83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 382: Beach Blast 1993

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, "EZE" Eric Bischoff and guest host Derek Sabato take us back to 1993 for some summer action! They guys will be taking a deep dive look into all the happenings surrounding WCW Beach Blast. Eric shares stories and experiences from his time as a commentator working with all the talents in the company.  FACTOR - Eat smart with Factor. Get started at FACTORMEALS.com/83weeks50off and use code 83weeks50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. RIDGE - Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code 83WEEKS at https://www.Ridge.com/83WEEKS ! #Ridgepod TECOVAS - Get 10% off at tecovas.com/83WEEKS when you sign up for email and texts. MYBOOKIE - Sign up for My Bookie at http://MyBookie.website/joinwith83WEEKS  with code 83WEEKS and we'll back you on your first deposit. $100 gets you $50. $200 gets you $100 TUSHY - Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with code 83WEEKS at hellotushy.com/83WEEKS #tushypod ROCKET MONEY - Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff in the survey so they know I sent you! 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.

All right. We are live. Welcome to 83 weeks. I am not Conrad Thompson or Derek Sabato. My name is Wesley Burleson. Pinch hitting while most of the crew is in Texas. But I do have the Hall of Fame, the ripped at 70, the legend himself. Eric Bischoff here. Eric, how are you? I'm doing great, man, getting ready to head to Baltimore tomorrow. We've got some Real American Freestyle production to do. We're getting some great interviews with some of the top freestyle. wrestlers in the world, elite level. Bo Nickel, we signed and I went out and met last week. Bo Nickel, of course, you know, MMA star and a major, major force in freestyle wrestling. So he's going to be on the card, went out and met with him. We got a great interview from him. Darren Caldwell, another one.

That's another star to watch. Deryon's quite impressive. 38 years old, man. He's not only fighting this. opponent he's fighting father time so i'm obviously rooting for the older guy sorry darian i had to throw it out there just had to do it but yeah real american freestyle's looking good man we've got a major major announcement coming out on july 21st so we're having a little bit of fun and kind of a soft launch and feeling some things out and getting people a little excited but uh july 21st is when

the starty really gets parted so we'll uh we'll have some fun well now you're curious i want to prod I don't know about the big announcement. I'm excited. Well, proud all you want. I'll tell you whatever I can tell you. I mean, you don't have any hints about the type of announcement or what's? We're going to be announcing a major partnership. Awesome.

A very important strategic partnership. That's really, it really puts us ahead of where I hoped we could be when this whole thing started 90 days ago or 120 days ago. whatever it was, it went from sitting around the table going, hey, I got an idea. What if we did this to here we are. And on July 21st, the announcement will kind of bring it all home for everybody and see what we're really up to. So kind of excited. That's awesome. I'm excited to hear it. Speaking of I'm excited, we had the 4th of July. I think the last time you and Conrad recorded, it was the day before the Cody parade. How did that go? Did you get your seats? And was it, you know, Wesley, I love the parade. You know, I talked about it with Conrad. And yeah, I got

We got there early. Our chairs was, see, the town I live in is such a cool town. Not many of them left. But we, my wife and I, Lori, Mrs. B, as I referred to about on the show, we went into town for a light dinner. And we said, oh, let's bring our chairs that we were going to sit in to watch a parade on the curb. Let's bring our chairs, put them in the spot we like, and we'll just leave them there. overnight. Smart.

And we did. And it was still there at 7.30 in the morning when I showed up. You know, in most places I've lived, and there were hundreds, probably thousands of chairs out there, right? Everybody did that, not just me. But in a lot of places, everybody leave their chairs out. They'd come back the next morning. They'd all be gone, and there'd be a big flea market 300 miles away with a sale on chairs.

Yeah, right. No, it's cool. It's a little slice of a peaceful American life, but it was fun, man. The parade's always given me. Well, good to hear. So the topic today is Beach Blast, 1993. So we're going to jump into that and kind of talk about the mood of the wrestling industry at the time and go through the matches. I do want to say, hey, to our chat. We are live here at 83 weeks.com. So we got a bunch of comments coming in and love to see all you here. Thanks for joining us. Before we jump into Beach Blast, 1993, though, I did want to talk about where today is Friday, and we are jumping into a big weekend for the wrestling industry. So we got, of course, the big all-in show tomorrow, the Saturday Night Made event tomorrow night.

And what I really wanted to kind of talk about a bit was get your thoughts on one main match in that Saturday night main event, but Goldberg, and what he's saying is his last match against Gunther for the title, how do you see that playing out? you know there's a left side of my brain and a right side of my brain the left side of the brain i don't know which side is the creative side but i do know there are two sides of the brain yeah in this regard in this context there's more than whatever there's a lot of parts to the brain but there is a creative side

and then there is the analytical side now i'm more of a creative person that i am analytical which means, in this case, I'm somewhat optimistic only because I want to be. It makes no sense. The other side of my brain is going, that's a stupid idea. It won't work. Here's all the reasons why it won't work. But the left side of my brain is go, shut the fuck up. I see it the way I want to see it.

And that would be Goldberg getting the win because of the emotion that is obvious to everyone that that would create his last match in front of a hometown crowd. The end of a major career. It's like telling everybody, it's your last baseball game and it's your last at bat, you hit a home run with the bases loaded. I mean, that's movie magic right there, right? Yep. And WWE would have the ability.

creatively to create their version of that movie magic at a moment that that moment in the movie that makes everybody even if they're not really a fan of bill goldberg go oh man that was really cool the way they did that because that crowd reaction will be infectious it's like it's like an electric current when it starts and people really get emotional it that's what makes a building erupt is that everybody's on the same frequency and it's all good and exciting and fun.

Okay. Now the other side of my brain is going on that was stupid. Like, why the hell would you do that? It's his last match. You're going to beat one of your up-and-coming stars with some guy we're never going to see again? That part of my brain wouldn't be wrong. It's just not as much fun.

It's the other part of my brain. So I'm going to go with the other part of my brain, because I want to have fun. I'm going to always bet on fun. Wesley, you'll, you, I don't know. Have you ever worked with me like this? Probably not. Um, a little behind the scenes, but not, not hosting. I mean, but on a podcast like this.

No. Yeah. No, I always default to fun. I always bet on fun. All right. Always. So let me, I love wrestling. I am so excited that we have this kind of weekend.

coming up with this many variety of shows. I'm watching Ring of Honor tonight. I go hard, but I'll watch everything. There is a conspiracy theory in my mind. I just want to ask you if this is crazy or not. So I think if Goldberg were to win, could it be W.W.E. looking to take over the new cycle for the weekend away from the big show of the competition in Texas. So you have all in happening at 3 p.m.

It's going to be over at 7 or 8 o'clock. if Twitter X is going crazy after that for what happened. If Goldberg were to win, good or bad, would it not immediately take over the entire new cycle? And it would be all anybody is talking about come Monday versus anything else that happened this weekend. No. You don't think?

Not at all. I mean, not even a moment. Look, everybody that's a AEW fan is going to, watch AEW. Right. And they're going to react to the way they predictably react. And nothing that happens on WWE is going to change that behavior because that behavior is embedded.

It's the thing that galvanized, galvanizes that portion. See, I'll reach back for you because we haven't worked together and I didn't want to make you feel bad or piss you off. I didn't say tiny portion. That's what I would. No, trust me, I, I know the, I know the, the metrics. The tiny portion of the audience, of the combined audience that is like AW for life, they're going to do what they're going to do.

Nothing WWE is going to affect that. Yeah. Now, from a broader kind of a macro perspective, if you're measuring engagements and trying to come up with some algorithm formula, so that you could determine out of all of the wrestling comments, what percentage were WWE and what percentage were AEW? It will probably be exactly the same, whether they were going the same day or not. The audience is predictable.

It's not like AEW has these great swings in any of their metrics, whether it be YouTube or television ratings or the mystery max downloads, they've kind of stabilized at that 600 to 700,000 viewer plus the voodoo at max. It's probably not going to go up. Yeah. It's probably not going to go down clearly not as rapidly as it has the previous four years. If you look at the year-over-year losses, I don't know, I don't track this shit, but I'm pretty sure I'd be right if I said they've been probably about 25,

percent loss of audience year over year well that kind of math by year seven gets pretty ugly so what i think they've done is they've found they found bottom i don't see them getting a lot lower they're going to lose 10 percent here one year maybe seven percent a year that's just kind of natural attrition i guess to with regard to cable and who's watching it whatever But they've at least slowed the bleeding. They haven't stopped it. But like I said, I think they found bottom. And I think they're going to stabilize there.

I don't see them doing anything to turn that around and have kind of an upward trajectory, nor do I see anything really happening there that's going to cause them to lose the audience that they have. Yeah, 100% understood. I think not talking ratings, because like the shows are staggered. So like you have All In the afternoon, it'll be over before Saturday Night Main Event starts, not necessarily for a ratings or like for trying to draw in the audience. I could just, it made sense in my mind of if you have the internet, even the small percentage of internet wrestling fans raving on Twitter about All In or talking about Okada and whatever. And then if Goldberg did win, I just think it would be a funny move comparatively by WWE that again, everything would then be, oh shit. whether you love it or hate it,

everyone's going to be talking about the fact that Goldberg won. Yeah, and I guess it matters to the internet wrestling community, but I don't think as a business that matter. Yeah. It has an impact. Here's how it could, though. Let's play what if.

WWE has their event. Goldberg wins. That thing's happened on Saturday during the day. A lot of people are busy on Saturdays. like cutting grass, changing oil, playing baseball, taking my kid to soccer, all this stuff that people do in the summertime, which makes television one of the hardest times a year in television is the summertime. Because if you look at the ratings, I don't know what they do now,

but they used to, in addition to the ratings and the demos and all the information that we typically get today, there is also a measurement called hot levels. H-2T. Hutt levels references the households using television. Hutt levels in the summertime are predictably low, like really low, because people are out all day when the weather's nice. In wintertime, when there's not much to do in the biggest TV markets like New York and Detroit and Chicago, Minneapolis, not a major, major market, but pretty big television

market, all up and down the East Coast, dense population, a lot of viewers on the Northeast, Well, those people are not playing on the beach. You're not doing stuff people in Southern California or Florida are doing. They're in the house watching television. So as the hut levels go up, you get more exposure for your product. I say all that because the hot levels on a Saturday are probably at the lowest they are all weekend, Saturday during the day, just because of what we just talked about. A lot of shit to do on the weekends, right?

