83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 378: Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad take us on a journey through the amazing career of Hacksaw Jim Duggan! Eric shares stories of his time working with Duggan in WCW and their decades long friendship. Plus, the guys get into the weeds regarding all the news and notes coming out of the world of professional wrestling.  TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/83WEEKS  ! #trueclassicpod 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. RIDGE - Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code 83WEEKS at https://www.Ridge.com/83WEEKS ! #Ridgepod ENVISION - Save money and grow your business with Envision Marketing—visit https://conradsguy.com/  today! SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com/savewitheric/  to learn more.

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at Conrad at save with Conrad. Give us a call at 8884250105 or get yourself a quick quote, even talk to a live person right now at save with Conrad.com. NMLS number 2129, Equal Housing Linder, let's take a summer vacation from house payments at save with Conrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischalk. What's going on, man? How are you? This is the most fun morning I think I've had. Yeah, maybe in forever.

Wow. I'm doing great, Conrad, and I would ask how you're doing, but I don't think I'm going to I'm afraid. I love you for that. We are excited to be here today. Man, Eric Bischoff looks like shit. Oh, he's back to normal now. We're going to have a lot of fun today.

And we hope that you'll join us because we're talking about one of the more beloved figures in the history of professional wrestling. Is that about the right way to describe Jim, Doug and Eric? absolutely absolutely I can't wait for us to talk about Doug and I can't believe we've made it this far this many years into our program without doing a deep dive on him but we're going to today so stay tuned if you love those personality profiles that we do we got one coming up here in just a few minutes

but first we want to talk about the news and notes of the rassling business right now Eric the big news is popping all over the place and it's wild we've got a new world heavyweight champion main event j uso is no longer your champion goonther is it was clean in the middle no controversy what did you think eric i didn't see it i'm i've been kind of underwire for the last couple days so i haven't paid attention even to social media much so this is news to me in this moment that's kind of a big deal it's a real big deal it's a big deal there's some thinking going on inside of uh headquarters

well i know that rikishi was disappointed that j uso was in a tag match main event he was in the raw main event didn't exactly go how anybody expected but there's lots of speculation what's next got a saudi event coming up we've got um Saturday night's main event coming up and Seth Rollins is running around with the money in the bank case what do you think is next for Jay Uso?

Do you think I mean there's no chance they try to turn that dude to heal I mean he's been selling so much merch Does he stay as the top guy? Does he look to be a tag team? Is there a not a heel turn here is there? I mean it's hard for me to imagine that the Uso tag team is going to be back together right away.

without there being some more story. Yeah, that's the fascinating thing about WWE right now, particularly anything related to the bloodline, is that tree, the bloodline tree now has roots that are so deep and have spread out so far and wide that you could literally put three halfway creative people in a room long enough to get through a six pack of mountain dew,

maybe a half a bucket of chicken, and he'll come out with probably three or four good ways to make all this happen. But, I mean, for someone like me that looks for that, I look for indications, I try to predict what's going to happen in the future, as opposed to commenting on what happened, you know, yesterday or last month or whatever, that's the fascinating part to me about WW Creative is because it is so detailed, there is so much structure there, that detail on that structure allows you to kind of look at the framework of that story.

and within the right periods of time within that timeline, tip a little to the left, shift a little to the right, and you've got creative solutions all along the way to take you in a completely different direction, typically much faster than maybe you're used to seeing even five or ten years ago because everything is happening faster now. Stories are moving faster.

It's just fascinating time. it is and i for one i'm a big j uso fan i can't wait to see what comes next for him that dude's just dripping charisma he is a merch money printer so this is almost i'm sorry conrad to interrupt you but this is almost the same conversation we were having about our truth yes weeks ago yes wait a minute why are they making that decision he's selling so much merchandise he's one of the most popular what is wait a minute why that doesn't make sense until it did so we will see you brought him up the other big news over the last several days of course is ron killings you and i were talking about him a lot last week on the program little did we know he would

return the following day at money in the bank and uh helps steal the victory for the good guys love that attacking john sena with his own world title belt but then he hijacked monday night raw he jumped up up on the uh announced desk coming through the crowd in a hoodie and a ski mask, cut a big promo with the WW microphone, got the crowd engaged and cut his hair off saying that there is no more our truth.

I am Ron the Truth Killings. Not a comedy act. I'm not a side show. I'm not a joke. This is great stuff. And of course there was some controversy coming into this about was this the plan all along or not. And of course,

that didn't have to be a controversy, but I think Triple H accidentally made it one. He did the post-master- You think he accidentally made it one? Do you think he did that on purpose, Eric? Fuck, come on. I think I was smelling this rat weeks before, right after the firing.

Hang on, you know it's not a work. I know you haven't been paying attention, but this was definitely not a work. His kids said it wasn't, and our truth said it wasn't. And he's back using his name. You believe it all. You think it's all the word.

I don't know. And neither is anybody else, which clearly defines it as a freaking work. People, what is a work? I love it when people use these terms. Not necessarily you, Conrad, but in general, in the internet wrestling community, they throw this word around like they really understand what they're talking about. And they don't. And it's evidenced by people saying, it's definitely not a work.

Well, if you're going to make that statement, ask yourself, what is it work? In the context of a professional wrestling conversation, what is it work? It's an act. It's a narrative that's designed to create an emotion, very specific emotion, that advances a storyline. It's the work. It's an angle. But a fucking definition of what it's achieved and continues to achieve,

it's self-defining. It's a work. Do I think that Triple H enhance the work? Or a little more drama to the work? Eric, you don't believe this. Hey, let me help you out. Let me just help you out. Okay.

They put a shirt on sale called Ron Sina to celebrate Killing's opportunity, our truth's opportunity, against John Sina at Saturday night's main event. It became a massive seller. And then abruptly, it was no longer for sale and he was released and the crowd started chanting we want truth, we want truth

it's almost predictable they reached out to him on Friday negotiated a new deal he comes back with his name Ron Killings and they put a Ron Killings shirt on sale his kids are chiming in on social media he's chiming in on social media

and you're maintaining that No, you're with Triple H. This was the plan all along. I was going to say, I'm going to take one more run at this, but we don't have all day. So, as I just said, a few moments ago, it's a work. It is a narrative. It is an act that creates emotion, a very specific desired emotion. therefore it is a work it's i'm not saying it's not a work it's creating and what i said was

and what i believe could could be true and look the only reason i'm not laughing myself out of the studio right now and rolling around out in a fucking cactus laughing my ass off at any of this is okay when you involve your kids and they're they're out there that that puts I'm kind of back to center on that one. That's outside of the box of norm. You know what I mean? And I've seen a lot of stuff and people bring their families in and do some pretty crazy stuff. Including my own, by the way, Garrett and I, TNA.

So I get it. But I still think, yeah, it's work. Is there anything that's had more debate back and forth? Is it or isn't it in the last, I don't know, 20 years? Does anybody really debated? Kind of like they did with the NWO, and it was Scott Hall initially, not as the NWO went on, then it's, you know, pretty evident to everybody. But that very first intro at Scott Hall, May 27, 1996,

It's about making Georgia. Scott Hall comes down through the crowd. Whoa, never seen that before. Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen. This is a shoot. Oh, this isn't a work. This is a shoot. You know, we had them for, you know, I don't know, maybe two weeks until, you know,

people sort of figured it out, probably by the second week. But that was debated as this is being debated. it's a work it's created a desired effect was it intentional or not yeah we can debate that I'm leaning more towards the center now with the introduction to kids testimony your honor but by definition it's at work I think it's great and there's no doubt that it's great and then it's working I can say that there were quotes out there for what outside WW appearances were costing and things like that. So it was moving in that direction. But now Ron Killings is back and fans are pumped. No matter how we got here, he's back. Let's enjoy the ride. Yeah.

Circle back to Hunter in a moment. But first, I want to just share how popular this is. Eric, we talked about at the top of the program that Jay Uso lost the world title. As we sit down to click record, that happened on Monday Night Raw, of course. We're recording a little early because of our travel schedule this week. So it's Wednesday morning right now. So, you know, we're a day and a half later after Monday Night Raw. And that title switch has about 900,000 views on YouTube.

But the clip of Ron Killings returning to Monday Night Raw and standing on the desk has 2.2 million views on YouTube. I think this proves maybe bigger than anything else. Matches and belts, they're all important. but man, the story, if you can make people believe they're going to turn out in a

multiple of almost anything else you can do in wrestling. That's a great example of that to me. Which, Your Honor, it leads me to my previous statement. That's why I'm not 100% sure. I mean, this is, to me, this is like SpaceX

kind of precision. This is like taking a rocket up in a sky up and up in the universe, bringing it back and having a park itself. That's what this story, and it's probably an extreme example, but the stories are so complex, so detailed that when something like this occurred, which works out so perfectly, it's hard for me to go, uh, boy, they just made chicken salad out of chicken shit. That's a glass-half-full approach, or a empty approach. I'm looking at more glass-half-full. I think there's still, they enhanced this story. Much like we've taken reality, like Rick Flair and Eric Bischoff in a feud,

well, that started out was reality, and guess what we did? It was a work. It was a work that was based in. real life. Hang on. Does Rick Flair know what to work? I don't think he knows even now. I'll let Rick speak for himself. Every time I try to answer for Rick, I get upset right. So we're not going to do. I don't want to be a part. But you got my point, right? It's like. Here's my point, Eric. This is all self-inflicted by Triple H. In my opinion. Well, then I hope he does it four or five times a week. I'm not talking about the

success of the angle. I'm saying the controversy and we're discussing even discussing this because it has been a big talking point. He goes to a post-paper review press conference where our truth returns and he's asked about this and he basically gives the old

hey watch the program he's asked hey was this always the plan? I mean when did you watch the program. That's sort of the yeah because it keeps that it keeps people checking out I'm not arguing any of that area he's working it great great now help me make sense of after he's saying I mean first of all why are we doing a press conference if we're working

hang on now hang on after we in New Orleans when the Rock announces hey WrestleMania is coming to New Orleans we've done all these press conferences and just told the gun blue truth about everything and then every now and again we'll just decide and we'll start telling stories and here's the thing if we're going with what you're suggesting which is no this was the plan all long i didn't say that okay well they turned it into clearly it's not like he's not contracted and he's jumping on the fuck let's just talk about what happened monday night he comes through the crowd wearing a hoodie and a mask

and he's going to take over the show. He's going to stand on the announced desk with a microphone. So it feels like a hostile takeover. Wouldn't you agree? Oh, this isn't supposed to happen. He didn't get an entrance. He didn't come down the ramp. There's no theme song. He just jumped on the table and took his hood off and started cutting a promo. It's a cool. It's an eye catching moment to be sure. Now, this happened about four hours after Triple H posted this. what the fuck how can we take a picture with the guy fucking gorilla pointing the pit pointing to him

like this is the guy you wanted it here he is and oh my god what the fuck is wrong killing's doing here this makes no sense there at least i mean you knew when the n w got hot we can't sell the nw o t-shirts in the building we got to sell them in the parking lot you knew hey if it's a hostile takeover the guys can't just come from the back they got to come through the crowd So we're doing some of that. This feels like we're half pregnant. That's all I'm saying. I don't disagree with you on this one.

Fucking work me all the way or don't. I'm good either way. And people do and people do make mistakes. Yes. That might have been just a bad idea. They have. Especially day up. I don't know.

I'm glad that Ron Killings is back. And I know this was the plan along. I mean, rock told us a couple of months ago everything you see on tv is a work every promo every post every match it's all scripted it's all the way it's supposed to be that feels like a classic w wb e line speaking a classic at true classic the mission goes beyond fit and fabric it's about helping guys show up with confidence and purpose their gear fits right it feels amazing and it's price so guys everywhere can step into confidence without stepping out of their budget now what really sets

true classic apart. It's not just the fit or the fabric. It's the intention behind everything they do. True Classic was built to make an impact, whether it's helping men show up better in their daily lives, giving back to undeserved communities, or making people laugh with ads that don't take themselves too seriously. True Classic leads with purpose. I've been rocking True Classic for a bit now. I can feel the difference. The minute I throw one on, you'll be able to two. It's tailored where you want it. It's relaxed where you need it. There's no bunching. There's no stiff fabric. there's no BS. It's just a clean, effortless fit that actually works for real life. So forget overpriced designer brands and ditch the disposable fast fashion.

