83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 381: Ask Eric Anything 07.04.25

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, EZE Eric Bischoff is in the hotseat answering all your questions on this edition of #AskEric Anything THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code 83WEEKS at shopmando.com! #mandopod BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing 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.savewitheric.com  to learn more.  

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at Conrad at save withconrad. 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 we are live at 83 weeks.com, and of course, we couldn't do it without the Hall of Famer himself. Ladies and gentlemen, the only man to kick Vince McMahon's ass, not once, not twice, but 83 weeks. weeks in a row ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for easy e eric fish off eric what's going on man how are you living live brother one of my favorite holidays 24 hours away fourth of july mrs b's birthday

i can't wait you got friends and family coming out i put 16 pounds of pork butt on the big green egg right before i came out here to to uh record which is what I was running 20 minutes behind, by the way, because I had to get that temperature right at 225 degrees, not 235 degrees, not 215 degrees, not 215 degrees, I wanted it right where I wanted it. And once it got there, it was locked in, here I am. I'm really excited, can you tell? I'm going to go to the parade tomorrow. The Cody Fourth of July parade is without question.

And internationally recognized and known Fourth of July parade, people from all over the world come to see it and I'll send you pictures tomorrow video live just to prove my point but it is the coolest coolest parade I think in America it is I get tears I've seen every Cody rodeo parade or 4th of July parade probably in the last 25 years I don't miss it I get up at 6 o'clock of the morning grab a lawn chair two lawn chairs one for me one for mrs b who refuses to show up that early for a parade because she's you know rational all that not me man i'm down there i'm gonna be the first one to pick the prime spot so i can just absorb every second of it kids animals horses mules, Buffalo,

clowns. It's amazing. You should check it out. It could be a bucket list item for anybody that loves America. Well, we know what you've fallen in love with recently. The internet found out last week, thanks to your great close personal friend, Diamond Dallas Page.

Eric Bischoff is jacked in 70. You know, I think once upon a time, Scott Bayo was single and 40 or 40 and single or what have you. Well, look at Eric Vischoff here. Eric, you said that you were going to make a big reveal on your birthday, and you were hesitant to do so. I know you had decided, maybe I'm not quite ready to do that just yet. But you had really dedicated yourself to fitness a few years ago with the birth of your grandson and thought,

hey, I want to get in better shape to enjoy more time with Way, Jay. Man, you didn't do it a little bit. You did it a lot. How are you feeling? What do you attribute all of this newfound wellness? What are your new best practices you can share with some of our listeners? There's a lot, and it would get really boring for anybody who's not really that interested in this type of thing. But Lori and I have been into the nutrition rabbit hole to various degrees, really over the last 30 years.

It started with a book that I read called Sugar Blues, where I realized that I was hypoglycemic. This was back in my early 20s when I was kickboxing. And that book kind of opened my eyes up. And then just Lori became very interested right after the kids were born. She studied holistic nutrition for a long time. And just that's our lifestyle, kind of in general, right? But a number of things happened, too long and boring to go into right here. But there were big kind of moments, you know, that made me realize that I'm definitely getting older.

And I have two choices. I can either slow that process down to the best of my ability, which, by the way, with all of the new information and access to great, great products, it's a lot easier today than it was two years ago, for that matter. So the amount of new information, new products that are out there, credible products and information, you know, you can't reverse it, aging, but you can slow that bitch down by a lot, like almost slam on the brakes in some respect. So that's what started it. I ended up in a hospital with a self-inflicted intestinal issue that everybody probably knows

about it if you think about it for a second. And then way J's born. And here's the honest truth. I'm kind of vain. Now, one of the reason I like watching myself on TV, but honestly, especially, you know, in a 2000s and some of the stuff I did in WWE is. Because I was like 30 or 40 pounds overweight, which is, you know, if you're not on television, and who cares? But when you make your money on television, you become aware of it. And once I got out of TV, I just kept getting weight and gaining weight. And I was up to about 220, which I'm not a big frame guy.

My natural body weight, if I was, you know, 15, 18 percent body fat, it's probably about a buck 60. I'm not a big bone, big, really muscle person, genetically, naturally. So don't let the natural part fool you folks. I'm a full disclosure, full transparency guy, and I'm going to get there. But it started with the keto diet and I started feeling better. But not losing the weight I was hoping for. That was really fat for me. And, you know, people say, oh, man, yeah, he's in great shape.

I never saw him with a shirt off. No shit. And I'm deceptively built in a way. I'm almost as thick naturally as I am wide. I just have a deep, I don't have wide shoulders, but I'm this way, right? Always has it. And I carried most of my weight right out in front of me. It was easy to notice if you were paying attention.

I saw a picture of me holding way jay right after he was born and i looked like i was seven months pregnant so i just all these you know things started really making an impression on me and then i listened to sean baker dr sean baker on joe rogan's podcast go into the carnivore diet i dove right into that and started feeling a lot better energy came up everything just dealt them. And for the first time in my life, I went to the gym with the intention of lifting weights for at least a year. This throughout my whole life, even when I was active in kickboxing and amateur wrestling and all the other stupid shit I did, I was always a great cardio because I loved to run, but I hated lifted weights. It drove me nuts. It seemed like such a waste of time

for me based on what I was doing at the time so I've never really lifted but I said okay I'm not losing weight I can't really run anymore because my knees are jacked up one of them is so I can't really do much cardio and Lori said man go lift weights because lifting and only you're going to burn energy while you're in the gym but your body keep burning energy because you're breaking down muscle and blah blah blah blah your metabolism picks up uh for heat weights I'll try it I'm hooked I'm in a gym five days a week, sometimes six. My workouts take from 70 to 90 minutes, depending on what I'm doing that day. I really learned a lot.

And, you know, the first six months, I trained not to hurt myself. Started really, really slow. The heaviest thing I've thrown around for the last 30 years is a 12-pack. I had to be careful. And I was, focused on my form, learned a lot. reputable people, you know, it's so much available on social media, Instagram, in particular on this item. But I learned, I train, and I just fell in love with it.

And now I'm pushing heavier weight. I'm building lean tissue intentionally as opposed to just stabilizing my joints and strengthening my joints and things. So I'm digging it. So here's my stack. Everybody thinks I'm on HGH and train. I don't know what the fuck trend is, but everybody else does things I'm on it. any number of other steroids, and it's not true.

I am, admittedly, and I don't want to say probably, but confidently saying, I am on a half a cc of testosterone twice a week, administered by my doctor. I get a blood panel every 30 days and check all the critical markers. By the way, folks, I've been doing this for 25 years. And it didn't show up, right? Because I wasn't doing anything. Casterone, especially at my age, it only matters if you're actually working your working hard. Otherwise, you're just sitting around horny.

That's it. So that's it. That's all I'm doing. Everything else is diet. Carnivore. Now, I am on these aminos called perfect aminos. I don't have an affiliate program with them. I don't know anybody there.

I learned about him from a guy by the name of Gary Breka, B-R-E-K-K-A-K-A. Listen to Gary Breca slash Aminos on Joe Rogan or anywhere else, and learned a lot from him. And I'm able to, for example, I promise this is where I'll stop. This is getting crazy. But it's an important part of this. It's way more important, really, than, and a half a cc of a test twice a week.

These perfect aminos are complete aminos, complete essential amino acids, which is the byproduct of protein. So I can take five of these tablets in the morning, which I do, the first thing I do when I wake up, and it's the equivalent of 30 grams of weight protein that you would put in a protein drink, but there's zero calories,

and they immediately metabolize into your muscles. So I can lift hard, work 16 hours a day, and feel great on about 16 or 1,800 calories while I'm lifting pretty intensely. So it's a unique opportunity to build lean tissue and burn body fat at the same time. It's zero carbs, zero sugars. I will have a drink occasionally, occasionally probably twice a month. that's it that's it folks nothing else not that not that not that cool not controversial mostly hard work at diet with a little bump when you're 70 when would you say you really started about a year ago because my goal as i shared with you privately is like you know what i'm

I'm going to really work hard at this. And on my birthday, my 70th birthday, not so much to, frankly, I don't think I look that good. I just don't look as bad as I used to. And that's what shocks people. It's like, you know, it is what it is. I get it. I'm not anywhere near where I know I can be and will be probably sooner than later.

