83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 373: RELEASED!

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

On this special double header editon of 83 Weeks, Eric is joined by show contributor Derek Sabato for a lively discussion regarding the recent WWE Releases and the impact it's had not only in the ring but on social media. Then the guys jump back over 30 years for a memorable episode of WCW Saturday Night, featuring the debut of Terror Risin'; Johnny B. Badd challenges Rick Rude for the World Title, and Ted Turner is in the crowd!  Watch along with Eric on Peacock, WCW Saturday Night season 3, episode 7 CARGURUS - #1 most visited car shopping site. Shop from millions of cars to find your best deal. https://www.cargurus.com  CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30 #CashAppPod *Referral Reward Disclaimer: As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. TECHOVAS - Get 10% off at tecovas.com/83WEEKS when you sign up for email and texts. PRIZE PICKS - Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/83WEEKS  and use code 83WEEKS and get $50 instantly when you play $5! ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code 83WEEKS at https://shopmando.com/  #mandopod BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. 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/

Save with Conrad.com. Yeah, I'm Justin. We're up in Montreal, 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, and re-did 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 everything. thousand dollars than that and then i got some 30 000 more equity out of the house and i still plenty of after you left over so i'm getting it's good i lowered my interest rate and a much better spot but i was super easy everybody is great very very awesome people francis and steve are great to work with they were 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. In a lesson number 212, non-equal housing lender. Savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fischoff and man, am I excited for today's episode because we get to talk about what's happening today and what happened over 30 years ago. We're going to be starting our conversation today talking about

the newest rash of WWE releases. And normally we're talking about this in the month of April, but WrestleMania was a little later this year. I guess it has become customary. We're all sort of expecting this, a bit of a house cleaning from W.W.E. Post-Ressomania. Well, it happened, including some names that maybe we didn't all expect, names that have spent a lot of time on TV, names that had a lot of brand equity. And there's a lot of reports, a lot of rumor and innuendo. Why did these releases happen? And more importantly, what's next for those talent? Will they go the way of Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes and reinvent themselves and come back bigger stars? Will they take refuge in another

promotion? I don't know. Maybe one based in Jacksonville. Or is it time to, reinvent yourself on another continent and how many stars did we see a j styles comes to mind when he left t and a he became an incredibly different performer in new japan or at least that's the way the American audience at least the American critics perceived it what's necessary for these talents in their next chapter we'll discuss that all of that and more and believe it or not I can't believe this is real but Derek Sabato who normally helps us with some of our research and believe it or not has

been helpful at the time or two with the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he's going to give his take and be involved in this conversation with Eric Bischoff. So we're going to get somebody who's in the mix, so to speak, chatting with Eric about those releases, but stay tuned. Once we're finished with that, we've got something from 1994. You don't want to miss. It's a very special edition of 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. We are live here on podcast heat and ad free shows.

with a man who knows more about the wrestling industry than many people claim to have been able to accomplish the Hall of Famer, a real American, Mr. Eric. Eric, how you doing today? Good, man. I guess, you know, that's one thing I can say for certain. I am a real American. I was born in Detroit, and yep, I guess that makes me officially an American. A real one.

A real one, and we will continue to follow and make sure you're following Eric on social media for all the updates that are coming quickly and fast from Real American Wrestling. And we are talking today about the recent WWE releases with a little bit of different spin. Me and Eric talked last month about the dirt sheets and what the dirt sheets do and contribute. And we're going to talk about the reaction to when people get released in WWE. And we are joined right now by some of our athletes show members and podcast seat members, Adam and Justin, good afternoon, actually. Good morning for Eric.

drop your questions in the chat drop your super chats we'll be happy to get to them Eric the first thing I want to kick off with is you've gone through this process of releasing talent before and the dirt sheets reaction to it my research I didn't find anything you didn't make any talent hunts in 2019 when you were in a executive position for the WEE but when you meet when it came to releasing talent WCW in the 90s and there were contract negotiations and not a lot of release is a lot of expirations. You saw a lot of information out of get put out, mainly by the town through the dirt sheets.

Is that correct? I mean, that's a big part of it, obviously. Somebody gets released. They want to let the world know that they're free and clear, and they're really searching for a new gig. So it's to be expected, and I think, no, to a degree, it's understandable and encouraged. You know, ideally, you go up. about that without burning any bridges.

I think that's a smart way to do it. Some people are really smart. Some people are really stupid and personalize it and try to put heat on the company that let them loose. And that's fine. You can do that. It makes it tough to ever come back. And it also is kind of an indication, at least in my opinion, of what kind of person

you are. Because if you're willing to bury the people that were paying you and then decide once they stop paying you to bury them, guess what's, probably going to happen at some point when I bring you on and have to make the decision to cut you. It's like you, not the smartest thing to do, but it happens, and I understand it. Have you ever been reached out by Dave Meltzer, Wade Keller, anybody in that nature in the 90s when you would have a talent released and they would call you for comment? Do you remember that at any point? Not specifically relating to a release, but I've said many times,

one of the reasons that I have a lot of respect for guys like Mike Johnson and Dave Shear, even though at times they've written things that I found, you know, uncomfortable or I didn't agree with, perhaps because I had information that they didn't have. Despite that, those two in particular, Jason Powell, who works or at least worked, I don't know if he still does with Wade Keller, also a guy who would reach out and ask. And I respected that. Sometimes I could be forthright and explain things from my point of view. But oftentimes when you're releasing somebody, you have to be really careful about what you say because they can come back and claim damages and create litigation.

And even though it's sometimes bogus and ends up being nothing more than a very expensive pain in the ass, it's a pain in the ass you don't need. so oftentimes people would call and ask for specific details and from a legal perspective I could not be forthcoming because I didn't want to walk into a potential litigation so you end up being very general and not specific and that isn't always enough for people who are writing about these types of things but you know it's the nature of the legal beast when you think And off the top of my head, the three biggest releases I remember in WCW is Steve Austin, John Walton, and Raven. There was a lot of conjecture and a lot of talk at that point in time about all three of those releases.

And they were newsworthy. Those were releases that definitely warranted interest in and reaction from the peripheral wrestling news media. When you think back to those three instances compared to what just happened with the WWV, Those are individual cases brought on by events that were going on where this just seemed like it might be time to move on from some of this talent. Do you think there's a difference when it's a mass release like this, a bunch of talents cut, compared to just those individual releases that get a lot more headlines? Obviously, there's a huge difference, but that doesn't matter to the dirt sheets. and part of the reason so much attention in time and conversation and emotion and all of the bullshit that goes on in the internet wrestling community is because there's nothing really

else to talk about right it's it's it's it is fertile ground for subjective opinion and the people that will you know live off the dopamine hit that they're you know ridiculous social media commentary provides them it's i don't know it people want so badly the internet wrestling community wants so badly for there to be real competition not cosplay competition not people out buying themselves participation trophies whether you're Dave Meltzer or anybody else, they want that energy and the volume of activity that took place during the Monday Night Wars, when there was real competition. Today, it's kind of a mirage.

Technically, you can say, since there are multiple people and players in the professional, excuse me, sports entertainment space, I guess there is. and you can probably convince yourself that it's more meaningful than it really is if that's what you feel the need to do. But in reality, there is one major player in terms of its audience footprint. Everybody else is a wannabe. But the audience, the internet wrestling community, I should say, wants so badly to have that sense of battle that went on to.

during the Monday Night Wars that they create it when it doesn't really exist. The WWE, I don't know how many people they have under contract, a lot. Yes. I don't even know how many hours of programming that they produce anymore. It's too hard to keep track of because it's a shit ton. But when you have that much talent on your roster, it's not a job for life, folks. It's a subjective art form. sometimes you get hot and sometimes you get not and when you get not you get moved along or perhaps

you never really got hot but there was always a feeling that the potential was there well guess what not everybody lives up to their potential when it comes to art and entertainment because it is so subjective sometimes you have the talent and you have the potential but the timing isn't right for you. So you get released. Sometimes you come back because the situation has changed and the needs have changed and the opportunities have changed. Entertainment in any form is an ongoing evolution of an art form. Sometimes you have a place in that and sometimes you don't. And if you go into the entertainment business, whether it's professional wrestling, sports entertainment there's a reason now i'm going to start delineating between the two

well i'm sure there is i'm going to go into sports entertainment i want to become what we refer to today as a professional wrestler guess what it's a risky fucking business dude or dudette just like waking up one day and saying hmm i'm pretty good at guitar and i want to be a rock star so i'm going to be in the music entertainment business well guess what the odds of you being successful about one out of a million it's part of the life it's part of the business and i think the way w w we is doing it is at least it appears to be from the outside looking in to be kind of a methodical business approach to managing their talent budget. You can't keep everybody around because you like them or because they have potential

someday you cycle people in, you cycle people out. It's the nature of the business and the internet wrestling community that tries to make more of it than just that is really just entertaining themselves. They're low level thinkers, low vibrational human beings to get their dopamine hit from saying stupid shit on the internet and they feed off of each other. And your buddy, your boss, they melzer is the king of low level thinking. Do you ever feel like car shopping is sort of designed to help you second guess yourself? I mean, is this a good price? Am I making the right choice?

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Eric, what did you think of the way some of the talents react to Dave Meltzer's report why some of them were released. I'm going to cue it up and read it for you if you are unaware of it. You've seen much lately. That's okay. So you've been very busy. Many of the WWNXT releases were reportedly people who were perceived as quote, not working hard in training.

And here's the direct quote from Dave Meltzer. Many of those were perceived as not working hard in training. And if you don't work hard in training, there's so many people who do. At this point, if the feeling is you're not working hard in training, I saw the term lazy. Once who are lazy are going to be gone. The ones who didn't stand out are going to be gone. Priscilla Kelly, who was G.G. Dolan before she was released in W.E.

had this response to it. When I wasn't traveling to work for either of the two companies I was working, or I trained very hard three to four days a week, bumping my ass off and doing cardio drills with one of the best slash toughest coaches I've worked with and worked out every single day. Live events every other weekend. So, yeah, I don't want to hear this the way my body feels because otherwise, and Elanian Black, who was, oh, God, I'm going to butcher this name for Jade.

I think it was responded with this. Plus, can't forget having to go to my own gym outside of work after, quote, strength and conditioning that wasn't doing anything for me other than get me body shamed by my bosses, coworkers, and fans. Crazy. Eric, there's a lot to break down there, as Conrad likes to say. So I'm going to start with the Meltzer quote, which is many of those cut were perceived as not working hard in training.

According to who? I heard the same thing from those in WWE as well that they were looking to. Look, here's a deal. If you want, if Dave Meltzer or anybody else, including you, want to be taking seriously when it comes to this type of stuff, then tell us where you heard it from. Otherwise, don't bring it up. You don't have the, not you necessarily, Derek, I like you a lot and respect you. But if one doesn't have the balls or the information to back up saying something like that,

Keep it to your fucking self because I don't know if it's true. And just because somebody hears it from somebody inside the company, that doesn't make it true either. If there was a decision made by John Michaels, presumably, or whoever else is operationally running an XT, if they've made a comment, then let's talk about that. But to rely on Dave Meltzer's, I heard it from somebody that heard it from somebody inside WWE, or even yours. I'm sorry, that's not enough for me to comment on.

Now, the comment is also tied into the Triple H interview that was done, not long after WrestleMania where he said there are going to be some things that we've noticed with people coming up from NXT to the main roster that have gotten, quote, lazy. Okay, stop right there. Let's break this out because we can't just have one on and on and on and on. Let's break down that comment. That comment, I didn't read it, not familiar with it, but taking it at face value, if Triple H said that, and I presume he did, I believe you.

Yes. That's kind of a broad general statement that anybody who's developing athletes, performers, or anything else in a group environment would say some people are going to work harder than others. Those who work harder than others generally succeed. Those who don't generally don't. Kind of a general statement. But Dave is now connecting that previous comment, which is a general comments. And I think one everyone would agree with who's ever actually been in an environment

where people are competing for a position. Because it is very much a job because you're one of the boys or ladies, whatever. I just don't think it's fair to take a random or out of context in this case comment and then contextualize it with today's news and say, well, it's because many people are lazy. I can't take that seriously. When you think about the talent firing back on that comment, do you think it's a fireback at Dave, the company, someone maybe in there telling him that, do you think it's directed more at the dirt sheets, or do you think it's directed more at the company?

It's hard to say because I guess it depends on who said it and what their state of minds are. It kind of goes back to what I said at the beginning, though. Typically, look, I get it. I've been fired. I've been fired a lot. And it hurts. It's kind of, depending on the situation, I'll go back to the last time I was fired, 2019, after only four months in the gig.