True Classic is built for comfort, it's built to last, and it's built to give back. You can grab them right now at Target, Costco, or for the best deal possible, head on over to True Classic.com slash 83 weeks and get hooked up today. That's how you can best support the show and look good doing it. go right now to trueclassic.com slash 83 weeks. So one of the other things that has popped up in recent weeks is the conversation about what is Vince going to do? We talked about his new company that he's going to be rolling out.

14th and I, he's got a series of management holding companies set up there. So we're all anxiously awaiting to see what his media moves are going to look like. But somehow and boy, I'm sure this was just totally random. TMZ just happened to know where Shane McMahon was going to be. And they caught up with him and asked some questions. And they were asking him about, hey,

are you going to start another wrestling promotion with your father? I didn't know that the TMZ guys were actually hardcore dirt sheet guys, but maybe they are. What do I know? And Shane said something like, you never know what's going to happen out there. Of course, anything can happen in WWE, but those rumors are false.

He's also asked about media. with AEW and he said something like I had a meeting with AEW and wished them continued success but it's not WWE it's not the company I helped build but you never know what's going to happen in this business so not really a pointed statement but hey we got a little bit of press out there I'm I'm saying it tongue in cheek clearly this is an intentional story somebody called TMZ and said hey hypothetically what do you think this is leading to here it's hard to it's hard to imagine you know like I don't think TMZ means much anymore you know it used to yeah you used to be you know you I go to I used to go to TMZ to see if

anybody I knew was in trouble from the night before there was a point in time when oh not him again not her oh what she did um since then it's just become one of about a million of these things. I think social media is killing them. And just the quality of things that they break to be, it's so orchestrated, as you pointed out. It doesn't feel organic like it used to or authentic. So yeah, it staged. What real question is why? What would there be to gain? It's not like they're trying to reach people within the wrestling industry because they've already heard this rumor. They already know this. You're preaching to that choir that's been being, that, that, that rumor's been circulating and growing in one way, shape,

or form for months now. And with regard to Vince, you know, buying TKL from whatever, you know, that's a couple weeks old, but whatever. So the only reason why I would think there'd be a motive to reach out beyond the existing wrestling audience who already knows, is to test the waters. It's a temperature check. Go a little chum in the water, see if anybody rises to the surface that might be interested

without having to reach out and call people directly. Kind of like putting an ad up, letting people know you're in business. Just sitting back and waiting to kind of sit through the kind of responses you get. Otherwise, Dan was just bored and wanted to have fun. There you go.

Nothing wrong with that. Speaking of bored and wanting to have fun, Matt Roodle comes to mind. He did an interview over the weekend. And, uh, well, there were some things said there that I didn't expect. I wanted to play that clip for you.

And we'll be sure to give credit to, uh, the person who posted this as well. Let's roll that beautiful bean footage for Mr. There's been a lot of talk that there, there is heat. No one knows for between triple. H and Rock. Do you believe that?

Yeah. You do believe that? I believe all, dude. I really do. I think with all the stocks being up for grabs, people selling, because I know Vince is sold, Steph is sold, Nick Conn is old. A lot of people are selling their stock, and usually you don't do that unless something's going on behind closed doors. And I honestly think there's already a power struggle when I was there trying to get Vince out and trying to step and Triple H to get in that position. And now that they got him out, now it's endeavor trying to get them out or rock or

whoever it is. So I think that's just the nature of the beast. Would you ever go back? I'd go back tomorrow. I'd go back any time. You know, I don't hold a grudge, and I like wrestlers. And I've never asked you about this company. Would you ever consider working for AEW?

Yeah, I would totally work for AEW. I feel like when they first started, they hired a lot of former WWE guys, and I think that left a bad taste in the mouth because other than moxley and maybe another couple it didn't really work out too well most of them just got fat checks and didn't do much so i think they don't want to deal with that that's why they're using more homegrown talent they had that issue with uh cm punk and that went belly up for belly up and cost them fans money and everything else shout out to uh news for jack's reporter scott johnson he's got a uh local station show there called going ring he caught that interview with Matt Riddle and man I didn't expect to hear Matt Riddle talking about so much TKO and endeavor stuff but I know you have worked with Matt Riddle a little bit here and there between WWE and MLW wanted to play that clip for you and get your reaction today Eric first of all I like you when I first saw Matt and listened to his promos you know when he got paired up with Goldberg especially or

I'm sorry, Randy Orton. I really like the character, but I thought, man, that's not a guy I'm probably going to sit down and have much of a conversation with about anything other than wrestling, of course. I just, you know, didn't feel like we'd even be on the same wavelength, literally. However, I got to spend quite a bit of time with Matt in the two appearances I did with MLW when we weren't shooting. he is an incredibly intelligent guy.

It's so easy to write him off because of the way he presents himself. But if you underestimate that guy intellectually, no wonder he's a good fighter. Let's put it that way. He's a very, very smart man. And I knew he was really bright because I've had some pretty interesting conversations

with him about things outside of wrestling. But I didn't know he had quite that much kind of corporate merger acquisition kind of picture taking ability in his head. It's a pretty bright guy. And he's not afraid to tell you what he thinks. And that's what endears him to me. One of the reasons I like being around him, not to sound like to talk about it, I like being in his presence, and he's got a good energy about him.

He's fun. He's positive as hell. he's very, very honest and he's got a great sense of humor. It's amazing. I would not be surprised if he's not back in WW.

You know, AEW, there's no way of knowing how anybody perceives anybody over there. But he's a very entertaining performance. I'd be shocked if he didn't end up back in.

It feels like if he was going to AEW would have already happened. Don't you agree? I do, and I think that would be a bad choice because, and I say that because he would need to be in an environment where he had a lot of people that he could work with that he could get chemistry with. I'm not sure that you could get that in AEW, just looking outside looking in, just some of the people that I know, some of the people I think I can probably read pretty well. I just don't think Matt would have the ability to develop enough chemistry in AEW to be there for any length of time and enjoy it. He could ride it out, like he said, just, you know, taking a cheese, going home, great.

But for Matt to have fun, he's got to be able to work with the right people. I just don't think there's enough of them. We'll see what happens with Matt Riddle. We'll also see what happens with the rock and Triple H. I was kind of surprised to hear someone who's been there, you know, who has a relationship, certainly with Triple H.

I think that that was a real possibility. I mean, we've certainly heard talking heads sort of say that, that type of thing, but I don't know, it feels different when one of the boys does. Hey, the boys are headed back to Las Vegas,

Eric. You predicted it last week here on the program that WrestleMania is going to wind up in Las Vegas. They'll be back to back in a gambling town, a casino town. Of course, they did this famously once with Donald Trump in Atlantic City at WrestleMania 4 and 5. Next year, though, Eric,

WrestleMania is not on Easter weekend. That's like April 4th. That's a couple of weeks prior to this, or April 5th, I guess it was. So a couple of weeks prior to this is Easter, but yeah, back to back Vegas shows. No surprise, I suppose. What's a year? No surprise to me.

We called it. We do that a lot of this show, don't we? I mean, a lot of podcasts, love to talk about what happened last night or last week. Give you their expert hindsight, 20-20 perspective. Here, brother, we tell you, this is like Nostradamus kind of stuff. Acrecy rate is ridiculous here. It's actually kind of scary.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, Vegas. Yeah, baby. Vegas. I can't wait to not go. it's a lot isn't it it just sucks the soul right out of you i mean for me and again you know i've been to Vegas a lot when i go to Vegas now i just want to i want to find the best restaurants and a good show i am that guy now you know 35 years ago i was the other guy so i get it there's

a lot of the other guys that still enjoy Vegas, but I'm not one of them. So I'll stay home, I'll go to Vegas before or after, and I'll have a really great meal and be able to at least get around fairly easily. So yeah, I'll pass on this one. But I understand why they're doing it. I think financially it'll probably be, I think you'll get more action early on. I think, you know, there was a lot of speculation. There was, I should say, some speculation, you know, a month or two out from

WrestleMania about how the tickets weren't really moving and how they're going to move tickets. Oh my gosh, this is a failure. WWE made a bit of a mistake. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Eventually they got sold and I'm sure there was some great tactical work involved in that as well. I don't think they're going to have that issue now or next year, I should say.

let's talk about what's next for maria may we know that she is the uh recently departed aew star who showed up on nxte last week but we didn't hear her name but we found out earlier this week eric she does have a name and it's blake monroe so she's made her debut here in wwee's nxte program i assume she's going to be relocating orlando if she didn't already live there. It was like almost every wrestler that was in Orlando or Tampa area. But I guess there's some controversy. This wasn't a name I was familiar with. A friend of the show, Andrew Dice Clay, is. And he found that there's actually an adult film star using this name.

Or there was once upon a time. I guess that's worth of Google. This feels like something that WWE has learned from before. There was a group of girls, a few. years ago it was a trio and i forget exactly what they were calling themselves but it also had been marketed in adult films and this is uh less than ideal is it not doesn't really matter anymore i mean i think as a as a culture and speaking about entertainment culture we've gotten so numb to every

of extreme that's out there, it's just another day in the office anymore. I don't think it matters at all. I don't think it matters to advertisers anymore. As long as this driving audience, eyeballs show up. People respond to a call to action. As long as it's working, I'm going to add revenue point of view. I just don't think people care anymore. Years ago, maybe longer, 10 years ago for sure. Certainly, you know, 20 years ago when I was active into business, it would have been an issue. Somebody who had an egg on her face. Somebody would have probably, you know, a conversation that got a little uncomfortable in terms of why did you do this? Who approved this thing? I was like, ha, ha, that's funny. Let's go with that. Oh, yeah, the kids will get it. Oh,

yeah 18 and 34 they've been spanking it for the last four years absolutely well you well you know hey we do dick fill spots on this show well no i'm with you but i'm saying don't you think that i mean listen i can be wrong but i feel like most women's wrestling is aimed at little girls i don't have a single guy who's like man i can't wait to go watch this fucking so-and-so match i'm not saying that they don't say it or not i'm just saying like when i I find myself as a dad with two daughters when I'm talking about wrestling to them. I'm talking about the quote unquote divas matches. I'm talking about the ladies matches.

Now, my girls are 21. That's one thing. I do think, I don't know. That's a slippery slope. That being said, it is worth pointing out,

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there's a special offer for our listeners, new customers can get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code. That's like 40% off your starter pack when you use the code 83 weeks at shopmando dot com. That's S-H-O-M-A-N-D-O-com. Shop Mando.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Mando's got you covered with deodorant plus sweat control, take about a sweat stains, and say hello to long-lasting freshness. By the way, those deodorant wipes, Eric, they're handy on the boat. We're doing a boat day.

Let's talk a little bit about, you pointed out, Dr. Shannon Clayman, by the way, the gynecologist that created the Mando product line. Incredibly brilliant woman, obviously, but really, really smart at business, too. She went to Minnetonka Senior High School, where I went. But, you know, I'm thinking about Minnetonka never gets the rub that Robbinsdale gets, because Robbinsdale, Minnesota is known for guys like Greg Gania, you know, Larry the Axe, Kurt Heading, Rick Rood, John Nord, it goes on, demolition, you know, it goes on and on, the Beverly Brothers, a lot of great wrestlers came out of Robinsdale High School and they get

all the publicity, right? They get the big wrestling rub. I mean, a Tonka Senior High School, by the way, where yours truly went to high school, along with Dr. Shannon Clayman, well, probably her mother or father. I don't know. But also the home high school, Jeremy Borach, who is now the showrunner, from what I read, at least, for the AAA event that just took place. Oh, and who else do we have? The crater of Dark Side of the Ring. Oh, yeah. Evan Hosni?