Yeah. But if that news breaks and the social media influences strong, there'll be a lot of people who didn't get a chance to see Saturday night main event, tune in to see Saturday night main event probably during all in, right? So that's one way, but look, that sounds like, well, that sure, that could happen. if you try to put a number on that on a percentage basis, you're probably looking at a percentage of 1% in terms of the number of people that actually behave that way.

Right. So it's kind of more of a talking point for the internet wrestling community because they just like to have shit to argue about and try to sound smart about. But it really is a non-factor. You know, everybody's trying to make so much of the head-to-head thing. And I get it. but strategically in the short term it doesn't really matter much in the long term it's just

more conversation more engagement for wwe the more they can get the better it's just general business understood the uh yeah i just i think it is interesting you see sometimes like especially after like wrestlemanias and somerslams the really big events wb will release a graphic that shows um this many clicks or this many views on YouTube or this many trending, you know, this sort of stuff. So I think it seems like sometimes there is a focus on that just as a metric of other than the television ratings. Just this is how we look at our Google clicks and our Twitter mentions and like just.

Oh, that's just my analytics in the case of WWE. It's revenue. Yeah. Everything that they're driving to, I mean, their YouTube channel is going to be like printing money. Absolutely. Cool. So, yeah, and the only other, I could, I could see Goldberg winning. I think it's weird having it in Atlanta.

If you're just going to have Gunther beat him to establish Gunther as this dominant, you know, young champion, it's weird to beat him in his backyard to me. But, yeah, I don't know. And there's also, you know, people are talking about if it's, if his last match, how does he win the title? Remembering Seth Rollins has the, well, Seth Rollins has that money in the bank contract. kind of looming. And that's where the creative would have to be really, really, you know, thought through. And anything's possible. You're only limited by your own lack of imagination.

So there is a way that I'm sure that this particular challenge could be dealt with in a creative way that would make pro wrestling sense, at least. It could be plausible enough to get by the smell test, right? But it still comes out. Now, here's an interesting thing, you know, about WWE. And this is more, you know, in my case, anecdotal, but I think historically it is at the very least perceived, if not a reality, that WWE's MO is never to put you over in your hometown. Nobody ever gets, I would say nobody ever, but more often than not, if you're wrestling in your hometown, you're doing a job. that's kind of been a wwee thing i know there are exceptions to it i save your breath

save your twitter bullshit for dave belzer i don't care but having having been someone who's worked there worked with him did you ever get the in the instinct that that was a vince thing more than a wwe thing i mean those are interchangeable with how much he was in control for so long but i always it just from books i've read and listening to wrestlers podcast i know shit about shit, to be clear. But I've always heard people say that was a Vince thing more than the company thing. Well, Vince was the company thing. But with him being gone, I didn't know if that

was, you know, a changing tide. Here's, here's, I'm going to be really honest about this. I have no idea if that was a Vince thing or not. You know, or I, now, if I had to bet my money, absolutely. Because it was corny. It was like, oh, why does he do this? And it's not like only a couple people thought about it. I mean, it was kind of like, I was a joke about, oh, great, I'm going to be in Chicago, my hometown, I guess I'm doing a job next week. Sure enough, like clockwork. And sometimes, sometimes it was okay.

Nobody got hurt. It wasn't like anybody lost ground creatively because of it necessarily. Probably a lot of times people found themselves in a neutral position. meaning it didn't hurt him and didn't help them. It was just a match. Typically, that's the way they came off to me. Because when that would happen, it wasn't in a critical moment in a storyline.

It was more, we can be giving by with this tonight here at this point. I do think it was a Vince thing. And that's why I'm hopeful. The left side of my brain is cheering me on as I speak, just for thinking this thought. My left side of my brain is hopeful that it really was a Vince Quirk. He'd just like to do it.

Like a lot of other little things, he just made him chuckle. I'm hoping it was, and I'm hoping that we break that pattern. And here's another reason why created it. Other than the fact that I enjoyed the moment, the emotion it would create as we've discussed, it would break a pattern. and sometimes wrestling needs to break the patterns that we're used to seeing in order to kind of refocus the audience and get their attention. Can't do it a lot.

But this is an example of what I mean. What we've just been doing. Here's another example. When I gave away finishes on Nitro, where I gave away Ross finishes, everybody said, you can't do that. I said, well, why can't I do that? She just don't do that in wrestling. Why don't you do that in wrestling?

We don't do that. You don't do that to another company. Oh, really? You mean, all the other dirty shit we do to each other and me giving away finishes is somehow, you know, like the worst thing? Right. And that's an example of there's certain things you just don't do in wrestling.

Sometimes you figure out a way to do them and make it work because it just, it gets people back in. They're seeing something they don't normally see. It was an unpredictable moment. It doesn't have to be big. It can be little shit. But the more you can keep the audience, especially live, off balance by breaking up the normal patterns a little bit, the easier it is to keep them engaged.

And I think this would be an example to kind of shatter the myth and legacy of you're going to do a job in your hometown, number one. And that's minor. That's like way down the list. It actually doesn't even matter. But what wouldn't matter would be that no one would expect it because of the pattern, right? And because we're all thinking, well, just, you know, like the right side of my brain. You know, even, you know, hardcore wrestling fans or active wrestling fans are going, well, that wouldn't make sense because then what happens to the belt?

And then what happens to this? What happens to that? So I don't want to say intellectually, but it's easy to understand why giving the belt a gold, would, Goldberg would create a problem. But if you could solve that issue creatively, I think that moment would make the title mean more so that when it does get back to Gunther or Seth or whoever it goes to, it's got a story behind it.

I like that. I'll be interested to see what happens this weekend. It probably won't be that. Oh, me too. Let's pause real quick. and hear a word from one of our sponsors real quick. And I'm going to throw to Conrad to tell us a little bit about Factor. Summer is here.

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One more time. That code is 83 weeks, 50, OFF at factormeals.com slash 83 weeks, 50 off. You'll get 50% off plus free shipping at factor meals.com slash 83 weeks, 50 off. All right. So next thing I wanted to mention briefly was I talked about there's a all in. There's arena of honor tonight, all in. There's NXT's got a show. tomorrow in the afternoon all ends in the afternoon saturday night made event tomorrow night

and then on sunday there is the women's all pay-per-view evolution they're doing this again it's been years since the first one and just wanted to give that a shout out i love the support of the women's wrestling and i think it's unique having a well they got almost seven thousand tickets sold for that that's outstanding absolutely so yeah i'm i'm excited for all the shows this weekend so we got one um super chat came in i want to throw up here. Vin says, inspiring to see you in such shape with DDP, Eric. Sorry, I've covered thoughts on Dave saying you'd rather tear him down than focus on

your own company. You know, that's fun is I, I'm keeping track of some of these comments because I know what's going on with Real American Freestyle. And there's a lot going on behind the scenes that people don't know. Like, we're in a,

we're launching a brand new professional sports league. We've done it in about 120. 20 days. So there's a lot of rollout that we're doing. Some of it is what I would consider soft launch, making sure that our ticket system is in place, picking sure our website is functioning as it relates to tickets. And we're literally creating content from the ground up because we don't have any, right? So all of this is happening kind of in a soft launch, except for the production of content. That's full speed ahead. But we're rolling stuff out as we go. And the target date is July 21st for our promotion to hit. Our national promotion, our local promotion, our social

media should roll out. We're developing that literally as we speak. 20 minutes before I got to record, I was on the phone working through social media issues. So we're getting there. And I know what's going on so it's easy for someone like Dave who doesn't know anything about anything that's really going on other than whatever's going on in that divergent skull of his. It just makes me laugh. It's fine. It's cool. I get a kick out of it. We'll see what things look like in a couple weeks. I've noticed a lot of responses of yours on Twitter lately have just been the little smiley face with the sunglasses. I mean, that's it. It's just like you just Because even without knowing what you just said, it kind of, because you'll get people criticizing what you are or aren't doing.

And then that emoty afterwards, just kind of to me is like you're saying, just wait, just wait and see. I mean, that's it. Yeah, you know, and I've been tempted a couple of times. I've actually started to respond. And don't do it because, first of all, social media is like the intellectual cesspool of the world, particularly when it comes to wrestling. The internet wrestling community, generally speaking, is some of the lowest level thinkers I've ever dipped by toe into water with. And sometimes it's fun because these people are so easy. It's low-hanging fruit.

So if I want to entertain myself and people that follow me, I'll have fun with it. But then it gets to a point where some of it, these people take this and themselves in their idiocy and ignorance. In the true sense of the word, I don't mean it to sound derisive, but people just lack information and knowledge, which is the definition of the word ignorance. Absolutely. Google it. But because their lack of information and knowledge collides with their obsessive desire to be recognized as someone that knows something, it gets to be a little too much. So I said, I back out. I'll stay out of it for a while.

And I'll get bored. I'll be sitting on a plane or sitting in an airport or whatever and just have too much time on my hands and nothing to do. And I go, I think I'm going to screw with some of these idiots. And I do. And it makes me laugh. And I go about my business. I understood. You say that a lot.

Like, okay, I understand you. I think you're an asshole. I don't agree with anything you just said. But okay. I understand. No, you can see, if you think that I'm going to ask. That's hardly ever. Perfectly free to tell me so.

No, no, no. I'm excited for the, the work you're doing and to see what happens with that. I love, I wrestled in high school. I love freestyle wrestling. I'm, I'm excited for any kind of wrestling on TV. I'm getting, I watch MMA and I'm starting to get less interested in it. And I think any other sort of, you know, combat sport, you know, or just competitive sport is welcome. So I'm excited to see what you do.

Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. We, you know, we've got, the talent is the, these wrestlers, these athletes are so amazing. I mean, I wrestled in high school as well. And for a couple years out of high school, I wrestled in Riesel and Greco. Back then it was called AAU. This was before USA wrestling. But, you know, I was pretty average on a good day.

But all my friends were wrestlers in my universe for about four or five. years of my life, well, more than that, between the ages of probably 14 and 21, it was all wrestling. And I learned then, and it became obvious that it's still true, that wrestlers, people, they're the really good ones, not people like me that just did it because it was fun. But I mean really good ones, the ones that are dedicated to it. These are people are wired way different than your average athlete. I respect all athletes, every sport, no matter what it is, takes discipline, takes amazing talent, God-given talent, develop talent, commitment, hard work, all of that.

Wrestlers are just a wee bit different, and it's fun. All right, so speaking of wrestling, let's jump in and talk some about Beach Blast in 1993. So where we are with the company, there's a lot of talk about style of wrestling. is kind of what we kick off with behind the scenes leading up to Beach Blast with Oli Anderson, someone I'm sure you're familiar with. And read here from the notes from the observer. There's a lot of, I'm sorry, this is actually from the torch, but WCW discussing to once again change its style back to the 1970 style.

So this is no official statement's been made by WCW, but given history and philosophy of Olli Anderson and Greg Gagne, Such a style would not be surprising, the torch says, such a change regarded as ridiculous by most wrestlers and fans. But nonetheless, the perception is WCW management has to do something different to regress back to the 1970s because that's all the current management knows. So was only pushing anything like this that you were aware of? Did you talk to, did others have to talk him down? Or were you one of those that did? Well, this is before I had that much control over anything.

I may have been the executive producer at that time. You know, the timeline gets a little fuzzy. But I wouldn't, I would have been aware of these discussions. I wouldn't have gotten much of a vote, but I would get heard. So let's back up, though, from the beginning. First of all, this was Dave Meltzer reporting, which doesn't mean that actually happened. I miss this was this was the torch our notes go between the two

in 1993 the torch wasn't much better than the observer Wade Keller you know he's changed his format completely and I have a lot of respect for what Wade does today but back in 1993 he was just Dave Meltzer light so you don't know if that was true or not but I can tell you how it probably got to

to Wade because I'm sure somebody fed it to him from the inside he never showed up in the office. He wouldn't know first, Dan, he would know what someone else was telling him that someone else was probably a low-level, mid-level wrestler who wanted to buddy up to the dirt sheets to get favorable press because that's how that works. Here's the deal. Bill Watts, Olli Anderson, Greg Gagne, that trifecta.

Now, Watts may have been gone by this time that we're referencing here. I can't remember, probably. But Oly and Greg really came up and had the peak of their success, their individual success, occurred probably in the 70s, early 80s. I know for sure, Greg, maybe bounced up against the early mid-80s, but that's it. From that point, it went downhill. And I say that because most every big name wrestler that I've worked with,

former wrestler that I've worked with that ended up being in part of creative somehow or in management, always reflected back to their individual heyday as to when wrestling was being produced right. That's the way it should be. because their point of reference is the peak of their particular career. And unfortunately, guys like Greg Ganya and only Anderson and certainly Bill Watts, had no freaking clue how television worked. They knew how the old wrestling territories worked.

They knew how to produce a good live show, non-televised. Those those basics are the same, for the most part. But when it came to producing for television, they were completely clueless. So they may, you know, it may be a safe thing to say that, well, something had to change. But unfortunately, only Anderson and Greg Gagnan weren't the guys to figure it out. And they would go back to things that made sense to them in the 70s based on their experience. So people would hear those ideas internally and go tell guys like Way Keller and Dave I don't want to believe what these guys want to do.

They want to go back to 1977. I don't think there was any suggestion that we use the 70s or WCW used because I wasn't involved in creative at the time. I don't think there was any suggestion that we should go back and retool a 70s approach to producing television. But there was a lot of discussion over what worked and what didn't work and most of what those guys thought worked. used to work in the 70s would never

work again. That's a long-winded answer was, I'm sorry. Hey, it's good information, though. It's interesting because, yeah, and it makes sense. You're talking about how that information could get to Wade or to Dave, like, that all makes sense. So a couple of the things mentioned here, Gordon Solie takes over the events center slots

in place of the departed Tony Gilliam. since you're it lists here in the notes that you were the executive producer of the television shows at the time any notes on that replacement of Gordon Solie for Tony Gilliam or was it just that Tony Gilliam left and you needed someone to put in?

No, I would have made that choice and my feeling was by that time I'd kind of gotten to learn a lot more about Gordon and appreciate, you know, the kind of footprint that Gordon had because he'd been in such a high profile with a number of positions in professional wrestling throughout the Southeast predominantly, if not exclusively.

But I liked him in that role. He had that kind of Walter Cronkite kind of straight sports vibe to him with a great quarter scottes, or Cartman Campbell's voice that. you know, you've been around people that smoked straight cigarettes and drink a lot of whiskey. They sound just like Gordon Solie. That's awesome. It's good for your voice.

It sucks for everything else. Helps the voice, though. One other person making news this time, Michael Buffer, currently the most famous boxing ring announcer, is going to be the ring announcer at the Norfolk Clash. So Buffer, of course, ends up being a mainstay of major WCW matches, but who's responsible for bringing him in? Was that you on the TV side? Was that Oli Anderson, someone else?

No, that was me. Because it was television and not wrestling. I got to vote and nobody else did. And Michael Buffer was an important chess piece to what the strategy that I had in mind to kind of refresh. I said earlier, you know, Bill Watts, Regania, whoever else we were talking about at the time,

booking. They didn't have the only Anderson. They didn't have the answer. They didn't have a vision other than, let's go back to 1970. But I did. And reaching the audience outside of my existing audience. And this is the big mistake, I think a lot of producers, make is they're so focused on their audience, you also have to be aware of the audience you don't have,

meaning how do you get people that aren't currently watching your product to watch your product? It's no different than how do you get people that don't buy your toothpaste? How do you get them to buy your toothpaste? They're not going to do it by accident. They're not going to stumble into your product and go, I think I'll try that toothpaste, even though I've been using this toothpaste for 20 years. I'm going to try this one, unless you give them a reason.

Michael Buffer was one chess piece in what became very many chess pieces that I put in place to attract an audience I didn't already have, because that's the only way you can grow it. You might want to pass that along to Tony Con. He might appreciate it. I have no, trust me, I have no direct line to Tony Kahn. I do have a line to Conrad Thompson, though, and let's check in with him to hear about one of our sponsors, Ridge. Man, I tell you, I love Ridge. I think we've all seen the old Seinfeld, or we see the George Costanza, the guys got the old beater wallet.

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I have a Ridge wallet myself. And I do, too, by the way, I wasn't kidding, man. I used to fly. You could never figure it out because it's just I never connected the dots. But whenever I'd fly, my lower back would bother me. I couldn't get comfortable sitting or laying down, stretch out for two days and finally start feeling better. And it was my damn wallet because you'd cram every, you know, you got credit cards, you get cash in there. I like carrying cash, but you end up with, you know, cash, cash sometimes all ones.

but man my my ridge it's in my I forget I even have it I have to constantly check it to make sure it's there it's so comfortable it's easy to use I love it I love it I do a lot of advertising for them just in my daily life because I take that thing out to pay at work and different functions I always have people ask me what what what is that or what kind of wallet is that because they're always so used to that thick folding that like you just pull out the cool it's got the gimmick where you slide it at the bottom and your cards just pop out like it's just it's just cool to take out and like you know whip your card out you can put it because it's metal you can put an air tag on it so you can find it or you can get a magnet it'll go right to the back of your phone you can carry your phone and your wallet in your pocket freaking awesome absolutely a couple of uh little weird things here in the notes that i'm not too sure of and you may have a lot to say or you may not have a lot to say but i'm curious to ask um the observer sorry reports that the 6-1 taping for the TBS show.

Before the show, someone handed out these handbills of Tech Slazinger. So they were like handing them out to the crowd, like promo pictures of Tech Slashinger. And the notes don't say if this was, I don't think it was done by the company, but that Doug Dillinger had to go out and retrieve all of them before the taping started and the crowd was booing.

And the crowd was chanting for Tech Slazinger. Was this? So I don't even need to know anymore. I don't even know if it really happened because it was Dave Meltzer, but let's pretend it happened. Again, if I had to bet, I don't know. Texted that. Trying to get himself over.

And it worked. I mean, he's dumb looking as, I mean, doesn't his guy just look as dumb as hell when you look at that? I mean, nothing on that face says I've ever read a book. He knew how to get himself over. Well, he was good with pictures. At least in front of 250 drunk, half of them were asleep. But yeah, worked.