But I started seriously about May 27 last year. Up until that. point. It was like intermittent bullshit. How about that, boys and girls? That's proof right there that a lot can happen in a year. Shout out to EasyE. Let's throw some of those near nudes up there

again. We're thirst trapping for Eric Bischoff out here today. If you haven't seen him, there he is. That's the man who kicked Vince McMahon's ass. That's the man who challenged Vince to a fight live on pay-per-view. And Vince was a giant wuss and no-showed.

And now we see why he was going to catch a beat down. One more thing while that picture's up. Because this is the one that made me chuckle. And first of all, you got to remember, I just got done working out with these damn power cups that page turned me on to, which are designed and scientifically researched and all the other

bullshit to actually force a much more intense pump than you would normally get lifting weights. That's what this whole thing was about. So yeah, I like my shoulders and my chest looks pretty awesome there. But when I get out of the gym later on this afternoon, I'm not going to look like that. It's a lot of it had to do with those cops the way they were designed to work, proving that they're affected.

But here's what I want to point out. My guys, the reason I didn't reveal what I was originally going to reveal that I discussed with you is because I'm still 15 to 20 pounds overweight. All of it's in my gut. I'd point that out because one of the big things was, oh, he's got Royd Belly, H-G-H-Bellie. no mucker father's up just carrying weight that's all it is and it's the last place it wants to leave it's the first place it showed up and it's the last muckerfather to go home it's like a really bad party guest they get there early to become obnoxious and right when everybody else leaves they're still there driving you crazy so that's why my gut looks kind of weird in

that shot and not because of HGH or what else is not been accused of. Well, the other thing I want to mention, Eric, I'm glad you brought it up because I did see a lot of people in the comments saying, oh, he's clearly on TRT. Hey, guys, when you hit 40, you should ask your doctor if you should be looking into TRT. Certainly when you're 50 or 60 or 70, just as you get older as a man, you produce less testosterone and I understand that people that are sports fans usually hear this when they're you know that sort of thing about oh he's taking testosterone about 19 and 25 and 31 year old professional athletes Eric is a podcaster who turns 70 it's okay if he takes a little

testosterone at his doctor's office he's not buying shit in a gym in a paper bag he's going to the doctor's office and doing testosterone replacement therapy you would be surprised how many people in your real life do that. That's not a hack for vanity. That's just real life, right, Eric? Yeah, and again, I don't want to go too deep into this because this is really off topic. But one of the reasons that I've been on testosterone, even when I haven't been working out, quite obviously, and it had no aesthetic effect or benefit to me,

now there's going to be different schools of thought on this as there is on just about everything now most of it starting with politics but and I don't want to sound like an expert I'm just going to talk about my choice and why TRT for me is something that's not a new thing is because prostate cancer is a real thing and years ago before I considered doing TRT I met with the doctor and chronologist, I think, and I said, here's what I'm thinking about doing. Tell me the benefits, tell me the risks. And we went through it. And surprisingly, from this doctor's perspective, endocrinologist, I think, people that study this stuff,

specialize in this stuff, is that his belief was that maintaining a healthy, in your mid-30s level of testosterone actually prevents prostrate cancer. Costerate cancer usually doesn't develop until you're older because your testosterone levels drop precipitously by the time you hit your 50s. Well, guess what? When does prostate cancer hit? You know, basically in that same time period and later

because you continue to lose testosterone naturally in your system. Another point, I take a bioidentical testosterone. For those who are interested, much different than a synthetic. So it wasn't obviously up until six months ago, I really didn't care if it made me look better or not, because I didn't care, obviously. But now that I'm working my ass off,

I'm seeing the benefit. I have more energy. My body reacts quicker, metabolizes things faster. builds muscle faster. That's a fact. But TRT isn't just for guys that want to get bigger look back. Right. I mean, Jim Ross has been using TRT. He's talked about it on his podcast for years. It's not, you know, it's not just for guys who are trying to do a fitness competition. It's for everyday guys like you and I listening to this. And everyday guys, man, you know what? We like, we like comfort, which is why we love the perfect gene.

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three related questions why did gordon solely leave wcw and he says conrad has asked both jim ross and tony shabani who don't think it was over landing poppo why was this his final broadcast 30 years ago so low key it was on crow and there was really no promotion that it was his final show and what does eric make of gordon's later criticism of him and mike mooneyham actually did an article on gordon solely from when he died 25 years ago this month and mike reports how gordon called you a corporate assassin after his departure in 1995 and he said publicly that was you know, it was called philosophical differences is the way it was phrased back then.

But he called you a corporate assassin. With all due respect, I don't want you to have to feel like you're in this place. I will just share. It is public record that at different times Gordon and WCW was struggling with alcohol issues. And that's not a secret. It's been discussed.

J.R. has even said, you know, one of the things he tried to do to take care of Gordon, is schedule his pre-tapes at a certain time of the day when he felt like Gordon was less likely to have had something a little extra in his cup. I'm assuming that that really is what led to the end of his time in WCW. Did you have an official falling out or what was the nature of your relationship with Gordon solely?

Really, I liked Gordon. When I first got to explain a little bit, why. when I first got to WCW, I was a fish out of water. I didn't know anybody, particularly within the production environment, right? Larry Zabiscoe and Diamond Dells Page were the only two people in WCW that I personally knew at that time, I think. Pretty close. So when I first got to WCW and I was staying at the Omni Hotel, they would fly me in on Sunday night out of Minneapolis, I'd be there Monday, I'd be there Tuesday, and generally would fly home Wednesday morning.

And while I was there, they would put me up at the Omni Hotel at the CNN Center. They owned it. And the production facility was down on the atrium of said CNN Center. There was also some shopping. There were some restaurants, sleep jocks and jills. Same thing, right? But there was also a British pub on the main level. And I don't remember the name of it.

It doesn't matter. It was a really cool English pub. And not knowing anybody, not really feeling like sitting in my room by myself watching television all night. When I was done at the end of the day, I didn't have anything better to do or somewhere else to go eat. There was limited food there, really. If I wasn't really into Omni food, then I'd walk around, maybe get some fish at chips at the English pub or whatever. You go in and inevitably, Gordon Solie was at the bar. Oftentimes, the only person at that said bar.

Hold on one second. So naturally, I'm sorry, since we worked together, not necessarily on camera together, but we were in a production studio together, he's one of the first people that I quote unquote hung out with for the first month or two I was there. And just got to know him. He didn't really know him.

I didn't know of him prior to getting to WCW because he had no footprint as an on-camera personality in Minneapolis when I was watching wrestling. So it was an initial meeting for me. I subsequently learned about his background, his contributions, and all the things that made Gordon Soli such a legend to this day. So I learned I have respect for him. I think, you know, the drinking was a contributing fact. it just exacerbated the real problem and the real problem was generational.

I mean, it was hard, and this is not uncommon at all. I experience it myself, at least I'm beginning to recognize this in myself, is that it's easy, particularly somebody like Gordon, who's involved in so much memorable, important, iconic patches and stories and broadcasts and he had that voice it's like and there's no other voice like that nobody all ever sound like Gordon Soli it just will never happen that's you mean he that's his genoculate same thing some guys whose voices are as powerful as the visual image of them some people even more so was Gordon Soli I knew all that

But for Gordon, it was really hard for him to see me go from, oh, that kid from Minneapolis I'd never heard of to this young kid I've never heard of before from Minneapolis now calling the shots of a business. I've, you know, carved out an important name. Now he's my boss. I get that. It's hard. It's hard. It starts with questioning, you know, someone's a lot. experience or what exactly is the reason of this kid to get an opportunity that maybe I don't

even want it, but yeah, I could have at least been asked. There was a lot of that going around WCW at the time. So I don't, I understand it. And it doesn't hurt my feelings. It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It doesn't make me wish, you know, Gordon respected me more or I'm upset that he made those comments because I understand why I made him. I get it. I come close to making stupid comments like that myself sometimes. So it's human nature. I get it.

He was a great announcer. I had a lot of great conversations with him. And I learned a ton, not to show you about announcing. But Gordon is sharing stories at that English pub in the CNN Center for whatever it was, 30, 60 days, you know, for a night or two a week. I learned a lot. was from Gordon Sully and got a much better worldview, or at least a broader view of how important a lot of things were in professional wrestling that I had no exposure to.