Yeah. Evan Hosni. Also, Minotaka Senior High School. So a lot of wrestling, a lot of great minds came out of Minnetaka Senior High School that ended up really impacting wrestling. Yeah, Robesdale deserves some credit, but some of his Minnetka. Dr. Shannon Klingman and Mando, I'd love your products, girl. I'd have to get you on here and interview you sometime.

Shop Mando.com. Use the promo code, 83 weeks. Eric, we, we got to talk about a big show that happened over the weekend. We're talking about when worlds collide, the big AAA slash Nxte show. And it was announced that at its peak, 764,389 live concurrent viewers, made it the largest live audience in the history of a YouTube broadcast for WWV. In the first 24 hours alone, the show was watched by more than 4.1 million viewers on YouTube.

And hashtag Worlds Collide was the number one trending topic globally on Saturday. And WWV generated more than 32 million social views across all platforms in the first 24 hours. you mentioned him a moment ago friend of the show Jeremy Borash was the lead person in charge it was referred to as a Jeremy Borash production he handled all aspects

of the live broadcasts he of course did this once upon a time for T&A and then later for NXT he's kind of been Triple H's right hand manned at times and I guess in more recent year Sean Michaels but he's also for a long time been great close personal friends with Dorian

enrolled on and he feels like the perfect liaison. I couldn't be happier for Corey Graves, getting the opportunity to do commentary on this show and sit next to a friend of the show, Conan. I thought they did a fabulous job. I'm happy for Dorian, who you and I had lunch with a few years ago in Dallas,

thrilled for Jeremy Borash, but maybe most happy for Mr. iguana, a guy who was going to get the rocket strapped to him, all the buzz coming out of the program, was around this character, in this persona the first time I saw it a few years ago in in Mexico City I told Dorian and Conan hey man if that guy was in WWE they would sell so many of those stuffed

iguanas like that guy's going to be a mega star Eric and this was a coming out party for AAA for mr. iguana for Dorian for Jeremy Borash high fives all around for this success don't you think smoked it in so many ways smoked it this is the next evolution of Lucha in the United States, which is liberate in the United States. And I can't help but say it. Somebody gave Lusador's a national television platform back in the 90s, and they have been growing that opportunity ever since.

I'd like to think we had a little bit to do with that. a man to sit back and watch what guys like Ray Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero and so many of the luchadors that I had an opportunity to work with but don't have gone on and new ones have made the scene now that I've never met that that whole Lucha Libre category has expanded so much since the mid-late 90s and it's becoming a cultural phenomenon within a

cultural phenomenon. Yes. That's a badass to watch. That's off to everybody that's ever contributed to that. Especially guys like the aforementioned, Richard Dors. It really, I think, planted the flag for the little bit of experience in the United States. You know, Ray Mysterio, Eddie Groh, examples.

So happy to see it because you love to see growth. And I'd love to see what any neighborhood in America is going to look like on Halloween night. Yes. There's like thousands of little iguanas running through the streets with bags of candy. It sounds like a horror premise to a horror flick. That's like a sequel to Magnolia. But I for one and for it, I'm all about Dorian, all about Jeremy Borash, thrilled for

Mr. iguana. I can't wait to see what's next. Our topic today, though, is a retro topic. So we've covered our news and notes, I guess before I'm moving. move on. Eric, is there anything else that you want to get off your chest about what's going on

in wrestling right now? No, man, I think we covered it. Going all the fun stuff. Before we, jump into Jim Duggan, do you want to mention,

is there any sort of update you can give us on real American freestyle and putting you on the spot right now? Anything you want to share or you got to play it close to the best for now? You know, we're signing new wrestlers, you know, almost three or four times a day. We've got some of the best elite quality pre-fifference.

freestyle wrestlers from around the world, Russia, Japan now, India, which I'm very excited about because we've got our eyes on doing some things over in India. So we're just really building out infrastructure. We've got our production team in place, a name that some people may recognize from the television side of professional wrestling. David Sahadi is working as our showrunner. He'll be working alongside of me to deliver the final product. A lot of People on a crew have spent some time in WWE and a lot of them, more of them from UFC, quite honestly, because the nature of our product, it is a legitimate combat sport. And why we're going to borrow some elements, just like UFC has borrowed elements from the

entertainment side of WWE over the years, quite a few of them actually, we'll also be taking from things that have worked in professional wrestling as far as creating our larger-than-life characters, and imagery and graphics and just the overall presentation of production values. But at the end of the day, once the whistle blows, this is a, this is, people talk about, is it work, is it a shoot? Well, this is a shoot, people. This is the literal definition of shoot wrestling. It could not be any more literal than what you're going to see in real American freestyle.

But some of the interviews that I did over the last week, like Kennedy Blades, for example, just an absolutely amazing young woman. she is going to be a star like we have never seen before you've heard that before right she's she's beautiful she's so poised um incredibly intelligent and she's a card carrying bad ex her favorite thing is belly to back suplexes oh wow and she's really good at her thing she would have a silver medal in olympics in her way through Vision. That's Olympic. She's favored for a gold. She is such a badass, but when you, if you see her on the street, she looks like a runway model, like she's off the cover of boat.

Unbelievable. Austin Gomez, incredible backstory, incredible backstores. He, we're talking about Mexico. He is an American of Hispanic heritage who is competing for an opportunity to be on the Mexican Olympic freestyle wrestling team. So he's going back and forth in training. His story, absolutely phenomenal. Real woods. Real woods. Look this guy up.

Absolutely fascinating. So I spent all week learning these guys' backstories and Kennedys as well and hoping to develop these characters in terms of how we want to present them. But we have literally, we don't have gold to work with. We have platform to work. Very excited about it. and quite honestly pretty blessed to be working with a very high quality group it's going to be fun can't wait to see more real american freestyle stay tuned we're going to have more information

in the coming weeks here on the program but right now we're here to talk about the man of the hour oh jim dougan and one of the more iconic characters in the history of wrestling i do feel like eric when we talk about the real legends of professional wrestling certainly there were legends, you know, in, in the 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s, but when Vince McMahon went national, it does feel like there were a handful of characters that were just so mainstream. I mean, obviously, Hulk Hogan's at the top of the list, but these iconic characters, people remember all these years later, the million dollar man, Ted DiBiase, you know, Hacksaw Jim Duggett, Junkyard Dog,

there's so many classic personas. And I think Haxall, man, he's right in the middle of all that. Is he not? That he sure is. And you know, you think back as you know, why is that? Why do some wrestlers like Hacksaw? Why does he become such an endearing character and people love that character decades after he stepped foot in a ring? Why is that? And I think it's because a lot of the guys you mentioned, obviously, at the time when Vince went national. Yes. That was such an amazing pivot point. I may say the most important one of several that would occur over the following three decades.

But that one in particular was so significant that people that were part of it, even if you were a young kid, it had such an impact on you that it just sticks. It's embedded, it's imprinted, Hatzaw, Jim Duggan, when I was a kid, it was fun. And that subconscious imprint stays with you for life. You know, Hatsaw comes out to Cody, Wyoming once a year in his wife.

I'm not sure if he's going to be here next week or not. Sonny Ono's coming in. Ernest & Kemp Miller's coming in, so we're going to come next week. Jim Duggan and his wife usually come, and this town loves him. They don't want him to leave. it's just fun to watch and it's because I think people that see them they're old enough to remember obviously just represents some of the parts of their childhood in some cases so I think that's the phenomenon I'm going to go with it let's uh let's agree man I mean what an

interesting time in the wrestling world it was you know that mid 80s when he started that pivot. It does feel like, from like 85 to 90, those characters, whether it's the million dollar man or Mr. Perfect or honky talk man or ravishing recruit, the ultimate warrior, hell even Coco beware. I mean, Jimmy Hart and Tito Santana. There's so many iconic characters that they did become, you know, a part of pop culture. So it makes sense when you get your hands on WCW and you're trying to monetize this thing. And I know that you've taken some heat for this in the past, and I think unfairly, and I say this as a guy from the South, but you wanted to disassociate yourself with this being a regional

promotion. And make no mistake, even though they had a national television product through WTBS, Jim Crockett Promotions, aka Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, is a regional promotion. Nothing wrong with that. But the Carolinas and Virginia, and that sort of thing, that's where they were making their money. And of course, now Vince has taken this thing global. WCW needs to do the same. So I think that was an initiative of yours as quickly as you could. Remove any and all regional feel from the program because you want it to feel larger than

life. And that is one of the things that Vince McMahon was able to successfully do. Now, part of that may be because he was in the media capital of the world, New York. not really he was in Connecticut but he pretended like he was from New York and then when we were sort of pushing WrestleMania at WrestleMania 2 after the first one was in Madison Square Garden we went to other large media markets we were in New York we were in Los Angeles we were in Chicago that's one two and three of the media markets here in the United States so for a company

based in Atlanta which was not one of those big three and it is based in the South and you're from Minnesota you had to know hey guys we're going to need some global appeal. Is that one of the reasons you like going to Hulk Hogan's bag of tricks, if you will? Because, I mean, the name of the cartoon, you know, it was Hulk Hogan and Friends. And that's kind of what this was going to be for WCW, too.

If he can bring along some of these iconic characters, like a Jimmy Hart, like a Hacksaw Jim Duggan, certainly along the way, we'll pick up Bobby the Brain Heenan and Mean Gene Okerlund. Did you like, you know, sort of borrowing some of their credibility, as you know global presences in the wrestling space or I'm overthinking that um no but I want to kind of reframe the context a little bit sure my intention or my my my goal was

never to eliminate any and all southern influence on the show I think that's overstating it did I want to balance it yeah because we were far too unbacked In terms of the brand position of our company, the most forward-facing, consistently obvious parts of our show, a very southern vibe to it. Jim Ross, Tony Chivani, going all the way back to the Krakis and some of those announcers. Certainly our big, bigger stars at the time, all came from that territory. And as such, kind of represented that regional, southern style or approach to the presentation because that style was much different.

It was a weekly territory in the South primarily. Well, it was Minnesota, it was a monthly territory. So it had a different type of presentation. Stories moved a little slower, for example. They weren't as angle-intensive as another example. And they did have angles in the South. to be called how angles because they had so many of them in order to you know because of the weekly territory nature your angles tended to try to top the one the week before it and they got

very very colorful not so much in minnesota so there was just presentation differences between north and south it wasn't necessarily personal preference or or a bias one way or the other as much as it was me having the presence of mind to go, okay, we need to grow our audience outside of the audience we already have, we're dominant in the southeast, because the presence had been so prologue established, right? But now I need to go outside of my congregation, so to speak. I need to preach outside of the congregation. How do I do that?

I don't know. Bring in some characters that appeal to that audience because of the exposure they've had in WWE. It's really simple. It's been made out to be, oh, Hogan, what all his friends to work for. Bullshit. I was not influenced at all, but from Hulk Hogan about whether or not to bring in so.

This is zero conversation about it until after the fact, and Hulk was really happy because who doesn't want to hang around Axel Jim Duggan backstage? So there was a lot of that, but So much has been made of it. Now, Jimmy Hart came with Halt. It still is with Halt and it travels everywhere with Halt. So that was just part of the package.

Brutus, yeah, did. I gave down that one. But beyond that, sure, he suggested people and from time to time, some of them I brought in, some of them I didn't. Some I brought in, they didn't stick around long. One reason or another. talkie tough man um so yeah i brought in because i wanted to appeal to the audience outside of the one i already have because you can't grow if you don't that was here's the other reason i brought

in a hat saw or i should say not the reason i brought him in but one of the reasons why i felt so comfortable bringing him in is because his proud reaction was absolutely predictable you could bet your mortgage on it. Yes. Absolutely bet your mortgage that when Hacksaw Jim Duggan came out, I don't care what happened before it. I don't care what happened earlier in the night. I don't care what's going on after the Jim Duggan match.