I'm grateful that I was fired, by the way, because it was a dead end opportunity. The chemistry between, you know, Vince and I was never going to be what it would need. to be in order for me to be able to deliver what I'm capable of delivering it. I failed. It's my fault. I was given the opportunity. I couldn't create that chemistry. So it is what it is. But nonetheless, and even though I was in some respects relieved by being let go, it was still embarrassing. I knew what I was going to face, particularly in the dirt sheet media because it is what it is and it's predictable as hell. It's still embarrassing. It's still

it gives you a sense of insecurity, meaning you don't know what you're going to do next. Most of the time, I wasn't as concerned about that really at this stage of my life. I wasn't totally dependent on that opportunity. Let's put it that way. I wanted it and it would have changed my life. My wife, you know, my family's life. in a really positive way. Had it worked out, and if, for example, I was still there, it would have positively affected my, not only my life, but my family's life from a financial perspective, but it wasn't like the end of the world for me either.

I really wasn't worried about it financially. Even though I wasn't in a really great position financially, I still wasn't worried about it. But if you're, you know, in your 20s, in your 30s, especially mid 30s, knocking on late 30s, door and you've been, you know, out there trying to make a name for yourself in this world for the last 10, 15, 20 years and you finally get signed by WWE. And then that opportunity goes away. That's a very, very uncomfortable feeling, particularly when there's not a lot of other places to go. You know, what do you do? I guess from a financial perspective, AEW is an obvious choice. But even they have a limit as to how many people they can bring in under their

roster. I think they do anyway. But other than that, where do you go? And that's really uncomfortable. So I think a lot of times because of the emotional state that people are in, particularly the first four or five days after they get the news, they're embarrassed. They don't want the community to realize that they weren't good enough to be afforded further opportunity in WWE. It's embarrassing. And people react when they get embarrassed. They react when they become insecure because they don't know what they're going to do next. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. And I get it because I've been there. But you have to have the discipline in the professionalism and maturity to keep your emotions to yourself. Because even though what you're saying,

even if it's true, it can come back to bite you in the ass. It can change the perception of people who might otherwise have been willing to hire you or rehire you in the case of WWE. Whether they're reacting to getting terminated or whether reacting to Dave, I don't know. I can't put myself in somebody else's mind, but it almost doesn't matter because the end result is the same. The end result is you're creating a perception.

Your butt hurt, deservedly so. You're embarrassed, understandably so. And you're nervous about what you're going to do next. That's human nature. But learn how to control it. Because if you don't let your emotion, if you don't control your emotions and you let your emotions control you, whether you're reacting to a dirt sheet piece of shit parasite,

it's just out there trying to get attention and his dopamine hit in social media or you really feel that way, give it a week and give it some thought before you comment. All right, man, listen up. Is there a better way to send cash than cash app? I don't think so. When it comes down to making business easy, I'm talking about sending or receiving money, cash app is the go-to in my neck of the woods.

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insane reason you don't already have cash out, just download it from your phone's app store. Sign up and enter our code 83 weeks in your profile. You can send $5 to a friend and then you'll get $10 for just getting started. Let me repeat that. If you don't already have cash app, just download it from your phone's app store sign up and enter our code 83 weeks in your profile then send $5 to a friend and you'll get $10 for just getting started that's right for a limited time only new cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash for real there's no catch just download the cash app and sign up use that exclusive referral code 83 weeks in your profile and then just send $5 to a friend within 14 days

and then you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's cash out. One of the things you brought up is where the talent will go next. And AOTV productions have another good super chat question for you. Hey, Eric, what do you think of the possibility of these release superstars coming back to WWE for TNA? Now, Drew McIntyre was cut, went back for the Indies, all different world back down,

and now he's back on top with the W.E. The hard part of this is now the W.E's relationship with TNA, he's buying AAA, the world of wrestling is somehow getting small opportunities or closing. It's going to be harder sometimes to get back when they have that much reach and agreements with our companies. Do you agree with that? No. I think the opposite is true. Who just recently came back to WWE after having been released for a couple years? Rusev recently returned from A.E.W.

Oh, God, Alster Black, but now I can't think of Alstere Black, but was previously Malachi Black. Oh, there's somebody else. Now I'm blanking off the top. I mean, here's the point. WWE is a global freaking juggernaut. There is going to be more opportunity for more wrestlers to be gainfully employed long. long term because of the

WWE, the acquisition or association, whatever the case may be. A teen A is not an acquisition. It's an association. I don't know what the details are of AAA. Let's just assume for the sake of this conversation it is a form of an acquisition. It doesn't matter.

They've still got to put great talent out there. And if you're a great talent, you don't do stupid shit and say stupid shit. It buries you with decision makers. The opportunity for you to come back in any way, shape, or form, and any number of opportunities is only enhanced by WWE and the strength of it, because AAA is a stronger company because of its association

with WWE than it is without. Otherwise, they wouldn't be fucking doing it. Same for TNA. TNA is in a much better position with relation to its association with its association with WWE than it is without. So I get the desire to create the monopoly storyline and narrative. Oh, these poor wrestlers are never going to have the chance because the big bad WWE is gobbling up all these wrestling companies.

It's the exact opposite. It just depends how you choose to look at it as an individual. And by the way, if you bury yourself and expose yourself for being. an unprofessional, emotional, underdeveloped adult by reacting to stupid shit, Dave Meltzer says, yeah, it's going to be harder for you. But Drew McIntyre is a perfect example. He got cut. What did he do?

He worked his ass off. And he came back. Rousseff. Miro, same thing. Alicester Black, same thing. Had Alistair or Roussef or anybody else? you know, went on an emotional journey to expose all the reasons why they were wronged by WWE. You think they'd be back? Probably not. Probably not.

So just be a fucking pro. What you're whining, you're bitching, and your childish reactions because of stupid things of other ignorant people who have never been in the industry, say, because their opinions don't really fucking matter. This gets me a little hot because this is the disruptive, not even disruptive, I don't mind disruption. This is the negative garbage that Dave in particular, Meltzer and others like him who live off of garbage, the low rent, low vibrational, low thinking garbage. That's how they make their money. by promoting it, propagating it, trying to make it sound more important than it really is.

And it ends up sucking people in who say stupid shit that ends up hurting their career. It's really dumb. We have one last comment. I'm going to throw up on the screen and then I have a really good question with Coach Rosie. I'm going to get to Braunstraman's quote unquote high W.E. salary playing a part in his release from Meltzer, quote, he is the one that the salary was high. One person told me they felt he was paid more than how they were using him. I guess it's the best way to put it. Salary played a part of this.

You're talking about a corporate entity now in TKO, own in WWE. Sometimes salaries do play a role in someone's release. Does it not? Of course it does. It's a business. Look, it's so funny because Meltzer in particular for years in narratives. He'd had too many people under contract. He's paying everybody too much money.

Dave Meltzer harped on that for years. But his buddy Tony Kahn, who's collecting professional wrestlers like figurines and action figures, talk about a bloated freaking roster. But that's a good thing because Tony cares about people. He's going to keep paying you even though he doesn't use you. His fucking roster, 80% of it's like a witness protection program list.

You never see him. Whatever happened to Scorpio Sky? I don't know. He just evaporated. But hey, he got his check. So from Dave's point of view, when Tony Kahn collects wrestlers continues to pay people, 80% of whom you don't even see on television. Maybe 60%, I don't know.

A lot. That's okay. Because it's Tony Kahn and it's his buddy. And it says AEW is his wet dream come true. That's okay. But when WWE makes decisions based on financial considerations because, God almighty, it's a publicly held company and the owners and officers of that company have a fiduciary responsibility.

You Dave Beltzer fans, Google it. a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize the profit of that company. Well, guess what? You don't get to do it by keeping people around who don't return on the investment for whatever reason, subjective or otherwise. It's called business. It's real life. I got to put this up because it's a super chat. He paid for you to see it.

I don't even apologize. You're apologizing for it already. I'm apprehensive to put this up. I actually think it's a funny point. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. You ready? Instagram, a wrestling historian.

Did you prefer firing wrestlers in person or fans? It depends. Like, sometimes I like to see the look on their face. Like, if somebody really deserves to be fired, I would prefer, given the choice. to be there in person for it because if they deserve it, I like to think of it as a learning experience. I love to be the teacher. Do you think honkington can learn anything?

Some people are not capable. There's a certain point in your development as a human being where your brain is wired the way your brain is wired. Now, you can make a conscious decision in long-term commitment to rewire your brain. There's a number of different ways, scientifically proven that you can do that, right? But it involves learning how to manage your subconscious

and things like that. So I'm not saying it can't be done. Like someone, you know, like a honky tonk man when I fired him, is 100% incapable of changing and rewiring their brain. It is theoretically possible. Probably fucking unlikely, but it's possible. I got a good one from FedEx. Look, here's a more serious side of it.

I joked about firing people that deserve to be fired. I'm a joke. Sometimes it's really hard. There's the opposite of that, too. When you have to make a decision about letting somebody go, that you know has given 100%. You know has the right attitude. You know they're a professional and strive to be even more so in every category.

But because of circumstances, you've got to make that hard decision. At that point, the chicken shit in me comes out. I'd much rather not have to face that person because I don't want to share in your disappointment, even though it's my responsibility to do it, end up doing it. Given the choice, I'd rather just send a letter. But that's not fair to people that have tried and have done everything they possibly can. but by, you know, as a victim, I guess, of circumstance more than anything else, it's not their time.

That's not fun. That's it. I hate that. I hate letting people like that go. All right, man, you can't have a good time in bad boots and that's why you need Tukovus. Have you ever wondered if you can pull off boots in your personal style, we owe it to your feet to pull on a pair of Tukovus. Being confident isn't about being different.

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Had even had a little flood in his closet. And the first thing he was worried about is, did it mess up my boots? And when the claims adjuster came over to survey all the damage, my dad said, oh, it messed up my boots. And when my dad brought them around the corner,

the insurance adjuster said, are those to cobas? Yeah, we got to hook you up on that. We don't want to ruin your to covice. And you are going to love your to covus, just like my dad and that insurance adjuster. juster did because they've got a best in the West guarantee check this out you get free returns

and exchanges for 30 days the covis is the real deal they're the best and they know it and they put their money where their mouth is try it and if you don't love it come on to covis is the way to go and right now you can get 10% off at tocovus dot com slash 83 weeks when you sign up for email and text right 10% off at tec o v a s dot com slash 83 weeks to Covis.com slash 83 weeks. See site for details. Decovis, point your toes west. I have one more quote I want to give up to you from JBL with Conrad this past week regarding

the talent releases and I want your thoughts on it. I've been through being fired, being cut, all that stuff. It sucks, but it's a part of life. You're not adopted by Hunter or Nick Con, not adopted by Vince McMahon. It's something that you have always a plan for. And I saw Matt Cardona had something on the internet, and he's right. He said, you can do a few things. You can live off your W.E name, make appearances.

That's your prerogative. If you're making money that way, no big deal. That's fine to do things like that. That's why you built the name. Or you can reinvent yourself, have some fun, and make some money. To me, if you're not ready to take the next step and figure out what you want to, if you want to continue in this business, You need to re-learn how to rebuild your brand. Do what Matt Cardona did.

There are so many avenues and so many pass for it now. To me, you can make it back as long as you don't do dumb shit. I love JBL. Tell me why he and I get along. That's something like something I could have said or would have said. It sounds very similar to what we talked about here. Don't do dumb shit. That's the best advice anybody can give anybody.

Just don't do dumb shit. shit and you'll probably have another opportunity. The dumb shit is the whining and complaining and feeding into the low-level fucking garbage on the internet wrestling community boards. That's dumb shit. We got one last question with Coach Rosie and it's a great one. Hashtag ass Eric. Do you want the dirt sheets to cover?

R-A-F. Yeah, they can't get professional wrestling or sports entertainment right. So let's get them into a legitimate sport. No, fuck, I could care. Look, they're going to do it because Paulke's involved and I'm involved in every dirtbag out there that doesn't know what they're talking about is going to have an opinion and feel free to express it. There's nothing, whatever I want or don't want really doesn't matter. Let me put it this way. There'll be no official access. It's not part of the press that we're interested in courting or accommodating. They're going to cover it anyway. And they would cover it the same way if we did give them access. So the answer is probably not. Now, if there are people that kind of look at O'Reilly, for example, you know, he's got his feed in MMA. He's got his feet in professional wrestling, you know, Chris Van Bleet, same thing. Are there people who cover professional wrestling social media that we would love to talk to?

Of course. But is it going to be dipshits like Dave and the low-hanging fruit that live off? their dopamine hits from the internet wrestling community. Yeah, that's not going to have. When do we see you next, Eric? Is it 83 week tomorrow? What is tomorrow? Friday? Tomorrow's Friday?