Do you think he was calling you a corporate assassin and all this in his interview with Mike Mooneyham in an effort to curry favor in the court of public opinion to try to position himself for another potential gig, or was it just sour? grapes. I mean, I really struggled with him calling his corporate assassin. I think it was just a little bit of bitterness, bitterness with the side of, you know, resentment thrown in. He got fired. He got let go. That makes anybody angry at some level or another if you're human. And in Gordon's mind, I was that young kid that really didn't know anything about the business coming in and making changes and he's out of the job. Part of the reason he's

He was out of a job, was self-inflicted. Drinking was an issue. I'm not going to trigger-cote it. I appreciate Jim being honest about it. Otherwise, it's just me saying it. But it was not only a problem, it was a problem that was getting worse. And you can only accommodate that so much. And we'd reached so much.

But it probably started with just a generational. divide let's do a question here from wrestling bios he says if nw nitro went ahead every monday night with thunder being the wcw show what would the overall long-term premise be he's talking about nw nitro would wcw guys be getting invited to mondays for matches would there be tryout matches for wcd talent who wanted to join for nw membership are we going to see wcc W and NWO guys invading each other's shows. I know it's all long in the past, but any little ideas that could have floated around

that would have worked would be great to hear. Interesting question here, Eric. If you were to put on your thinking cap and imagine this alternate reality of there's going to be an NWO Nitro, would you have invited WCW talent? Would it have been an enhancement talent? Like, what is the angle for presenting a heel show,

if you will. We've talked about this before, and it was never, NWO Night Show was never going to be all heels. It was an, it was the NWO brand, the attitude, the persona,

the character that the broader NWO represented. What is that? You know, at the time, probably anarchy, you know, whatever it was that kind of transformed, not just wrestling, but other forms of entertainment where the heels were actually kind of cool

and you can understand why they're heels. Well, no, I'm with you, but in K Fabe, why is the baby face showing up at an NWO show? For story, you know, look, I don't want to make it sound like any of this had been contemplated in any great detail. Right. My approach when, you know, boom, my face, okay, what am I going to do with this? under show, how do I make this work? How do I make it so they're not eating each other alive in terms of pollution? Oh, I'll separate them. One is one brand. One is another brand.

Not probably different than some of the early, well, Smackdown brand formats. It would have possibly been, we can, you know, sit here and play Booker and they have fun doing it, by the way, because there's a million ideas that could be born out of this. But we just never got to them for a variety of reasons. So the general idea is to create two separate branded shows anticipating because you have to have, the idea was that we were competing against each other. So instead of WCW competing against WWE, I'd already kick their ass. Future for me was, okay, how do I go from that here, where I was then, to creating my own

competition so that I can maintain this. This is going to run out a rope eventually, meaning just us against Monday Night Raw. There's just run out of shit after a couple years, right? I thought if we could create a self-contained environment where you've got people absolutely loyal to the WCW brand because it represents a tradition and some of the the fundamentals of wrestling and his homage to, to, to, and people that came before them.

That was the kind of essence, if you will, of the character of thunder. Whereas the character of the Nitro show, the way it would be branded throughout, would be much more irreverent. And maybe they don't give a shit about the past. Because right now, the only thing that matters is today. So that was the premise. And yes, we anticipated, you know, intercompany, you know,

storylines and situations, we would have had to create stakes along the way in order for that to make any sense. Not a reason for it. And it's just stuff for the sake of stop. But all of that stuff would have had to have been contemplated and natively massaged and fabricated so that it made sense.

But again, we never got there. Here's an interesting question. This is from Derek T. Lewis, and he wants to know, why wasn't Eric offered a network TV executive job after WCW closed? He would have been a great asset for many networks. I know that you went the entrepreneur route and started doing your own thing, but did it ever even cross your mind to try to get back into corporate television? Or have you had your fill of that at this point in Turner? I had... two opportunities immediately after leaving WCW.

And I went out and took two meetings. One of them was with Hughes Communications. They were about, and I don't know if they ever launched this or not, but at the time they were to Hughes, which is, I think it was direct TV at the time, whatever. But it was Hughes is where I had my interview because it was near the airport. Los Angeles.

They were developing technology where a Broadway play, for example, could be streamed for, it wasn't called streamed at the time, but could have been streamed directly to a theater or theater chain and marketed in a local community. So for people that love Broadway plays but really can't afford to go or have time to go, this would have been the next best thing. That was their business model. I got an interview to interview the president of that division. And it came through, I was represented by William Morris at the time.

So it came through. And I took the meeting. I think it took the, it took the first meeting. I was really excited, but I didn't learn much about what the job would really be. Second meeting, I learned a lot more about what the job would really be. And it wasn't for me at that time. It was too corporate, I'm too much of an entrepreneur to easily fit into a typical corporate structure, either break things or get really frustrated.

Break things like bulletin a china shop, break things. Like, well, why can't we just go over here and do this? Well, because that's not your department. Well, okay, it doesn't matter if it's my department. It's a good idea. Who cares of it? I was done with that. I was done with in my mind at that time.

Now, a couple of years later, I would have approached it differently. But at that time, I was like, if I have to wear a tie, I'm not going. That was kind of like my age would call me, hey, somebody wants to talk to you. I'd say, do I have to wear a tie? He said, yes, I would say, yeah, tell me more before I go. I appreciate you being honest and transparent about who you are. What a fascinating life you've lived, dude. And one of the things I know that you've got down past.

is travel. You've been living out of a suitcase for these last few months, getting everything ready for Real American Freestyle. And a lot of you may have some holiday travel lined up. I want to smarten you up about how easy it is to pack with Mando. You probably ask yourself, hey, do I need all these little miniature toiletry bottles? I mean, I've seen a lot of people who make that last minute run to like the drug store. Oh, I'm traveling. I got to go get all my travel stuff. And so it becomes a separate shopping list. And then you wonder, I remember to pack that, did I get it all? Hey, let me just make life a little easier with Mando.

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and people always say, oh, you're out for yourself. Oh, they took all the money. Oh, they took all the top spots, blah, blah, blah. They always make it all about the payday. So I get that's the framing of the question. But if we just set all of that to the side for a minute, Eric, did you really think when you took a look at TNA that there was an opportunity for them to grow the brand,

not necessarily to compete with WWE, but I know when you first received a call before he launched, you received a call from Jerry Jarrett, and you were sort of in one ear and out the other with the idea. Obviously, by the time you and Hulk come along, that's years after that 2002 phone call. So I'm just wondering, from your perspective, when you did come in,

did you have like a goal for TNA? Like, hey, we could see it at this level. We want to get to that number. We want to get to that mark. What was the goal to try to grow and help TNA? Like in your vision, one day we'll be blank. What was that? A lot of questions in there and timeline.

So my first, as you asked, you know, what was your first impression or whatever? Thought of TNA and its potential. I wasn't watching TNA before I got a phone call or got engaged. is a part of their T&A's desire to acquire Hulk Hogan. That's my first intersection with T&A. Prior to that, I don't think I ever watched it.

If I did, it was like passing through seeing it in a little tiny soundstage with a game show kind of crowd and, no, been there, done that, not interested, don't see any potential. I've done it. I kind of not invented it, but really exploited it more than anybody, getting with the Disney MGM studio shoots and then moving over to Universal. I was really, really familiar with the professional wrestling business model with that production

as your anchor or your foundation. I knew what the potential for that was, and it was really freaking limited. Here's my honest answer. When Halp first called me and said, hey, I want you to handle it. this with me tell me why i was like oh really because the product was just it was like me going back to the a wa in terms that i know it sounds critical but the a wa at some point was a really fun small you know vocal feeling grant and product that i was really i mean it's you know my teeth on really as a young adult.

So I don't mean that in a disparaging way. But in terms of scalability and scope, that's what I felt about TNA, very, very almost regional wrestling limited. I was not interested in getting involved in something, quite frankly, that small. So my first was like, eh, but talk as a friend.

And there was still a part of me because the premise of me going into T&A, which was only because HALC demanded it, not because T&A wanted me, Dixie didn't want me there. I don't think Jeff probably did either if he had a voice at the time. Well, he did because he was part of Reagan Halkin. But I don't think Jeff Juris' idea was, Hanley and Eric Khrushchev, too. It was like, sometimes there's baggage. You've got to take the extra back. That's, and I get that too, no harm, no foul.

