslemania. We've yet to see Roman post-Resslemania.

There's reports out there that Cody's going to miss some time and that's probably well deserve since he's come back from the pectoral terror he's done every piece of media and promotion and every live event possible maybe they want the roman rain story to take a breather as well the reports are he won't be back until june now we don't have any inside information i don't know what's going to happen what's not going to happen but i know this seems to be the direction for summer slam any surprises about who's on the poster or who's not on the poster eric no not at all because I didn't have any anticipation, so hard to be surprised about something that you're not really thinking about. I think it seems rather generic, and I think I said a couple weeks before WrestleMania

when people were talking about the level of enthusiasm for it or lack there of, and the opinions of some, I think I made the comment that one of the things I'm looking forward to at that time for WrestleMania for is not only that night's event, but where the stories go post-Ressomania. Because WrestleMania, to me at least, has always been the unofficial reset, meaning most of the stories have evolved to a certain point where the next version of that story evolves out of WrestleMania. And it's the direction of the stories post-Resslemania that I was most interested in. And I still am. And I haven't honestly been able to follow it enough. It's been a little crazy and I just haven't checked into the direction of

the stories post-Rustlemania, but I will be once things settled down over the next couple days. And I'm really interested in that because it's the storytelling. It's the process. And I read this morning, there were some internal changes within the creative department. And I'm just really interested in how these stories evolve and who's involved. So that's a long-winded way of saying, not surprised by anything because I have no feel for the direction of anything quite yet. And I'm not sure that WWE has presented it yet either. I think in the next couple of weeks we'll start seeing the direction of creative, at least where we think it's going to go for the next six months. We should also talk about another announcement that WWE's revealed this morning,

and this feels like a big one. WWE Crown Jewel 2025 will not be in Saudi Arabia. It's going to be, I can't believe this is real, in Perth. I've kind of imagined that the Crown Jewel opportunity was going to be restricted to Saudi events, but they're going to run Friday Night Smackdown in Perth and Raw, the following Monday, but in the middle, Crown Jewel, Perth, Saturday, October 11th in Western Australia. You know, we knew that WWE was going back to Australia.

This makes sense. Why not make it three shows? But I think the, the interesting thing is it's got the name Crown Jewel, but it's not in Saudi Arabia. What do you think of that, Aaron? That's interesting. Right? I don't know what this.

I don't know what this is really interesting. I would say, now, this is the kind of stuff that I'd love. love to have some access to in terms of finding out why and how and understanding the direction and the plan. This is the business of the wrestling business that I find way more fascinating than a rumor and innuendo. This is something I would like to know about. Now, I won't call Bruce or anybody else that I know in WWE and ask because I'm not that guy. None of my business. Don't need to know, but I'd love to know. So if you hear anything, Conrad, please. clue me in this is pretty cool that's an interesting development does it work does it mean

anything as far as the relationship with saudi is it added value in in in the view of the of the saudi's in that relationship with respect to wwee con jewel i don't know but it'd be interesting to find out we had previously heard that there would be a saudi show in june that was what was promoted that the the annual saudi arabia p le was going to be in June. But it's always carried the name Crown Jewel, and now that's in Australia. So this is going to be interesting.

Let's talk about some, I guess it's bad news. I hate to be so flipping about it. I don't know all the details, but we hate to hear when anyone's losing their job. And it's come out that there are some cuts happening in WWE right now. This is sort of par for course with WWE on the heels of WrestleMania, but the report is wwe made cuts in several departments including creative services

photography and more today Christine lubrano maybe I didn't pronounce that correctly who served a senior vice president of creative writing operations departed the company the belief is that at least 10 to 12 staffers were cut today possibly more I know this is standard operating procedure

for a lot of major corporations you know they do performance reviews and cut the bottom 10 percent and the company changes their direction. Like we all assumed the Crown Jewel show is going to be in Saudi Arabia because it always has been. But now it looks like it's going to Perth. We hate to hear of anybody losing their jobs,

but I know that the narrative online is going to be negative about this. But it's just a function of business sometimes, Eric. We don't want anyone to lose their jobs, but this is kind of the way corporate America works, right? It's the way America works. It's supply and demand. It's the constant evolution of the business and the business model. Look at what's happening across the board in a lot of different industries.