I think so. I've been looking at text messages going back and forth, and we're hurting squirrels at this point. And if we could get all three squirrels together at a time when it's worse for everybody, then it'll be tomorrow. Otherwise, I don't know what we're going to do. Here's the good news. I just take my shit with me when I travel,

and if I have to do it from my hotel room, I will. Eric Bischoff, the man of many backgrounds and podcasts. Every time I watch another clip, he's in a different spot with a different thing behind him. It's amazing. He continues the hustle. Doesn't stop. Doesn't matter where he's at.

This was a learning experience, and it's interesting to see what's going to come from it as the WWE possibly makes more releases sometime soon. It wouldn't surprise me. appreciate all the super chats and the comments below. Yes, even you, Instagram and wrestling historian fired in person or FedEx. It's a perfect way to end today. I love that.

It was a great question. I love wrestling historians, comments and questions. He's a smart guy. He is. Eric, anything else you think we need to cover or anything we need to promote other than to stay attention to Eric's social media? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of going on right now, but none of it is really newsworthy.

Just a lot of little details that are all equally important. and focusing on that but nothing that's really that exciting to talk about and when there is and there will be in the months to come as we get closer to august 30th um i'll be talking about it here and everywhere else i get an opportunity so just keep watching that you know social media keep watching my twix my ex at e bishop turn your notifications on 83 weeks down um e bischoff on Twix. Is that we're calling it Twix? I call it Twix, but it's X.

Make sure you're ringing that bell following, subscribing. Thank you all for joining us today. We'll be back once again in a little bit talking something else about professional wrestling with Eric Bischoff. Thanks, everyone. All right, boys and girls. Now it's time for a pivot. We're going to be taking a look at WCW Saturday night from 1994.

Is there anything more fun than watching old school wrestling? I mean, that's what this podcast is all about. Now, as a reminder, when we're getting in our way back machine here, we're talking February 12th, 1994. So this would be before Hulk Hogan comes to WCW. This is years before the NWO. This is a version of World Championship wrestling still trying to gain any sort of traction and prove profitable.

As a reminder, according to Turner's own accounting, WCW has yet to turn a profit. it didn't happen in 88 of course nor 89 or 90 or 91 or 92 but as we all know by 93 Eric Bischoff is getting his hands on the product and he's starting to make some changes profit still eludes them in 93 but in 94 here comes the holster but we're not quite there yet we're going to talk about February 12th 1994 but this was a little bit of bonus content that we originally posted behind the paywall over at ad-free shows.com but it's going to be fun to watch it alongside Eric because we're going to see the debut of terrorizing. Yeah, I wonder whatever happened to that guy, terrorizing.

How cool is it that we're about to watch the WCW, the national television debut of Triple H? I think that's super cool, man. I mean, we all know what an iconic character he became in the WW, and we all got to sort of witness the evolution of Hunter Hurst-Helmsley going from being the blue blood, now being the badass but to know what actually started in wcw i don't think we talk about that often enough everyone immediately goes to talk about mick foley and certainly stonefold steve austin and scott hall and kevin nash but triple h are you kidding i mean he's running wbb now

and it all started in wcd in an alternate universe what if eric could retain him and he never went to the WWF, and he was a WCW guy. It's just fun to think about. We'll also take a look at what was working in WCW at the time, not just the debut of terrorizing, but Johnny B. Bad is going to be challenging Rick Rood for the world title. Now, I know in that context, that just seems weird. Most of us don't even really associate Rick Rood with being the world champ

because, well, WCW called it the goofy international title. It did look awesome, though, didn't it? The big gold belt around Rick Rood's waist. But Mark Mero back then is Johnny B. Bad. Is that one of the more classic WCW characters of all time? I know people think it was a little over the top, but I think Mark Mero pulled it all fabulously. But you really want to talk about an Easter egg.

Guess who's in the crowd for this show? Ted Turner himself. Yeah, billionaire Ted is front row ringside for this show. This is a lot of fun. We're watching WCW Saturday night, and that was the A show. once upon a time wcw saturday night i mean at peak wcw it was like the third show at best nitro was number one thunder was two but in a 94 this is the a show this is the a show this is the competitor for monday night raw but it's wcw saturday night from february 12th

1994 now i want you to watch along with us if you've never done this before you're going to have a blast think of this is like a second screen experience all you need to do is pull up your peacock app and go to season three episode seven of wcw saturday night so once you're inside peacock just search for wcw saturday night and then look for season three episode seven i know that's silly but that'll get you to february 12th nineteen ninety four one more time inside peacock look for wcw saturday night season three episode seven and get ready as we watch february 12th nineteen ninety four wcw saturday night like forever ago. I guess it was 31 years ago. There we go right here on 83 weeks.

Welcome to ad-free shows.com. My name is Derek Sabato and I'm here with the Hall of Famer himself, the former WCW executive, the leader of 83 weeks and 83 meets, Mr. Eric Bischoff. Eric, how you doing today? Yeah, thank you for plug in 83 meets. 83 meets MBATS is coming your way very, very soon. I'm going to get a look at the website this week. We're going to have some really interesting conversations with some pretty cutting edge people like, oh, I don't know, Dr. Sean Baker, who is a surgeon and has been on the carnivore diet for about eight years. He holds multiple world records in rowing competitions, really smart guy, incredibly nice guy, and on the leading edge of the carnivore diet. We're going to talk to a friend of mine by the name of A.J. Richards. AJ Richards is a, I've known for a long time.

I met him down in Arizona when I lived there. And coincidentally, he lives up here in Cody now and is very involved in generative ranching business. He and his family have been in the cattle business for I think two or three generations. So this isn't a new endeavor for him. It's kind of a coincidence. But there's a lot of really cutting edge information nutritionally about the carnivore diets and nutrition in general. And we're going to be talking about all that stuff. linking people up with some things that both my wife, Lori and I have found in terms of resources for information and knowledge and ways to improve your life.

So that'll be coming your way very, very soon along with a lot of additional programming on 83 weeks.com. But tonight, I say tonight because it's freaking dark out. It's 7 o'clock in the morning here in Cody. The sun is just beginning to peek up over the mountains in a little hint of orange. But essentially, it's dark. Doing this in a dark. Not for you because you're on the East Coast. I am on the East Coast.

The reason I brought up 83 meats is because I can smell breakfast cooking as we speak. Oh, you lucky dog. It is an early Sunday morning to record this bonus show. We are watching back a WCW Saturday Night episode that was voted on by you, the members of ad-freeshows.com. It is a, I will say, a historical episode of the program. recently uploaded to Peacock. So while we get ready, please with Thatcher Peacock, head on over WCW Saturday Night.

It is Season 3, Episode 17. We're going to be watching along a 90, a little bit under 90-minute episode from February in 1994. It is notable for a lot of things. One of them is Ted Turner is on the show. second, you'll see some familiar faces that you may not realize have gone on to bigger and better things from 30 years ago. I can't think of one guy in particular. He's not all right for himself.

He's on to new and broader horizons, it sounds like. But yes, we are 30 years ago on this episode, and you may recognize the big stars. And we will get into that. We are opening the show, and we are going to press play in about 10. 10 seconds. Eric, are you ready? I'm ready, my friend. Perfect. All right. We're going to hit play in 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. I love this open.

Go ahead. Go ahead. I do, too. I was just watching it before we hit record, and I was like, man, I was 9 for W.C. Saturday night in 1994, and I remember seeing down every Saturday at 6.05 watching TBS and thinking this is like the coolest show opening. And, I mean, this was, this was cutting ads. I remember when, when this initiative was approved, everybody was so excited because the open for WCW Saturday night had been pretty stale and had been around for a long time. So this was like the first real high production value kind of cutting edge thing that WCW had done in a long time. So we were all really excited about this.

we are two years from Terminator 2 coming out and I remember this being the futuristic sky net type of opening and it's one of my favorites who would have put something together like that was it Craig Leathers at the time no I don't think it would have been Craig I do for whatever reason I think it was Sharon Sedella was involved I don't know how she got involved because Sharon was marketing and international television distribution and all that but somehow for more what I remember, and this was a minute ago, it was really Sharon Sadello working with the Turner Broadcasting Production Team. His Turner Broadcasting did this. Our team did not produce it. It was produced by Turner, but it was Sharon, I believe, who was coordinating a lot of it. When you talk about your role 30 years ago and early 1994, would you had had to approve something like that or was there something along the lines of here, Eric, this is what we're going

to be running on the next Saturday night? No, this is a perfect example, Derek, of the kind of things that I was overseeing. Again, we didn't produce it. It was determined that it should be produced by Turner because they had the capabilities of doing things that we couldn't do in house, in our production facility. I'd be remiss that we're looking at Nick Bockwickle, if you're watching along with us. Nick Bockwickle, I brought him in because of basically being a fan of his back when I was 16, 17, 18 years old as a kid in AWK, and I just always loved Nick Bockwood's work. He was so good on the mic.

He was amazing in the ring, but he was equally amazing on the mic. And this was a role as the commissioner, I guess we gave him that role, one that he really would have excelled at. And of course, Bobby Hennon. His, if you have not seen Nick Bock Winkle and Bobby Hennon promos

from the AWA, from the 70s and the 80s, they are a sight to be seen. There is no better classic heel, in my opinion. than Nick Fock Winkle. He elevated everyone with his words, his actions. There wasn't, we talk about a lot of things that just happened for no reason.

There was never, never no reason behind anything Nick Fockwinkle did. No, he was, he was smooth as silk and so believable, but he was so articulate and he knew his character. It was hard not to hate him and admire him at the same time. It was, it was crazy. If you really want to go back and see some moments. amazing in-ring work. I mean, stellar that would still hold up today in any organization,

go back and watch some Kurt Henning and Nick Bachwinkel matchups. Backwood Kurt was really a rookie. I mean, that's what made me, that's what sealed the deal for me and Nick Bockwinkle, man. I became a lifelong Nick Bockwinkle. And as a result of those Kurt Hennig, Nick Bockwinkle matches. What was it like to have to reach out to Nick Bockwinkle? to bring him into WCW because he was at the,

I believe he was at the time just out of the WWF as an agent. And I think it was about a year removed by the time he made his way into WCW. Was it an easy phone call or did you have to sell him hard on coming in at WCW? That's a really good question, Derek. It was easy in the sense that I was offering an opportunity and, you know, that takes the pressure off, right? Sure. But it was subconsciously because I did...

I looked at Nick differently because I was such a huge fan. And I don't want to say in awe, but I had so much respect for him that I felt, for him, that I felt awkward, even though I was offering him, you know, significant amount of money and opportunity. Sure. I almost, I had a case of imposter syndrome, I think. That's probably the best way to say. It was just like felt out of place. But I was excited. And I think honestly for Nick, I, I, you know, I, you know, I, I can look back at it now and understand how he felt. But I think there was just a little bit of, I can't believe I'm working for this kid.

Because, you know, in the AWA, I was like, you know, oh, do you guys need me to go out and get you some pizzas? You know, you need me to, you know, clean up the studio, whatever you need. I was like a gopher. Yeah. Yeah, I had a job. I sold syndication and all that stuff. But I think for Nick, you know, he's at his age, and I can understand this now. You know, I probably have a better view of it now, really.

I understand it better. It's probably a little tough on deck to have to work for the kid. The kid, I'm sure, 30 years ago, and we're watching something that I don't know if you realize or our fans realize, that is Scott the Moore. Oh, Scott is getting his ass whoop by the nasty boys. Oh, they had insult to injury. There's that Missy Hyatt outside the ring. It is Missy Hyatt outside the ring. But Scott, Moore, the leader of Napal Leaf Pro Wrestling, former executive for

T&A impact, take your name of reiteration, global force wrestling. Talk about what a difference 30 years makes for Scott Moore from getting the boot to the face from the knobs there, from Sags, to be where he's at now. Have you had any communication with Scott recently regarding his launch of a new promotion? No, I haven't. You know, we flirted with the idea of getting Scott on to wise choices and talk. And I think it's a good idea. It's just, you know, a matter of scheduling and timing.

I've been pretty busy all summer. So we're starting to settle down now. And I don't plan on traveling too much between now and the end of the year. So I'd love to get Scott on, talk about, talk about what happened in TNA. It's still kind of a mystery a little bit, at least to me, because I don't spend a lot of time to dig stuff. But I'd like to talk to Scott. And more importantly, talk about what he's doing. I'm very interested.

He's done a little bit of the media rounds. And knowing Scott a little bit from working. with him at Rick Flair's last match. He has taken the, it seems like the high road in a lot of ways and he's not out there to bury everyone on his quote unquote way out. Oh, then fuck him who wants to talk to him.