I know exactly what's going to happen when he walks through the curtain. As a producer, that's kind of value. It comes in handy. It's a nice little tool to have in your toolkit when you need it. that's jim that's that's that's because of the character that jim built created how do you uh do you first meet jim in wcw here in 1994 yeah and he was but i never met him did he i'm not asking this to be funny i'm asking because i don't know did he have an agent is that a thing back then or do you just reach out to him directly how does that all come to be i wouldn't have reached out

directly. He would have, it would have been either through, you know, depending on when he came in, through Dusty, Rick Flair, Kevin Sullivan. Maybe Jimmy Hart, you know, went to Kevin or went to Dusty or went to Rick Flair. I don't know. It got to me and I approved it for the reasons that I just described. It was not even a really much of a decision, a little bit of a negotiation. I think Jim was a little bit disappointed, but no, I didn't deal with his agent. The first time we see him is in a backstage segment. He's at Bash at the beach, and this is obviously a big pay-per-view, a watershed deal for

WCW, the biggest pay-per-view in history at that point, and he's going to do a post-match interview where he's joined by Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Brian Blair, Fruid's Beefcake, and we even saw Brian Pilman and Bill Shaw in the background. And yeah, we see a couple of days later. As a reminder, that show went down July 17th, 1994. So that's really the first time we're seeing him in WCW right there in the backstage area in the locker room, you might say. But a couple of days later, that's when we see Jim have his first match in WCW.

And it was at center stage. He picks up a win over Tex Slazinger, who we know these days as Phineas Godwin. But this is quite a debut here for Jim Duggan to be backstage with Hulk Cogan, the biggest star in the history of wrestling, right after he's won the big gold belt, it was something long time NWA fans never thought they would see. Hulk Hogan with that title, it broke every record. And then a couple of days later, he's at center stage. And I know you didn't necessarily love center stage.

And I know Tony Chivani didn't necessarily love center stage, but that building for a long time was uniquely WCW. So to see Jim Duggan in that environment, that was a double take for wrestling fans. What do you remember about this? It was an exciting time. I, you know, looking back, it's funny, you mentioned center stage, and I was back in Atlanta for MLW right up to the first of the year at center stage. And it was such a cool experience.

And I was walking around early in a day and just thinking about just during my time, WCW, the history and the big moment. moments, really significant moments that in today's world would have been saved for a pay-per-view. You would have charged people $80 to be a part of it. But it took place in this small, it's actually quite nice now. It's been remodeled and updated a lot. But when we were there, it was kind of a small, dingy, dark, barely serviceable because it was so small. But, man, the history that went down there is pretty awesome.

What do I remember of it? Just fun, excitement, anticipation. You know, we're still at that stage. How could I just joined the company, really? He hadn't been there long enough for any of the enthusiasm to even begin to die down. So at that point in time, everything's surrounding Paul, at least at WCW, it was a pretty fun time. Everybody was having fun.

I want to read you something that you mentioned a minute ago, and I know you didn't read the research this week. You like to be surprised. Check out what Dave Meltzer wrote about Jim Duggins debut at center stage. Let me find that here. Oh, this is from the torch. I'm sorry. Wade Keller wrote,

Duggan came out, announced, and received one of the bigger pops ever at center stage. He appeared to be in better shape than when we last saw him on national. television although his match style was the same you said it a minute ago you could bet your freaking mortgage you knew what the reaction would be and wade says his debut here at center stage is one of the louder pops and the history of center stage how about that yeah and it is you know it's interesting and i thought oh when i say this because i'm going to be honest with you i really

really have a lot of respect for jim sometimes when i'm you know doing this show with you i'm just giving you what's on my mind at the time and I don't think through it too much. And sometimes I regret what I say because I know it doesn't come off really the way I wanted it to or tended it to. I go back and I'll listen to myself and go, oh, my God, you could have been a little nicer about that. I could have said that just a little differently and made the same point. But yes, Jim, I with, with, um, I saw Jim Duggan, absolutely the pop was predictable. That's why his contract was such an easy thing to be, at least to negotiate. But that doesn't always translate to storytelling potential.

Sometimes you need that guy or the woman that can come out there and just generate that kind of instantaneous, excitement, enthusiasm, support, go out there, have a fun, entertaining match, keep it a little on the short side so that now we can transition into something more intense. That's a valuable piece of property. That's a valuable talent to be able to bring to the equation. It doesn't automatically translate to main event opportunity that doesn't diminish the value either. So when I talk about why I would make a decision and say something like,

yeah, predictable reaction, that's one thing. And the audience will say, well, why didn't you use him more? why didn't he end up in the main event? Why didn't he get a world title shot? They're not necessarily the same. Just one. The Torchwood report in early August 1994. Hogan's power within WCW coming off the success of the bash is high.

Because of his influence, Honky Talk Man will be joining Hacksaw Jim Duggan as the WCW newcomer. Brutus Beefcake and the Bushwhackers are also possible newcomers. I'm not burying Hogan. I'm a Hogan fan. send me your hate tweets hey hey hey it's conrad but i i do want to ask is that hogan's influence or is that you just knowing hey man how many more of these characters i mean if if that worked so well why not give me a little more well but i think so brutus was without he wasn't quite

forced upon me but there was a lot of pressure there and it wasn't like oh you gotta do this You know, it wasn't that. It was more, I'm telling you, I think this would be good for us. I think we can make this work. I've got some ideas for this guy. Not right now.

I've got some other fires to put out. Let's get back to it. And then the next time it would be, hey, you don't know any more about this. It was more subtle than it was over-the-top pressure, but it was definitely there. No question about.

I know that I shouldn't say I know. I believe there's been talked through the years that some of these guys actually came in on per night deals. Is that the way you remember it? Would hockey talk man and hacksaw? Would they have come in with contracts or were they on nightly deals? I guess we should also explain the difference. A lot of wrestlers in pro wrestling would have a contract for a year,

two years, three years, four years. And they're going to get a check every week or every other week or one. a month, but they're going to get regular checks on a consistent basis. And then other wrestlers are sometimes under the employee of a major organization. And they have a nightly deal or a per appearance deal. Meaning if you don't work, you don't get paid. But if you're booked, here's what your rate is and we'll pay you that. That's the impression I was under that maybe hockey talk man had more of a nightly deal.

Did hacks all start with a nightly deal? Or is that all just way off base as best you? I think, I think hockey talk did. start out with a nightly deal for whatever reason. I couldn't tell you what the reason was other than perhaps I wasn't that enthusiastic to start with. That could be true.

It probably is. But I don't think that was the case with Haxoff. Okay. He may remember it differently. I think, I'm pretty sure I went right to contract and I think he was at a buck 50 a year at the time.

Well, all right. Damn. We're just getting the real numbers. here today. Hey, let's talk about the indie policy. I was able to see where during at least his first run, he was making appearances outside of WCW on independence. Do you think that's because you wanted him to honor his existing deals? Like I've heard that Vince McMahon used to do that with talent. Like if they had already been advertised for XYZ, he would sometimes want them to honor those commitments. Still come on and join the company, but we want, if you're If you gave your word, you need to, you know, do right by those promoters and go up here.

I always appreciated that about Vince McMahon. Is that what you're doing here? Do you think that he already had these booked? Or did WCW allow certain guys to accept independent bookings if they weren't already working for WCW at the time that week? No, I would have let a talent with previous commitments fulfill the obligations. I got sure. Absolutely. I would not, and expressly forbid, forbade, I guess, in the past tense,

Russell's working independence. If they were under contract to me, I was militant about them not working for other companies. And it's so much so that it became an issue that I had with Conan and with the lucidors that I was bringing in for Mexico is, you know, they could work under the table. I wouldn't find out. In probably a lot of cases, they were right. Not a lot of publicity at the same came out of Mexico, especially for independent shows that weren't televised.

And a lot of the luchadors were working these indie shows, which is, you know, I can get it. But when they get hurt, they still want me to pay them. But's one thing if you get hurt in my ring, get it. That's fair is fair. But if I'm paying you on a contract, and you're supposed to be exclusive to me, but you're moonlighting on the weekends with your buddy who's a promoter

and you get hurt, now we're in a fist fight legally. And that's why I was so adamant against it. Well, I know something else you're adamant about. Is anything worth doing is worth doing well? That's why Eric has a tag team partner known as Blue Chew Max. It's going to knock your socks off. It combines the active ingredients of Viagra and the Cialis and to one chewable.

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Just pay the $5 shipping. That's promo code 83 weeks. Visit Blu.com for more details and important safety information. and we thank Blue Choo for sponsoring today's podcast. Eric, we got to talk about Paul Brawl 1994 because something pretty crazy happens. I'm kind of shocked that it happened, if I'm honest with you. I don't know why I am, but I am.

Ricky Steamboat's going to come out in what would have been the third match on the card and announce that he's unable to wrestle due to a back injury. and Nick Bokwinkle, who's the on-air commissioner for WCW at the time, he's going to award the United States title to Steve Austin, and they're going to trade words, I guess, to maybe set up a possible steamboat return. But then Bok Winkle tells Austin he has to defend the title that night. And all of a sudden, Jim Duggan comes out, Austin wants to leave,

Bock Winkle's going to push him, Dougan back drops Austin splashes him and 35 seconds later wins the title so you've got what's about to be the biggest star in the business and nobody knew that at the time but he is a talent that the internet wrestling fans I guess this 94 the hardcore smart marks man they absolutely loved what Brian Pilman and Steve Austin and guys like this were doing but Duggan was the more established star. He had more name at the time, if you will.

He was a bigger star. That's just all there is to it. But when he beats him in 35 seconds and knowing that some of these smart marks don't necessarily like Jim Duggan's style of wrestling or style of matches, this gets hit with a lot of criticism in the reader pages of the observer and the torch. How do you remember this creative? coming to be I know Steamboat had to be disappointed that he wasn't able to wrestle because I can only imagine he and Austin having a great match I can't imagine that

Austin was thrilled with this creative what do you remember about all that night what year was that 1994 I'm sorry 1995 I'm wrong September of 94 September 94 would probably still be that dusty or Rick I can't remember I think it might have been dusty point being i wasn't involved in creative so i couldn't tell you you know actions conversations what i hear because i wasn't involved in the process um hearing you lay that out and looking at that footage i'm thinking of myself yeah i'd like to do that one over again you would here's the deal in that moment in time yes facts as you laid them out were absolutely true.

I'll go even further and say, yeah, the hardcore, the dirt sheet smart marks because there was no internet at the time. That's right. There was no other platform. It was all people that read the dirt sheets, whether it was Kellers or dipshits or somebody else's. So that's all there was.

And that represented, I don't know, a tenth of one percent of the television audience at the time. That's fair. So, how did I react to their bullshit on a visceral level it pisses me off the same way it does today when I see people print stupid shit put it out there as fact and have an adverse impact on the product as a result I just think that's bad it starts out bad and it only gets worse

as it travels you put out stupid stuff well hang on what's stupid about saying they didn't like it. I mean, they're asking me my reaction to the dirt sheets and the people that came out and said they did like it. My point is, no, no, no, no. I wasn't asking any of that. I'm asking, was Austin upset? Do you remember there being, like, take me backstage that night, like was there a discussion? Was there any, was there an advocate? Hey, I don't think we should do this. I think we should. Was there any of that or was it just another day at the office? No, there probably was that. But my point is it wouldn't have taken place with me. I would not have been involved in those discussions.