Watch what's going to happen over the next two to five years with the evolution and integration of AI. There's going to be a lot of people losing their jobs and finding new ones in other areas. but it's the evolution of life. Yes, in the wrestling business, but in every other business as well. I hate to hear that anybody's lives in their gig, but I do wonder, some of these creative folks,

do you think if you had to guess that they will find other jobs in wrestling or will they say, you know what, that's enough of this. I'm going to go be creative outside of the pro wrestling landscape. What would you predict? Well, I mean, first of I don't know any of these people, and I don't know what real assets they bring to the table. For example, the young lady that was let go recently, her title had operations, senior vice president of creative writing operations. Operations suggest an administrative role more so than it suggests a creative writing role. In other words, you need people to manage the process, hiring, reviewing, firing, and firing in some.

some cases, just the logistics of the process of people sitting in a room coming up with ideas and then turning that into a format disseminating an amount of talent and producing a television show as a result. That's an entire process. Very complicated logistics at the level that WWE is operating at. So just because someone is with a title of Senior Vice President of Operations creative writing is leaving, it could be simply because of if it's efficiencies. Sometimes departments are rearranged, reduced, expanded, whatever as a result of efficiencies in increased technology, for example. So I don't think that people should read in anything to it other than it's life. And it's happening in every form of business in America around the world. And it always has. It's nothing new. I don't know that everybody has noticed this yet, but Jen Pepperman actually went to Twitter. She now, of course, as a reminder, used to work on the WW side of things in creative and now works with AEW.

We hear, she spends a lot of time with Mercedes-Money, but I think she works on a lot of other stuff in AW2. But she tweeted this morning today, dot, dot, dot, dot, I feel vindicated, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot more to that story, perhaps, than what we originally know. We'll stay tuned. Let's do some questions here, Eric. We've got a live studio audience with us. I don't know how many of these we'll get to, but AOTV production says, Vince Russo believes that nobody will take WWE seriously after the rock told the world, the whole thing is the show.

What do you think? I think Vince is losing his mind. No. He also says, here's another Russo theory. He believes Rock is trying to make Triple H look bad. so he'll be removed from creative. Do you think there's any truth to that? Now that's interesting, Eric.

Do you think there's some political gamesmanship that maybe Rock would rather see his right-hand man from Seven Bucks production and former WWE head writer Brian Gerwitz take that spot? That's hard for me to imagine. I want to be careful here because I'm friends with Brian. And just because I'm friends with Brian, that doesn't mean I know what he's thinking. or how he would react.

This is just my gut. I think if Rock wanted Brian to take over creative in WWE, he'd have a hard time convincing Brian up to do it. I don't see Brian wanting that job. It's, that's a grueling, grueling job. And Ryan's been there and done that. He's experienced that. He's been to the top of that mountain.

So I can't imagine he would want to do that again, but I don't know Brian well enough to know that. I think this is just a whole lot of speculation and internet wrestling chatter. That's fun to talk about, speculate about, but there's really no basis for it. Let's do some more questions here. How about a shout out here from South E-96?

Love the show, Eric. Much love from Sydney, Australia. Thanks for jumping on with us. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA.

I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me. Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.gov. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. Stellar, Stephen wants to know, Eric, what are your thoughts on catch or submission wrestling and BJJ? I went to a specific wrestling catch seminars wearing the CWO logo, which is kind of fun, catch wrestling. I like that. Have you been a fan?

I don't think a lot of our listeners know. You used to wrestle back in the day, right? 100 or so. Now, it wasn't quite that lot of ago. Yeah, in high school and post-high school, I, it's what's really funny. Do you mind if I burn up about 10 minutes telling you a little circle story? This is just the way I look at life. And it's the way I stay grateful for little things because you never know when a little

thing is going to lead to a big thing. And here's what I mean by that. When I was a kid and we moved from Detroit, and I never played any sports in Detroit at all, never really was exposed to sports other than professional sports on television. but I moved to Pittsburgh and I you know no friends didn't know anybody and because I never play I wasn't big enough to play football or basketball I really wasn't very athletic I tried out for the cross-country team because I could run no that was the only thing I could do I didn't have any background any other sports so I joined the cross-country team and I and I did it

because I didn't know anybody I wanted something to do so I joined a team and I started out That starts in the fall. Anyway, long story short, got in a pretty good shape. Enjoyed competing for the first time of my life. I'd never done it before. Just the idea of competing against other people was fun for me. I went, wow, this is kind of fun. I'd like to keep doing it.