He speaks very eloquently and professionally about the business. He did a great interview with Chris Van Bleet a couple, maybe about a month ago regarding, you know, the launch announcing moreover and all that was going to be part of his commentary team. He's got a lot of great talent he's bringing in.

You can see there's some overlap, between some of the T&A talents or impact talents or I don't know, TNA, it's, I go back and forth on calling, calling that what it is. So he's got some exciting stuff going on. He would be a very interesting guest on wise choices, I feel like. I wonder, we'll do that. We'll definitely arrange that. Do you have a relationship with Scott? I do it. I'd be happy to reach out and we can know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's set that up. We'll do it right here for, for ad free and for wise choices. This looks like this is center stage, right? This is absolutely center stage at its finest.

And that looks like the one, two, three, the nasty boys with the victory over. And the person we did not mention is Matt Shepard, along with Scott Moore for the one, two, three. Now earlier, because we're not playing audio, obviously, because of copyright issues, Nick Bockwinkle announced that the boss, the former big boss man, Ray trailer, will be the referee for the Super Bowl rematch, Rick Flair and Vader. And we're going to be going to the Nature Boy in minutes, if not seconds,

answer this replay to cut the promo to get ready for it as we are in the last two-week build of Super Brawl. Rick Flair's return in 93, necessitated by the fact that Sid and Arne got into a bit of a tussle in England, brought back a couple of a tussle. Brought back Rick at his top in North North Carolina. The first retirement stipulation that really meant something for Rick Flair. Oh, Johnny Bitt. The Winch's essential character in WCW is on our screen right now. He will be in action

later on. When you look at Flair, Vader, two guys that don't seem like they would be able to mesh well in the ring together, two different styles, but they were such good workers and the way they were able to just come together. It's one of the more underrated pairings, I feel. like in the early 90, because everyone remembers Stinging Vader, Flair and Steamboat, Flair and really anybody, but Flair Vader seems to be super underrated. Do you think it's just the tone of their matches and how... Hey, there's Ted Turner, and there's Bill Shaw,

the guy that gave me the opportunity. There is Ted Turner, which is part of the reasons we're watching this episode, Ted, in the stands for WCW Saturday Night, and there he is the nature boy. All right, y'all, it's time to cash out on these basketball playoffs with prize picks. don't miss your last chance to add your favorite players from the court to your prize picks lineup, whether it's points, rebounds, assist, take your pick of more or less for your shot, to it up to 2,000 times your cash today.

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into your accounts this sports season. And you can sign up today and get $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win in order to receive that $50 bonus. It's guaranteed. And I am having a blast this season. I know you will too, especially right here during the playoffs. Like tonight, the Pacers are going to be in action. Do you think that Miles Turner is going to have more or less than 20 points? Do you think Halliburton is going to have more or less than eight rebounds. That's all you got to think about and bam, you're locked in. It's so much fun.

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And, you know, he had attended a few WCW events. You would bring Jane with him. It was always, you know, because I, you know, you'd see Ted around the CNN center quite often. It wasn't unusual at all. In fact, his parking space at the CNN center was like six parking spaces away from mine. I don't know how I ended up with such a good parking spot. They were assigned. But I, you know, every once in a while, I'd pull in about the same time Ted was.

And, you know, you'd get a look at him. And he, Ted was such a down-to-earth guy. he was every man and he never he never carried himself like some executives that i've worked for you know but you know he drove a for torus really here's a guy that's one of the wealthy at time one of the wealthiest media moguls in the world you know largest landowner in America and he drove a dark blue Ford Taurus which I thought was really cool I thought that's amazing I probably said more about Ted Turner. He didn't have a driver.

He drove himself and he had a dark blue. I had a nicer car than Ted Turner did. I'm not kidding you. I was literally about to ask you, what car were you? What were you driving at the time and the fact that Ted Turner was driving? I think at the time I had a Corvette. Okay. And I felt like such a nerd.

Whenever I'd see Ted is like, oh, God. You know, come on, Eric. But I like the Corvette. it was fun. It's funny because I was just talking to someone the other day. I work in the Penske Corporation. I've met Roger Penske before, and Roger has two or three drivers, two or three pilots on demand whenever he's ready to make a move around any of his dealerships in the country.

I remember chatting with his driver one time. And his driver was like, listen, I make a million dollars, but I never seen my family. But it doesn't matter to me because at the end of the day, they're taking care of. And 20 years, I'll be done and be home with my family. I always found that philosophy fascinating, the ability to, like, set up your family for the future ways above being with them. I understand a million dollars is a million dollars a year, but he is on call, what feels like 24-7. He has an East Coast of Central and a West Coast driver, and I thought that was very fascinating having that conversation with them. And it takes a lot of, it's a unique individual that can make a commitment,

20 years down the road, 15 years down the road. And the sacrifice of being away from your family, you can't get that time back. Your kids are never going to be that age and that day for that birthday or that holiday or that school recital or that soccer game. Those moments come and they go and they don't ever come back. And that's a big commitment. I don't know that I'm strong enough to make it. I've often thought about that.

What would I do if I was presented with? Even today, I've been presented with opportunities in the last year and a half for two years that would require time away because of where I live. I can't do it anymore. I won't do it. Part of it is because, you know, I'm almost 70 years old. There's only so much time left on a clock and I want to maximize it. So you in your 20s or 30s or 40s and say, okay, I'm going to see my family in 20 years. It's like, whoa, it's a big one.

I can only hope to look as good as you when I get to my 70s because it's every time you say that out loud, it's astounding to me that you're almost 70s. That's why you should be listening to 83 meetings. I got involved in all this. By the way, I've gone down into this nutritional rabbit hole because I'm getting to the age I am and because I've got a new grandson and I want to be around. I want to be active. I don't want to just be sitting in a park bench, drilling on myself watching my kid play in a beach or my grandson. I want to be out there doing stuff. So there's only one way to do it.

That's nutrition, and that's what 83 Meets is all about. I'm very much looking forward to the launch of that and continue to get hungrier as I smell food, and we discuss it. Johnny B. Who's Johnny Bette? Who's that big man? That is not Johnny Bette. That is Jungle Jim.

Oh, the Jungle Jim. Oh, I'm so sorry, Johnny. I saw that air flight around for a second. Or the corner light. Yeah. There's a shot coming. up, I believe we'll see a Mr. Turner and Jane Fonda

in the crowd enjoying... She was hot, right? She was... I mean, she's smoking. I'm so glad. I'm getting good at this timing thing. I'm so clear that queued up exactly the right moment for that, but there is, there's

got to be something different and backstage for the boys knowing that Ted Turner's sitting in the crowd. Like, does everybody amp it up a little bit? Everybody's got to turn it on a little bit more. And when the boss and his wife was sitting front row, right? Absolutely. And I mean, it was exciting for a lot of people. You know, a lot of the wrestling talent, you know, we, those of us who worked in the office and in CNN Center, we would see Ted on a fairly frequent basis, even if it's just walking across the atrium or down on the food court or whatever, right, on his way in and out. So it wasn't unusual for us to see him, but talent very rarely got a chance to see Ted. And Ted loved hanging out with the talent. Now, he loved meeting people. He loves social. he was down he was just like a fan he was very much a fan speaking of a fan there's me and jean

sitting front row sitting next to ted and jane and jane looks like she has no idea what is going look at all those suits and ties that's not wearing a tie but everybody else is i appreciate i like the idea of like the fans elsewhere being the people where you pull in and like you know we all remember the stories of how w w w sometimes at the phil center state and pay to get people in there and the models and all this. And then you have the regular fans. But Ted Turner sitting there with a kid in the background eating popcorn is Quinch Essential 1994 WCW to me.

Is it not? It is. God, I miss Ted. You know, he, Teddy Turner, Ted's son was a part of the series of the Rock produced and his company, Seven Bucks Productions for Vice, who killed WCW. And I saw Teddy Turner. He looks exactly. Teddy and I became, I don't want to say good friends,

but we became very friendly and had lunch together several times and just shoot shit. Teddy loved wrestling too. And I saw Teddy and I'm going to reach out to Teddy here in another month or so and see if I could take a trip up to Bozeman. And that's a long shot, but hopefully get to see Ted. Yeah.

One of my favorite episodes we've done within the last year, which, and I'm pretty sure it's within the last year, was the Ted Turner episode of 83 weeks, which is available in the art. archives here at appreyshows.com by far to hear what you feel and still believe in with Ted I think is one of the funest parts of doing the show sometimes is that you get to reflect and go through and perceptions probably haven't changed on Ted Turner but just the difference in reality from what you are going through at the time to where you are at your life now I think

is one of my favorite parts of doing 83 weeks and the show and the evolution. of it as well, starting from the beginning to where we are now, almost, I think we're over five years now, 19. Yeah, we're over five years now. Yeah, we're five and a half, probably going on six years and, you know, probably 300 plus episodes, probably six, seven hundred hours of content. The show we did last week, which, by the way, you did the research on you did a phenomenal job, four hours and 22 minutes. And you know, it's funny, Derek, was we sat down and went, okay, we got quite a few hours, you know, this time of fourth quarter, you get a lot of advertisers, thank goodness, because we wouldn't be doing the show

without them. Right. I know sometimes people complain, and that's why we have that free shows. If you don't want to sit through, you know, nine spots and nine reads, even though we have fun doing them, and we have some really great products, some great sponsors. But if you're not in a mood to listen to that, you know, you can come over to add free shows. But we said, yeah, maybe we could get two and a half hours out of this. If we have to, we'll try to get to three.

And we were, at four hours, we were as excited as we were at the beginning of the show. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. David Bixen Span actually has been helping us with the research as well for ad-free shows. So he contributed a lot to that as well. It's fascinating to look at the end of creative, because we've talked in the past about when you were sent home. To me, something that was intact that we haven't discussed is the end of the creative stream that you had going on at that point in time. And it's something we've never really delved into.

we've delved into the backstage issues. We've delved into Raven Walken out and bits and pieces. But to go in the length that you guys were able to go, not just about current events, but at the end of your run there, was telling to me that it's something that feels like it really hasn't come off your chest up into that point. And I thought it was, I'm still only three hours into the show, having finished me yet. So the best part, yeah, the last hour is really the best part. Yeah.

So if you haven't checked it out, this is the bonus of company. to it for ad-free shows this week, but make sure you do not miss that episode. It is four hours of goodness. Eric and Conrad at their finest. We just came across the control center where Gene is right now plugging Super Brawl. One of the things you'll notice is that the nasty boys are cut the promo on the infamous Cactus Jack and Max Payne. What wasn't there was Missy Hyatt. Missy Hyatt. Missy Hyatt was missing because she had quit the company in between the tape. of the show and the go home for super braw following a lawsuit didn't i fire her so that is the question i'm about to ask the story that missing tells is that she quit and followed a lawsuit the

other story is you've launched her ass so what is how i fired her she turned into a complete bitch we were at the disney mgm studios is one of the first times we were taping down there And I brought in Sherry Martel. Now, up until this point, Missy was like the only, you know, Terry Reynolds was in and out a little bit, you know, but Missy was the only,

you know, I think one of the only women that we had, certainly the one that got most attention and used more frequently on television. And when we, you know, we're at the Disney MGM studios and it's much like center stage. It's a very small, you know,

sound stage isn't a big, hey, Stephen Regal. this is right after he just came in. Missy saw Sherry and just went ballistic. How are you bringing it? Why is she here?

What did she do in here? She just went that shit crazy. And not to me privately. I could have dealt with that. It's no big deal. But in front of people. It was just like, see ya.

You're out of here. And then, you know, the lawsuit came in retaliation and that was a joke. I do want to point out here, in addition to getting excited about seeing Stephen Riego, I love his work, centers at Del Wilkes in there, I believe, I believe that cell. That is, this is actually the debut of Del Wilkes. There is a lot of talent coming aboard, Jungle Jim Steel, actually. That was his debut on TV as well.

And Dale Wilkes, unfortunately, left us a couple years ago, I believe. But, yeah, and Steve, I love Stephen Riegel's work. And when you hear Stephen Riegel's story, would you learn about the way he came up and you know it's such a young age the amount of work that he got early on and people that trained him and wrestling in the sand pits in india just such cool shit you can have nothing but respect it's it's really quite cool he uh he was one of my favorite people to talk to when we when we did the very short-term gentleman villain and a lot of the questions i had for him when we were talking about show topics and and you know how do you want your research frame the first thing he said to me on the

bad is I don't do anything with dirt cheats. Don't bring up dirt cheats. Don't bring up rumor in your window. I don't deal with it. And then he went right into the next line of, but no one ever knows that I'm the guy who broke up the great colleague big show fight. And I was like, okay, that's what we're looking for. That's the subject.