That wasn't my role. I had zero confidence in my abilities in creative. I certainly didn't want to get in the middle of trying to manage and massage talents issues because that's a full-time job that only a drink should have professionally trained. I didn't want anywhere near that. So I avoided intentionally getting sucked into those conversations as best I could. So it didn't become something that, landed on on your lap but there was a problem and i might well have been sitting in the truck

at the time all this was going on right i did have other things that i was focused on that did take up all my time i just chose to focus on the things that i thought i could make a contribution to and avoid the things that i didn't think i could and put people in charge they could let me ask you this i know that i shouldn't say i know we've heard that if there were talent in WWE that maybe had a problem with something in creative and they just didn't like it, they weren't a fan of it, that sometimes they would communicate that to the agent

and the agent might suggest, well, you've got to go talk to events. And so we've heard that there would oftentimes be a line outside of this office waiting to talk to him. So I think it's natural that wrestling fans assume that, hey, Eric may have had similar situations. You're saying at least in this stamp, in this year, in this time period, that did not happen.

So my question is, whose office were they lining up in front of? Well, that have been something they take to Dusty or Rick and they make a decision and they know that who, whether it's Dusty or Rick or whoever, they know you have their back? Yes. Okay. Yes.

It would have, now look, here's the other thing that went on in WCW. And another reason why, this is a really good point. Am I going to mention any names this time? Because no reason to. But there was a common. There was a common pattern in WCW that I observed when I was a talent, when I was just a potted plant, not a threat to anybody. Friends with very few, not enemies with anybody, but just a potted plant.

So you would see, you would hear a lot of things that gave you a pretty good idea of how certain aspects of the business operated, right? Well, one of the things I learned early on is if you're a talent, keep in mind, I'm dressing over here in a corner and there's two guys sitting over here on a bench getting dressed talking in front of me because it's just a seat string announcer, what does he care? So I'm hearing these conversations and there's a pattern that existed amongst talent that if you didn't like creative, you didn't want to go to the,

Booker, I'm going to use Dusty in this case. You might not want to go to Dusty because he's going to see through your bullshit. A guy like Dusty will know when you're just trying to serve yourself or whether you've got a better idea for a story. You don't want to go there because you know what the answer is going to be. So you go to somebody that works with Dusty and creative and you know that person has Dusty's ear. And you'll plead your case there. Well, if you don't get any traction there, you'll go down the line and you'll talk to this person.

And you're going to keep talking to people within that sphere until you find a supporter. Yeah. And then as an example, you find someone that says, yeah, Eric, I know that's what you want. I know what Dusty wants to do, Eric, but I agree with you. Yours is probably a better idea. That's what I would do, but I'm not calling that shot. You're probably right. Now it's going to run off, go do what they want to do, and when they get bussed, no, he told me I could.

It's this thing. It's beating the heat, right? And the more people you get involved in those conversations, because it's not always like, no, I don't want to support your idea, go find somebody else. It's not that easy. It's networking. You keep networking until you get the support or the answer you want and then you go do it anyway and you've got a you've got a safety net as all these other people were involved in the discussion you thought it was okay because you thought they were talking to dusty that kind of bullshit went on so much in wCW that when I finally became in charge I wanted nothing to do with that process I didn't want anybody to ever ever go, yeah, but Eric said, so when I say to you, I kept myself out of that process,

one, because I didn't really think I had much to contribute. That's a fact. But more importantly, I didn't want to get sucked into the nonsense of what goes on behind the scenes. I just want to stab some people understand, well, why were you in charge and you didn't even get involved? I was involved. I just picked my battles.

Eric, do you, I know you have some piss and vinegar in you today, and I love that. But I do want to ask, do you, are you even aware that this title change with Steve Austin and Jim Duggan was a major moment for wrestling fans to lose confidence in WCW? Are even aware of that? I don't know that I would agree with it now. Well, I don't care if you agree with it. I'm just letting you know that it exists. You can deny that it exists. I know it does.

You were the guy making the decisions for WCW. Who are we to argue with you? But I'm just saying a lot of people felt like Steve Austin, hear me out on this, was a homegrown WCW talent. And he's had this phenomenal feud with Ricky Steamboat, who's a former world champion here in this organization. And they're knee deep in this storyline. And it feels like Austin as the United States champion, he's really like about to break through to that top guy status.

Like once upon a time, if you read the old, and I know this is all silliness, but this is wrestling fandom. If you read the after mag, at the back, they had the rankings of every organization. And as silly as that is, a lot of kids grew up with the world champion. And number one, the number one contender is the U.S. champion. so to a lot of wrestling fans that felt like hey man here's Steve Austin this homegrown star who's built his way up TV titles tag titles now the U.S. title he's on his way to the main event he's on his way to being the top guy and he can wrestle his ass off he's a great character and he feels homegrown WCW and we know he actually started in world class and

worked some other independence and that sort of thing but still he feels like a homegrown WCW talent and now absolutely no disrespect to Jim Duggan but here's a star who was established 10 years prior but he was an established you know guy in WWE and respectfully never held the title in WWE he wasn't the intercontinental champion he wasn't the world champion he was there and he was a big part of the program and a big star but when it came to these silly things called championships he wasn't necessarily the top guy So when, when an older guy from a top organization comes in and beats this homegrown star very quickly, it turns a lot of hardcore WCW fans off.

I get why you did it because Duggan is a much bigger star. We've said that many, many times here. But I think people would feel this way again years later when, say, an AJ Styles, who felt like a homegrown T&A talent, we want him to be the top guy. And now we're going to favor a bigger star. Now, I'm not saying that one way is right or wrong. Those were your decisions to make nine hours, but I am just bringing it to your attention that a lot of wrestling fans who grew up as hardcore WCW fans,

they see this as, oh, this is no longer our WCW. This is WWF light. I did. So I think you started the question off by saying, where are you aware or did you even care? No, actually I didn't.

I wasn't aware that that one-tenth and one percent of my audience is so passionate about Steve at the time and felt the way you were saying they felt, which I totally accept, not questioning that. Was I aware of that? No, because I didn't really pay attention to what one-tenth of one-percent of my audience said or what they felt. Whether they loved it or whether they hated it was freaking irrelevant to me in terms of what the decision was going to be. Let's go back and break this down a little bit more.

And I'm not, you know, do I wish I had this back? Of course. Come on. I'm not going to lie to anybody. Of course. It would be fun to be able to go back and do that again, especially with 2020. I'd say, wow, really, it would be a lot more fun. But in that moment, in that time in 1994, prior to Hogan coming in,

Where was WCW in terms of its position to WWE? It was a distant number two. Yes. And I've said this a million times before I ever never heard what a podcast was. We were the number two wrestling company in the world. We might as well have been number 222 because the distance between number one and number two was so fast. It was a laughable comment to say, we're number two. We were flat.

There was no way to build. the audience. We had tried a lot of different things. I came in to try to change status quo. Now, where was Steve Austin in 92, in 93, in 94? All of this, all of his growth was taking place. Yes, he was at the top of the card. Where was WCW at that same time? Number 222. So status quo and building on a shaky foundation wasn't on my list of things to do. That wasn't this strategy that I thought would pay off. I thought bringing in bigger talent, more recognized talent from outside the fishbowl of the TBS footprint in television at that time, which was predominantly southeast. You know, it was available across the U.S. doesn't freaking matter.

The weather channel is probably in more homes in the United States. said any other network or cable outlet you're going to put a prime time show on the weather channel and expect it to do well no so tbs our prime show was in the toilet even though steve austin was making forward progress in his career he was getting better and better his promos were getting better he was on his way to start him i'll agree with everything that you said what was the net effect zero actually 10 million times less than zero that that doesn't work either the company was losing a fortune 24 million dollars in revenue net loss of 10 million dollars that's where we were but i had to make a decision do i continue doing or build on what i've got or do i bring somebody in

to try to raise the tide so everybody's boat floats a little hot i signed off on that now let's go to this match in particular you described it i can't remember the details steve austin we vacated a title nick bachwickle comes out he makes the announcement yay steve gets a title but you've got to infend it right now what i think you're time to prepare for this this isn't fair I didn't sign a contract. Shmah, smas, smas, Maas, Maas, Maas. Austin's distracted. He's flipping out.

Axel takes advantage of a thing, bang, bam, boom. He sneaks up behind him, he hits him with a finish. We get to win. Did he really beat Steve Austin? No. No. He didn't fucking beat Steve Austin. It was an angle.

It got Hatsaw over because of the way it was laid out and absolutely did zero. damage to Steve Austin, except in the minds of some nose-picking dirt sheet, people-face kid, the kids all upset about things that don't happen the way he or she thinks they should, that one-tenth of one percent of the audience. So when I say, did I care? No. Is there a reason why I didn't care? Yeah, I've just explained it. It didn't freaking matter. that finished that everybody got so bent out of shape over who and so WCW we're never going to have confidence or an ability to make good decisions well thank god you're nowhere near a decision I would I would just I would I can easily

not justify I can easily with a little bit of and at least there was logic to it you may not have liked it if you were downstairs in a basement pop and sits watching wrestling but it made sense on paper in that moment in that time given the broader context of where wcw was there you have it boys and girls eric bischelf uh let's talk a little bit about what's next for um well i guess we should mention as if that wasn't a bad enough week for Steve Austin. I don't even know that you knew this. But according to the observer, this is funny.

Natalie did Austin have to put Duggan over in 30 seconds, but his house flooded the day before. Pretty shitty weekend for Mr. Steve Austin. Do you win the time? The same day you got it in your fucking house floods. God damn. I'd start drinking. I would just, it's

not funny, but it would be funny. If you could just find a replay of that, like if there was that little gimmick that and you know records everything in your house that we have alexa if you could find it alexa that has steve austin from 1994 on it and just listen to the listen to the verbiage that was going on it was steve austin household at that time it's interesting because i think this is the era where rick flare still booking and obviously austin was a was a flare guy but as you said and maybe this is one of those things we need to keep in mind i mean when we first started our conversation

about Jim Duggan today. You said something along the lines of you could bet your mortgage on the response he would get. So I just want to remind everybody out there, Bruce Pritchard has said pretty loud and proud that, you know, if for some reason you can't deliver what was advertised, the replacement has to be better than. And how could you be better than Ricky the Dragon Steamboat? I don't think you can be. So maybe we need to be different than. How do we ensure people who might be disappointed that they didn't get to see Ricky Steamboat and Steve Austin have a match for the U.S. title, how do we instead find a way to make those people cheer and be happy about what they're seeing that even if it's not exactly what was advertised? And I think the

answer is, if we bring Jim Duggan out, man, the crowd's going to give us a thunderous of, he's going to get a pop coming out. So if we're concerned about not being able to deliver what was advertised, sending them home happy, knowing, hey, well, they're always going to cheer this guy and he's here and he's not a book, let's use it. That's the answer, right? Especially if you're doing it in a way that doesn't hurt your heel. Yes. It absolutely did. Nobody looked at that and said, I don't think Steve Austin's got it. I thought he did, but he'll never make it. The fun people, just it's, it's fascinating. I'll just let go with it.

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Absolutely love that wallet. Can't recommend it highly. It's actually changed my life when I travel. Okay. It's so much more comfortable. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I didn't really. I realize how cocked I would sit on a plane when I had that fat ass wallet on my right hip. I got to get off the plane.

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I don't know but it goes to a DQ Dougan gets the win because that damn dirty cheater Steve Austin has knocked out Jim Duggan with a foreign object, maybe it was an international object now that I think about it. But it feels like he's won the title, but the ref is going to see the gimmick on the mat and reverse the decision. It gets half a star. So yeah, I mean, Bash at the Beach, obviously a huge pay-per-view, fall brawl, a huge pay-per-view. And now here we are at Halloween Havoc. Little do we know it's going to be Rick Claire's retirement match. Wink, wink, um, Dougan and Austin, 16 minutes and 21 seconds.