What else can I do? I can't play basketball. I suck at that. Oh, there's this amateur wrestling thing? I'll give that a shot. So I started wrestling in about eighth grade when I moved from Detroit to Pittsburgh. and then continue with it in Pittsburgh for a couple of years and really enjoyed it. And then when my parents moved to Minnesota about 1970, I was in the same position again.

Well, I don't know anybody. I don't have any friends. I got to get integrated into the society here. And I might as well do something. Oh, I like to wrestle, so I'll join the wrestling team. And I did. And it was through that, it was through amateur wrestling that in Minnesota that I met Burgagna as a kid. And then I became a fan of the show.

Fast forward, I used my amateur wrestling card, so to speak, locally, with Vernagonia to get a meeting to present Ninja Star Wars, the idea, to Vern. And that was successful, which led to me getting a job in professional wrestling, as we've talked about many times before. So my amateur wrestling experience, starting in the eighth grade, led me to invent. eventually becoming president of WCW, which is pretty freaking cool, even cooler when now I'm entering kind of a full circle arc where I'm going back in a whole different way to the sport that helped me get a job in professional wrestling in the first place. It's just kind of a funny thing. And I, that's what I tell my kids, man, don't, don't ever look at any moment.

opportunity is a big or small one because they always lead to something else. And if you embrace little opportunities that somebody can turn around and become a big opportunity, I've lived it my whole life. It's a fascinating thing for me. I just wanted to share that. Hey, speaking of full circle, I don't know that I should share this, but I'm going to you anyway. We're not going to post a picture or anything.

I told you were on Fox and Friends. earlier this week promoting the new real American freestyle and during your appearance I texted you of course you didn't have your phone in your hand on the set but then afterwards you read my text message where I shared that Tony Shivani's son was actually producing for Fox News your segment with Hulk Hogan on Fox News the idea that there's a there's a Hulkster and there's a Bischoff and there's a Shivani all working on a live television thing.

I don't know why, but it just made me smile. That's a full circle thing, is it not? Yeah, that's one of those little things. And I wish I would have known her. I wish I would have said, I had met while I was there. But it's another one of those things. You know, it's like, what a small, unique world we live in. What an amazing coincidence.

And it is fun. I love looking at that kind of stuff. It just makes life more interesting when you connect the dots like that. Ask a bum is asking. a fun question. I guess I'm the bum here. Have you ever seen Hogan in a real fight? No. I was going to say,

why would that even happen? Instagram or wrestling a story, it says, what if Travis Scott was the third man instead? Boy, I got to tell you, somebody with AI skills needs to make that happen because that would be hilarious. Like, what if the Rock showed up to be your third man, but he didn't show up to WrestleMania? Like, that's hilarious. What were the funny guesses that you heard about who the

third man was. My phone blew up. People just assumed it was going to be a Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff podcast that I was hosting because you said he's won all these championships, but I didn't win the championships. I bought the championships like a broke-ass million dollar man, I guess. I don't know. But what was the fun? What were the funny suggestions you saw about who the third man was?

I saw Vince McMahon. I saw, I saw me with being a podcast. Did you see anything else that made you or Hulk Hogan laugh? I didn't see anything that made me laugh. Obviously, you were the prime candidate, you know, and that's logical, right? People would expect that. You and I have tried to do a podcast with a couple times over the years. So that's a logical good guess.

The one that I found most intriguing was the Vince McMahon angle because I didn't think of it. I didn't, and I should have. I guess I just spent enough time thinking about it. But for whatever reason, it never would have occurred to me that anybody would have imagined that it was Vince McMahon. Until I thought about it for a second, I thought, well, I'm actually based on, you know, other, you know, the rumors and innuendo that even I have participated in, admittedly, it's rumors and innuendo folks, not fact, but I'm not pretending it's a fact. When we were talking about, you know, Vince's apparent alleged interest in launching some other form of business in the world of entertainment. So that made sense.

And then I thought, maybe I should call Vince. maybe he's got a couple billion dollars he wants to throw around. Nah, forget about it. But it was a good guess. We've got a question here from Mark 79 who wants to know. What was the driving force that motivated you to be a part of this, Eric? You've said a lot recently that you were happy in Wyoming for the most part. We've touched on that last part, but what is the ultimate goal?