That's what I want. Give me that. And he's like, yeah, but I don't want to talk about that. I'm like, I hear you. But like, that's what's, that's like, we don't know your perspective on things. We don't know what was going on backstage. The whole point of this is the disprove. A lot of the narrative that's been out there.

So feel free to get involved and talk about that. I don't want to talk about that. I got it. He's a very traditional. Yes. Professional wrestler. There's so many stories, so many things that Steve was either involved in

or witnessed firsthand, that would make great conversation. But Steve will go to his grave with it. He's just not that guy. And you can't help with respect. All right, man. You sign up for something. And then you forget.

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Go right now to RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks today. That's rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. He's done more in the evolution of this business in the last five years, I feel like, and is super underrated in that from being high up in WWE, from walking into AEW and doing what he did, putting together Blackpool Combat Club, taking the time to work with some of the talent, and then going back to WWE and continuing to have a presence there. He's been through a lot in the last five years,

and I think business is better because of it. is. And I'll tell you what, you know, I talked to Steve about this and he'll never say this, but I will. I think one of the things that frustrated Steve in AEW was that talent just wasn't interested in what he had to teach or what he had to share or his observations. It just didn't care. It's almost like they would pay lip service and they would be respectful and polite and nod their heads and, you know, then they would go on about their business and wrestle like a couple of, you know, backyard high schoolers. And they just didn't care.

And I think that was really hard on Steve. And I think the opportunity to go back and, and work at WWE specifically at NXT with people that are hungry for his type of knowledge when you, you know, I'm not going to share details about your aspect. But, you know, when Steve would go on that interview, he would go into great. detail about some of the things that he was working with, but with not only the younger talent, but main event raw smackdown talent who wanted to perfect the littlest details. And that's where Steve's teaching ability and experience and because he

came from a different style of wrestling, that, those details, those little tiny details, when you add them together and the aggregate, make everything look so much more believable. And I, when you listen to, when I listen to Steve. As we're watching right now with the top wrist lock with the Patriot. And he's making it work. Like you believe that. You believe he's struggling.

And I bet you, since this was Patriot's first match, this is Steve Regal wrestling himself. He's calling the match. And he's putting himself in positions where he knows he can sell. and he's selling something he knows his opponent can execute and make it look believable. I could talk about see Regal all for an hour. He's so amazing.

Now, one of the major things and take it from someone who's been in the ring before, the heels called a match. So when you got Regal in the ring with a debuting baby face, he knows exactly what he needs to be doing to find his hope spots,

to find the transitions to make the crowd believe in him because at this point, Patriots never been on WCW TV before. So now his goal is to get him as over as possible, make him look as good as possible, struggling with the side headlock as we speak on the mat, at the same time knowing what times to pick and choose when they give him that hope spot. Del has an amazing look.

He's a couple years out of his All-Japan run at this point. But when you look at it, right now it's just an American baby face. But by the end of this, he's already got the crowd invested. they're already cheering along with what he's got going on. And that starts with Regal in the beginning of that match, setting the tone. Now here's Regal going to take advantage and cut them off and take that control. And this is how baby face and heel work.

And the other thing is you have to believe, I actually do Dell Wilkes from AWA. I had met and worked with Dell prior to this evening. So Dell had some experience. sure, but he was still fairly green. And you've got to know, coming to a new company, being on national television for the first time, WCW Saturday night was kind of a big deal at the time.

Interestingly enough, the ratings were pretty competitive with the WE, which I didn't even realize that until about a year ago. I went back and looked. We're going to get into that. I have to know that Dell was really nervous, right? And nerves can make you screw shit up faster than anything else. I guarantee you, Steve Rigo was. telling him, slow down, let me take you through, let me follow my lead, slow down.

I bet you that was 90% of the conversation. Oh, absolutely. And one of the great things at ringside, Sir William. Now, you don't know who Sir William is. You will probably recognize the name that's about to come out of my mouth if you've listened to my world. It's Bill Dundee. Bill Dundee is a renowned booker, wrestler coming up in the Memphis.

territory, working with Alex Jerry Lawler, Jackie Fargo. But when you look at him at ringside, he is not what you imagine from Memphis, Tennessee. He is Sir William, top hat, umbrella. He added so much to this gimmick without really ever talking, because he couldn't talk in his Memphis accent as an Englishman, but knowing the crowd, knowing how to get them going, knowing when to shut them up, and knowing when to perk them up for the baby face. The business has changed in 30 years, and I understand that there is a space for wrestlers with managers that can do this. Is there not? There is.

And one of the things that I liked about Build MD as a manager, particularly in this case, is he wasn't trying to be the star. That's the one big bitch I have about managers in the more modern era is it's all about them. And they're trying to get themselves over. Right. And announcers have a tendency sometimes to do this. same thing. It's all about trying to get themselves over. They want to read, you know, good things about themselves, you know, on the internet after paper ever. And Bill Dundee was old school in a sense that he knew his job was to help get Regal over when Regal needed it. When

Regal didn't need any help, like in the middle of a match like this, you barely saw Dundee. That's what a manager should be. It should be the garnish on a plane. You should only notice them, kind of like a referee. You know, there's some mostly companies with the referees. actually want to be the star of the match. It doesn't work very well. It's distracting, particularly when the referees are kind of horse shit referees to begin with. The more you see of them, the less you should see of them.

Dundee understood that. And he was there to get his partner over, not himself. One of my favorite parts of this match, because I did watch this episode a couple of days ago to be prepared for it, is the way Regal plays to the ringside camera. As a producer sitting backstage, having the ability to be able to cut from the wide shot hard camera down on the ringside camera as we see right now, it makes life a hell of a lot easier to provide a compelling

product. And as a producer, you have to be sitting back there going, and this guy gets it. He knows what he's doing. And again, Regal has not been on TV for a very long time at this point, but to get that nuance already speaks world of him as a performer. Absolutely does. And Nick Patrick, of course, one of the Probably one of the better referees of this era, Randy Anderson, both. You know, the talent really loved working with, they called him Peewee, Randy Anderson.

They loved him because he'd been around, he'd been up and down the roads, there was some really strong relationships. But you knew that Randy would always be in the right place at the right time, and you could rely on him for the things you needed to rely on a referee for it. You know more about that that I do, actually. You've done it.

Um, it's referees are an important part of the show. And the, the best ones are the ones that you barely notice like, like a manager. You don't really notice them until you need. Spring is in the air. The weather is warming up and I'm looking forward to getting out on the boat.

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you can see the crowd reacting to all these near falls. and the reason why they're doing it is this is a television title match with a 10 minute time limit so they know the clock is rolling and the psychology behind the Patriot trying to get as many falls as possible to give themselves a chance to win.

It's great storytelling, classic storytelling. You see the crowd into it. You see Nick Patrick getting down there to make sure the shoulders are there. The women in the crowd are losing their minds. And that is one of the first. high impact bumps we talk about bumps that means something that bump meant something and the

near fall reaction even though you can't hear the audio you see the crowd they are astonished now and there's build on d milking more time little heel stuff just pulling and when he pulled the ref now again you appreciate this more than i will really but or at least as much when nick patrick pulled the ref it was subtle it was fast it was subtle and it looked real It didn't look like stagecraft. You know, and again, he didn't draw a lot of attention to himself. And another thing I want to point out, before we get the Stone called Steve Austin, back when he had hair. Holy smokes, this is old.

There's a lot of women in that crowd. You know, usually when you look at a wide shot at a wrestling event, even today, it's more of a testicle festival. Yep. This was, you know, you had about 40% women there, which is, you know, pretty unusual for wrestling, especially WCW back in a day. I am now trying to figure out how we put testicle festival on a t-shirt. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to try my artist because that is one of the funniest lines I've heard in a long time. Regal and Patriot went to a 10-minute draw.

Again, I bring up the fact that there was only one high-impact bump in that match. It was the finish. It was right when the bell rang. Ten minutes of just classic baby-faced heel matwork to get to one bump, almost honky-talk-man-esque with only taking one bump in a match. And it meant something. And I know I sound like an old man when I say this. It meant something. And it's okay to mean just something instead of just bumping all the time.

You know, you say that, Derek, and I agree with you 100%. But what I kind of bristle about just a bit is the idea that if someone like you or me or some 20-year-old notices the art of selling. notices the art of oh my god what the hell is this it is the mongolian muller who did this who was booking this i'm not going to take credit for let's not talk about that no this is crazy but my point before i lose it because this is crazy shit we're watching here is those little details are as relevant, important, and should be considered as much today as as they were back then. It's one of the things that's missing is the believability and the emotional aspect of

professional rest, particularly in an AEW. I'm just going to come out and say it. It should happen so fast and it's so unrelated to a real confrontation that you can't get emotionally invested. You can sit back and go, holy shit, that was crazy. I can't believe they did. that well wow what an athlete you can do that a lot but you can't make that emotional connection which is why i think AEW is struggling you're not creating emotion they're creating action

it's a little bit like going to an action movie and it's a 90 minute car chase you don't know who's chasing who you don't know why anybody's chasing each other the car crashes are cool like the special effects and shit oh taran here's that kid that look at him Triple H, the original first big break, incarnation of terror rising, T-E-R-R-R-O-R. I actually thought it was a really good name. That's a good giving. But the debut of Triple H coming out, working with Keith Cole, but when you talk about 30 years later, here is Hunter Hurst-Helmsley, Olivek, walking in the center stage for his first big break. Was this probably the first time you met him at a center stage taping, or did you meet with him during contract negotiations, or is that a handle with someone different?

I think I met him. He might have come in for a tryout. I don't remember the circumstances. I know Terry Taylor was really big on Paul. Paul was training, I think, with Killer Kowalski. And Paul really wanted to end up into the, he wanted a shot at WWF. That's what he really wanted. but he knew he had to transition.

He wasn't going to get a shot just to walk in to the door. And somehow Terry Taylor discovered him. I'm sure Paul sent in videotape or whatever. Man, he looks good. Yeah. I see why Terry Taylor thought so highly of him. But I had a couple conversations with Paul over the phone. This was at a time when WCW was cutting costs.

At this point in time in 1994, I was trying to reduce our roster size. and I prioritized people that lived in the Atlanta area those that lived outside Atlanta that had a high travel expense associated with them they kind of went down to the lower end of the list

not because they had less talent or they were less, but we just couldn't afford them. I was making people count pencils in their desks. So we had to really cut costs and I remember the conversation with Paul and I think I offered

him 75 grand which, you know, Sounds like a lot of money back then. But when you have to pay your own expenses, not so much. Yeah. And I said, oh, I don't take this the wrong way, but you're a good. He said, what's a good? I said, geographically undesirable.

You're too, unless you want to move down here, I can't. I can't. I can't buy him back and he did. He's credit. And through his credit, he's 25 at this point. So that is a life change. that is dedication to the business, that is finding a way to make yourself desirable and getting an opportunity and not missing out on it. And you look at him at 25 and it's, again, say this because

I'm dating myself. He's 55 now because we're 30 years later. It's amazing the evolution from the guy who here he is, firing white meat baby face trying to get the crowd up to doing what he does now. It's an amazing evolution. what I want to say this about Paul before this matches over one of the things that I know and Paul was all was friends with Diamond Dallas page they were they were close and as a result of that you know I saw more of Paul sometimes than I did of other people because Paul associated with people that I was somewhat close to I'm not I don't want to say this in a disparaging way but a lot of the talent, I would say 70% of the talent, we're making, relatively speaking, really good

money. They're in their 20s. They're in their 30s. They're partying. It's the lifestyle. It's rock and roll on the road. It is what it is. Us thing's always been that way. Paul wasn't that way. Paul didn't drink. I'll never forget going, I think it was a Christmas party at Diamond Dallas Pages house. He literally lived one house away from me. And DDP love Christmas still does to this day. His house, look, you could see it from a space shuttle.

I've seen the pictures. It's nuts. He's always been that way. And I went over to his Christmas party, and it was what you would expect, a wrestling Christmas party to be like. I think there was a fight. Somebody got their head run through a wall,

whatever. I think it was Van Hammer. Got his head run through a wall. Got his ass kicked. I know that. But there's Paul in the corner. glass of water bottle of water you know just observing he's sociable he was fun to be around right but even that man no drugs no alcohol and he just studied shit he wanted it he wanted it he got

the win right here with an indian death log variation on keith cole impressive debut wasn't in the wrong spot at any point in time looked good five years old fresh out of the oven in terms of wrestling and Kilda Kowalski school, very, very, a little limited experience. And he's wrestling like he's been in the business for 10 years. Yeah. Speaking, and by the way, amazing hair. I can't lose sight of that. Yeah, that part's pissing me off.