We would have felt the same one. So I'm not bitching. This is what it is, painting the picture. So once I started having a couple discussions with Dixie about how it would work, and I knew that the only creative I had to think about was making sure Hulk's creative, you know, that Rousseau and Matt and other people, you know, What we're coming up with, but it would come to me, and I would basically help get it across the finish line with Hulk, if it was an idea that was really sound, or if it wasn't an idea that was very sound for any reason, try to see if we can fix some things and change some things so that it did work, or just say, no, come up with another idea because that sucks.

It's the only one of the three. And if it was the middle one that required additional surgery, I love doing that. It's like being a script doctor. That's where you get to go in and really find cool ways to make sure that the story and the goal of the story has in that. I love doing that. It's like a specialty. Script doctors are special.

I'm not a script doctor, but I like doing it. script doctor shit. It's fun. So I thought, okay, I can have some fun doing that. I'm protecting my buddy. I don't put my toe in the water. This is how I talked myself into it. The money had nothing to do with it because I didn't need the money. I mean, don't get me wrong. You know. It wasn't anywhere near independently wealthy, but I had enough income from everything else that Jason and I were doing where it just wasn't, yeah, okay, but not. if it takes too much of my time. That's how I went into it. Now, over time, not because I wanted it, but because it just, shit just happens, I became more and more involved, partly because I was

having more and more fun and was able to kind of look past the smallness of it all. I wasn't involved in the business side. Zero conversations about business with anybody in TNA. So it was fine for me, and it was kind of working out. You know, it didn't take much of my time. I brought Jason in so that Jason and I could work together by, you know, my partner in BHE Productions. Now, instead of me doing my thing, he's off doing his thing, this gave us a couple of days a week where we were doing our things together, which helped us because we had other projects going on that we had to kind of collaborate on during the day, too. So downtime was valuable time. made it valuable and it was fun jason i have fun working together so that's how it ended up

let's do another question here from the yeah revolution over on twitter uh what motivated you to turn heel and join the nw had you always wanted to play a heel character or is it something you decided to do simply because it would make the storyline more intriguing it was it was two things, it was a necessity because I couldn't, I didn't want to have one person within the NWO who is an active member, working member, and ring member of the NWO, also taking the role as the spokesperson, right? Then it becomes about that. can't help they're the center of attention if they're the spokesperson it kind of creates I don't know static electricity creatively amongst the talent you got to it's something you

got to pay attention to and be aware of it's been a lot of time thinking about so that doesn't get this starts shifting storylines on you without you intend to get to do so I thought okay, we need a spokesperson, who's that going to be? And then in my head, just thinking of ideas, it was like, wait a minute, one of the biggest questions everybody had at the time, at least the one that resonated with me is, how does all this shit actually, how do these people get away with all backstage and showing up and walking through the crowd? I mean, doesn't WCWF security?

Isn't anybody backstage to stop this thing? What the hell? So there was a lack of logic in the story from the get-go. You could explain it one week or maybe random weeks when we could creatively come up with ways to catch people off guard. But week after week after week, multiple times of night, it's like, what the hell? So, okay, we've got to fix that logic hole. It's a big black hole.

Good ideas was falling into it. We're falling into it. So all this was going to bounce around inside my skull at the same time and it was like, wait a minute. Here's how we explain it. I'm not a wrestler. I'm the president of the company. Who better orchestrate a takeover from within and the head of the guy within.

Logical. Pretty creative. I mean, you've got to take a leap of faith to think you could actually do that. But at least it was plausible. at least it was plausible enough to suffice as a premise for a story or an angle in this case. So I just, I made sense. And then I realized how much fun it is. And I didn't go into it because I was motivated to get eye camera as a heel, which was

part of the original question. That wasn't it. I didn't really, I was ready to get off camera completely early on because I wanted my focus and my intention and my energy and my subcompet. to be focused on creative and in the production side of this. That's where my head was. But I also did a little double duty behind the desk as a play-by-play guy. And when this pollution, basically, revealed itself, I went, yeah, I'll be all right.

So that was the process. We should do another question here from James Dean. he says if you had a do-over what would have been the solution to staying profitable from 99 and 2001 now we've we've fielded questions like this a variety of different ways but i am wondering like if you could have made one massive change like something that was outside of the turner organization like we've mentioned before the the what-if of the nbc opportunity or like if there was some other change some other hey this almost happened that could have happened it was there a series of events that could have led to anything or or was the die cast at that point no matter what

we did the premeditated murder had been greed upon yeah way before this and look i understand the question and appreciate it i love answering this or focusing on this because there's so much the last 20 years or more, 25 years, there has been this false narrative jammed into the internet wrestling community and all the dirt sheet readers and consumers that from 99 to whatever WCW lost this vast amount of money. Folks you've been lied to. by people who are either complete frauds and con artists

or just so incredibly lazy and ignorant. Either way, that narrative has been debunked, folks, with receipts. And I encourage you to read Guy Evans' book, beyond Nitro. The receipts are in the, the book. Yes. Along with interviews from corporate executives outside of WCW

and a part of the Turner organization who were in charge of said receipts. So you can listen to the dirt sheet, internet wrestling community, low hanging, low credibility to no credibility, garbage. you can read a book. I encourage you to read a book because for me to answer that question or try to say, well, if we would have done this, this would have happened, and then maybe things would have been different. You have to ignore the facts. The facts are we already, we were making money. We weren't losing the amount of money that we were reported by the dirt sheets to be losing. You see it's in the book, by the way, beyond nitro. That wasn't the case.

It was not a financial issue for WCW. It was an internal decision by executives who orchestrated a financial dump of liabilities of the WCW's books to obfuscate their own and better position themselves with a pending corporate merger. But that's kind of hard for people who absorb, unless I'm really interested. did. So most people just go, oh, what did this asshole say? Oh, that's most be what it is because it's in print. He gives five-star matches to people that deserve it. Oh, I love it. Op.W. Chris says hindsight being 2020, man, this is an interesting question. Had the WWF contacted you about a job after your dismissal from WCW 99, would you have considered joining your rival?

now we know ultimately he did this years later but in 99 when you were sent home were you legally available at that point to go to the WWF was that even possible Eric no I was I still had two and a half years left on my contract okay was under on September 10th in 1999 at about 105 in the morning in Harvey Schiller's office at one CNN center on the 14 15 floor I was 14 he was 50 I sat in Harvey's office and got let go. That initiated a legal term within my contract called pay or play. Once a pay or play provision, at least in my contract the way it was written,

once it was executed and Turner said, oh, we're going to pay you to stay home for the next two and a half years. You can't undo it. It's a bullet that leaves the barrel. And you can't put that bullet back in the barrel. And I knew that 10.25 when I walked out of Harvey's office. So it wasn't like, I'll show them. Conversely, had I gotten a phone call at 10.45 a.m.

20 minutes after walking out of Harvey's office, I would have gotten really excited about it because, wow, man, what a screw you. That would have been. But I knew it couldn't have even entertained it because I was under contract. and they weren't going to let me go. They made damn sure it was clear to me that they were not letting me go. They explained airplay to me in the meeting. So it would have been no opportunity.

It wouldn't make me feel good. It would have made me feel good. Let's talk a little bit about indie wrestling flashbacks question, because it's another sort of Eric Bischoff career question. Had you not been selected to be the WCW executive vice president in 1993, what would have been your next move? Stay with WCW, try the WWF, Indies, something outside of wrestling.

I guess if we were to go back and say in this alternate universe, you're going to be the C squad announcer. Someone else is going to get bumped up, whether that's Tony Chivani or Keith Mitchell or Jim Ross or someone else but you're not going to find yourself in that seat do you think you would have stuck it out in wrestling would you have tried something else what would your career look like Eric quite a bit different and this is not even a you know hypothetical this is an actual keep in mind the timeline Bill Watts is in charge

I'm working under Bill Watts I'm also developing my very first television show, which I subsequently sold the Fox Children's Network, which gave me this ridiculous perception that it was coming up with ideas for TV shows and selling them is really not that hard. I could do this like three or four times a month, right? This distorted idea of how easy it was going to be for me to leave WCW because of Bill Watts. talked about this in my book. I had already made up my mind. I was out the door.

I was like the Beverly Hillbillies, man. I was going to load up the truck and move Beverly. There was golden in their hills. I just got a taste of it. Came up an idea. Built a little set. It made set. Went in pitch this lady by the name of Molly Miles,

who was the president of Fox Kids TV at the time, which no longer exists. But she was, and then she later became, president of Universal Studios down of Florida, which is why we moved our production over there, by the way. Thank you, Molly. Loyal to the people that are loyal to me.