Is it because you want to do something new and exciting or different? Do you think this, you know, this could be a monumental, exit and and create generational wealth for the family or is it just a fun chance to work with a good group of guys that you enjoy spending time with it or is it a new challenge what does the primary motivator feel to be to you it's i mean look who doesn't want to make a lot of money so let's just admit that right off the back because that's kind of a given but that's not my motivator at all i'm not doing it for the money in fact if it was if i was doing any anything just for the money, I probably wouldn't do it. Not for very long. That shit just doesn't

work for me for whatever reason. It's the idea of building something. It was this, it was what drove me in WCW. The primary motivator for me in WCW wasn't the money. Because by the way, I never made a lot of money in WD. I mean, relatively speaking, yes, I did. I don't want to sound ungrateful. But compared to what I should have been making even back then and in similar roles today, I made a fraction of what people probably thought I made there. I made far more money outside of professional wrestling than I've ever made in professional wrestling. Let's put it that way. But I'm not doing it for the money and I didn't do it for the money then. What motivated me in WCW was taking something that was broken that everybody thought would never be successful

and making it successful. That first dollar of profit that I controlled the chief financial officer, Harry Anderson, at the time of Turner Broadcasting, when I made him a bet, and when he lost that bet, it had to get down on one knee and hand me the first dollar of profit the WCW ever made, not in front of me, not to make me feel better, but in front of every employee in the WCW that was at that Christmas party, that's what motivated me to do something that everybody said couldn't be done. It's exactly the motivator here. Every time somebody comes out and says, oh, I don't remember work. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm like her father. Watch this. Here we come.

And look, who knows, man? It's, it's nothing is 100% in life. This is a risk. And it's, and it's, one I'm willing to take because the excitement of achieving something that people assume can't be done is the most motivating thing for me. I'm seeing a lot of comments online where specifically X, where people were maybe disappointed that you and Hulk weren't opening another wrestling promotion, I mean a traditional sports entertainment promotion. And all I can think about was, man, you sort of laid the foundation for this phrase back when we first launched this podcast years ago.

And we haven't said it as often here, but one of the keys to success with Nitro and with you sort of getting your hands on the wheel at WCW is when you looked at the business and you looked at the landscape of the industry, you really understood that you could be better than, less than, or different than. And I feel like you're really putting your money where your mouth is with real American freestyle because it is different than.

everything else that's out there right now and respectfully if you would have launched another wrestling promotion it would be one in that would be in direct competition with WWE and AEW and TNA and MLW and now AAA and CMLL and New Japan and and and and and this is a unique opportunity because this this isn't going to be better than any of those promotions it's not going to be less than any of those promotions. It's going to be different than. And it's even different than boxing or kickboxing or Muay Thai or Jiu-Jitsu or Judo or the UFC.

I think you're just doing exactly what you've said you would do from day one in business better than less than different than Eric. Yeah, you're right. And that's a great observation. And I think that's probably what attracted to me, this project to me or made me attracted to it immediately. When it was laid out to me, when the idea of coming on board as the chief media officer, when that opportunity came to me initially in the conversation, it took about two minutes,

and I saw the picture in my head. I mean, it just rang so true in my imagination because it's exactly that, as you described it. It's different than anything else that's out there. Are there going to be similarities to the UFC? You bet. You bet. Some of them are going to be intentional. Some of them are going to be coincidental.

Are there going to be similarities in some respects to a WWE presentation? You bet. Because WWE creates emotion. It's the presentation. It's the definition of characters. There are going to be parallels and similarities in some of those entertainment elements. in what we do, but it's all going to be different at the same time. So that's probably what made me so excited about jumping into this and taking the risk.

You know, we're putting ourselves out there. And anytime you put yourselves out in front, you go on Fox and Friends, you do sports journal, you do Forbes, you do AP interviews, you're putting yourself out there, you're taking a risk. And I am so excited about this risk because the opportunity to deliver something different, fan while still captivating the interest of people who are UFC fans, MMA fans in general, because freestyle wrestling, wrestling in general, amateur wrestling, collegiate style wrestling, whatever you want to call it, is such a foundational part of what MMA is all about. I already mentioned a lot of the names.

It's undeniable. The big part of it. Same with BW. fans. Shelton Benjamin for crying. Charlie Haas. Ligler, you know, Nick Deavis, there's sugar angle, obviously, and so many others, Mitt Foley for crying out loud. Had an extensive amateur wrestling background before he ever got into WWE or WCW.