It was snug if nothing else, wasn't it? I would imagine everything with Jim's a cluster. Yes. You know, now he's older like we all are now. So those tough guy days are way in the rear view here. But in his dayday, in particular, early in his career, and even at this point in time, that sounds one of those guys, he's got a fist the size of a small Sampsonite suitcase. And if he wants to lay him.

in, he's going to lay him in. He's a strong, powerful guy. Steve's a tough dude. He can, he can take it, he can give it, and he can have fun doing it. So I would imagine that would have been real fun to be in the ring with Ellen. I do want to mention around this time, your great close personal friend, Dave Meltzer, went to a house show in Oakland. It's a WCW house show. And he was reporting that by large the fans that were there were WWF fans nasty boys were getting a big reaction

hockey talk man was getting a big reaction and even Jim Duggan received a huge reaction and it's even written here this was exemplified by the fact that Duggan got far more of a reaction and sustained heat than Sting now Sting of course is the number one well established franchise of WCW however when you're running

house shows on the West Coast. They're more excited about Doug and than Sting. Crazy like a Fox you might be, Mr. Bischoff. Yeah. See? That's how it works.

That's how this business worked then, and that's how it works now. Nothing's changed. The way you do it has changed, but the idea is still the same. If you want to grow your audience,

If you don't, it's a different story. The Observer would report in October. Sherry managed Steve Austin at the Disney tapings, and Austin was picking up more of the flare mannerisms. Word we got is that Austin originally, when doing the job for Doug in at Paul Brawl, was promised the belt back at the last pay-per-view. But guess who overruled the committee?

Now he's being told they're grooming him as the next flare with Sherry to copy his mannerisms, leading to work against a fake. flare next year now before we talk about all the flare stuff the observers printing this sort of matter of fact word we got is that when Austin originally did the job at Paul Brawl he was promised the belt back at the next paper view now we just laid that out Halloween Havoc was actually a DQ and technically Duggan retains even though it did look like Austin was going to be the winner referee overturned it

but when it's said it's written like this guess you overruled the committee. The implication is that it's Hulk Cogan. I wasn't there. I don't know. But I find it hard to believe that Hulk Cogan gave a shit about who the U.S. champion was.

Absolutely did not. That was, no, that is an example of why I feel the way I feel about Dave Meltzer. Okay. I just made it up. No.

Did somebody tell him that? somebody who spoke to him on a regular basis that wanted to fade the heat right tell Dave that I believe that sure because I know for a fact the Dave Meltzer wouldn't bother to find out the truth you just go with it he'd take his cookie put his head down so whoever it was had on my head say hey you're a good guy like you you're my friend I'll go right what I just told you that's the transaction Let's talk about Steve Austin being managed by, by Sherry here, supposedly getting ready for a flare feud. Would you have liked to have seen Sherry on screen with Austin?

That could have been fun. Oh, hell, yeah. As you were describing that just now, because I didn't remember it, two of the most entertaining personalities, a wrestling show at that time, potentially. Those two together, first of all, Steve. And I didn't know it then, obviously. And again, I wasn't booking that. I wasn't involved in creative then.

I'm really looking at this. Okay, more on a business side, as we just discussed with Haxon and the response in California. Yeah, so I was making moves that were more tactical and strategic, I should say, in a longer run, trying to grow the audience. But when it came to creative, I really was on the outside looking in and more as a fan than anything else. and just the idea because Sherry was so entertaining and even then I knew Steve had the potential

I mean I loved working with Steve back then I worked with Steve a lot on pre tapes and things like that so I I was very familiar with Steve as a performer with him that was nothing but great potential kind of like Robert Parker

you just know you don't have to be really that good in the business to figure out who's entertaining and who's not there's a taping going at center stage and that's where austin does an interview on october 25th he says he's got a surprise for jim duggin at the clash and i think we all assume based on the disney tapings that the surprise is going to be sherry is his manager now if you're wondering hey why don't i remember that because it never aired on tv it didn't happen sherry wound up being introduced as the manager for the Harlem Heat.

And that wasn't the plan at the time. Harlem Heat had done some stuff with Johnny Attitude doing a poly dangerously knockoff gimmick. But ultimately what we see on camera is Sherry with Heat. But in an alternate universe, Sherry with Austin, that could have been fun. Sherry was really good with Harlem Heat. oh yeah that was definitely a great combination she brought a lot of added value to the equation

no question i think it would have been at least equal to if not potentially more than with steve austin just because of the nature of their personalities and the chemistry that sounds like a Rick Flair thing to me the original no hey we're going to put you Steve we're going to put you with Sherry that sounds very and builds you for an angle with me that sounds very Rick Flair and I like it

it could have been awesome that it happened but yeah he was good I think her with us it would have been great let's talk a little bit about Clash to the champion we're going to see Dougan and Steve Austin here go 58 seconds and this is another short match but this time it's because Austin actually blew his knee out on a Sarasota show he's here

limping pretty badly and it's written for numerous reasons there were many skeptics about the injury Vader immediately charged the ring for a DQ and Dougan grabbed the two by four and made his own save a really lame angle did I listen I wasn't there I don't know what happened do you remember there being speculation that Austin may not have been injured but he might not have just been thrilled with the idea of working with Doug and again or is this all news to you today news to me I would I would see was not the kind of guy to see would come up to you said no I'm not fucking doing it right she'll do that but he's

not going to fake an injury that's a chicken shit move and Steve Austin was not a chicken shit well said roll tight on that of course i am going to ask you about vader because vader is going to be the guy ultimately to take the u.s title off of dugging do you remember is there any chance you remember was the was the plan always to wind up with vader or does the steamboat injury throw a monkey wrench into everything i can only speculate i would imagine did it through a big monkey wrench into things but you know, make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

And going with Vader would have been a great, a great alternative. I mean, whatever the original plan was, this plan was a good plan. Vader was the guy and everybody knew it. I want to read you some quotes here from the torch and the observer. Uh,

whether it's fair or not, I want to get your response. Wade wrote, Duggins Bush has built resentment, a gun, let me start over early morning. Duggan's push has built resentment against him among other WCW wrestlers who feel he is totally underqualified for his recent push and is displacing them from the spotlight. A few weeks later, Dave would write, there's tremendous heat among many, if not most of the old

crew, obviously on the push given to the new guys, Jim Duggan in particular. Now, this is what we're reading in the observer. Were you hearing any of this in real life at this point? Nope. Not one bit. And here's the more important part. I was backstage. Yes.

Granted, I was the boss, so, or one of them. So people are going to, you know, be a little more careful about what they do and say than they were when I was the pot of plant. But you can sense the vibe. You can see the interaction. You don't even have to be a part of a conversation. You can be 50 feet of a word. and see the reaction and the chemistry between people. There's heat, you know it.

It's bullshit. There was probably one or two people that brought cookies to Dave and pet him on the head. They were trying to create your own headlines to stir up the shit, as they say backstage, so that perhaps they could create an opportunity for themselves. So, sure, create chaos. That's the best way to do it, right? people seen that wrestling was wrestling locker rooms were famous for it but they didn't see it because i don't think it existed in a small number of people that like to you know

give out cookies it's interesting because we're talking about what a big pop that he gets on the live events and at the house shows he's even get a bigger and better reactions than sting but by December of 94, WCW Saturday Night is having some trouble with the ratings. Here's what the torch wrote. WCW is coming off their lowest rated edition of WCW Saturday Night in its history since debuting on the local Georgia station in 1975 all the way through the growth of the Super Station TBS. Never has WCW Saturday night dipped to a 1.8 as low as it did on November 27th.

The headline match of Hacksaw Duggan versus Steve Austin wasn't in a space, especially weak main event, but perhaps the rating confirms the public's interest in Duggan is long since over, or maybe the inconsistency of the Saturday ratings says something much more. Now, of course, it's never good or realistic or even fair to take a look at a single shows rating and isolation, but when you do have a historically bad rating, like the worst in the history of TBS, do you take a look at that card and wonder what's going on here or do you just say it's an anomaly it's around the holidays whatever let's move on

checking something real quick so i can answer that with precision i'm not being rude or dismissive sure it's thanksgiving weekend yeah but it certainly makes good copy well hang on now just i mean i appreciate you saying that which is why i said it was the holiday season but historically this same company had their biggest night of the year on Thanksgiving night. I know that that was a few years prior to this. I'm not arguing that. But I am just saying Starcade and even not just WCW and the NWA,

but historically Thanksgiving night was a major wrestling ticket night for every territory. So I don't know necessarily that that is a bad thing, but I guess I was trying to drive at, did you view this as a cause for concern? And your response tells me, not really. No. Got it. Nope.

The observer, was I, you know, when I wanted to be higher, of course, but was I concerned? Those are two different things. And the hyperbolic, you know, coverage of it grows, what was writing in history or whatever, and all just, you know, headlines attract attention. That's what they're designed to do. They're designed to stop you thinking about what you're thinking and think about what you're reading or react to what you're reading. That's why they exist.

It's why there are people who, specialize in nothing but lives, which may or may not really any direct connection to the story that you're really reporting. The headlines get your attention and cause you to engage. That's what

this is on a very low level. I do want to ask you about something that's written in the observer here. This comes out or after Starcate. So that's obviously the biggest show of the year. I know you said it was Halloween Havoc. For fans, I think they perceived it to be Starcade, at least in 94.

But it's written here, honky talk man and Jim Duggan are on a thousand dollar per match deal rather than a guaranteed yearly salary. And we're told coming in that nobody was going to get guaranteed big money deals as in the past and felt misled because then Randy Savage got such a deal. So I know we've spent a lot of time talking about the Slim Jim sponsorship and we've covered all that in the archives. So we don't have to debate the facts of what really did happen are really more interested in do you remember hearing heartburn or belly aching from honky tongue man or jim dougan about randy savage coming in

no okay jim would have never done it and i don't think hockey would have either um i mean i don't know honky well it never got to know i'm well enough nor wanted to um but i do know jim well enough jim would jim would never do that That's not who he is. Were there, again, were there some people that were but hurt? Sure. It's natural. Yeah, it's human nature.

Yes. These guys are coming in. They're getting a bigger pop. They're getting a bigger push and they're making more money than me. Yeah. It's true. That's how this shit works. People, the entertainment business.

but I don't remember it. I'm still not signing off that I was only paying Jim $1,000 a night. It must have been temporary because I do remember getting him his contract. I think I've maybe even more than one. So he may have started on Unnightly. I just don't remember. I just don't think so. I mean, hang on now.

You're not suggesting that perhaps Dave got something wrong here, are you? He may have. He may not have. I'm just being honest. unlike Dave Meltzer. I'm being very honest and admitting. I don't know. I don't remember a little detail. That was busting balls. Hey, so let's let's talk about Starcade. Vader's going to win the U.S. title from Jim Duggan. It takes 12 minutes and six seconds. Dave is clearly not a Jim Duggan fan. He gave it a star in half, said that Duggan looked terrible, blah, blah, blah.

The torch, though, gave the match three and a quarter stars. He really liked it and said it was the best match of the show and therefore the surprise of the show. I really do think this is important to note because we historically have covered more of Dave Melters reporting than Wade Killers. And I'm a fan of Dave's. I consider him a friend, really value the work he's done. I know you feel completely differently than I do.

But I do think every now and again, his bias and his taste comes into play. And again, he said right up front, hey, my star ratings are just my opinion. But when Dave goes star and a half and says things like Duggan's offense looks terrible. But then Wade goes, best match of the show, therefore surprise of the show, three and a quarter stars. I mean, I know we all have our biases, but that's what this is, right? He just didn't like Duggan.