That's how this shit works. So I was already out the door. I told Lori, and she was supportive of me, I won't work for this fucking-headed bastard anymore. This is stupid. What he's doing, his vision of where wrestling needs to go

is where it was 25 years ago. And I ain't going to work. And I don't want to be here when it doesn't. So I've made up my mind already. Now, right about the same time, the Watts gets fired. Bill Shaw comes in within a week or two said Ted wants an executive producer to oversee WCW television because this is a television company. Well, shit, I just spent six months coming up with an idea and refining it. I pitched it and sold it.

Maybe I could be that guy. So I put my name in a half. So the real life answer is I was already on my way gone and I was going to LA and I was not going to WWF or any industry, not for any other reason, not like I would never do that. No, no, no, no, it's because I thought erroneously that it's easy for a guy like me. Watch this. Thank goodness it didn't happen because I would have crushed Vernon come back with my tail between my legs.

Well, I'm glad that didn't happen and you're never going to have your tail between your legs if you're using blue chew. All right gentlemen, start your boners. I mean, we could just talk about it. The world was revealed last week, Eric's 70-year-old body. And it looked like a raging hard on. And that's because of blue chew. Guys, you can enter the room,

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Helps everything get its blood, which is the exact opposite of what a heart attack does. so that's and while they were developing it they went you know one of the side effects is people were giving it to are just walking around with raging heart outs so it was like well yeah blood pressure medicine there's a lot of that because it's not a heart out there boom it's when it started and how it started kind of like the etymology of pharmaceuticals one to watch blue chew really works go try it you'll be glad you'll be glad you'll be glad you did. Hey, let's talk a little bit about a hypothetical WCW. Zeus says, who would have been the top star for WCW that never wrestled there? So the idea being, if you get your hands on WCW and you're in control and you've purchased the thing, was there someone that you had your eyes on who wasn't already under the WCW umbrella that you felt like, hey man, I could make that guy a top star?

W-C-W? No, because the thought process was scaling down and not recruiting, kind of like thinning the, oh, sounds horrible. Managing your assets by thinning the herd. There was a lot of people under contract that were really developmental. They really weren't star potential any time in the next three years with proper

creative and proper everything and proper public relations. They were two or three years away. There's a lot of them and they were really good, but they weren't audience drivers. So it was more about, man, we got to thin out some of that herd. We also have to thin out some of the older herd because it is what it is. Number one, they're expensive and number two, they're limited. So it was more scaling down than it was any thought. of this guy or i got a phone call for oh man i could make this work it was zero of that zero

well now hang on i do remember you and i having a conversation we recorded a bonus episode that never aired once and we talked about you know if you did relaunch and one of the things we sort of fantasy booked was rob bandam and sting in the main event and you had joey styles and maybe jerry luller doing commentary do you think how close do you think that would have ever been to fruition. Do you think Rob Van Dam, who at that point, you know, had clearly had his contract breached by ECW, but he was not yet in the WWE. Do you think you would have been a Rob Van Dam fan and tried to promote him as one of the top stars? Yeah, no doubt. But it wasn't like, there was no effort beyond. Now, I hadn't met with Robert.

As you're describing this, I'm kind of zero in on the exact timeline because a lot of things happen very quickly within a short frame of time, like six months. And I don't want to get it wrong because, you know, you know, but I did talk to Rob. I think I may have met with Rob twice, actually, and really liked Rob. one of the times I met with Rob I think it was right about the time that we were talking about acquisition hadn't gotten into hadn't closed it, hadn't put a budget on it

just early conversations with Brian Bedal before we talked about strategy even very initial conversations and I think it was right about that time that Rob was either already in L.A. or living there, whatever, but somehow we connected and Rob and I met

at Mandalay Studios, which is in Jason Hervey had an office in Mandalay Studios because he was working there. That's why I met Rob. I may have talked to him, just anticipating that there was going to be an acquisition, but there was never like, all right, I need to get Rob Van down. we weren't in that would have been great you didn't want him for a long time because I liked his in ring sound he brought a legitimate martial arts

aspect to his his ring work he wasn't a gimmick martial artist or somebody that you know got their yellow belt at the local YMCA and 15 years ago when they were eight how they're out there pretending

they're doing you know TV karate that shit's horrible there's there was a lot of that but rob's stuff was crisp it was legit it's the first thing i noticed i can tell somebody that really understands the mechanics of throwing a kick and somebody that's just trying to get on youtube so i always wanted rob it would have been great i like rob a lot always have this is a great question from derrick he wants to know what's been your most enjoyable moment in wrestling either as a fan or or as a member of the team.

Now, that's interesting because it's not saying what was peak WCW. I'm just saying your most enjoyable moment in wrestling, whether that's you in the crowd watching, you at home watching, you're taking the kids to an event, you know, you booking something that explodes. Like when you think about,

if someone was to say, what is your favorite proudest memory, most enjoyable moment? I want to go relive that. that was that was peak for me what would that even be at this point eric well there's two different things there's memories and there's moments yeah exactly the same thing so i'm going to hit the moments first because that was so easy for me the rest of it can become difficult but if i close my eyes and relive the chuck and billy wedding segment

that was talking about moments now that all that might have six minutes were the moments but or whatever the length was but if one can imagine what it's like to be in the ring and feel the way that crowd felt i knew we had them because they were anticipating something they just weren't anticipating me right he's wedding had a history. All you had to do is book a wedding and you knew you were going to be in for a cool moment if you're a fan. I was the least one to be suspected that gimmick, right?

Because nobody saw it coming. Nobody saw it coming. Not even people in the first row. People that were talking to me from two feet away didn't know it was me. And I say that not to brag, but if you try to imagine what that feels like for yourself and you're in that ring and there's a lot of moving pieces, there's a lot that's about to happen once the fuse is lit and it hits go or bang, there's going to be a lot of fireworks and they need to be kind of perfectly orchestrated or it'll come off clunky or

worse, somebody will get hurt. So, I'm doing my thing here today. And I'm performing now, which I don't, you know, the rest of it was really me, just with a dial turned up a little bit or a lot. This was like a completely different thing for me. I'd never done anything like this before, not even like in grade school. I didn't do plays and shit. Nothing. Never wanted to. So for me to be up there playing a character for the very first time in front of a crowd that knew something was going to go down and just weren't sure what it was, which means they're just waiting for something to pop. Well, when you're at that moment in that environment, when you know what's going on, you go, oh, this crowd, you can feel that. They're telling you with every fiber of their being and the energy that it creates, they're telling you, oh, you're going to give us something.

and I can't wait. I just don't know what it was. I did. And I knew the minute we pulled the pen, the place was going to go. And all this stuff was going to happen, which will make it look even cooler. That description, we just,

that description I just went through, probably took about as long as that segment. But if you could only imagine how cool that was. I don't think you can beat that. moment. I can't beat that moment. It's it for me. That's my on the moment monument. That's the best one. Memories are too hard, man. There was too many of those to really pick one. It depends on it. It changes from time to time. With reference to your kids, and I know, you know, as a rule, we don't usually talk about kids, but this is a happy thing. But when you think about your kids

being around the wrestling business obviously you know garrett got to live a lot of little boy's dreams you know he becomes friendly with the steiners and big show and you know he's got an uncle holcogen or whatever the hell so i i can only imagine how cool that is as a young boy but when you think about garrett and montana is there like a proud dad moment like you look back and you're like man that was that was pretty amazing that my kids got to do that i'm glad we got to do that together And really, it was because of wrestling? The most significant one. And there's been hundreds of these types of examples,

maybe not quite this magnitude. But whatever year it was, probably 98, new Japan. That was back when, you know, Inoki was president in the base of the company. They're head of business at the time, Sir Baisho. he was on the corporate side of New Japan, controlled all the money,

Masa Saido and his wife, Mici, all of us have become very friendly over the course of the previous two or three years. And if you've ever done business in Japan or even been to Japan, paid attention, but certainly if you do business in Japan, because it's very much a significant

and meaningful part of business to business protocol in Japan. Japanese are incredible hosts. Like once you, once I developed a true

connection with New Japan, meaning it was, yeah, it's business and we're all, we all know that, but we kind of really dug each other. I mean, it was fun working together. We all enjoyed it at various levels.