So there's a lot of connective tissue with the WWE audience and respect for amateur wrestling and respect for the athletes that came from amateur wrestling in WWE, as well as MMA, to me this just serves as an ideal kind of platform in the middle to showcase the skills that translate to both of those sports or forms of entertainment. Yeah, could you tell? Can you just tell them a little excited about this? I'm excited for it too, man.

What I really like is that you're out there and promoting and having fun. And I do want to get us back on track here and talk about some other news that we put a button on it. But let's answer some questions here. Here's a good one from AOTV productions who says, hey, Eric, what do you think about Triple H calling out, quote, unquote, old-timer podcasters? Do you think he's referring to you? Are you an old-timer podcaster?

Is he referring to other people? Are you included in that now? I guess I am, right? I mean, I am a legend. Yeah, you are. Come on now. I am well at least that's what they put on

whenever they put me on TV they put a WWE legend so I guess I guess I've done a lot of those legend type of interviews so I'm you know and I'm old 70 I'll be 70 you know next month

so so I'm old and I'm a podcaster and proud of it so I guess because I'm old and because I'm a podcaster who yes, he was referring to me. And I don't, it doesn't even bother me. Now, he may have somebody else in mind when he was saying it.

But generally, yeah, I fit into that category. And I'm proud of it. I think it's kind of cool. Bush and Ryuk cat says Conrad with Pat McKeachie about to wrestle Gunther and rumors of Nick Aldous returning to the ring. Should commentators get more physically involved to raise their stock or stick to improving their verbal skills? I don't think that's just a cut and dry.

answer. Like, we know that Nick Aldous, like before he came to WWE, he was a full-time wrestler. Now he's a full-time wrestling character, but he owns a supplement company. He's in phenomenal shape. I think he's just waiting on the opportunity to wrestle. And we know that Pat McAfee is a professional athlete who has wrestled in the WWE before on and off and high profile matches and opportunities. I think we could, we should get a carve out there. I don't think we're advocating that has who we know is retired and Tony Chivani or Jim Ross or Michael Cole I don't think

we're saying that you go right but but those two guys they're different right yeah they're both great well Nick is not crazy Nick is one of the smartest he's a thinker I think all this is a thinker really respected be smart guy and he's obviously in great shape and probably would love to get in the ring and I think if if he and McAfee can do something together, a part, whatever. I think that would be a great entertaining and effective shot. I think it would be fun, and they should. But to really answer the question, speaking about wrestlers in general, getting more involved, I don't think that's a great idea. And the way the question was raised, should they get involved in ring or just work on

getting better with their verbal skills? I mean, that's suggesting that they're not already good. And you kind of reject that. I think the question is, for me at least, would be if I were going to use an announcer in something that evolved into a match or physicality, you'd want to do that on a very limited basis. That's something that you can do every once in a while, maybe every couple of years with the right person and make it make sense and have fun with it. But if you go to that well too often, it's just another storytelling device and it loses it. its impact. And overtime becomes somewhat meaningless and you kind of lose the distance you really need between your announced team and your in-ring action. It should be kind of separate.

The minute you start merging them, yes, it can work once every few years under the right situations, but if you do it too much, bad idea. Real quick, I want to mention if you own a handgun for self-defense, your storage likely fits into one of two frustrating categories. It's either locked away, meaning it's safe, but it's out of reach in case of an emergency, or it's unsecured, which leaves it vulnerable for anyone. Well, Stopbox USA solved this problem and designed a groundbreaking solution. It's called the Stopbox Pro. And with the Stop Box Pro, you'll never have to choose between security and readiness ever again. Its ingenious push-button locking system gives you fast, reliable access when every second matters without the hassle

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when you use our code 83 weeks at StopboxUSA.com, but they're also hooking you up, man, with a buy one, get one free on their Stopbox Pro. Dude, that's 10% off and a free Stopbox Pro. You use the code 83 weeks at Stopboxusa.com. Discover a better way to balance security and readiness with Starbucks. Eric, we've got some live questions coming in here. This one comes to us from Corey James,

who says Eric, Conrad, we just got home with our daughter, Lynn Lee, born Wednesday. Can baby James get a shout out from the greatest podcaster of all time? What say you, Eric? Lynn Lee, James, we are so glad to have you here. I know you don't understand the word what I'm saying right now, but somewhere later on in your life, your dad's going to replay this for you.