He actually had better hair back then than I did, which is fucking rare. Yeah, it's not, like, you can't, it's not fair to have genetics and good hair. Like, you really should only get one of them, and he's got both of them. And it's. Yeah, but did you see, have you seen his nose? His nose kind of makes up for the air. I mean, listen, you know, you can't get everything, everything. It's like, you know, people that hit the lottery after, you know, being born in a rich family, it's just too much.

But that, yeah, the nose off sets. I want this. Speaking of people who inherited something, we have a major match coming up next. Pretty wonderful, Paul Roma and Paul Rundorf, taking on the enforcer Arne Anderson and Eric Watts. I've always said Eric has gotten such a bad rap. just for being the son of Cowboy Bill Watts. And if given an opportunity and not being the promoter's son or the Cowboy's son, I don't, he had the size, he got going at some point to be not a bad wrestler.

I know he didn't have a lot of charisma, but he could have been a solid hand at some point. And I just think it just wouldn't. There's Dirty Dick Cheath him. That's Dick Cheat him. Actually, he, he was in charge of. all finances for not only WCW, but the Atlanta Braves and I think the Hawks and a number of things. He oversaw all finances of a number of Turner divisions, including WCW, and he was one of our biggest fans, still is to this day. Hold on. Dick Cheatham was wearing a polo shirt in the front

row. Yeah. Wow. He did not care. To this day, I talked to Paul, last time we had our top guy weekend in Huntsville, and Dick was there. and he's telling me about the independent shows that he goes to it is down where he lives in Georgia. He goes to indie shows. He loves wrestling. That's awesome. It really is.

I don't think I've met anybody with more passion for wrestling than Dick Cheath. That's great. I don't even know what we're talking about now that knowing that's Dick Cheath. We're talking about Eric Watts. Eric Watts. And being born into the Bill Watts family. And I agree with you. You know, anytime you see a second generation,

or third generation wrestler, get an opportunity. Please make a special note that that talent is, it's so much harder for that talent to make it than it is for somebody with no connections at all. People think, oh, yeah, your dad got to the job. My son went through it. Sure. I got him the job.

My son got an opportunity to work in T&A that he would not have been able to get had it not been for me. That's a fact. no reason to lie about it or try to hide it. But it also made it twice as hard on him. And the same was true for Eric Watts, especially because Bill Watts is such a dick. Everybody hated Bill.

Bill had no friends other than Jim Ross. And I'm not sure Jim really liked him. I think Jim had to pretend he did it. Jim liked him. Jim had respect for him, just being a dick. It's heat by proxy. It's, yeah.

Bill was such a negative. And the heat that Bill was. what's had in the locker room, a lot of talent tried to not associate that with Eric, but it's just hard. Right. It's hard. When you go through, you know, again, the twirlings on the Indies and you finally get signed of the big deal and here's a good looking kid who is the son of the promoter,

you're going to feel some resentment. I think that resentment nowadays has really gone away. You see the Cody Rhodes, second generation star. You see Randy Orton, third generation. star. You know, Randy didn't have it easy in the beginning. Did he get a lot of breaks? He did. Cody also decided to go find his own break, which is so commendable, was never trying to be Dussie's kid, did it on his own, figured it out on his own, did whatever he had to do to earn it. If you want to shit on the people who are lazy and are trying to do it based upon their

parents or their family's name, do that. But don't give them the ship before they haven't even gotten started. It's an unfair bias. It is heat by proxy. And Watts for being a kid wasn't terrible at the time. And you're in there with Paul Rome is a good wrestler, but you're in there with two of the best with Paul Rundorf and Orne Anderson. And if you watch this match as we're going to, he knows where to be. He's in the right spot. He's not doing anything wrong. I think one of The one of the things that I'm impressed with right here the most is, look, Eric doesn't have a typical, particularly for this period of time, early mid-90s, he doesn't have a quote-unquote wrestler's physique. Right. He's just a big kid.

He's a big farm kid is what he looks like. And he's got legs. I mean, he's like a freaking gazelle. Yeah. And he's so long-legged that he looks slower than he really is because he's actually quite a big dude. dude when you're that long-legged it's kind of hard i think i would imagine it is i've never done it so i don't know but i would imagine it's kind of hard in there when you're when you're in there with guys who are shorter than you faster than you the footwork is a big part of what goes on inside

of the ring and when you get legs like a frickin giraffe it's kind of make it a little more challenging when especially he's in there with a guy paul roma's about my size i mean high i'm not my size but my height. It's awkward to say the least. And Paul's not going to get this kid an inch. And we know that already he is already eating him up as we speak. Yeah, he's got a Napoleon complex is coming through here. My question was about to be, there are a lot of stories about Paul Roma and the differences in the professionalism between Paul Romer and Paul Wendorf. Was Paul Roma a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes? I didn't deal with him very much at all. So he wasn't for me. He might have been for Dusty or some of the agents that worked with him, but I didn't interface with Paul

enough to have an opinion to be fair to him. We're watching Eric try to get the hot tag over to Aaron Anderson while Orndorf goes over him. One of the things I wanted to talk about and discuss for you, we talk about center stage a lot. And it was the hub of WCW Saturday night, which this was the A show at the time. You're pulling in twos and three ratings and five and six shares at the time, which was competing and sometimes beating WWF programming on USA. With this being the staple show and the A show, what were you doing at a center stage taping?

Were you backstage? Were you producing? Were you working with talent, working with Dusty or whoever might have been running creative at the time? What's your role at center stage during these tapings? You know, there were periods of time when I was commentating. So depending on what period of time we're talking about, That would have taken up the majority of my time.

I think by this point in time, I was off commentating. And once the show starts, the majority of my work was over with. Right. Right. So I wasn't involved in the physical production of the show unless I was commentating or producing backstage interviews. Producing backstage interviews has always been my favorite thing. But I like commentating as well quite a bit because it's,

It's a performance, it's art, it's trying to find a better way to create emotion with the voice and be better at that. So I love that challenge. I was never particularly good at it. I was adequate at best, but I worked at it. But directing backstage interviews was something that I felt I was pretty good at early on, partly because I had to learn myself. I had to be taught.

I didn't come into the business with any experience. with any experience at all. And I had a good fortune of being trained by Vern Gagne, to degree Greg Gagne, and I've had a lot of negative things to say about Greg because he deserves it all. But one of the things that Greg is good at because he learned from his dad is teaching

the psychology of an announcer because announcers have to have, announcers are characters too. And if you don't have an understanding, of what your role is and how to do it and make your talent shine, you just come off as an obnoxious person with a microphone. I always enjoyed that, but probably on this night, I would imagine I was in the truck, in the production truck, just kind of watching it all go down because my work was pretty much

over with. If a match was the shits, do you make the call for them to retape it? Do you make the call, like when the match is over, like there's no way in hell we can air this or was it just more along the lines of we're going to have to edit everything out that was terrible and that type of thing it depended more often than not i deferred to dusty okay because what happened the inside of what happened on television the physical production of the show was under my domain so it's like of a better term but anything to do with wrestling or talent was really under Dusty's domain.

But Dusty and I had a great relationship. We're always tight in that respect. And I would defer to Dusty if he felt like this was enough. We need to do this over again. Then we did. If he felt like we could clean it up and edit, then that's what we did. The finish of the match that has just taken place is Arne Anderson throwing Paul Orndorf over the top rope, causing a DQ. This has been one of the longstanding end of.

W.A traditions of an over-the-top rope causes of disqualification, as we see one of the men synonymous with the NWA, Harley-Race, with me and Gene Invader. What do you think of the over-the-top rope DQ finished? Were you a fan of it, or you think it was kind of chicken shit? No, I like it. You need to have a framework. There needs to be some rules to break in order to create a heel. When nothing is illegal, everything is legal, then who's a heel?

Right. How can you create emotion? if the audience doesn't have an understanding of what's acceptable and not acceptable at the drink, legal or not legal. It's like watching a football game that just breaks out into a freaking gang fight. Who cares? It's no longer the game. I think we need more of that.

I'm not suggesting over the top rope yet, but there needs to be more structure and consistency in order to tell a story. Sure. It's, I agree with you, without rules, without structure, it's hard to get anybody over in the framework of a match because then it just ends up being a match. And it's an exhibition without things on the line, without, you know, everybody hates stipulations. But if you're not fighting for anything, what are you fighting for at that point? And if there's not a motion, and we are critical of AEW a lot, but I will tell, I will say, Angman, Adam Page and Jeff Jared are about to have a match next week. and it has been built and built and built and it won't be the first time they've touched

but it's going to be what seems like at the biggest stage for them to touch and not sure when this is going to air but if you can watch AEW for one thing Adam Page and Jeff Jared all the confidence in the world Jeff's going to go out there and have a great match Adam Page is one of the better wresters nowadays that's going to be something to watch and to see the mix of new school and old school. And knowing Jeff, there will absolutely be a story. All right, guys, get ready. Now you can be ready when she needs it and get your first month of Blue Chew free.

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just pay $5 shipping. That's promo code 83 weeks. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. We thank Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast. There is nobody better in the ring today at telling a story and creating emotion with that story and the physical dialogue that takes place on the stage that we call a wrestling ring. There is nobody better.

and I've said that about Jeff all the way back to my time working with him in TNA actually is when I really learn just how good Jeff Jarrett is at laying out matches not only for himself but other people saw that firsthand he's one of the best he may not be the biggest star of his era but he's one of the best at what he does no question about it I'm not as familiar with Adam Page as you are obviously but I just based on what you just said I respect your opinion I'm looking Yeah, it's going to be quite the match. Again, I'm not sure when our show here is going to air,

but I know what's in store for our next fellow, Sonny Rogers, and it's Vader. And it's not. I'm talking to be Sunny Rogers right now, right? He's going to, oh, fuck. Have you ever spoken? Look, Vader's got the reputation that he, and we're right off to the races. He doesn't even have a shirt off, and he's already getting clubbed.

This story is of Vader backstage. with the enhancement talent, so to speak, are notorious. And I'm pretty sure he just punched him directly in the face. You ever run in any enhancement talents or see some of the, and hear some of the stories of Veda Rough and these guys up? No, I didn't. And again, I wasn't, you know, hanging out backstage and in the locker room. And I didn't have a lot of immediate proximity to the talent in general.

But you've got to keep in mind. This enhancement talent is there, they're here hoping for an opportunity. Right. This guy, I don't remember him. I may not have even spoken to him, but I guarantee you, he came here thinking, you know, if I go out there and I do a really good job, I help get Vader over, not that this kid's going to really help too much, but if I go out there and do my job and let Vader beat the hell out of me,

maybe they'll bring me back. Maybe I'll get an opportunity. And the last thing you want to do, if you're in that frame of mind, and you're hoping to get an opportunity is go back stage and piss and moan about getting up. Right. You might as well just that's it. It won't be back because that you know how it is. The worst spreads and that's the end of it.

You just killed your, you killed your own career and you didn't even know it. And speaking of killing your own career, Vader has just shit can Nick Patrick because he has gotten the win already with the power bomb and he is still going to work on Sonny Rogers. Sunny had been around. I don't remember him.

I don't recognize him necessarily here in this shot, but I recognize the name. He'd been around quite a bit. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat is here to make the save and is chopping Harley Race. You talk about a clash of decades right here. Pretty cool, isn't it? Look at Ricky go.

You know, and you see Ricky today, he still looks like he's in great shape. And here comes a big boss man. I can't call him big boss, man. You've got in trouble for that. Whatever. Who's going to sue me now? I don't think there's a shit.

Give me with a sys and desist. I don't care. The boss, man, you talk about someone, Ray was only, and this is the crazy part to me, he's seven years in the business at this point. That's it. And he's been to the top, back down, the middle, but seven years in this business in 1994, and it feels like he's been 15, 16, 17 years. That's crazy to me.

What a cool guy, too. You know, he and Rick Steiner were pretty good buddies. And Rick loved to hunt. I loved to hunt deer. I loved to hunt anything back then. But, you know, deer hunting especially was kind of cool. And I took my son, deer honey when he was about, I don't know, 14, 15, probably 14 around this time. No, he was 10.

1994. Garrett would have been 10 years old. I took him deer hunting with Rick Steiner, myself, and Ray Trailer, somewhere down in South Georgia. And Ray was with Garrett when Garrett got his first year. Oh, that's awesome. It was kind of a special moment for Garrett. We always talk about it. When hunting season rolls around and we reminisce.

But, yeah, Ray was a cool guy. We got Ricky the Dragon Steamboat walking out with fire. When you look at Ricky's career, WrestleMania 3, always a big time moment, him and Randy Savage. But Ricky has always had an amazing presentation. And I think he's always been undervalued in that aspect. Everyone knows he's a great worker, everyone. But the presentation that he's always put upon himself has always been one of the best.