So, one year, I think it was 1998, New Japan, Noki invited me, my wife, and my two kids to come to Japan, first class, spend a week in Japan. I think it was, might have had something to do with one of the big dome shows because it was part of that. So my kids came, they got to be a part of 60, 50, 60, 80,000 people, whatever it was in the Yagdome, see their dad up there, see dad working with these Japanese executives and wrestlers. From a kid's perspective, that's kind of a big thing.

It's eye-opening. They're seeing other cultures. They're seeing other traditions. They're seeing the world. That was a very valuable experience for me to be able to survive for my kids. The rest of the trip, I won't go into all the DTagos is too much and it was too freaking cool to describe some of it. Like going up into the mountains to an ancient Japanese onsen, which is like a natural hot bath

where the samurai famously would come from that region, soak in these same baths after their big battles down on the fields. I mean, we got to experience all that. And as a father, I kind of answer your question, long-windedly. know that I could do that and no doubt because of wrestling that's

it's high up on my list very high Derek had a follow a question that says what's one idea that you didn't get over the line that you think would have been awesome so there's lots of hypothetical ideas that have been pitched through the years I'm sure but is there one that stands out where you think

man if we could have pulled that off it would have been something yeah it's been out there talked about this before it's probably been revealed in other people's books i really wanted to fake my own death yeah i had my own plane at the time everybody knew it was unusual for me to go fly to las vegas just for a weekend just to say i did fly there, eat a meal, go to bed, get up, fly out the next morning. You have to put that in my log book. I did that shit all the time. I thought, man, what if I just made it known I was going to go fly around the Grand Canyon, maybe southern Arizona, see what the border looks like from the air? And somehow speculation would be that I must have gotten off course and flew into

Mexican airspace. I was no longer being tracked by FAA. Who knows what happened. And then kind of feed the rumor mill enough tidbits that they'll arrive at their own silly shit because it's easy to do. It's really, really easy to do. Wow. It's easy. It was going to take advantage of that. Yeah, I'm just like, I know it now. And it's like, you know what? I do the right thing and make sure it travels through the right pipeline, I can't plant a story that there's at least a suspicion that Eric Bischoff died in a plane crash while touring the Mexican border. It could have made that believable. So I ran by my family being my wife.

We hadn't made up her mind how we were going to tell our kids yet. I laid out to my wife, I explained why. I don't know how much she believed it or thought I would talk myself out of it. That's probably it. You'd probably think, okay, I want to nod my head and go, okay, okay, okay, because I know he's going to wake him. What stupid idea that was. Happens a lot. Well, I really thought I could pull it up.

So I went, I just went to my wife because I want to go to Harvey. and have my wife go, no, you can't do that. Can't have that, right? Trick my balls up like that. I can't have that. I'm not in front of my boss. He's Harvey Schiller. I think he was a colonel in the Air Force at the time.

He's currently a brigadier general for crying out loud. What am I going to say? You know, I pitched this idea and you loved him, but my wife won't let me do it. No. So to prevent that humiliation, I went to my wife first, thought what I got was buy-in, at least hint of it. Then I pitched it to Harvey Schiller. And Harvey said,

no. And then proceeded to explain why. I got it. I mean, it is what it is. I was an officer with intern of broadcasting of a publicly held company. If it's revealed that this think that for a wrestling storyline could be interpreted as somehow manipulating public stock.

There's exposure there. In the minute you've got any exposure, there's going to be somebody out there willing to sue you at the level when you're playing at that level. So I understood it. I just hated it. If I had gotten a green light from Harvey, I would have done it. Let's do a fun question here from Josh Williams. I like this one. He says if WCW made a movie based on one thing,

would it be the first nitro and things that happened that night, like the Saturday Night Live movie that came out last year, or would you do it on the creation of the NWO? So if there was going to be a feature film, so we'll call it an hour and 40 minutes, and we're going to tell a story in WCW, would it be the night Hogan turned heel and the, creation of the NWO or would it be the night of the very first nitro so it's done in terms of

that very first show and maybe it's something else if you were going to do a WCW movie on one night and WCW what night would it be oh on one night one night one night so let me give you the premise of the Saturday Night Live movie nobody had ever seen Saturday Night Live this is the very first episode of Saturday Night Live nobody really even understands the concept, but they're going to debut it, ready or not. Whether you're ready or not, we're live on NBC tonight. And so, Lauren

Michaels and that crazy cast of characters from the original Saturday Night Live cast, we got to see how they all came together and created a new show that nobody really knew what to expect and expectations weren't very high and now we know it became an institution. So that was sort of the idea

behind the movie. So if we were to take a look at one feature film about one night in WCW, That makes it a lot easier. And there'd be multiple choices, which is great when you're pitching a movie because you never want to pitch one idea. You want to have another one in your back pocket in case you have to shift them live. I would go first with the launch of Nitro.

From the minute I sat down at Ted's office, to the minute we went live in Minneapolis. that movie would be about that night and how important of a night that was this is what I beat on and I know people like man are you tired to put yourself over Eric do you ever get sick of bramming your bullshit down our throat because you want us to believe what you believe

this is not that talked about this and this is a great example. I've said before how I personally, not necessarily for my ego, but for my kind of objective awareness of things, I know I am a large part

of the success to this day of WWE. Not necessarily directly, obviously, but in Indirectly, I forced Vince McMahon into a format change and a strategic business change because of what I created at Nitro. You can argue that all you, not you, Conrad, but one can argue that all they want. Timeline, the completely obvious.

Change and strategy, including the day and date of the announcement by Vince McMahon in November, you cannot deny what I'm saying to be absolute true. At WW, here's my backup, I'm not my backup. My point. At WWNutt made that shift and focused on the 18 to 49-year-old demographic that I used as a target for Nitro and built my show to appeal to because they were right in the bullseye of my target because that was completely different than the bullseye for WWE. I couldn't hit their bullseye, but I could hit mine.

And that shift to 1849 happened in the professional wrestling genre, everything about the business shifted with it. that doesn't happen without nitrown nobody will convince me i'm wrong i'll be interested in in a good solid well-researched argument because i'll learn something but you know subjectively you want to you want to argue that without any basis for it it's like okay read of their cheat let's do another question here this is from Ari

he says the Monday Night Wars electrified pro wrestling but what about the negative aspects of it squash matches help promote pay-per-views and house shows by giving away top matches for free on TV did pro wrestling forever lose an important marketing

tool now what I think is interesting about this is You know, you have said before, and I love the way you describe this, because I think you've retold the story before on the show, where when you first were watching wrestling with Lori, you were explaining to her, this is years before you're in the business, that this is one of the most true forms of marketing there is. And I love that your brain worked where you saw, oh, wow, they're just trying to use this as a promotional vehicle to sell tickets. And I don't think a lot of people necessarily put that together. They're just watching a show. but you got it and so I do think what Ari is bringing up

is a valid point in that you understood as a fan watching on television oh they're showing me these matches in order to get me to pay with my wallet and come down to the arena and buy a ticket I get that but that is certainly going to change

when you're trying to compete with Monday Night Raw because we don't want to have enhancement matches versus enhancement matches all the time of course we still saw enhancement matches on Nitro but there was a shift. Did you, and I know that you're a television company, so you're not operating and making decisions for this television company

like you would a traditional wrestling company. But you really got what house shows were all about. And I think that because you came out so strongly, and everybody knows how you feel about WCW House shows and that they were losing money every time you left the building and all that sort of stuff, I think you get painted, unfairly as as trying to kill the house show business the reality is they were losing money it was

broken it wasn't working but the idea that he really hit the nail on the head it's an important marketing tool and it does feel like as we're talking about it today eric i shows are a thing of the past like they just don't really exist anymore i mean once upon a time it was unfathable for wcd or the wbf to not have at least three in a week i couldn't tell you the last time they had one like they're really, really rare. Do you think that the Monday Night Wars aided and in killing the house show model? Or was it on its way out no matter what? It was on its way out no matter what.

The cost of ridiculous. Even when you're doing, even when you do a 60 or 70% sellout and you're moving merch, the cost of traveling talent, production, you still have. have lights, cameras, or not necessarily cameras, you have lights and staging and rings and crews and all the electrical that comes with it, audio that comes with it.