One other one that I had not heard of, but I'm curious to ask about was at a taping in Knoxville, there was a Fred Flintstone-like character wandering around the ring, kind of like they said similar to doink the clown. This was a former Florida jobber Tim Powerhouse Parker doing his bongo the caveman gimmick that he was using in the Florida Indies and we even have like it looks like an old Bigfoot footage looks like Taz really from back in that that time period. But I'm going to tell Taz you said this cat looks like him. Well, you know, the Tasmania image when he had the longer hair and he wore that your jungle singlet. You're buried now. I can't wait.

it's you Leslie Brothan thought this was you he said no this is Tad I said no it's not a guy from Florida that does a bongo fucking gimmicks thing and on the Indies in Florida no no no that's Tass that's how he started

he started as we all know Tass from Florida started as a caveman that's really Tass no no no no this is the Tim Powerhouse Parker I just was saying he looked like he's got that tas you know how he always scrunches up his mouth like exactly he looks it looks like he's irritated he looks like you just told him i said this photo was of him that's that's the face he

would be making but no the guy he did not stick around long he was gone very shortly but just yeah like i said somebody doesn't brought him in as a rib the only i got the guy in florida he's awesome he's willing to pay his own way only would go oh yeah i can't pay my own way. I slept in my car. I put a submarine sandwich in a manifold, drove down a road so I can pull over, stop, eat a hot sandwich. Back in my day, yeah. This guy's really going to pay for his own way. Yeah. Well, he clean up the arena when we're done? Yeah. Brick, I'm in. And they brought in the bongo player. That would be. I want to take a pause real quick and call out one of our super

Chats here. We do have our live crowd here. Happy to have you. Thank you for joining us. And if you have a super chat you want to put in or a comment, you know, we'll get to them as we can. You know, we have new and old fans, Eric? So this one might be a fan that's not aware of some of the history of your family. But have any of your kids or even grandkids, you young stud, in the past, expressed an interest of going into pro wrestling? A lot of feel like you could talk about there. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And thanks for being a new fan, because if you've been listening to the show or following me at all, you'd know that you would know that my son, Garrett, broke into professional wrestling, much to my chagrin and my advice against such a move. I tried to talk him out of it for quite a while, but he was determined. And once I knew I couldn't talk him out of it, I did my best to support him. and he ended up training initially with Rikishi at his school in Southern California. He moved out there and trained there for quite a while. I can remember how long.

Then moved from Southern California to train with Rikishi. He then moved to Clearwater, Florida to train with Hulk and Brian Knobbs and a pretty good crew of guys down in Florida who were all working out together in training. So he spent quite a bit of time training. He broke into the business under an assumed name. Nobody even knew he was my son. I mean, my producing partner, Jason Hervey, did, and Dixie did. But for the most part, nobody really knew that Garrett was my son. He came in as the referee, Jackson James. And then creatively revealed himself to be my son. And we worked a program them together, I beat him with a whip, I think a cane,

Kendo stick, yeah, the dreaded Kendo stick. I whooped his ass inside of a cage with that damn thing. And Welts all over his back. When the match was over, we hugged backstage and I turned around, I goes, Dad, take a look. It was horrifying what I did to my own son. And the reality of that sunk into me as a father. I'm looking at my son and I'm going,

I did that. And we laughed about it. And he laughed about it. It was like the highlight of his weird kid career. I thought I was over it. From any of the other family? I was just going to say, and just was I thought I accepted it.

It was okay in the context of what we were doing together. I no longer felt like I should be arrested. My wife called. and it sounded something like what the fuck yeah yeah so yeah my son my daughter on the other hand didn't want any part of it she went into television production she started out as an intern working for my production company and worked for us for several years got very involved in field production um and then went to work for a uh a Warner Brothers company called shed media in development and then was hired as a vice president of development for a company

called V10 Productions in Hollywood or Los Angeles. So she followed me into the kind of television world, but my son Garrett followed me into the ring, so to speak. All right, good deal. And we have the second comment there from Bushin Rayu Kat, just the second part of that, talking about all in tomorrow, the big AW show and seeing what's in the briefcase. I know you're not a prolific viewer of AEW, but are you aware that throughout the tenure of John Moxley's world title reign, he has relegated the belt itself to a briefcase that's handcuffed to Marina Shafir and they just keep the title in a briefcase. I can't imagine that you think that's good for business. Oh, I don't know. I mean, in fairness, if somebody just pitched that idea

to me, I'd say, okay, creates a little mystery. It's different than. It's an interesting act one of a story where you're establishing something and creating a little bit of mystery around it. It gives your announcer something to talk about. It gives other wrestlers something to question so that it can be in line for a shot at that briefcase and presumably the title that's inside or not. So it depends on where it goes. That would be my next question. Okay, I get it.

It's kind of cool. It's unique. Where does it go? And if there's an answer to where it goes, kind of sounds plausible. I'll lean into that. I want to hear more. Let's play with that idea.

So who knows? Maybe it's something interesting. Making a fan out of you yet. No, you're not. I know better. We got one of the, Wait to you see what ends up really happening, and then we'll talk about this. There has been a lot of chatter online that when he does inevitably lose the title,

they're going to open the briefcase, and it's not there, and that's going to lead to something. But we'll see. Maybe find out tomorrow. I'll text you and let you know. I hope for their sake, he don't do that. Throughout the afternoon tomorrow, I'll text you updates of every match. You don't have to worry. I'll keep you in the loop.

I'll hear about us soon enough. for sure. We got one other super chat, actually two others here, but this one, a little sensitive subject. I know you may not be able to say too much about it, but Dan does ask any information you can share on Hulk Cogan. I keep hearing different things. Any truth of how bad a shape he's in. I hope he's okay, as we all do. First of all, Dan, thank you for asking that question. and up until now, I haven't really said anything because it's none of my freaking business and neither is it anybody else's business, what anybody's health condition is like. It's like of all the personal things that you should be able to keep to yourself,

you'd think a serious medical condition or issue would be fairly high on the list. But unfortunately, it's not. Everybody wants to talk about it. Everybody wants to pretend they know. And even if they don't know, by teasing it, questioning it, putting out hypotheticals, it generates revenue for you, which is why you do the shit you do anyway. I didn't want to be a part of that. I wouldn't be a part of that.

Whether Hulk is my friend or not my friend, I don't do that to anybody. Even people I don't like, I wouldn't engage in that kind of. thing, meaning discussing their personal and medical situation without their permission. It goes against everything I believe. All that being said, I encourage you to go, if people are interested, go to Instagram and look for Mrs.. sky. Hogan. or talk about it too much because I read through it pretty quickly.

It was a very honest, clear, pretty eloquent statement based on what I would do if I were her. So I'd rather you hear from her than me. But I will say I visited Hulk in his home last Saturday. Saturday or Sunday, I can't remember. I've been flying around a lot. But I flew in specifically because I had talked to Hulk a couple times on the phone, and I was anxious to see him. I didn't want to bother him when he was rehabbing and all that kind of stuff.

So it worked out where I could see him last weekend. So I flew down and spent some time with him. We had a great conversation. He was optimistic. We were talking about business. We were talking about old wrestling days. all that. I wouldn't have said that

in response to this question on this show had Sky, Hawke's wife, not come out in publicly made a statement. So he's, look, he's he's got a road ahead of them. But it's not what people on social media, I'm not even going to mention their names,

because I don't want to give them any more attention than they already have. But a lot of really negative stuff out there and not true. Exaggerated at best, bullshit most of the time. And people sadly just using a real life situation like that for clicks and engagement. I mean, it's not just the internet wrestling community. That would be unfair to say that because it's everywhere. I mean, there's so much great, so many great things. about social media. I'm really learning how to use it as a resource and really learning where

the good information is on any topic. You know, health, fitness is where I'm spending a lot of my free time, just learning stuff because there's so much new information coming out. It's incredible. The amount of information and the resources you could have at your fingertips today when you learn how to find it. But there's the other side of it. And that's what we're talking about here, the pop culture side of it, which is the really dark, ignorant side of it. Yeah. Now, I respect that answer. And I know Dan's question comes from just, you know, from a lot of people, just the love and, you know, how it's doing.

And I'm grateful to Dan for asking it because this was the appropriate time. Again, I just read the, the Instagram comment from Housewife, you know, a couple hours ago. And I went, okay, now I can at least acknowledge a little bit that I saw him. We visited. He talked. I talked. We laughed. Mostly I laughed. And I said goodbye. And that was it. So good deal. There you go. Two other short super chat questions. I want to get in here. And we will jump back on to Beach Blast. But Ask a bum wants to know that. That's a great handle. Ask a bum. He's been with us for a long time. Ask a bum. Whoa. What's up, buddy? So he asks, who would have won a brawl for all in the 90s? WCW?

I assume you're familiar with the brawl for all that went down in WWE. So I guess who was the big tough guy that you would have put your money on in a shoot fight backstage? It's a tough one because so much would depend on the situation, right? but I'd flip a coin between Rick and Scott Steiner because either one of them would be a good choice. Yeah. Or people are going to laugh when I say some people, people that don't understand will laugh.

People that know will go, ooh, yeah. Ernest Miller in the 90s. was really, really good as a martial artist. Not a Hollywood TV kung fuey, Jackie Chan martial artist. I'm talking about somebody, if the UFC would have been around back then, or if Ernest would have been around in the early days of UFC,

he probably would have made a pretty big name for himself. Because he was like 250 pounds, but he moved like 175. He was so fast. And his, he is striking. They didn't call it striking back then. It was just called punching. But his hands, he had the hands of a Golden Gloves boxer. And his kicking ability for a six foot two, I think, maybe three,

20, 245 to 55 pound guy, again, he could kick like a flexible 175 pounder in terms of speed and angles. He could hit you from like these weird angles because he was so flexible and so fast. Now, if it would have got to the ground, I'm throwing all my money behind either one of the Steiner's. But if it's standing up before anybody gets a chance to get it to the ground, I'd put my money on Ernest. Cool.

Yeah, I had the pleasure of editing. Conrad did an interview with Ernest Miller and talking about his history and how he got into the business. And he talked a lot about meeting you and fighting competitively and his whole fascinating story of how he got into the wrestling business. And yeah, he sounded legit, someone I would not have wanted to mess with, even today. And he's such a, he is one of the nicest people. He's such, he's a gentle soul.

he treats everybody with respect and he laughs 90% of the time he's laughing. If he's not laughing, he's smiling. It's just the kind of people I like hanging out with. He's fun to be around. He usually comes out every summer. Him and Sonny come out for a celebrity golf tournament here in Cody, Wyoming, and we go out, bring him out at the house, cook up stakes, and we have fun. Jim Duggan was here this year.

Yeah, so it's kind of fun. Awesome. Jake Roberts was with us, went to the rodeo together. Good deal. I got one more quick question and we'll jump back on topic, but do appreciate our super chats. AOTV productions says, Eric,

did Hulk ever talk about his deal with Marvel when he came to WCW? Yeah, great question. AOTV. You've been with this a long time too, brother. Thank you very much. Yeah, that was actually a contractual issue early on. meaning that there was a cloud over the use of Hulk in Hulk Hogan. And I can't remember the transactions that caused the confusion.