He's seen it in everything he does, right? If one is honest about it, Dave's entire view of the world is biased. he lives in his own head his world is not like everybody else's world and his comments are all from they're all him they're not based in fact they're not objective he doesn't research he doesn't get both sides of a story he just views whatever he believes is important whether it's true or not i want to give everybody a heads up that Jim Duggan tore his hamstring in 1987. And if you watch his matches prior to that tear,

the dude is a fucking machine. He's a beast. And we saw a little bit of that guy in this Vader match. So I'm going to recommend if you're going to watch one match to celebrate the good times of Jim Duggan and WCW, go out of your way to watch StarK94, him and Vader. When you think about Jim Duggan outside of WWF, I always think of him in mid-south as one of Bill Watts top guys,

just a tough, rugged, kick-ass, badass, brawling monster. And that's who came to WrestleMania that day. And so I know that there was a cartoon presentation, oh, tough guy and two-by-fours and American flags. And that was the Vince McMahon thing that made him all famous. But what Jim Duggan was really capable of doing bell to bell, even with a little bit of age on him and some bumps, along the road. I mean, he's beat up pretty good here after working all that time with a crazy

WWF schedule where they were sometimes wrestling 250, 300 times a year. And for him to go out there with a big bully like Vader and have a match like this, that's a testament to who Jim Duggan was the whole time. He just did what was necessary, right? He did and he did it well. He was honorable, shot straight all the time. And he was tough. I guarantee them, careful what I say, I would be shocked if Vader going into that match, if he wasn't thinking to himself, I better respect this individual. Because Jim could bring it. And Vader knew that.

I mean, Vader was a big, tough, powerful, not taking anything away from Leon White at all. Right. I just think game recognizes game, and Vader knew that Jim was the real deal. So there was a lot of mutual respect going on in that match. I don't recall it. I'm going to go back and watch it because now I'm curious to see if I'm right. And you can tell by watching the match where their heads are at. But I'm just going to take a wild-ass guest and say Vader came to that match with a lot of respect for Jim.

The last match that they worked together, Jim Duggan and Vader, it happened on March 12, 1995 at the Denver Coliseum. It was a house show, and I hate that there's no footage. of it, or at least I've never seen it. I can't imagine WCW filmed it and it's somewhere in the archives. But if WWVault posted, I'd love to see it. Because Dave Meltzer does a bit of an about face here. And he says, Jim Duggan had what I'm told is his best match since joining the group working

with Vader in Denver. That's near Vader's home in Boulder on March 12th. Vader got most of the cheers and seemed to be the one who drew the crowd of 3,400 going wild, making it a great match. the crowd was about a thousand people more there than the WWF through the previous Sunday in Denver I just think it's interesting that Dave Meltzer who clearly has not been a fan

of Vader, of Dougan, goes out of his way to praise his match here with Vader and it's a house show. So further evidence, folks, go watch the footage that does exist of Vader and Duggan from Starcade 1994. And by the way, while you're out there, let me recommend if you're a small business owner, you check out my guys at Conrad's Guy.com. If you're really trying to grow some business, yes, you can bring in the

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business? You can't. You need to phone a friend. Call my guy, conrad's guy.com and I'm talking to you if you're B2B or retail or food and beverage or manufacturing, non-profits. Dude, if he can help me with mortgages he can help you to go right now to conrad's guy dot com let my buddy eric and his team take a look and if they think you're on the right track they'll tell you that but it's worth a few minutes it'll take just to know you've got the peace of mind and your money is being spent as well as it can be go to conrad's guy dot com check out envision marketing consultants we're smart but simple marketing drives results so let's talk about uh the next match you know that's that's next for dug and i guess before we we do that we should mention there was a fun

angle where he's going to be in the ring with Ming and when you think about the former haku and hacksaw Jim Duggan being in the confines of a WCW ring with a two by four you're probably thinking what I'm thinking they're going to hit Ming with the two by four and they do and supposedly it's an awesome angle but it never airs on TV because I guess the Turner Brass thought there was a concern over violence this is also the same organization that once told you guys something like hey we can't can't call it a foreign object. That's discriminatory. I need to call it an international object, which was fucking stupid. But either way, two by four violence, do you remember that

being an issue with Turner in 1995? I do not. I do not remember. It doesn't seem plausible to me. I'm saying it absolutely didn't happen because I honestly would have to really, really think hard and go back spend some time on it but turner wasn't making those kinds of calls in 1995 in that international thing that was a company-wide mandate by the way that's in a wcw thing if you work for turner broadcasting turner sports turner classic movies whatever any division of turner if you're if you walked into the cnn center and you had a Turner ID on, you use the word foreign, you would be chastised by your supervisor. My God.

It was just Ted. So it wasn't a WCW thing. And as far as violence, did I get, you know, from time to time pressure on me about blood? Yeah, we covered that. Yes. Sometimes it would be a lot of pressure and sometimes it would be wink, wink, depending on what was going on. Right.

But never, never when it came to, you know, using props in a map, not at that time. I want to mention, as silly as this sounds, the WWF had just dealt with this where they had Jerry Lawler hit Duke Drosay over the head with a metal garbage can on Raw. And Jerry Lawler had to apologize in character because there was this pressure about violence on television. And we're just, it feels like days away, or maybe. this is knee deep in the Jerry Springer era. So it's just it's interesting that we can't have violence on a wrestling show.

Isn't that what it's supposed to be? Either way. Let's talk about uncensored 95 and nobody got fired after this one. Ming is going to be wrestling Jim Duggan and I know this had to be number one on your list of ideas for Jim Duggan, a martial arts match. A martial arts match. Were you coaching up Jim Duggan on how to throw those kicks and get your timing right? I can see you really going through the paces.

I can imagine in my mind's eye, you were like the fucking Mr. Miyagi with Jim Duggan. And he got him out there on the beach and you're teaching him your crane technique. And he's catching the fucking flies with the, that. And when I told him the whole wax on wax off thing,

he took the wax off thing way out of context, almost got arrested. It was a beach in Daytona. I said, no, no, your car, your car. wanted to over deliver for you boss

they want to over deliver they go seven minutes and four seconds and here's what the observer said Eric Bischoff's best friend confidant and sometimes interpreter Sonny Ono served as referee doing a heel Japanese gimmick they tried to set it up like it was a karate style match except I've never heard of pinfalls in karate

this is one of the worst matches of all time tons of stalling early mainly used nerve holds when Duggan wasn't making comebacks with some of the most pitiful-looking offense of all time. Duggan looked much worse than usual, which I didn't even think was possible. The finish saw Duggan use the spear on Ming, who popped back up since they're trying to push him as a monster.

Duggan then began pounding on Colonel Robert Parker as the referee grabbed Duggan's arm from punching, leaving him outstretched. Ming delivered a thrust kick for the pin. Negative two stars. We've had a lot of fun talking about uncensored. I mean, just when you see ming versus jim dug in with sonny ono in a martial arts match it does

make me want to go watch it because it feels like something someone booked on acid i mean is is this when kevin sullivan maybe had the cosmic cookie or what are we doing you know every once in a while i'll be flipping through the channels at a weekend if there's nothing on i want to watch some sports or anything interesting i'll stumble across like these old westerns from the 40s and the 50s, and they're so bad, they're actually entertaining. They're so ridiculous that they actually hold my attention, and I'll sit and watch two or three of them back to back. It's crazy.

That's what this match is. It's exactly what this is a comedy spot without intentionally being created as a comedy spot. And by the way, I'm for it. Every now and again, you got to have something fun and different. And uncensored was that. I think people maybe took it too seriously at times, but let's remember this is the same show where we got two guys

wrestling on the back of a fucking flatbed truck. It's supposed to be entertaining. Brandy. Yes, there you go. As a reminder, I think this is fun. You and I've never talked about this, but this is worth pointing out.

Sonny Ono is your low key MVP here. And I know that Eric Bischoff is being critical. criticized here when when Dave writes Eric Bischoff's best friend confidant and sometimes interpreter I mean when he starts with best friend it feels like oh this is the buddy gig but she used sunny in a lot of different ways like during the same calendar year over the course of eight months sunny ono appears as four different characters he's the karate champion here as as mr. oh no the following month he's going to be attending Rick Flair's re-

statement when it's put in front of the WCW board of the directors, and there his first name is Kinsuki, and his last name is like Ishikawa or something like that, but he's the Japanese representative who's supposed to be there. And then in August, he's doing the collision in Korea pay-per-view, and there he's going to be a heel wrestling expert, again, using a totally different name, and then finally, he shows up as a representative of the new Japan pro wrestling character or organization. in November. So you've used him in a variety of ways.

I mean, this guy's got more alias. This is like a sitcom. We should do a sunny, oh, no show. That dude's got to be one of the most low-key, interesting dudes in the history of wrestling that nobody talks about. Yeah,

that would be fun. Can you imagine? Yeah, but that's the people that are, he's best friend. Okay, he's one of my best friend. I'm not, I don't know where that came from. I've never had one.

So I don't know. That would be interesting. And he was capable. He was a great character. It took a while to find, you know, what worked best for him, but he was a great manager. But as a martial artist, I mean, he was like, the number two rated professional in the professional karate association. This is before UFC back in about 77 or 78.

That's when I met him, 76. He was a legitimate man. He was a BAM weight, so, you know, only go so far. Sorry, said, it's true. You know, it's true. But he was legit. It just took a while for him to find his character. It's kind of like Steve Austin.

You know, he didn't come out of the shoot, Stone Cold. It took him a while to find it. Took us a while to find Sonny's character. And he was fun to work with. And, you know, with New Japan, that would, really the reason I had them there was really to help me manage the relationship with New Japan the rest of this stuff was just fun and some of it worked I do want to mention that there's a report in the newsletters that says and this is according to

Wade Keller Duggan was upset over having to do the job for me he resents that Flair never returned his phone calls when he was looking for work but as soon as Hulk Hogan arrived Duggan was hired immediately do you think there were some hurt feelings between Rick Flair and Jim Duggan? Because this is a weird spot for people to be in. Like, I'm sure you've had this happen a lot. I mean, people reach out looking for work. And if you're not in a position to give them work, what are you supposed to say? So if you don't call them back and you don't call and say, hey, sorry, I'm no help. And they view it like you're big legging them. Rick, could he have even hired Jim Duggan? Probably. Okay. Well, fuck

Rick, then, you know? Possibly or possibly not. It's, you know, I don't know where we were, you know, when, when Haps, I don't know, when was Haxall calling Rick? You know, when was that? I don't know. Right. This conversation.

So is it possible that Haxaw felt disrespected? Sure. Absolutely. That happens all the time, especially if you were one of the boys, now you're one of the boys that's running in a company and making decision. I think people would probably have more of an expectation in terms of at least a callback. Someone calls me having one of the boys, they'll be disappointed that I didn't call back, but I don't think they would feel disrespected.

Different when you're a dusty Rhodes or a Rick Flair, you're in that spot or even a Kevin Sullivan at the time. Hey, I want to mention too, you know, we've been talking about Jim Doug and here and it's written in the observer and in the torch where guys were talking about maybe they're not necessarily saying it but they're almost implying oh he's old you want to guess how old jim dougan was when he came to wcdb 42 40 40 yeah is it times have changed haven't they i mean here we are wrecked like oh he's so over the hill he's 41 isn't it's not old at all well it's like great american bash 1995 uh here's the review from dave melzer behind the scenes the show wasn't nearly as smooth as it appeared on camera as expected magwell's leg infection caused jim dougan to replace him for the international amateur star craig pitman's first career major show match

i want that's not really the big story i mean obviously that is a a cool moment for for crack pitman they go eight minutes and 13 seconds dougan gets the win um it's rated a dud rating fans are chanting you at and both of these guys are USA got whatever still it was a passable match didn't get very favorable ratings they got a dud rating it is what it is but this wasn't the original plan but what was interesting about this show is Alex Marvez who these days works with AEW but back then was a writer for the Miami Herald I guess someone leaked the finishes to him and he gave away the finishes in his newspaper article dirty bastard they were a hundred percent spot on dirty cool how could anybody do that how could any self-respecting human being give away a finish somebody else's

project somebody else's show somebody else's livelihood my god feed my family with this business i'm giving my body oh my god it's horrible dirty dog Now, Eric, I ask this to you because this is June of 95, and we know you're just a couple of months away from starting Nitro. It's written here in the Observer that Flair is so pissed, thinking that this has been leaked, and maybe it wasn't linked. Maybe he just guessed because it's not like all these finishes are tough to guess. Then Flair wanted to allegedly, according to the observer, change some finishes just so Marvez's article wouldn't be 100% accurate to sort of protect the business. When I read that sort of thing, and I don't know if it was true, you were there. It makes me wonder, did you see that what the chaos created backstage was like

when you felt like there was a spoiler published and say to yourself, self? Hmm. Because it's a few months later you start dusting this off on Nitro and doing it to Vince for Raw. Is this sort of the inspiration for you giving those spoilers? Could have been right? Yeah, could have. The timeline is there.

it could have been how cool is that yeah it is it's kind of like it's still one of the most fascinating things that occurred to me as a result of doing this show for years i would tell a story about how the nw o thing just rolled off my tongue and it kind of made that come from but it worked and it did and it stuck for years i just went wow i don't know just happened something i read you read a lot of history at the time or prior i did read a lot of history so a political history in particular. So maybe I thought, maybe I got it from it. No, Larry Zabiscoe said it on camera months before, whatever it was,

weeks before, I remember the timer, yeah. And I don't remember hearing it, but clearly I did. It's the only explanation because I don't know where I would have got it any other place. So this may be another one of those situations where, oh, I don't remember me going, Oh, what? I'm a billion idea. I'll finish it.