So it's not a television production in terms of scale, but it's still a significant expense. And every year it gets more and more expensive. Look, there's a lot in that question and certainly what you added to it, Conrad. but the core of the question from Ari had to do, I think, of the way I interpreted it. He's a lawyer, so I've got to be careful how I say this stuff.

Just kidding. We were a television company, as you pointed out, I was more concerned about the television revenue to WCW and the corresponding pay-per-view that went with it than I was about about the house show business. To me, the house show business was a necessary evil. Even when they weren't making money, there were people doing it because it's cash flow. And if you listen to Dick Cheatham

in any of his interviews or in his book, there were some sketchy things about cash flow. Not illegally sketchy, but, man, borderline sketchy. but okay moves in terms of cash flow. So I understood business-wise where they were doing it for as long as they did it. But when the business model shifted once I was hired from this company either makes a dollar a profit, turns a profit, or 10 is going to unplug it. That changed everything.

Now, yeah, their, house hose are necessary evil, whatever justification you want to give them. We can't afford them. That was the case in WCW. That's why I eliminated. We could not afford that line item expense and ever hope to stay alive long enough to keep 10 from pulling the plug. So that was the first victim. Now, the reason I felt comfortable with that argument is because this sounds corny as,

is how and I understand it. But it's basically one of those sayings like, you know, Gretzky's, you know, skate to where the puck is going. This was not that. This was like, what's it, Kevin Costner baseball movie? Build a Dreams. Build a Dreams moment. If you build it, they'll come.

I believed in my head, if I could get people interested enough in the television property, it's really just math. If I can get this many people watching on television every week, I can probably get this many people to come to a house show. Guess what happened? That was my approach. That was my gut. It wasn't based on my experience because I didn't have any.

This was my first experience of making a decision like this. But it turned out to be true because by eliminating splash matches, what happened to our television ratings? It came up. The brand became more popular. That's what happens when the brand becomes more popular because the television is the brand. Everything else is just ancillary revenue opportunities. It's just a low-hanging fruit that happens, right?

Well, all of a sudden, you raise the interest level high enough. The audience numbers get high enough. Now all of a sudden, that bottom fruit that you really aren't worth, it's not worth picking. Now all of a sudden, you can start selling a house shows out or getting damn close. Now you've got, now as expensive as they are, you've got margins. You can break even. You can make money.

You can lose money less often. It's a promotion happens. But getting rid of squash matches that only didn't destroy a marketing opportunity. It was a marketing opportunity that grew the business across the boards, from television ratings to how show attendance, to licensing, to merchandising. That one move of getting squash matches off TV is what elevated the business. because what elevates a business is driven by television or was at that time. Well, these days, everybody's paying a little more attention to their finances at home. And Eric can help you there too at Save Witheric.com.

All right, boys and girls, take a look at this New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel. What we've got here is all the household debt compounding, and you see it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Man, if that's the way it feels, let's your house, you feel. like you're getting further and further in debt. I want you to know there is help out there. I want to help you right now at save with Eric.com. And don't just take my word for it. Someone who's done this recently is our guy McIntyre.

He's a plumber from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He had a baby on the way. He needed a new car. He didn't want to have to go take out a new loan. He came to us. We were able to show him how to use the equity he had built up in his condo. To purchase that new car, pay off some debts, skip a couple of house payments. so now he's got that extra set of wheels he got rid of all that debt and he's saving over a thousand dollars a month really think about that normally when you think about adding a new vehicle you're thinking about adding a new payment and if you already have credit card debt man that feels like a double whammy how can i afford all this the solution is in your house if it feels like life's coming crashing down on you and it hurts inside well okay maybe that's a side bar you know what to do go right now to save with eric dot com eric and his team can run the number

for you. There's no cost. There's no obligation. And if we can't save you some cash, we won't waste your time. But Eric Vischoff really is licensed to help you save money. He really can help you save money on your current situation. And I don't want you to feel ashamed or embarrassed. I recently had a conversation with one of our listeners who says, Conrad, I should have done this three years ago. And I said, why didn't you? And he said, well, I just feel like I know you, man. I listen to you five days a week and I have for years. And I was embarrassed that I had credit card debt. Don't feel that way. Hey, man, we've all got stuff. I mean, the reality is your current credit score and your current financial situation, it's temporary. It always moves up and down. I mean,

if you're checking your online banking every day, hey, it's up some days. It's down others. That's life. And that's exactly what this is. But what you need is you need a plan. Hey, what are your long term goals? What are your short term goals? Let us help you accomplish those right now at save witherick.com. If you're feeling stuck, making the minimum payment, if you're drowning in credit, at Cardette, if you just wish you could save some cash each month and have a little more money left over at the end of the month. No matter what your situation is, we can help. We can even show you how to have your house paid off faster and do it with cheaper monthly payments. No matter your circumstance, save witheric.com can help. And I want to mention when you work with our team here

at save witheric.com, you get our year three guarantee. All the experts seem to agree that interest rates are going to improve in the next couple of years. And we don't want you to miss out on that. We want you to save as much money as you can for you and your family right now, but also not waste money later. Start saving money today right now at save witheric.com, NMLS number 2129, equal housing lender. Find out how much money you can save for free right now at save witheric.com. We are live here taking your questions.

We're doing a ask Eric anything. We'll do a few more and then we'll put a button on this one. I've really enjoyed our conversation with a lot of, of different hypotheticals, but we're getting some questions about life advice. Like, here's one from Eric who says, what advice would 70 year old Eric Bischoff give to 18 year old Eric Bischoff? Now, that's interesting. If your, if your current self could have a conversation with your 18 year old self,

what might you say, Eric? Oh, gosh. Especially 18. It was, wasn't it? Not a year I'm proud of. That's about that way. Let's see. Do really hard things that you really don't want to do.

And pick really hard things that you really don't want to do that require focus and discipline. is I think focus and discipline are my two biggest weak spots. We've got others. But focus and discipline has been the biggest challenge. One of the reasons why I have always had three or four things going on simultaneously. Some of them, rough ideas, some of them, other people involved in developing those rough ideas, some of them sitting on somebody's desk waiting for a signature, Some of them just bounce around on my freaking skull at night.

I've never been able to focus on one thing and give it 100% of my friends. It's almost like other projects or other opportunities feeds me more than anything else. So my energy goes up. My engulfants kick in. It's stimulating for me. You have meaningful things going on. So I would teach myself, do hard shit you hate to do that requires focus and discipline. Because I think that affects almost every other aspect of your life going forward.

Devon Dowling asks on the latest video, Maven uploaded. He smoked a joint with Rob Van Dam. Is there a celebrity Eric wishes he could smoke or take a drink with that hasn't been able to? Is there somebody out there you'd like to share a beverage with that you never really got to? You know, it feels like you should have because you're in a similar orbit. You just never had that chance. Is there somebody out there like that, Eric? No.

I mean, there's, you know, like world figures, you know, you can bring people back to life. Sure. Or if I get to meet them in the afterlife. Yeah, some people I want to chat with. But that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me, celebrities. Are there interesting people in general? Yeah, I know that they're big celebrities or not, but, you know, I'd like to get inside some

people's heads and understand how they got there, why they think the way they think, you know, their experience. There's a lot of those people. But other than that, there's no celebrity that I'd like to just meet to hang out with because I've never valued celebrity. I value it as a commodity because it has a transactional value. but it only has transactional value if you know how to put a valuation on it can't be out of whack you can't be thinking you're up here when you're really down here or as a producer you can't

think somebody's up here and find out the hard way they're really done so i respect celebrity as an asset but i don't it's not an aspirational quality let's remind everybody that we hope you have a safe and happy 4th of July. It's important that everybody remember that, you know, you should use an Uber. Don't drive drunk. And if you are going to use fireworks, let's be sober.

Let's be careful. Let's have an event free or incident free holiday. We've got a lot of great wrestling coming up next weekend, Eric. I want to ask you about it. But first, I do want to mention what happened last weekend. There was some news as we headed towards Saudi Arabia and

Night of Champions that there was some discussion with everything that was going on politically with Iran and their proximity and they're part of the country. Should the WWE make the Saudi Arabian show? They pulled it off without any incident. No one's

injured. Everyone's happy. Everybody's cool. That's great to hear. But when you take a look at Saudi Arabia, it does feel like it was a show that was surrounded in controversy. First, there was the debate of whether or not they should actually go, we're happy to see. They pulled off a successful show, and it seems like there was no incident there.