But evidently there was an original licensing deal and it limited how Hulk could use it, but that deal expired and Marvel still believed it was enforced. and Hulk wanted to trademark the name. And that was all happening as Hulk left WWE to come to WCW. I remember this right. Because I wasn't involved in those conversations necessarily, but I was involved in conversations as to how it affected our negotiations. What was I getting?

Was I getting Hulk Hogan or was I getting Hulk Hogan if I paid Marvel? We had to know the structure of. of the IP with Hulk. So to that extent, I had exposure to it. And I believe Hulk ended up buying out. Vince McMahon may have had an option or something like that. All I know is Hulk Hogan wrote a check, a big one, don't remember.

It's well into seven figures. I just don't remember the number. And got all the rights from Marvel so that he could use Hulk Hogan going forward. which he's still doing today with all of his merchandise and his beets shops. They just opened up one in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Those Hulk Hogan beach shops are doing phenomenal. They're printing money. But it's because Hulk, not himself,

paid a significant amount of money to control the rights to the word Hulk as it relates to Hulk. Couldn't be incredible Hulk, but he could be Hulk Hogan. But he paid for that. Yep. all right thank you for that question and we actually got

a quick follow up from Dan and I think you've already kind of addressed this but he just says thank you no disrespect on my question been a fan since 86 and the guy we won't mention is just a pain in the ass get well Hulk so I appreciate that all right

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They also, prior to these movies, they were doing the Cactus Jack Lost in Cleveland vignettes or where we had the reporter out looking for cactus and interviewing people and, you know, it was that week-to-week television that you talk about. And then we get into the Sting and Davy Boy with Vicious Invader and a lot of, you know, reading, just kind of combining some stuff here from the notes,

but for The Torch talked a lot about, you know, These were well shot. They had good special effects. They high production values. But they got a lot of heat from, you know, industry insiders, Jim Cornett, Jim Crockett, Luthez, even talking about them. I think, and a big part of their issue was the threat of death. They, they hire, I think the appropriate term is dwarf to blow up a boat that Sting and Davey Boyer on.

So if you can, just talk to us a little bit about what went into these, you know, who wrote them, who's brain childworthy and, uh, and your thoughts on these vignettes. That smile, this is, this is going to be good. I'm going to put you full screen and I'm going to go take a walk. I can, there's so much meat on this bone. I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling with how much of what I want to lay out here. All right. So let's set the stage.

A lot of transition going on right now. Bill Watts has been dumped, sent home. A guy by the name of Bob Dew is the executive vice president. He's really running WCW. He reports to Bill Shaw, who reports to Ted Turner. that's a flow chart. I'm the executive producer. I don't report to Bob.

He's not really my boss. It's called a dotted line. My direct line was the same as his direct line, which was Bill Shaw. The idea being that if Bob Dew and I couldn't agree on something, we had to sit down in front of Bill and then Bill would vote and make the final call. So you have to understand the structure of things. for any of this to make sense.

So Bob Doe, who also ran the Omni Arena, that's how he ended up becoming executive vice president of WCW. I don't get that math, but whatever. It is what it was. Darren Sedello was the vice president of marketing. She and... Before I say this, only and Bob do were pretty close.

They were tight. Only liked Bob because Bob really didn't give a shit about much. He liked to golf and drink. That was his thing. He liked to take clients out and play golf and then go drink. Nice as hell guy and very good. good with people. I mean, he was a great salesman. But he really didn't understand WCW,

nor did he really care that much about it as long as he could just keep it floating. He was good because he had the Omni. So now you got the picture. You got Bob Due, basically called him almost all the shots except for TV. You got Oli, who's in charge of creative and wrestling operations, all things wrestling. And then you've got Sharon Siddello, who's in charge of marketing. Now, Sharon and Oly, well, use your imagination or just do a little bit of research.

You'll figure it out pretty quick. So all of a sudden now, when Sharon has an idea to help market the pay-per-view, not necessarily produce any content for the pay-per-view itself, but produce a long-form commercial for the pay-per-view. That falls under the marketing department and the marketing budget. It doesn't, I don't, it doesn't, I have no control over that part of the company at this point. Sharon talks only into talking Bob into funding. And I don't blame her for this, by the way.

I don't want to say, I want to make it sound like it was a bad idea. there's bad execution, but not a bad idea. She talks Bob Dew and says, look, if we really want to improve our pay-per-view sales, we have to do a better job marketing, which was true. No lies there. But when she got Bob to lean in and pay attention, she put together her plan, which would have basically made her a director. This always happens with people that think they understand television.

They decide they do, and they go into production. That's what happened here. Sharon had a big enough budget from Bob, because of only, to go out and hire some pretty high-quality production people, great production house, and then create her vision, her vision of how to market this pay-per-view. No input for me, probably no input from Moli other than, hey, grab me a beer when you come back into bed.

And Sharon went off to decide to be a filmmaker. now she was right her instincts were right not even instincts the math was right we needed to do a better job marketing no question about i think the mistake she made it's an understandable one she went too far creatively she took it beyond the point where the wrestling fan will go yeah that's kind of cool, but there's a fine line. When you take it past that fine line into the absurd is if you think about a wrestling, professional wrestling as we watch it today is pretty freaking absurd. It is nothing about it looks like a fight. Every once in a while a punch does or a kick does or a finishing move looks devastating, okay, I'll give you that. But the rest of

it doesn't look anything like combat. It's own world and universe. It's a It's more like a video game now. I don't mean that with regard to style, but I mean, it's fast-paced. It's a lot of action. It's a lot of things. But even though it's changed, there's a certain point where a wrestling fan will go,

uh-uh, no way, you've gone too far. And that's the mistake that she made with that video. She had the right budget. She had the right idea. She was close, but she jumped the shark.

No pun intended. She jumped the shark, so to speak, with the midget blowing up a boat. Jump the shark is a good terminology there. But yeah, Lufez, you know, saying it's gone from ridiculous to utterly ridiculous. Terry Funk was very much against the whole thing. What in the hell do that have to do with the wrestling business? Yeah, but these are guys that the television business and therefore, wrestling business had left them so long ago that they couldn't understand the why of it.

Because the why of it was about growing the revenue model. They didn't even understand the revenue model. They didn't even know how it worked. So it's easy to understand why guys at that time, because the same thing happens today. I've probably done it myself. I see something that's so disconnect. from what made sense to me during my heyday running WCW and being WWE and being the number

one wrestling company in the world and bad bad bad bad yeah that was my kind of okay that was my moment and every once in a while I'll hear somebody doing something that's so antithetical to what makes sense to me what made sense to be done that I go ooh that's not that great of an idea that. It turns out to be a pretty good idea because the idea has a lot more to do with the audience today than the audience of 20 years ago. Does that make sense? No, absolutely it does. All right. There's one other.

I just confuse myself. So I just talk yourself into the confusion. There's a quote here that I think is kind of interesting. I want your opinion on from Crockett talking about Vince McMahon stuff. is different because he keeps it in the ring inside the arena. We, in the NWA at the time, did an angle in the parking lot where Dusty Roads was attacked.

It was wrong because it took the action outside of the arena. Fans pay to see what happens in the arena, not parking lots or oceans. So I understand the absurdity of a bomb on the beach. But, I mean, I remember the dusty broken arm angle

so vividly because of how different it was and because you didn't see things like that Like, is there, I guess that comes in with the limit you're talking about or where it, where it goes beyond believability or goes beyond what you're willing to accept. I mean, the whole blowing up the boat, I mean, that's now, that's Lord of the Rings silliness. Right. And that's okay in a Lord of the Rings type movie or promotion for a Lord of the Rings type genre.

It's okay. Just don't do it in a wrestling show. that's the part that they could have finished that probably a hundred different ways and all of them would have been decent but they decided to get they got too cute for their own good they got too creative for their own good it's like somebody was sitting in the back eating a brownie smoking a dubie going oh oh god we'll get a dwarf and the dwarf will blow up the ball. That's what that was.

Nobody should have stepped in and go, no, that's fun, but we're not doing that. We're going to do something else instead. But they didn't. They just did it. Right. Thanks, Sharon. Give me something to talk about to remember you by.

Yeah, because that's, that is, I understand the difference there going to the, in the ocean with a dwarf and a bomb. But yeah, I don't think just from your history, you know, with the NWO and all that, that you're against anything happening in vignettes outside of the arena or the arena.

Yeah, that comment, I mean, look, whoever made that comment about it, don't do things outside of the ring, and fans only want to see what's going on to ring. Yeah,

in 1965, when they didn't have any freaking options. Right? Mr. Jim Crockett. When you had one camera up in the stands, I said, you know, bad, okay, I get it. That worked for you back then.

That's a highlight of your freaking life, but time moves on. You got to move on with it or you go away. And that's what happened to these guys. And they never went, huh, I wonder if I went back into the business today, how I'd keep up with it or what I'd do differently. No, they just go right back to whatever their peak was.

It doesn't work that way, folks. So there is a mention here in the notes of the following tag team made its debut with a recent WCW TV taping, Colonel Rob Parker's Posse, namely the GWF's Ebony Experience in shackles and Chains. So shackles and chains. And this is reading here from the torch. Eric Bischoff in a rare moment of lucidity I'm like a little jab there

saw what was about to transpire and barred the gimmick but not the team from TV. It is an absolute undeniable fact the gimmick was thought of by of all people Sid Vicious and approved by Dusty Rhodes and Oli Anderson. Any

what's your take on that? They might have been trying to get me fired. Because the only reason I could stop, the only reason I was capable of stopping that is because I had control of what people saw on TV. So I could kill that idea. If they wanted to do it in a live show,

but wasn't on television, I couldn't, I had nothing to say about it. But if they wanted to do it on television, that was my call, which is why I put a stop to it. But it makes me wonder, or it's like, did they think, I got an idea. Let's see if we could slip just by Bischoff, because if he lets this get on the air,

he's going to get it. He'll be gone. And then I get him. Let's do that. Now, do I think that really happened? No. Do I think it could have happened? Yeah.