I remember that. It just happened. Probably, possibly, because of Alex Marvez. Blame him. How about that? We got to the bottom of it, boys and girls. So if you've ever been pissed off with Eric Vischoff or giving away raw spoilers, send your hate tweets to Alex Marvez.

We'll pin it on him. Let's talk about what's next here with, But, well, maybe not next, but it is some bad news, but it is a major story with a happy ending. Come to the fall of 1998, Jim Duggan is diagnosed with cancer. And unfortunately, he's going to have one of his kidneys removed on September 4th. And there have been athletes and other sports who have performed at, you know, the major league level with one kidney. But you think, man, in pro wrestling with the bumping and falling and he's obviously, a heavyweight in 45 I think most people assumed this is going to be the end of his

in ring career but that doesn't wind up being the case and of course before we talk about the return I guess there was some discussion at least according to the observer about perhaps having dug and do an interview about has legit situation just to communicate that with the fans and garner some some support but I guess there's a report that says that that was next by higher ups, not wanting to overshadow the angles on the show. And let's keep the show to be

entertainment and let's not sort of mix a real situation or circumstance. First of all, how do you receive the news that Dougan has cancer and is going to have to have a kidney removed? And secondly, do you remember this discussion about should we or shouldn't we

do a sit down interview with him for this? Absolutely. I don't remember, therefore, I don't think there was ever a discussion of should we, should we, at least not in the context that we don't want it to overshadow. My brain has never worked that way. By this time, my fingers are in the pot, getting more involved. That would have known, if it made it to me, now if somebody made that decision before it got to me, eh, I'll accept that.

I don't know if it's true or not, but since I don't know it's not true, I'll accept it as a possibility. But as far as me making the decision or having been a part of a conversation that sounded like, could we bring real life and legitimate sympathy to a beloved character in a two-minute interview on a wrestling show? No, Eric, we shouldn't do that because it'll overshadow everything else. Leave the room you're no longer a part of this process. Oh, I would have done that in a minute. Now, there may have been another reason that I don't know of, possibly we're guessing

here, but there was never a conversation of should we or shouldn't we as it relates to anything on the rest of the show. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. How did I receive that information? I think I remember, I think we were either in Disney or right before Disney is when I got the I only say that because I remember just like a flash of a moment and I feel like it was in a sound stage when somebody brought me the news and it would probably would have been Jenny angle we know that ultimately Dougan doesn't really do a sit down long form interview

but he does get to address the crowd on thunder he's there in a polo addressing the audience and he's just talking about the old days and he's talking about how he needs your support he's going under the knife this week and God willing the cancer will be removed but he wants you to do a favor for me I want to leave my little girls alone say a prayer for me and my family

and he's telling the fans that he loves them he's thanking the fans the crowd's giving him a big USA chant and even if you weren't necessarily a fan of Haxaw Jim Duggan the wrestling persona how could you not love Jim Duggan in a moment like this, right? And if you met Jim Duggan, whether you were a fan of his I saw Jim Duggan character, like so many millions of people were early on, or perhaps by the mid-90s, you weren't.

But if you met the guy, you were lucky enough, even to this day, to meet him at an autograph signing or just talk to him in a restaurant. You'd be better for it. You'd be glad you did. It's a good man. I want to, I want to ask you, like when you find out that one of your beloved guys like this has cancer, I mean, obviously that wasn't the plan. I mean, there's, hey, well, if so and so happens or if this happens, but there's a report that says that you guys are still going to continue to use an employee, Duggan, to make personal appearances and on sale dates and just be more like a PR person as an ambassador role. That's a no brainer for Dougan, don't you think?

Yep. And I believe that's what we did. Pretty sure that's what we did. I would have never, I would have never cut somebody or suspended them or. In fact, if anything, I would have made sure they got paid. I would have made absolutely certain. When we get to fall brawl in 1998, Chavani would announce on the air that Haxaw Duggan's wife called and say that Duggan

had surgery and the doctor. think they removed the entire cancerous tumor and doctors tell her that the tumor was the size of a football. So given a tumor that big and the idea that it's cancerous and just the idea that it's something as serious as kidney cancer, it's easy to see why people were nervous for Jim. As it is, he only winds up missing eight months and I can't even imagine, you know, wrestling after of that but he does he comes back in april of 99 and he's kind of just going to pick up where he's left off and curious if you had it to do over again would you have done more with his return after i mean you've said earlier with the benefit of hindsight maybe i wouldn't have done the austin

hacksaw thing just like that 94 but when dougan comes back in april of 99 this feels like a layup for a big feel good story but wcw was just uh it was a mess yes There's a missed opportunity, though, to not do more with Dougan, right? Massive misopportunity, because that's a feel good story. That's a redemption story. That's a story that can touch everybody with two sets of eyes and a set of years. It's, it was a missed opportunity, no doubt about it. Instead, what we get, as you may recall, is when Russo takes over, we get Dougan presented

with a lot less dignity, maybe. We see Russo having him scrub toilets on TV. Duggan's going to find the television title in a garbage can and he's going to make himself champion that way and well he'll exclusively defend the belt on WCW Saturday night and then for some reason that I'll never really quite understand. Duggan joins Lance Storm's team Canada. He does feel like Rousseau presented Dougan more as a comedy character, fair to say. No doubt about it.

disrespectful comedy character and let me take that back the whole toilet thing it's almost a Vince with man trope that kind of presentation and that's where russo came from that's really where his head was at he was more of a you know he want to be the shy he want to be the Howard stern of wrestling so anything that he could do to in his own way shy the audience. It's fair game. It might have been a little more personal with Duggan or Rousseau at the time. This is the first time Rousseau's had any real power. It's just been a, you know, staff writer, lead writer, staff writer, whatever. You work under Vince McMahon, you're not lead anything. You're just on the team. And now Rousseau's got an opportunity to be the big

dog. He's never had it before. so he gets to play in this you know childlike sandbox that he calls his imagination and this is when he came up man what could have been jim duggin and wcw we know what a what a monster star he was before he came to the w w f he gets to the bright lights of vince mcman's new york base promotion and becomes a household name he had a lot of fun and some major moments but more importantly a major battle the battle for his life he came out the other side so happy that Duggan made a full recovery and he's still making appearances left and right you can catch Duggan in a town near you and as a matter of fact

you never know who might show up at Starcast that's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T dot com for about a month away and we're going to have a who's-who of legends and some of the top stars of A-E-W you can go grab yourself a bracelet and join me and some of my friends on July 11th and 12th uh just a couple the blocks away from Globe Life Field where AEW is going to run their very first stadium show here in America. It's at the Sheraton and it's going to be a who's who of professional wrestling. I think you'll have some fun. Come join us. St.A R-R-C-A-S-T.com. Meet and Greeds start going on sale this week. Eric, I love talking about Jim Duggan because I know what a great guy he is behind the scenes. I think I've only met him in passing once. He's done appearances at like even the minor

league baseball stadium in huntsville and man everybody i know who worked that event or was around that event just goes on and on about what a great class act he is i'm saying all that to say if you have a chance to see jim dougan at an autograph or a uh or a wrestling convention a comic con or a horror convention whatever go out of your way to see mr and mrs dougan i think they make all their travels together too it's a sweet thing to see people traveling together in their elder years, isn't it? It is, and they're having a blast. I mean, Jim Duggan is a success story.

And in terms of, you know, sports entertainment, Jim Duggan is probably one of the greater success stories because he's happy. It has been, his wife been married for a long time. They travel together. They have true joy when they travel. I've been with them. And they've come out to the house.

We've had stakes with it here and Cody. And I watch him interact and his wife with other people. They're living the dream, really. They've got a beautiful home. I think it's in North Carolina, South Carolina. I've seen pictures of the home. It's kind of like something I probably want to live in if I was on the East Coast,

kind of a cabin vibe out in the country, raising chickens and goats or whatever. I mean, they've got an awesome life together. Great family. And if you can spend your career in any form of entertainment, a particular sports entertainment, and end up like that, you won you won they're both winners love them to doubt great people i can't wait for us to hook

up with jim dougan in the future in the meantime by the way if you want to save some cash can i recommend save with eric dot com you've heard me talking about credit card debt man it's out of control you can even see it's at 1.21 trillion dollars at the end of january think about that and according to the federal reserve in new york 60s percent of credit card holders are carrying a credit card balance. That's especially scary when you realize that the average credit card rate right now is 23%. So what's the solution? If you start making your minimum payments, man, it could take years for you to pay it off. And in the meantime, you're getting ripped off 23% at best. Well, right now there's a lot of economic uncertainty for

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I mean, just that alone saved him over $200 a month. Go find out how much money you can save right now for free at save witherick.com. You'll be working directly with Eric and there's no cost. There's no obligation. And if Eric can't help you save money, he won't waste your time. It costs nothing to look. but I want to speak to you if you've been on the fence because you've got one of those great low rates you lock down during COVID.

It's what we call the year three guarantee. You see, experts seem to agree that interest rates are going to fall in the next few years. Well, you don't want to miss out on that, but you don't want to overpay right now. I mean, just resigning yourself to saying, hey, I know I'm paying too much right now, but I'll just keep doing it for an undetermined amount of time and hope it gets better. Not the best strategy. Let's start saving as much money as we can today on our month. payments. And then when rates fall in the next couple of years, give us a call back.

We'll refinance you again with no new lender fees. So it gives you the peace of mind of knowing you got the best deal for your family right now without wasting money later on a second set of closing costs. So lock in a better monthly payment today. Wouldn't it be nice to keep more of your own money? Find out how much money you can save right now for free at save witheric.com animal S number 2129 equal housing lender save with eric.com and i got to tell you i'm looking forward to next week eric because you and i are going to do something we haven't done in a long time we're going to do a watch along from raw is war 25 years ago this is one of the more infamous raw as war episodes when you were on the

sidelines of wcw it's at the reunion arena and the radicals fresh out of wcw are going to turn on cactus jack and align themselves with triple h and stephanie mcman in order to get into the WWF. It's going to lead to one of the most infamous raw main events of all time, where Cactus and the Rock team up against two cool and rickishi, their baby faces on the rise who months before were just comedy acts. We've also got Kurt Angle hitting an Olympic slam on a pregnant May Young and so much more.

We're going to talk about the Sarsa of Monday Night Raw for 25 years ago. Next week you're on the show. We want you to join us live. If you haven't already, go hit the subscribe button right now at 83 weeks.com. It costs absolutely nothing. It's totally free. It's our YouTube.

Just make it easy for you to find. That's 83 weeks.com. And when you get there, hit that notifications bill. You don't want to miss the next time we're live. You'll be able to ask Eric anything. In the meantime, try to piss him off. Have fun with it, by God. He's at E. Bischoff on Twitter.

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Thank you, by the way. I loved it. I loved me some Jim Duggan. And I hope you guys have a great day. Oh, tough guy. Thank you. Hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad-free shows.

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