We are so glad that you're with us here on this planet and as an 83 weeks fan well into the future. Well, I hit Linley with a little too sweet action. Hey, Lynn Lee. Too sweet, baby girl. Come on now. Uh, Gooten tax says,

we don't want real American freestyle. We want Thunder and Paradise 2. Is that something we're going to go fundraise for? Does Left Lane Capital have an interest in reviving the greatest indicated television program of my childhood? As I'd pay watch. Thunder and. For what I understand, they're interested in microleagues.

So, no, probably not a Thunder in Paradise too fan. I don't know why, but that makes me laugh. Darren has a question about R.A.F. He says, what kind of wrestlers are we going to expect in this promotion and what TV network will it be on? Stay tuned. There's been a handful of names announced, but, Eric, I've heard some rumor and innuendo about some other big names in the background that you guys have yet to reveal. I can't confirm or deny those. I don't know if I'm even getting the straight truth,

but there's a lot of fun announcements still to come about Real American Freestyle. Fair to say? Yeah, very fair to say. We have some of the athletes, elite wrestlers from all over the world. These are not just U.S. elite U.S. wrestlers. These are from all over the world. And as tempted as I am to reveal some of them now, because I do want to share, you know, as much inside information as I can

with our listeners. I don't want to steal the thunder from these athletes either. So they're going to be announced. You're going to be hearing names consistently all the way up until August 30th. I'm excited to see what's next for RAF, but I'm also interested in what's happening over in WWB. There was, well, there's been some reports that Liv Morgan has joined the cast of a major

motion picture. And I guess CN Punk was recently interviewed by deadline and had this to say about his career direction. I have pre-existing relationships and projects I work on that are grandfathered into my WWE contract. I typically do Monday Night Raw live on Netflix every week. But if I need to dip out for two weeks to shoot an independent film, I can always do that. We're trying to petition Netflix to do a third season of heels.

I have two projects coming down the line that I'm very excited about. One is the television show revival that will air on sci-fi and a really, really fun movie called Night Patrol, which is written and directed by Ryan Prows. I love the idea of WWE talent having an opportunity to do more of this. Once upon a time with their crazy schedule of two live television shows during the week and then more often than not, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday live events, that seemed impossible. I mean, once upon a time, they were running two shows on Saturday, two shows on Sunday.

it feels like we're moving away from that, and I can't help but think that WWE will get more of a return on their investment doing it this way than they would the old live event model. Clearly, Shapiro and Ari Emanuel see that vision. What do you think of this, Eric? I think it's great. I think one of the advantages,

I mean, WWE has so many advantages when it comes to the depth of the roster, the quality of their talent, that they can afford now, to let a Cody Rhodes have some time off, whether it's to pursue outside interests or just to heal up and get grounded and reconnect with your family.

Because as you pointed out, Cody's been burning both of the candle and being able to cycle your talent in and out for any number of reasons is a really good thing. When you can manage, when you have so much talent that you don't have to keep finding them week after week

after week because your business is financially dependent upon them. When you have such a depth of talent that you can shift your storylines and in some ways allow talent to cycle out, again, to get time away for whatever reason, is also a benefit because absence makes the heart grow fonder. and when you cycle out of Cody Rose or you cycle out of Roman Raines or you cycle out of C&Pont, even if it's for a couple of weeks,

there are ways that you can keep that story alive and build in anticipation during that absence. And also, like I said, it just gives the audience a little bit of relief from the creative fatigue of seeing the same characters week in and week out, and then on the live shows, week in and week out.

It can be done. It's hard, you know, managing talent and availability and cycling them in and cycling them out is a very, it's a complicated, challenging task, but it certainly can be done when you have a deep talent buster. We got one more piece of business I want to ask you about. It's a quote from Ariel Hawani's interview with Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was specifically discussing the new series that's going to debut on Netflix this summer called WV Unreal. He says, quote, that's where I'm still a little bit, I'm a little old school on that. And you know, it's like I'm a big magic fan. If Harry Houdini was still around, I don't want him to tell me how he does it. I want to try to figure out how he does it. And if I can't,

then I'm going to keep wondering and keep watching, but I'm going to keep wondering. So don't tell me how he's doing it, but see if I can figure it out. Because I want to think that I know that it's not magic, it's an illusion. But let me keep wondering about that illusion. Man, I love his approach here. What do you think of that quote? Do you think that the Stone Cold's onto something? Or do you think they'll use the unreal show as another storytelling device

for what we're seeing on the program? Like I could see them using that to set up angles that are sort of an inception of K-Fave. Like, we're doing an angle about doing an angle. As silly as that sounds. Is that not where this lands inevitably, don't you think? It could. It could. I look at it a little differently, and I have mixed emotions like Steve,

but I've often used the analogy of, you know, magic and K-Fabe. So I get where Steve is coming from and agree with them in many respects. But there's another side of it. As the business continues to grow and evolve. and finding ways to connect and engage with the audience continues to grow and evolve. And you have to grow and evolve with the business of the entertainment business. At the same time, you're trying to protect the integrity of your product. So it is a conflict or can be a conflict.