Because that's the way WCW was back then. it was a very unsophisticated political shark tank and they weren't good at it like I've since been around corporate like high level entertainment high level corporate people and if anybody thinks the wrestling business plays dirty you have no idea WCW was like the grade school version of that. There was so much of that. That's why I think it could have. I don't think it did, but could it have?

Sure. Were there people there that would sit back and think of shit like that? Absolutely. Right. And I should mention, I have a photo to show with this because it never actually, they never made it out with thankfully with the chains and shackles. but this is Harlem, the team that goes on to be Harlem Heat.

So this was just, you know, for those watching, that was their initial pitch for the gimmick. Olli Anderson says it was a gimmick they did in Texas as they were playing convicts. But, you know, it sure would have a different. Yeah, self-awareness, you know, O'Hol is no longer with us, and I don't like to talk badly about people who are no longer with us. So I say this with as much respect as I possibly can, but O'I Anderson did not have as finger on the pulse. And to say that, yeah, when we did it back in Texas, when, you know, 60s, you could do a lot of things in Texas in the 60s and the 70s that wouldn't make it to TV today.

You do a lot of things everywhere back then that you could never do on TV today. And that's been kind of an evolution, right? It's, it's going in that direction for a long, long time, rightfully so. All right. And we're going to pause here real quick to hear from another one of our sponsors from Conrad. All right. It's finally here tomorrow. WW is running it back with Saturday night's main event and evolution on Sunday.

But my book, he has odds on every match. Gunther's a heavy favorite over Goldberg, but Stranger Things have happened in that ring, and, well, they didn't call it his last match. Is there going to be another Goldberg match? I don't know. I think the values in Goldberg. What do you think about Rawlins in L.A. night, though.

The crowd's certainly behind L.A. night. But Seth feels like he's being positioned as one of the top guys on Monday Night Raw. L.A. is still like a 350 underdog. Hey, let's talk about TNA's Jordan Grace. She's looking to shock Jacey Jane for the NXT title. But if you've been watching, you already know where the.

values hiding on that one and at my bookie you're not just betting winners you're betting entrances turns shock wins and getting paid when you read the story right sign up now with the code 83 weeks and we'll back you on your first deposit a hundred dollars gets you 50 bucks extra 200 gets you a benjamin and what you do with it is up to you two shows one weekend bet smart cash in only at my bookie use that promo code 83 weeks all right let's jump into the event at hand beach bat beach blast 1993 um and start off kind of going through some of the motions here got to start off with this shot of easy e in this kind of think i still i have glasses that look just like that rebounds have a that's those responses that look just like they're

not the same glasses but they look like that's the responses in twitter you're given now with the smiley face with sunglasses on that's that's what it makes me think of where it came from yeah um but the first we got a couple um things about announcers here this is not actually at uh beach blast but we did have um blackjack mulligan was doing some announcing at the time was showing some shots of him here um what are your thoughts how did blackjack mulligan wind up in doing uh commentary because i liked him yeah that was my deal I mean, the announced scene was my deal. I had control over that because it was television.

And I just liked Blackjack. He had a great character. He was funny. He reminded me, you know, Dusty Rhodes and Blackjack, two different people, obviously, two different characters, but a lot of parallels, their sense of humor, even their timing, that whole country boy stick. It wasn't a stick. It was real, which made it work for me because it wasn't, they weren't pretending.

They were those characters. In many respects, Dusty Rose, Virgil Runnels, there's a lot of Dusty Roots. Blackjack Mulligan, same. So I just like their characters. And I thought Blackjack brought a lot to the table. All right. So from the Observer, the pay-per-view review, I read here,

Beach Blass on July 18th came and went. That's about all the impression the show seems to have left. The card, which basically, on reaction here seems to have garnered the least amount of interest in any major promotion pay-per-view to date. From all accounts, the show was well promoted in the area with a cross-promotion with a local casino, which paid WCW 10,000 for a site fee. The 10,000 seat Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi was nearly filled with about 8,600 fans, of which nearly 4,000 were paid, many with a $5 general admission ticket, so the gate was $33,000. Even with the

freebies, that is the most people put in a building for WCW in quite a while. Does that $10,000 site fee sound correct? It does. I mean, it could have been. That was a Bob Dew thing that had nothing to do with TV. So that would have been business that easily could have happened, but it wouldn't have been on my radar at all. But it sounds, you know, at that time, I guess it sounds about right. It was a casino.

So you're bringing an entire production team. and guess what they're going to do, they're going to eat, and believe me, they're going to drink. And there's probably 60 of them, maybe more, 60 rooms, 60 bar tabs, 60 restaurant tabs for the course of a couple days. Then you've got fans that are coming in. So that was probably leveraged to get a little bit of cash up front as a site fee, and it would have made sense. all right the um did your role as executive producer extend to pay per views at this point or was this Sharon Sadello would have taken the seat over the show no Sharon was in charge of marketing the pay-per-view but she had no influence over the production of the paper

okay good deal so match number one we've got Paul Orndorff taking on Ron Simmons and from the observer rundown. Paul Orndorff retained the WCWTV title beating Ron Simmons via DQ in 11 minutes and 15 seconds, a match of which the title could change hands via DQ. I wonder if got a lot of heat from the crowd early, but Simmons attacked him before he had stalled too long. The finish saw Orndorff go for the pile driver, Simmons back flipped him over the top rope for the DQ.

Work was decent, but the finish was both weak. was no buildup. Simmons did a shoulder block off the top rope onto Orndorff after the match was over. I'd rather chew my leg off than listen to another play-by-play from Dave Meltzer. Let's just get to the finish of the match because the rest of the... I'll jump to the finishes. But, you know, just general thoughts, any thoughts on Paul Orndorff, Ron Simmons, using the DQ as to change the title? Or making a match where the where the title can change hands on DQ. Yeah, that's, that's, look, nothing but respect for DUSC,

anybody that listens to the show knows that. But none of us were perfect, one of us are perfect, none of us ever will be perfect. We all have some things that we kind of create as go-toes. We keep in our back pocket whenever we need to kind of come up with a solution. When the solution is a compromise. And so one thing you don't want to do when to finish is compromise. Sometimes you have to, for creative reasons, there's a reason to compromise because there's a what's next.

But a lot of times there's compromises without any what's next. Meaning you're just doing it because somebody doesn't want to get beat clean because they've got a million reasons why. and all of them kind of half-ass makes sense. And you spend all this time trying to figure out where you want to get with a finish as the producer when you've got two talents. Neither one of them want to be the guy that gets shot in a gunfight. They both want to win the gunfight.

Or if they get shot, you don't want to look bad. If they get shot in the leg, they don't want to limp. Now, they'll limp a little bit. Not too much, though. but my character it's always the last it's the last straw by the way when he can't rationalize it any other way

when they've run out of every line that they've rehearsed in their head for three hours driving to the building as to why they shouldn't do the finish they know is coming they run through all of them what does it do for my character was kind of a trademark of Dusty

he used to call him Dusty finishes came so see them regularly and especially in big matches with key people in stories and Dusty wanted to keep going and he used inconclusive or unique finishes

to help get him where he wanted to go or sometimes just a company. And one other note from that match with Paul Rundorf and Ron Simmons was this is after Simmons had won the world title and then in the following year plus that he remained with the company,

he really seemed to be de-emphasized and sort of pushed down the card never really flirted or held the title again or stayed in that main event pitcher was that just because of the book the change in bookers you know i don't know why i wasn't a part of creative at the time i don't recall there was any specific conversations about ron in any negative light i mean everybody this day i don't know that anybody commands more respect when he walks into a room than ron simmons that's the same today as it was in 1993. So I don't think it was a Ron Simmons issue.

There may have been different thoughts on which way to go for any number of reasons, but none of those reasons would have involved Ron not being up for the job. All right. The second match on the card had the team of Marcus Bagwell and Two Cold Scorpio, going up against Tech Slashinger and Shanghai Pier. And this was 12 minutes, 46 seconds, and the Bagwell and Scorpio win after Scorpio hits Pierce with the Scorpio splash. Reading here from the observer, just recap in the match. So at least with the fans in the building, it seemed like Scorpio was really clicking at the time.

He had a major breakout singles performance at the clash against Barry Windham, where it seemed like the fans bought into him getting an upset win for the NWA title. And the Bagwell team was clicking. do you think more could have been done with two cold scorpio no i think too cold scorpio and i dig i jic too cool i still see him around occasionally a couple times a year once a year we'll see each other out on the road at a convention or something he's he's an interesting guy with an interesting story and he's he's a very very legitimate he's very real you what you see is what you get with them. And I respect the hell out of that. That said, you know, he was his own worst enemy times. He was so good in the ring. I think some of it came so naturally

for him. Obviously, we're tired at it as well. I'm not minimizing that. But he was unusually talented. And he made it look easy. And I think maybe he got in his own way, recreationally probably didn't really buckle down and get serious until it was a little late in his career but he had so much potential I mean

just go back and watch some of his early matches this is way back before anybody saw big guys flying around the ring like that consistently you'd see the Frankenstiners and a couple guys you'd see doing some pretty big moves you know, Vader coming, you know, doing his Vader bomb and all this stuff. But not like too cold, he could fly.

And he was a deceptively big guy. And he could fly. But like I said, I think he got in his own way. I think he would probably admit that. One quick note here between the, the two matches. We see the debut of the equalizer with Paul Orndorf. He stands there next to Orndorff as he's interviewed by Missy Hyatt and says nothing and nothing is really done to call attention to him.

He's just there. And any thoughts on the equalizer or his debut here? I got nothing. Nothing. Hey. I don't know how it came. I don't know whose idea was. I don't know why they did it.