And I think he doesn't get the credit for it. I agree. He was ahead of his time in many respects. Attention to detail. Even in WCW where details were sometimes not paid close attention to. We were just in a rush to get the show on, kind of a Kmart blue light special compared to WWE in that regard. or dollar store version, I should say, today. But Ricky was,

Ricky's entrances, his attention to detail, not only in the ring, as we're seeing here with Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro, Fidel Cierra, Fidel Castro, Ricky was a perfectionist. Yeah.

And it shows. Look at the follow through on that chop. You know, that wasn't just a chop. The follow through gave it that kind of, you know, martial arts kind of mystique to it. But it's just, a chop, but it looked so much better than just a chop, which is what I mean something else does.

Yep. You know what I freaking hate Derek on today's product? Chops. And when you stand and see these guys chopping each other, chop in each other, it is so bullshit. It is such a cheap way to burn time in a ring because you're not really telling a story. that those fucking forearm exchanges where guys just stand there in the middle of the ring and pound on each other like I'm cool get it's hard style japan bubba okay cool give me a little bit of that about once every three months

but I'm seeing so many people just standing there chopping meat or hitting each other in the head with four arms and it looks like shit so for all of you that are listening which is probably none of you that are currently in the ring working for those companies that allow that garbage. Stop doing it. You look like an ass. No talent mucker fathers. So I will tell you something that you and Brett Hart both agree on.

Chops. Horrible. Horrible. Brett has said for years how much he hates chops. And one of the stories in his book was how him and Rick Flair were working in WWF in 91. And he told Rick, I'll give you two. Two chops. That's it.

I'm going to take mine. And he did. Then Brett started chopping him back. Flair's count went down each, every house show match after that. I always thought that was an interesting story. Brett agrees. I agree. It's hard sometimes to look at some of this stuff.

But the finish for Ricky Steebill with a chop to set up a flying crossbody. One, two, three. Fidel Castro is out of here. See, you're saying too. Fidel Castro. Did you do that for me? But LCR is out of here, and we're moving on to one of the guys who actually is going through something right now. For those who are unfamiliar, Rip Rogers is on Twitter, and he's got some medical issues, has a GoFundMe going on right now to help him out.

But he is working with the boss, Ray Trailers, we just talked about here. We brought a lot of the streamers out from the entrance. But if you guys can contribute Rip Rogers, Rip is. He's a major player in the training of professional wrestlers and had a lot to do with Pat McAfee's success in professional wrestling, gave him the ability to train with him. RIP is going through a time, and if, you know, this community is always, always helping out as many people as possible, and Rip is one of those that should be helped out, unfortunately, due to his health issues. Yeah, perhaps in the edit, we'll make a note, and we can put up that GoFundMe information. Yeah, absolutely. great trailer chasing him around one of the cool things about watching back wrestling from 30 years ago in my

my mind is the differences in the business heel chicken shit powder you don't see it enough today again who are the characters who's doing what who's the baby faces everyone just wants to get their shit in and it's a big big complaint of everyone that is in the business it's hard when you have five minutes to do this, but it happened a lot back then. Why do you think it's gotten away from itself over the years? I think psychology as a whole has just been diluted. So it's no longer important. The emphasis has been on the physical dynamic, the presentation, the risk taking, the higher flying aspects of what goes on inside of the ring. And I understand why. It's dramatic to look at it. It's kind of amazing. But I think there's been such an emphasis

is placed on just, I keep saying high flying, but the aerial off the top rope, spitting around, doing all that crazy shit. Gymnastic, it's like watching Olympic or gymnastic competition. And it's cool, but there's no emotion associated with it. Sure. All of it happened so fast as we were talking about with Terra Rising, Triple H, Paul LeVec.

Everything he did, look at Ricky Steam, Bo. Now, Ricky Sebo, move fast, but the sequences of what happened were slow enough that the audience could get behind it because what you do in the ring doesn't register emotionally or even visually to the audience instantaneously. You've got to let them catch up. You've got to let them wonder what's going to happen next or how that felt. Oh, my God. You have to give them time to invest emotionally or they're just sitting back on, holy shit. And I think there's a lot of holy shit and very little emotion. And I hope it changes.

Do you think part of that is the evolution of the athlete inside the business? It's not 666, 6, 64, 6, 2, 260, 280. We are in the era of smaller athletes. Do you think that's part of the evolution as well? I think it's a twofold kind of evolution. One is, I think, the luchadors, the Ramoserios of the world, the psychosis of the world, the Eddie Guerrero's of the world, Chris Benoit's during his time of the world, that cruiserweight style that became so popular in the mid-90s is part of it because it opened the door.

were a lot of potential professional wrestlers who weren't born to be six foot four, six foot five or three hundred pounds. All of a sudden, you've got 10, 12, 14 year old kids that are growing up watching guys like Ray Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero or Chris Benoit, de Malenko and on and on and on and all the luchadors and jushin thunder liger and all of the people that all of a sudden were getting a lot of television time and and kids that

were watching 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16 years old that said, man, someday I'm going to be a professional wrestler, 20 years before that, they're shit out a lot. He just don't have a jean kid, but all of a sudden now, if you're 5'10, you're in great shape, you're an athlete, you're a gymnast, you're an amateur wrestler, you're a martial artist, you got a shot. So the floodgates kind of open of that younger generation of talent coming up and the style suits them, obviously more than it suits a big guy. So I think it's too full.

I think it's the popularity of that style of wrestling, particularly with the luchessing. doors and the fact that just in terms of the gene pool slash talent pool there's more of them yeah i mean look at derby allen you can put i can put him in my pocket take it for a walk you know he would have never got a shot in the business 20 years ago but today he's there and he's doing for what he's doing and where he's doing it those opportunities didn't exist to talking about a talent here's another guy i mean brian pillman was not and he was probably what five eleven maybe to 15 to 20 maybe um naturally um you might have made a little more than that here's another guy that probably influenced a lot of that because of the some of the things that he could

like he was in great shape though with me oh my god so here's what here's what i've taken from this conversation you and conan are to blame for the infiltration of smaller people in the business i'll take I'm going to hang my hat on that one. One of the things you brought up was like 96. When you look at WWF in 85, it's a monster factory. It's Hogan squashing, King Kong Monday, Andre the Giant, larger than life people that me and you do not fall in that category of. You're absolutely correct.

Ricky Steambone and Rainy Savage, I'll go back to that of WrestleMania 3. They are presented as larger than life. They were not the biggest guys. I think that one of the biggest misconceptions is how big Rainy Savage was. Was he thick and broad? Yes. Was he the tallest guy on the world? He wasn't.

And I think that the way you're presented and portrayed means a lot. And I think that also evolved over time. You had less cameraman shooting. I will forever love this shot of Andre the Giant being shot up, making him look like a monster. When the WF changed a little bit of the production, they had the undertaker. being presented in that way, but not everybody else is presented that way. Again, if you make everybody a monster, no one's a monster. But if you portray them as larger than life characters, I think that goes a long way to the production of what is esteemed that way. And it's all

presentation. It's all the way. My God, I forgot Johnny Bebeil likes to shoot stuff into the crowd. But that evolution as well, the production changed. Yeah, I mean, there's ways you can shoot, you know, a guy like Randy Savage. I don't be bad. Put the kiss on James and Ted Turner, which I thought was very cool. Talk about getting yourself over. But, you know, there's ways you could shoot talent, too, when you're in production. If you take your camera down low and you're shooting up, you could create the illusion that they're much taller than they really are.

Randy Savage is, I think, again, I'm five, ten and a half. If Randy was taller than me, it wasn't by much, but he looked so much bigger on camera. Zudit size and demeanor And when you get in the ring with the likes of Hulk Hogan And you I love this I don't know how many people know this

If you go back and watch WrestleMania Well I date myself But I think it's WrestleMania 5 And Hogan and Savage go toe to toe To toe, I die Savage is on his tippy toes Uh huh

But because the clean shot in Is face to face You don't know that But to me He looks like he's the same sizes is Hall Cogan. Yep. Those little things, I think, has gotten away from it.

And I don't know why, I don't want to say wrestling today is worse produced or better produced back then, but I think it's just differently produced. And I think leaf fitting has changed a lot of that man. Talk about a specimen, Rick Rood, that mustache, just, again, a guy who is, there you go, about as basic a sign as it gets, but it conveys the message. Rick Rood, Boo. I think a lot of that has changed over the years. I think Lee Fitting has actually brought a lot of good sports aspects to the production

in WWE. You can see differently now. Just a little bit. Sometimes one tweak makes the world of difference when you rest on your laurels. And I think a lot of that went on in the WF for a long time with Kevin Dunn. Why change if it's working? Sometimes that one tweak can make a world of difference. Yeah.

And you have to try things. You have to experiment with different. The thing is because it's very easy, especially, I know Kevin Dunn gets a lot of heat, and I think some of it is, I think a lot of it is undeserved. Same. Kevin wasn't the most sociable person, but not everybody is. Right. And just because you're not sociable doesn't mean you're a dick.

It just means maybe you're uncomfortable socializing. I kind of relate to that. I can be very sociable in some situations, but others I feel very out of place and awkward. And I tend not to engage. And I think someone like Kevin, who is probably more of a introvert than most people realize, and you put him into a high pressure, volatile situation like producing live TV, there's just not a lot of time to be successful. You can come off like a real jackass sometimes under that kind of pressure.

But I think Kevin was largely responsible in so many ways for such a, an amazing evolution of the production values of professional wrestling as a whole and obviously WWB probably got a little comfortable. Yeah. And I understand it. It's not good. Yeah. But I understand how it happens.

Yeah. And particularly when you're typically operating at a pretty high level, as Kevin did. Why do you fuck with it? Yeah. It's working. And you don't even really have time. You're under. touch pressure to get these shows out the door and you've dodged bullets so many times just doing

what you know how to do that you really aren't that interested in trying new shit out because you know let's just get the show out the door yeah it's a hundred and four live five-hour shows a year it's not light work and i think sometimes that gets lost not getting lost is our main event it's the wcd international heavyweight title Rick Rood defending against Johnny Bidd, the international title, we all know it as the big gold belt, the former NWA championship. You were in the middle of an issue with the NWA with a split. How much of that did you deal with and how much of that was someone like Dusty dealing with? That was, yeah, it was probably Dusty and Bob Doe.

Bob was sitting, you know, we saw Jane and we saw Ted that we saw Bill Shaw, and then you saw Bob Doe, who we didn't point out. At this point in time, WCW was split in, from a management perspective, was split into two divisions. There was wrestling operations and administrative operations. Bob Dew oversaw that. Gotcha. There was television and television production. I oversaw that. So the NWA conflict, because it was part of it was legal, obviously. Part of it was relationship with people involved and trying to resolve the issue.

Dusty would have gotten involved in that's right of it, I believe. Bob Dew would have been the one that had to sign off of it. So I was aware, but I was not involved. When you think about the aspect of Turner having to deal with, this is our belt, this is our championship, this is our intellectual property. Do you think that's why sometimes WCW got a bad rap in Turner? Like, why are we dealing with this shit? It is, I'm going to say it, everyone's going to laugh at me, silly fake pro wrestling.

and we're fighting over a title and a branding and an IP, why don't we just give it back to them? Do you think some of that stigma bled into a lot of the issues in Turner, Turner Corporate? I don't think so. Because Turner Corporate understood intellectual property and trademark, copyright, all that stuff. I just think Turner Corporate, everyone except for Ted,

looked at wrestling as such low-brow... right one step up from porn that was the attitude it's like you there's porn there's professional wrestling and that's a drama you know that's a t-shirt yeah what was it what did i say that's a t-shirt one step above porn yeah i mean that was the attitude about professional wrestling not just turn a corporate but even within the the entertainment industry as a whole it still is stigmatized to this day is being just kind of low end lowbrow entertainment it's wrong clearly i agree and we're learning the the culture is finally beginning to understand the media industry is beginning to understand but certainly at this point in time that was an issue

internally as well as external so it's funny you bring it up because i it's one of my last topics i want to cover with you because we are in the main event media culture and professional wrestling has absolutely changed in the last 25 years. I'm going to count myself as part of this conversation because, again, 1999, I was 14 years old. So I grew up watching wrestling from the time I was for, but the height of it was 99, 98, Attitude Era, NWO, Hogan Goldberg. The people that are now in charge of media companies are my age, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. The acceptance of professional wrestling has a lot to do

the fact that there were 10 million, 11 million, 12 million people watching the Monday Night Wars at its peak. And a majority of them were people my age, the demo of 13 to 25. And we are now the next generation of media. Logals is probably not the right way to say this. But the next. But executives, decision makers.

media executives grew up watching this and they were fans of it and they may have lapsed out of it at some point like I did in my early 20s because it just wasn't something I was captivated by anymore and the product that had changed and above but you get back into these things when you become successful and have free time that media landscape I think that has changed isn't given enough credit to people my age at that time who are now rising in the ranks who find it more acceptable. It is no longer the, it's fake. We are well aware it's predetermined, but the change of that landscape has really come along in the last five to ten years. And I think the growth of that is my generation. What do you say to that? No, I think you're absolutely right. When you think about it, you know, if you go back to, let's say, mid-90s, even before,

let's say 1990, the people who were heading up ad agencies, the people who were in the media, business in general. Television executives, making decisions about what type of content they want on their network, what kind of audience that they want to build and what kind of content will help them get there. Those executives who are, you know, 40 years old now or over 40 years old then, they grew up watching wrestling when it was in front of 50 people or 100 people in a television soundstage somewhere. The business is completely different than. Right. And it obviously is now or was in the 90s. But the impressions that those executives had were impressions like you had when you were 14.