But in addition to that, there was this chatter around see and punk. And I don't think this is all the way necessarily fair. And it feels like sometimes we lose the plot in wrestling. Punk's in a social media post years ago, aimed at the Miz. I think the Miz had made some sort of reference to see and punk on WWE programming. Mr. Brooks felt a certain type of way about that. and took it out on Twitter. But he made a reference to Ms.

Saudi Arabia that wasn't very pleasant. And last week, in advance of WWE doing Friday Night Smackdown and from Saudi Arabia, they had like a pep rally or a presser, that sort of thing. And they had Punk have an interaction that was caught on camera and allegedly replayed before the live events that weekend,

where Punk essentially apologized to the people of Saudi Arabia. Again, we're not trying to have a political podcast. That is not what we're all about here. But I just couldn't help but watch that show last weekend. And look at the little kids really enjoying themselves and think about myself as a little kid. What a big deal it was when my dad took me to see the WWF live and in person. So I'm thankful that those families and those little kids had an opportunity to do that. But I've seen some criticism around punk that I just find as a real head scratcher,

like, you know, maybe he shouldn't have taken Ms. the task for doing his job years ago I think sometimes people maybe take things a little too personally but the vitriol people went after punk last week for doing his job like it's I don't know what do you make of this it feels like a silly talking point to me on some level it's so pervasive not only in the wrestling you know internet wrestling community. But across the board, pop culture, mainstream, whatever you want to call it, it's like people are so starved for attention and validation that when they find a group that

It validates, he can't help but say political, ideological nonsense. They put it out there in the ether because there is a large group of people that just respond in a positive way to anything that is ideologically 180 degrees from their opposition, which in this case would be conservatives. Just think about it for a moment. I know we can't say, let's not talk politics because we're talking about politics. You can't talk about politics without talking about it. This whole thing is a political reaction. Here's what I look at it.

I don't care how anybody else looks at it. To each their own, I guess. Not I guess, I know. Here's my take. You could argue. Dump Post. How many years ago? Like five or six.

All right. Dump Post. five or six years ago. How many of us have not said dumb posts five or six years within the last five or six years? All of us. Some of them pretty horrible. I'll speak for myself. So to go, to, you know, just beat on this guy because of a stupid post. That's that, that, that, that, that's It's right off the bat, that's a head scratcher. Just literally scratched my head. And then the reaction after that, the heat on him, I'll tell you what, you and I spoke

about this, and you may not remember this, but when there was speculation about Punk leaving AEW before he actually left, it was speculation about, oh, what would happen if he went to WWE long before he did? You and I talked about it. Somebody may have asked a question on the show. What do you think will happen? Punk goes in WWE, but I remember specifically saying something to the effect, I can't paraphrase myself, something to the fact does, who knows? Because he's going from one

environment, he's obviously not functioning in, into a very mature process that is very, very well managed. So we'll see. And obviously punk adapted. And part of that is being a professional. Part of being a professional is recognizing before he made the decision to sign on a dotted line, he knew WWE was doing business in Saudi. Yep.

He knew what those expectations were. And he reconciled that decision in his own way to his own satisfaction. Years ago. So I respect Punk. Me too.

He did what he had to do. Because here's another thing that I wish people paid more attention to while they're, you know, running and raving about politics. Pull yourself back from the two screens you're watching because it literally is two different movies. News is just like watching two separate movies, the two separate stories. It's tough, unless you really take the time.

But what is happening right now today? Saudi, Israel, Oh, Malia, not Samal. I don't think of it. There are countries now that are lining up possibly for an expanded version of the Abraham Accords. You don't have to know much about it other than, hey, it creates a much more peaceful situation than we currently have in the Middle East.

Oh, and by the way, Israel, just as a side note, has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire or a ceasefire within 60 days or a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza. So that carnage is stopping. Things are settling down. Part of that happens, in my opinion, because of the goodwill that the current administration has with countries that have not had the best relationship with the United States. And part of that is just accepting. that there are differences of opinions, there are differences of cultures, there are differences

of religions. And the baseline is, just be respectful. You don't have to agree. We don't have to make force other countries to adapt our version of democracy. It's not our job. Our job is to get along. Part of that comes down to individual choices, decisions, and actions. And I applauded Puck for his choices, decisions, and his actions because to me he's a pro.

And he did the right thing. And maybe by everybody just killing out a little bit, not putting our virtue signaling brand on everything and making it negative. I think it's kind of cool that a big part of American pop culture is being enjoyed by people from an entirely different. culture you're also that i wouldn't want to live in but i get the choice so he's up people just he's up yeah let's try being nice to each other and uh let's hope that we can all be nice next weekend because starcast is here it's happening friday july 11th and saturday july 12th we're going to have a who's who of the superstars of today and of course all your hall of famers and legends from yesterday year including a texas panel that i in particular

and pretty fired up about. Dory Funk is going to be there. We've got Stan Hanson who's going to be there. Kevin Von Erick will be there. And of course, John Bradshaw Layfield all on stage, telling your stories about the good old days of Texas. Everything's bigger in Texas. And man, we just keep adding more events. We hope you'll make plans to join us. It's next Friday and Saturday in Arlington at the Sheraton. Braclets are on sale now. That'll get you access to all of the different panels. You're also going to be able to zip through the line and buy some meat and greet a little faster. We've got some really cool fun pro photo

ops coming and some nice surprises up our sleeve. Some names that we haven't announced. They're going to be their ass surprises. You don't want to miss. That's S-T-R-R-C-A-S-T.com. Of course, later that night, though, Eric, it's going to be particularly interesting given your history. We know that Goldberg is coming back for Saturday night's main event in Atlanta. He's got a title shot

against Gunther, of course, believe it or not, and this is crazy to think about, this weekend, July 6th, is going to be the anniversary of when he beat Hulk Hogan for the world title at the Georgia Dome back in 1998. So a few days after that, six days after that anniversary, he'll step in the same town in the ring for a belt that looks a little bit like the old big gold belt from WCW against go ahead and call your shot a week and change ahead of time eric is goldberg winning the world title next weekend even if it's just for a moment or two no but his check will be bigger than the one he got in wcw for the same thing we'll have a preview for all that and a lot

more it's going to be a hell of a wrestling weekend we hope you'll make plans to join us uh it's starcast coming your way on friday july 11th and saturday july life 12th. And of course, what a day, WWE piggybacking it, Saturday 9th main event that night, the WWE Evolution pay-per-view for all the women the very next day on Sunday. We're going to have a lot to break down,

but I've got a crazy travel schedule next week, as you may imagine, Eric. So I think you and I will probably need to throw one in the can on like Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that. So what we want to make sure you know to do is to make plans to join us live. We're going to be live

on YouTube at 83 weeks.com. that's the best place to catch all things eric bischoff you never know when we're going to go live when eric's got something he wants to get off of his chest but it's easy to make sure you never miss it you just go right now to 83 weeks dot com we're not selling you a subscription it's a totally free site it's youtube folks we just want you to hit the subscribe button but maybe just as importantly don't forget to hit the notifications bell so that way no matter where you are you get a push notification that says hey eric bischoff's live come ask him anything you want without further ado that'll do it for us today boys and girls we look forward to next week

Eric we've got a big week next week for wrestling but you got a big weekend with mrs b she's not listening right now what do you got off your sleeve what's your fun surprise what are you treating mrs b with this weekend nothing special and we it's a birthday obviously but neither one of us are gift givers you know we we're experience givers i guess so you know fourth of july is a pretty big experience we're going to have friends and family here. And it's a very, very big day, a fun day. And that's kind of what she digs. It's just a relax fun day with family and friends. So, what she going get. And I think about 11 pounds of butt too, right? Something like 16. Yeah, there you go. Maybe 11 after I get

through. We'll see you next week, boys and girls right here on 83 weeks.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad free shows.com is all about. Get early, ad free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts every single week, starting at just nine bucks. That's less than 20 cents an episode each month. And yes, you can listen to them all directly through Apple Podcasts or your regular podcast app. How easy is that? Ad free shows also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content and docuseries like title chase, Eric Fires Back, Conversations with Conrad, and The Insiders. Plus new series like The book with David Crockett, Monday Mailbags with Mike Keota and Nick Patrick, and a whole lot

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