I don't know who's in room when the idea came up. I have no idea why somebody. thought that was a good idea now maybe there was something else later in the show maybe there's something that was going to happen next week maybe they wanted what we call him evar evad eventually yeah evad the day uh kevin selvin's brother yeah kevin sullivan's big brother pal another sorry kev you know you know i'm right about that i think he would he would have agreed he'd be laughing right now he's laughing he's laughing

next match up we have Lord Stephen Regal pinning Eric Watts in seven minutes and 32 seconds not a lot to say about the match says here

a lot of fans seemingly may forgot about how long Watts was around after his dad was gone do you think he could have contributed more or not really since at that point he was still very green and just needed to get the reps in. Look, Eric was athletic, talented guy, good guy, hard worker, solid human being. But I didn't, I didn't see an it factor in him.

I don't, I didn't get the feeling like he actually belonged in. He was good in the ring. He was for where he was in his development and the time that he'd been in the business. He was really, really good. And you could convince yourself that, technically speaking, physically speaking, you could get him to the point where he could have some pretty great matches. I saw that. What I didn't see was a character or any indication that there was one deep down inside.

He was just a very normal. I don't want to say shy. He wasn't shy, that he didn't bring that larger than life energy to the ring either. And you got to have that too. You can't just be good in the ring. You need to be good in the ring. But you also need to bring a presence, charisma, energy, in a way that connects to the audience. That's why some people.

can go through the motions and they can try different things and they can get new music and they get new ring attire and they can change your walkout and they can do this and they can do that and they can come up with their signature pose and they can try all these different things and some of them work a little better than others but nothing really clicks because you don't click you haven't established that connection between your character and the audience not in a way that matters. If it mattered, you'd know it. You'd feel it. You'd count it at the end of the night or when your check came. There would be telltale evidence of the fact that you're getting over. No matter how hard you try or how hard some people try, they just don't. And I think Eric fell into

that category. Right. Not a negative shot. I don't mean it to be. Just was my vibe, my impression at the time. Oh, understandable. Before we move on, I'll take one more second to hear from Conrad talking about Tushy. Hey man, if your manhood feels like the Florida Panhandle this time of year, great news. You can instantly refresh yourself like 15 times a day without jumping in the shower. washing and Tushy Biday transforms Swamp Butt into a Dewey Cloud. Hey, I'm a big believer in this product. Anybody who's been to my home knows that I have a Tushie literally on every single toilet.

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For a minute of time, our listeners can get 10% off their first bidet order when you use the code 83 weeks at checkout. That's 10% off your first order at hellotushy.com with the promo code 83 weeks. next match up we got johnny b bad in a mask versus max pain and this match is a short four minutes 52 seconds um four minutes and 52 seconds of our lives it will never get back yeah they's they melzer does say the the finish seemed kind of botched and ended on sort of a weak note um but one thing is just kind of caught out here in the notes to talk about is don't know that this ever got covered anywhere else, but in the WCW magazine, at some point during this mask Johnny B Bad Run, there's a photo of him holding up the TV title belt with a caption

saying he had won the title. So this never got reported in any of the newsletters, never aired on TV. And I know you weren't really booking at the time, but do you have any recollection of if a bad TV run was planned and aborted right before this happened? No idea. Any idea about the mask? What led to that? None. I didn't even remember it, so I just saw that.

I mean, how freaking ridiculous is this? Yeah. No. Because a lot of times you think they wear the mask as a face protection, but that's not protecting anything. It's just making a hard time to see. I'm glad I don't know who came up with this idea because I would hold it against them

I even if they weren't with us anymore because that's how bad that idea was but I don't know where it came from. Next matchup is kind of the highest regarded on the show and you can probably understand why seeing the folks involved. We have the horseman pair of Arne Anderson and Paul Roma against the Hollywood blondes, Pilman, and Austin.

Um, so Pilman and Austin retain the titles. Uh, they do a roll up with the tights at 26 minutes and 14 seconds. So a long match, uh, with two really talented teams. So there is talk, um, in the notes, because I know it seems like neither of us remember the show very well, but there's talk in the notes of some Disney tapings being done where, um, Anderson and Roma had the belts that would have aired after this. So all the speculation leading into the pay-per-view was that Anderson and Roma were going to win because there had been some tapings done with them having the titles. Question from the notes here is, did the blondes retain here to mess with the expectations based on the Disney tapings since there was still a live clash special before those Disney matches with the horseman as champs word air? Or do you think this was always the plan? And again, understanding you may not know because you weren't looking at this point. I don't remember I wouldn't have been involved in, at least directly.

I would have been aware, but not involved in trying to manage that. Whichever issue it was, I wasn't involved in the management of it, was aware. And here's my best guess. Best guess was just a mistake. that we tried to correct. Does that make sense? Meaning? Yeah.

Because the timing of the tapings, right? We taped, a lot of times we tape eight weeks in advance, 12 weeks in advance, whatever it was. We go down and stay there for like, let's say five days and we'd shoot three shows a day. So we come home with 15 weeks of television. And you have a pretty good idea because those 15 weeks of television, or at least 12 of them are leading you up to your next pay-per-view. So you kind of have to know where you're going on the next pay-per-view in order to have any kind of a story in your weekly syndicated shows.

The problem was we had never done that before, required a whole new thought process from creative to post-production. there was a whole lot of things that needed to be in place that weren't that would have ensured continuity made sure that the stories were edited meaning they flowed properly they peaked where they're supposed to peak

things like that had all those things been in place we wouldn't have had the belt no belt who were they supposed to have the belt in that picture or in that promo whatever because it was a constant issue we eventually tried to figure it out it didn't work out as well as we had hoped but that's my guess

is what caused that confusion if i understand the question yeah there was even a comment um that i guess if you're consider yourself in the no or seems odd they say that after the match tony shivani even said a line about how the blonde retaining the title surprised more people than we would even be aware of talking to the audience like that's more shocking than you would even know imply I think implying that it was kind of surprising to some people on the on the staff as well so be interested to know yeah now is Tony saying that in the context of suggesting that we did that intentionally I mean the line directly says after the match Chavoni

even noted how the blondes retaining the title surprised more people than they would have any idea of, meaning that it would surprise more than just the fans. It was surprising the boys or the office that whether it was planned or whether it was a pivot that just it wasn't what a lot of people expected. And it could just be people that had been part of those Disney tapings where the schedule got a little mixed up and they had them with the belt. So everyone just assumed they were winning,

not taking into account the clash was happening before that next, those tapings were there. So, I mean, you know, it's like three-dimensional, it's like you're watching three-dimensional chess. You know, it's like, it got very, even listening to the scenarios is kind of complicated. If you don't understand how syndicated television works, which most people don't anymore, they don't even really know what syndicated television was back in the day, or how the business model of syndication at least worked. So when you say, you know, it's because of our syndicated tapings,

most people don't even know what that is, number one. and trying to keep cohesive week-to-week stories going for 12 weeks when you shoot 12 weeks in advance provides more unique challenges that you can ever imagine. If all you've ever done is produced wrestling, the way wrestling has always been produced. And then somebody comes in and says, okay, I know nobody's ever done this before, but here's what we're going to do. We're going to go down for five days that we're going to shoot three episodes a day. five episodes a day, whatever the number was.

We're going to come on with 12 episodes in the can. And we're going to plan our pay-per-view out, all this far in advance. Hey, Eric, what happens if, I don't know, somebody gets hurt? I don't know, we'll figure it out. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hey, Eric, what if somebody comes up with a better idea, even though the story is already played out on television?

Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out. We'll do an event center kind of thing. and we'll bring everybody up to speed like it's new story next question that's kind of how it all went oh what a fun time next match was uh dustin roads and ravishing rick rude in a 30-minute ironman match uh for the u.s title and uh you know good match they they say in the observer it's a slow match, a lot of rest holds, and one thing of note is sort of the minimal amount of falls. So throughout the match, they each get one fall, and then they lead up to the finish

just trading a lot of near falls, but the match ends up just ending in that, the draw. So two very, very good workers. I know the notes here talk a bit about rude, never seeming the same after his neck entry at the end of 1992. He slowed down a lot in the ring and put him a lot of size that didn't help. But in general, just seems like something was kind of missing after that, after that injury and after his return. Question here from the notes is, in hindsight, did WCW maybe over-rely on Rood at a time when he wasn't able to perform at the level

he was before the injury? So I guess they're saying a year before the injury, the 30-minute Iron Man match would have probably been, you know, um excellent like the one he had with steamboat in 1992 but after the injury was a 30 minute iron man match just a little too much for him you think hard for you to say it maybe maybe in hindsight i mean in hindsight one you could say absolutely um right or one could say not at all it was hard on rick record spoke up rick wouldn't say i can't do that nobody would have said well you have to do it Rick. I don't care what you want to do. I don't care about your injuries, Rick. I want

an Iron Man match. Nobody was saying that. Nothing close. Anybody that suggests that even Olli and I know for a fact, dusty and creative, if somebody was really hurt and concerned, neither one of those guys would have said, yeah, I don't care. Tough it up, kid. get to the ring. So I don't buy that. I don't buy that approach to it. But in hindsight, you know, maybe Rick should have spoke up. Maybe Rick shouldn't have had to speak up, but maybe somebody else should have been thinking ahead a little bit and spoke up for him. But that wasn't the case. That wasn't the way things worked back then. All right. Let's take one second here to hear from Conrad again on Rocket Money.

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premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter the show name 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff in the survey so they know that we sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today. and tell them you heard about them here at 83 weeks. All right.

And the next match up on the card, we have Rick Flair pinning Barry Windham in 11 minutes and 21 seconds with the figure four leglock to regain the NWA title. So, Eric, I'm not going to read the paragraphs here from the observer. Thank you very much for that. Thank you. I would be remiss by, you know, we've got to give the people what they want, Eric, and I'll read a couple of lines here.

This is from the observer. Eric Bischoff, who obviously isn't familiar in the least with pro wrestling history, and nobody in the company seems to let him know when he's making a mistake, said over and over again during the pre-match hype and on the card that Flair was going for his 10th NWA title. So Meltzer then proceeds to go all down the rabbit hole of, you know, title changes in with Fujinami and race in New Zealand and like just these random title changes. But he, he takes such issue with the number of title reigns that you're reporting. What are your, what are your thoughts? I see your face.