Here's where I think it's going. And I've thought a lot about this because in a way it applies to Real American Freestyle. and the challenges that we face in creating interest in a sport that outside the people that participated in and in it and their family and friends is not that well known. But if you let's look at MMA as an example. 20 years ago, if you ask somebody what a rear naked choke was, they would probably immediately think it's some kind of a sexual kick nobody knew what a rear naked choke was right now if you take any fan out of the 20,000 people that show up at a UFC event or find anybody sitting at a bar

or some kid that sees this stuff now on TV on a regular basis because a rear naked choke is now kind of like a right-hand punch in a lot of television shows and feature films everybody knows what that is My point is, UFC has done a phenomenal job of educating their audience on the nuances of the sport. Yes. And in so doing, they've engaged the audience to become more interested, call it infotainment. They're giving them the, the UFC is giving information in the form of color commentary, play-by-play, interviews and all the different means of media that UFC is being promoted for our sport outside of just the show itself. They have educated the audience as to what MMA is. Nobody knew what Brazilian juts, outside of the people that were really

in the sport or a small segment of the audience, the general population had no idea what Brazilian jiu-jitsu was, as well as any of the moves that are associated with it and holds and submissions. UFC has done a great job educated, just like the NFL has educated the audience, The NBA is an educated audience by virtue of all their means of communication. They're smartening the audience up to the intricacies of the sport, therefore engaging them at a deeper level. That's what this is for WWE. This is an opportunity to showcase what goes into creating this phenomenal presentation. how did they do it now to steve's point you risk exposing the magic

but i think for the bulk of the audience just like the sports audience who that's why the fantasy football the fantasy sports league business exists because they've created market of people that have convinced themselves that they understand the product well enough to do it themselves. That's the best way I could say. And that business has grown exponentially is now a massive part of what drives interest in sports. So if the you, if, if, if WWE can expose or infotane its vast audience with information, with information, that makes the audience feel close more closely connected to the brand because they're getting information that they feel connects them more and they feel closer to the

product that's a really good thing but it does have some risk it comes it comes down to how do they do it not should they do it of course they should do it that model's proven itself across traditional sports and other forms of entertainment The question is, how do they do it? Can they do it without disappointing someone like Steve Austin or Eric Bishop? Because I want there to be a little magic, too. But if they can present it in a way that makes people appreciate and respect the product even more than it's a winner. Let's talk about some other news in the wrestling space.

I don't know if you saw this, but T&A had a fabulous. pay-per-view this past weekend. They had a lot of tickets sold. They had some really great matches. The Mustafa Ali Santana match I thought was outstanding. It was a fun triple threat in the main event. But there was a spot that had people talking that I think we should we should show you here. Ricky Morton actually talked about it on Twitter.

I'm so disappointed. Leon gave you his trust and body on the line for an amazing moment and all of you dropped him. Thank God he walked away. and our business trust is everything and his trust may never be the same. Eric, I don't know that you saw the clip, but he climbed the top of the posts on the outside of the ring that they used to string up the cables for the ultimate X match. So he's on the very top and did like a big dive off the top

onto a gaggle of performers underneath. And we don't know exactly what happened. This has been hotly debated, but unfortunately he landed a little tougher than maybe he would have imagined and it feels like everybody has something to say about this from rickie morton to stevie richards and everyone in between and guys like moose have come out and said hey you've you have no idea what's going on here you've never been in a ring uh everybody should hush everybody makes mistakes even former wrestlers who now have podcasts so lots of people have opinions

about this and you were obviously an advocate for the luchadors doing some crazy things on nitro. I mean, I remember seeing psychosis, I think, jump off the top rope to the floor where the leg drop are just crazy things like that. We saw Cactus Jack take some crazy bumps in WCW2. I mean, is there a place for this? Is this rightly criticized? Or should we as fans just, hey, watch the product and take a page from Triple H and just be a fan, not a critic? What do you think of this, Eric? I didn't see it. I didn't even see a clip, So it's hard to comment on it. I think, look, was I an advocate for a lot of the high-flying, dynamic,