Right. Your impression was, oh, shit, you and the other 10 million people watching with you, whether, you know, combined WW, WCW audience. So you have a different perspective of the product than someone who would have been your age in 1990 because of the way you grew up watching the product. do you think the acceptance that it is predetermined, it's entertainment, it's not real sport by the late 90s was more relevant to the growth of it than it was a long time lying about the sport?

No, it's real, no, with everything. That evolution, I think, was an important part too, and I think that gets downplayed a lot. And when you think about it, if you allow, I say you, you, not you personally, but if one allows oneself to step back and disconnect. from all of your emotional baggage and predetermined thoughts and ideas, just walk into a conversation clean and open-minded, I think one of, and it's really weird because of all the shit that Vincent McMahon is going through and all the horrible shit that we've read about and seen about it. And all of, you know, it is what it is. I don't know what's true, what's not

true. Set it all aside. In terms of where we are today, one of the things that was the most controversial. People that I knew in the wrestling business were like, oh, it's going to kill. Oh, the business is dead. Acknowledging that it's just scripted, oh, my, everybody thought the business was going to die. I think it was one of the most important tactical moves or strategic, strategic moves that could have been made and is one of, not the one of the reasons that wrestling finally grew into its own by not. try and pretend it's real. But by saying, guess what?

Gone with the wind didn't really happen either, bitches. Outlander didn't really happen. The million-dollar man couldn't really do the million-dollar man shit. Everybody felt the million-dollar man shit was doing. It was really worth about a buck 40. Insulting the audience's intelligence for so long and pretending it was real, I think really hurt. The embracement of it would have changed things.

And for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, and the funny aspect of this is 1989, Vince McMahon said to the state of New Jersey, we are predetermined. We are scripted. Stop taxing us like we are not. And that was one of the big flag moments of people being like, he killed the business. We're never going to be able to draw money again.

How are people going to believe? Everyone knew it was just saying the quiet part out left. And I was four at the time. And I remember hearing it on the news because I, I live in South Jersey, and I remember it because it was right around the time for Summer Slam, and Summer Slam was in Philadelphia. And look, the news at the time made a mockery of it, but it was a big deal in ramifications I didn't understand at that point, but everyone, no one reported it like it was real news.

It was, oh yeah, by the way, they said this. No shit, it's fake, it's predetermined, it's okay. Save the quiet part out loud and we'll move on from it. And we did, and the growth of the business 10 years later, can almost be pinpointed back to that point. You get out of the steroid error, you get out of the idea that Vince McMahon was on trial with Hulk Hogan for distributing steroids, and then all of a sudden it was, yep, guess what? Still fake, but we're still providing entertainment, and that's what it is, and that's where

it gets lost to me a lot of times. Yeah, and I think by, and look, the reason that Vince and Linda, Linda was as much part of that decision is anybody money. She had a much stronger hand in the operation of WWF at the time than people remember. But the choice, the decision to come clean was a financial decision.

Because the athletic commissions and a lot of the markets at WWE was operating in treated it like a sport because they enabled it. And it was. Right. And Vince went, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. We shouldn't

have this expense. Let's get rid of it and made that decision. It was a big decision. But now we get to look at wrestling and talk about storyline, talk about character development. Talk about the same things that one would discuss when talking about a new series that's coming out on Netflix or Amazon or whatever. You're talking about character development.

You're talking about story arts. You're talking about platforms. You know, you're talking, you know, the same elements. And appreciating it for that. I like to compare sometimes when I'm talking to people who aren't necessarily wrestling fans, if I'm talking to in a business environment or did a TED talk a couple years ago, it was kind of fun talking to people who weren't really wrestling fans. When you describe wrestling for what it is, and from my perspective, it's much like a

Broadway play. You know, in a Broadway play, you've got a live audience. And as an actor or actress, your job is. to get that audience invested in your story, get them to forget that they're watching in performance emotionally and allow them, give them permission to invest emotionally. And the way you get that permission from someone watching on a Broadway

or in a wrestling environment is to be believable and to emote. It's no different. Now, on a Broadway play, the narrative is the spoken word but in professional wrestling you're on a stage when you're on Broadway you're on a stage

your jobs are exactly the same and it takes the exact same skills and abilities and magic only in a wrestling ring it's a physical narrative you're telling your story physically as opposed to the spoken word beyond that distinct difference

There is none. Correct. It's the same. Yep. That's why I think so much about lack of stories. Like, markers, you don't know what you're not doing. Speaking of stories, we have, I don't want to say, ignore this match, but it's a really good match between Rick Rood and Johnny B.

And I forget how good Rick Rood was in the ring until you watch him and all the little things. Forget about the hip swivel. Just the ability to a moat on his face, he is one of the best. Would you agree? absolutely absolutely he was so good another Minnesota boy that's why Minnesota kicked out some great talent you know Canada gets a lot of credit Minnesota had a lot of talent as well oh Road Warriors Rick Rood Kurt Henning so many great talents Rick Rood was a badass too he went to Robinsdale high school

he went to high school with my wife wow I went to Minataka high school we were in the same region region five so So I wrestled, you know, Robbinsdale High School and played football against each other and all that crap. I never knew Rick personally in high school. But shortly after high school, Rick's, we knew a lot of the same people, even though we didn't know each other. And yeah, I would always go to the bars where Rick Rood was hanging out because inevitably he'd kick the shit out of somebody. It was so much fun to watch. I believe that.

Mark Mero has been pouring the country. as of late as a motivational speaker and the work he's been doing has been tremendous have you heard from mark recently or talked with him i talked to a guy who uh has either wrote the book or is in the process of writing a book interesting super guy and i've actually done a podcast with him a time he's that good ben veal is his name and uh i haven't talked to mark although i'm going to reach out to him now that my summer's over with and travels kind of slow down i do want to talk to mark i'm so impressed yeah i want to say proud wouldn't be the right work because i didn't have anything to do with it but so impressed uh with his work he's a lot

like ddp that way you know these two guys have become larger than life impressions on people now than they were when they were wrestling and i i love to see people who have taken their wrestling career and going on to something different or, dare I say bigger or better because you're helping people. Yeah, DDP is just an amazing story. Mark is an amazing story. If you don't, I know Mark had some kind words after our Johnny B. Bad episode, I don't even know if that was this year or last year on X.

So that's great to hear that you're involved with someone behind the scenes with him. Rick Rue got the win with the Rood Awakening. We are finally at the end of this. It's Harley Race, cutting the final promo and the build up to the boss. Fortunately, during this promo, he refers to him as boss man twice. When you hear that backstage, are you just putting your hands in your head going out? That's another letter that we're going to have to deal with. Yes and no.

I mean, you make a note because you know it's going to be an issue, maybe a little issue, maybe a big issue. You don't know until it happens. But it's like, okay, let's get ready here. Let's give legal a heads up. It's common. Eric, what did you think of this episode from 30 years ago, WCW Saturday night? I'm actually quite surprised. I think it, from a production value standpoint,

it looked a lot better than I remembered it would. I think center stage actually looked pretty good as a venue. You know, you still have a lot of that crowd, first of all, you could tell by the suits and ties, particularly in the first few rows. A lot of that crowd was a turn of broadcasting crowd, right? Not necessarily a wrestling crowd, but visually it looked, it looked better than I thought it would. In the quality of the product in the ring, I would compare it to certainly better than

AEW today, maybe not quite WWE level today, but damn good. I'm pretty proud of it, actually. Do you think the business is missing enhancement matches? I don't think there's time for it anymore. I mean, I think you can do it occasionally to make a point if you're really trying to get somebody over. But I think you'd have to be very careful and judicious about how often you did it and who you did it with.

It's just the time, especially Raw is going to, now I've heard two things. Maybe you know, you're more plugged in than I am. First I heard Raw was going to go from three down to two, I'm heard it's going back to three. I don't know what the status is. But if it's back to two hours, I know it's, you know, back when all wrestling was only one hour,

the idea of doing two hours. We're like, oh my God, Nitro was the first one to do it. And then it's like, oh, this is working so well. We're going to spend $100 to do two hours. Why don't we spend $105 to do three hours?

So we ended up doing even more, but a two hour show, trying to get everybody over with all the PLEs and pay reviews and special events. You just don't have the time to do squash matches anymore. The current story is that when October 5th takes place, I think it's October 5th, Raul will cut itself back to two hours for the last run on the USA Network.

When it goes to Netflix, it will be three hours. There is talk that when January comes, Smackdown will go to three hours. So they would be on the hook of producing a lot of live television presentation. so I don't know what the world is going to look like yet none of that's been confirmed on the smackdown side the raw the raw side has been confirmed have you had a chance to watch the cody roman road roman reigns segment from smackdown yet yes yes holy crap I'm gonna if we can find eight more minutes to discuss that nah not eight minutes holy crap Jeremy Borosch seemed to be a big part of that. You worked with Jeremy WCW and TNA. How good was that, in your opinion? It was next level.

You know, you hear people, and I hate it, but I use the term because I have, taking something to the next level, taking it, taking production to the next level, taking storytelling to the next level is not appropriate enough. enough for the quality of work that we saw really that's the this is the kind of thing that gets me excited to be a wrestling fan again i've said it a million times i only keep repeating

it because sometimes people forget that i've been producing wrestling or had been producing wrestling for over and entertainment and in general entertainment so when i watch something even if it's something that i'm you know like i mentioned the outlander series which my wife and i are really enjoying we're in season five episode four right now the storytelling the character of the production of everything about that show is just mind-boggling to me but it's the it's especially when it comes to wrestling it's the storytelling the depth of story the detail the story the discipline the emotional journey that you're going on with story Sometimes it's the physical production things that we see that are different than that we've been seeing for years, you know, integrating sponsors into certain opportunities.

I get more excited about the components of what makes a good wrestling show than a good wrestling show. Sure. I know that probably doesn't make sense to some people, but the evolution of the business, seeing the business elevate to your point. You know, as we talked about getting ad agencies and media executives to go, shit, I know this is different than what we're used to, but the storytelling and attention to detail is just as significant. And what we saw with Cody and Roman is what you're going to see in any dramatic series on television. Maybe as good as what you're going to see in a feature film.

So I can't see enough good things. You know, hats off to Jeremy Borash. When I worked with Jeremy, he was an announcer. He was interested in production, and he did a little bit on the side, kind of because he was interested in it, just wanted to. Sure. But what he's been able to achieve in WWA, I think is really, really admirable. Yeah. Eric, we're going to wrap it up there.

I like to thank you for taking the time coming to the bunkhouse on a very early Sunday morning. I greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed watching. I did. I enjoy working with you, Derek. and it was really fun going back and looking at this episode. Always fun to do things here for every shows. I greatly appreciate it, guys.

Stay tuned. There is a lot of bonus content dropping over the next few days. It seems like every day I get an email. This is coming out. That's coming out. Stay tuned. There is more coming. We've got 83 weeks coming up this week.

Drop a follow. Like and subscribe at 83 weeks.com. 83 meets. Keep your eyes out for. Check out. Watch for my meat. I've got some coming right at you. And there's another t-shirt by the end of this conversation.

Thank you all for joining us. Greatly appreciate it. And we'll see again next time. All right. That'll do it this week on 83 weeks. We hope you guys had a blast hanging out with us as we talked about the new releases from WW. And then we went back 31 years to see billionaire Ted and a very young Triple H.

Next week, though, we're going to talk about one of our all-time favorites here on the program. I know Eric has a lot of love for him and I do too. To know him is to love him. next week we're talking all things, Dustin Rhodes, right here on 83 weeks.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, here to tell you a little more about what adfree 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

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