incredible athleticism that the Luchador has brought to the table? Yes, absolutely. It's one of the things I'm most proud of is a cruise weight division because it's one of the things that I think doesn't get the credit. Even I should have given it at the time into making Nitro such a unique format. And in so doing, creating what I, I think, I believe, nobody's going to convince me otherwise, let's put it that way, really has a major, that cruise away division of the people that we brought in for it

is the reason that you're seeing 70% or 80% of the wrestling presentation that you're seeing today. But there is an element of, does it make sense, and is it safe? Doing crazy, high risk, insane maneuvers for the sake of doing them. when perhaps some people shouldn't be doing them because they don't have the experience. I think that's probably an issue that's worth debating. You don't want to see people get hilt for trying to entertain the audience with what they think the audience wants to see, which is crazy. Holy shit moments. Wrestling is so much more than that.

But unfortunately, guys put themselves in positions where they're doing things that they either shouldn't be doing because they don't have the experience. or they're just too inherently dangerous for what you the risk and reward factors I don't fricking whack so I don't know I didn't see it I don't know which category it falls into should people just go yeah well that shit happens or or wasn't an extreme case the guys just doing too much that they're not qualified to do I don't know I didn't see it I don't want to comment on it Eric there's a new thing that I've never seen before and now it's the thing in the wrestling space. Thanks to Mercedes Monet. Since we've been recording, this just went live. There's a report out there that

Mercedes Monet has launched. I don't know if it's an app or a service, but I guess there's a way where you can now text with Mercedes Monet. It's $99 a month. And this feels like an excellent time to remind everybody that you can actually be in communication with Eric Bischoff and Jim Ross and Tony Chivani and Jeff Jarrett and JBL and a whole host of others at adfree shows.com. Come on. That's the best value in wrestling. Come be a part of the family. Look at this Who's Who, from Lex Lugar to David Crockett to Mike Keota to Nick Patrick to Pelley Blanchard to downtown Bruno to Sam Adonis to the Godfather. And of course, everybody I do podcasts with, but Eric, I'm all for Mercedes Monet making some money. I mean, this is there's clearly

going to be an interest in this and a market for this, but I got to do a cheap plug for ad free shows.com right here. I think you could argue at $9 a month. That's the best value around. And I'm a way better dancer than Mercedes. You want to prove it right quick? We'll go to a one shot. No, no, we can't go to a white shot.

We can't. We don't have a whole one of these days. Maybe it'll happen at one of our top guy events or somewhere else or Starkass or something, but it's at some point in time, I will, I will do a dance off. We'll have a video image of Mercedes, Renee, coming out doing anything, and then you're going to have yours truly. And you guys tell me, who you think is? Who's got better moves? So there you go. Mercedes, he's thrown down the gauntlet. Eric Bischoff wants you in the dance off. Next week, right here on the program, we're going to be talking about the incredible,

the incomparable, Dustin Rhodes. He's still tearing it up. He still looks as good as ever. The dude has found the fountain of youth he's going to be our topic next week here on 83 weeks i knew there was no chance we can do just and we could do dust and justice that's interesting to say a little bit of a tongue twister for a hill that sounds like a wrestling gimmick name just in justice right like i was like wait a minute that sounds let's copyright that somebody's going to want somewhere down the line if you have a wrestler call himself dust and justice and real american freestyle i will accept a check in the in the form of the mail But we had a lot of fun talking about Real American Freestyle.

Once again, let's give a plug. You can get all the information for Real American Freestyle on their website. Go right now to Real American Freestyle, and you'll be glad you did. The first event is coming up at the end of August. It's in Cleveland. Tickets are not on sale yet, but we will be breaking the news when they'll be on sale here on the program in the coming weeks. Eric and I are live right now.

So if you're listening to this, and it's not Friday, May 2nd, the morning of, you missed your chance. Here's how you make sure you don't miss us next time, and you can ask Eric your question. Go right now to 83 weeks.com. Hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. And next week, we're going to be talking all things, Dustin Rhodes, right here on 83 weeks with Derek 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 Bank, conversations with Conran and The Insiders. Plus new series like The Book with David Crockett, Monday Mailbags with Mike Keota,

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