I just, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, it is something that people, you know, titles change hands sometimes and they change it back quickly. don't really acknowledge it and what counts right what were they sanctioned or not sanction matches you know i mean uh you know this is where i said you know about the low hanging fruit and the very low frequency kind of energy that exists in the internet wrestling community mostly because of i don't know creepy guys like Dave Meltzer. I mean, his obsession and his bizarreness

just makes me go, ooh, it's not fun anymore. And I can't begin to understand why. I mean, you've got to be a little self-aware, right? I mean, if you, I mean, if, you... go look at any of his social media posts. It doesn't matter what the post is. Look at the comments.

Like, you think at a certain point, I think I'm just going to, maybe I need to kind of re-approach my character with a little different kind of angle. Maybe I should open up my think thought process just a little bit more in order to engage more people. Or you could just keep spewing that ripe that you spew, Dave, and people like you, to keep hold of that little tiny part of the audience that makes you feel good about yourself.

Whatever. Sometimes you're fun and entertaining. Sometimes you're just sad. there is the, I've listened to the observer on occasion and the clips with, you know, Dave and Brian. And it is he just, he seems to have it in his head sometimes where, well, actually, you know, is just the most important thing to him. So you're talking, anytime there's a title change that matters to him. So he's going to keep track of it. And then if he can say, well, this person doesn't know the number, they got the number of reins wrong. It's like, who's it really, you know, what point is it serving? But he's just one of those people that seems very very fixated on details and numbers and loves to always go back to that, whether it matters or not. I enjoy people like that. I enjoy being around smart, analytical, critical thinkers.

I didn't use those exact words, but I know what you're saying. He lacks the critical thinking part because particularly when you're talking about business or when you're talking about storytelling. In order to analyze, discuss, understand, enjoy a story, you have to have an emotional engagement. Happy, sad. Just feel good, whatever, frighten, whatever the genre is, right? Whatever the movie is creates an emotion. I'm not sure Dave is connected.

to the emotion of the overall wrestling audience. He's very connected to people that kind of are like him that like to be argumentative and come off like experts and, you know, engage in, you know, ridiculous conversations on social media because that's the only thing that really validates him is role in that tiny little kind of weird world. you know that he's comfortable there and they're comfortable with him so i don't see i don't think

you're going to see dave you know take a new approach you're always the same dave that we're hearing there you know okay what i don't know about wrestling history and and trying to make elevate himself in that way tells you everything you need to know about dave else he was the same then as he is today only today it's more obvious either because he's more unhinged or because social media allows people to really see the guy behind the words and really listen to the guy behind the words so just reading the words

I don't spend the time with right right one quick point before we get to our main event that I wanted to ask you about was it's reported in the torch So shift to Wade here, that Big Van Vader, Leon White, is no longer Big Van Vader, apparently as a result of a New Japan's lawsuit against Vader for breach of contract and violation of copyright. So after, you know, he left New Japan pro wrestling. New Japan owns the copyright to the name Big Van Vader, but he was still able to use the term Vader.

And it's even reported here that in the, or mentioned here in the scheme of things, the name change wasn't a huge deal most people just caught him Vader by then but from a TV producer point of view was it frustrating to have to make sure Big Van was edited out of tapes that shows that had already been taped or just you know trying to get that name change in place

no that was seamless probably should have happened a long time ago yeah Vader sounds like badass sounds like maybe a movie title Big Van Vader

sounds like 1970s wrestling there you go all right one last word from conrad before we talk about the main event 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 it feels like you're getting further and further in debt 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 is a plumber for myrtle beach south car he had a baby on the way he needed a new

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and his team can run the numbers 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 Mischoff 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.

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this is Sting and Davey Boy Smith against the team of Vader and Sid Vicious. They Sting and Davey Boy win the match in 16 minutes. It's in 42 seconds. It's noted in the observer the amazing contrast in the crowd when these four came out and the big time feel for this match versus some of the earlier matches on the card. And Dave also says that Vader was the star of the show dominating most of the match. And at one point that we'll want to talk about a little bit is Sting and Sid go to the outside. Vader goes up to the top rope and does the famous moonsault.

Eric, do you have any separate from this match? Any memories of the first time you saw Vader pull off this move? I kind of knew of Vader. He was the one guy I kind of was aware of because he came through Burgagna. He trained with Brad Riggins in Minnesota. So I had heard about Vader. I think I'd probably seen some videos of him before he even got to WCW.

So I kind of knew what he was about. You know, big guy could really, really move. I hadn't seen him do his, you know, Mood Salt, his top rope stuff at that point. And I do remember being, I mean, I had high expectations because I'd been exposed to him a little bit. But as high as my expectations were when I saw him actually in the ring the first couple times, just like, and then as I, you know, watched more closely and saw more of his matches, he wrestled, he didn't always wrestle the exact same style match. Sometimes he was, you know,

spent a lot more time selling. Other times, not so much. And it's in those not so much times that I saw, he was stiff. I shouldn't even use that term. It was obvious to me as a non-wrestler. however having been around wrestling enough i could see the difference between the stuff that he was heartfully working in an almost non-perceptible way but then he'd also laid some stuff in so it wasn't like he wasn't capable or just was maybe not that good at throwing you know really big bombs that didn't land that hard. But sometimes, man, you'd just go, oh, my God, what did that guy do to deserve this?

He must have pissed Leon. Leon White was his name. He must have pissed Leon off something fierce backstage or two weeks ago or whatever. Sometimes it looked real personal. And that was always really impressive to be. Not so much seeing him do it, but seeing the other guy take it. how much more is this kid this guy take because you knew some of it some of it was phoning home did did you have i'm just i'm a big vader fan uh but did you have any experience or ever

witness the um enhancement talents that rumor has it would refuse to to work him or would leave when they saw their names on the board opposite him i've heard those stories but i've never had that experience in order to do I recall really hearing about it in real time. Gotcha. So, yeah, this is a, Meltzer gives it three and three quarter stars, really puts over the moonsault and also a moment by Sting here that we're kind of showing photos of, but Vader hits this big moonsault and you see Sting is in the background on the ramp slamming Sid. So as Vader comes down for this moonsault, the rest counting three, Sting rushes down and dives over the top rope to break up the pin and really perfect timing that they note and then right after that

Vader goes for the back splash and a Davey boy rolls him up for the win. So a mini movie aside or maybe you think the mini movie helped what do you think of this as the main event for the show? I mean the mini movies aside it was a separate thing. It had nothing to do with the show. Again, not a bad idea. The intent was good, strong, good instinct, the execution, not so much. much, didn't affect or in any way directly, maybe indirectly it did a little bit,

didn't affect the pay-per-view. The match was big, the main event, felt big, looked big. Those characters were, I mean, when you first opened up on that subject, there was a shot of all four of those guys standing face-to-face in the ring. You know, go back to 1993, that's. some star power and big star power and guys four guys that everybody knew you know sid yeah you know what you're going to get with sid but he was that big imposing power move guy bader same thing you know it's just sting was electric at that time wasn't as over as he was going to get but he was

really, really over because he was so high energy. And Davey had a lot of that WWE stroke coming with him. It was a character that was over because he had so much additional exposure than the guys in WCW did. So that was added value for this big. It was a good match. It was a good choice. Can't really get into the booking or the creative too much because it wasn't a part of it.

But it was a big payoff. You know, I don't think anybody in Biloxi went home disappointed at all. They usually go home feeling the way they felt in the last 20 minutes. The whole live show is really one big buildup for the last 20 minutes. It's just like a movie. The best part of the movie is the last 20 minutes. Same thing with a paper in this, this match delivered. just like this podcast we're ending it strong in our last 20 minutes talking about the main event

and we've got a few more super chats here i want to get in and we will kick off um aot tv productions had one more quick i think kind of a follow-up but hypothetically eric if marvel studios asked tulk hogan to make an appearance in one of their films do you think he'd do it good You know, it's a fair question. I think he'd want to do it. I think he would probably convince himself to do it. But at some point before he actually got committed, the idea of traveling,

the idea of sitting in a movie trailer or 16 hours a day in full makeup, in a not so in not so really comfortable environment do I see him doing that no no doesn't need to

he's I think he's I think Hogg is pretty he's good where he's at in life with his character and he's got a lot going on you know he's got the like I said the

the Hogan Beach shops he's got one in Orlando one in Tampa I want him, Pigeon Forge, they're rocking. He's got a brand-new sports bar going in across the street from, um, Eric City, Madison Square Garden,

right across the street. All Cogan sports car, you can't, you can't miss it. It's right on the corner. Yeah, the larger than life. His beer is rocking it in,

in Walmart. I just heard of report recently that, the beer brand is far exceeding original projections that is expanding. So he's got a lot of great things going on. The idea of going and locking yourself down to do a movie is probably not a good thought for him right now. Yeah. I wouldn't do it either. People say, oh, wouldn't it be a movie star, make a movie.

There's a reason a lot of those people go off the deep end. It's not a great life. You know, if you're working all the time, it's a tough life. yeah one of the other show i mainly work on with our uh group is uh click this with kevin nash and we're always kind of surprised when we talk about roles he turned down or something he's just like yeah it's not word i don't want to be away from home i don't want to sit in a trailer for that long people think about hollywood and they mystify it and they're like if only but i think for the people that do it the grind they they know it's not you know yeah

i mean you know and if you're an action that they're paying you some amount of money and you're flying you in and you know you're an important part of the movie yeah you're going to get your own you know trailer or motorhome and it's going to be pretty nice and for the first couple days that's fine you think yeah this is no big deal but you can't imagine how small things start feeling when you're locked in that room or that motor home or that whatever it is you're locked in there and you can't really leave because you may get called almost any time. So you have to stay where they can find you, right? It starts sucking your soul pretty fast.

Yeah. Two more quick questions here. We got Bushin Rayu Kat again. It mentions the R.O.H. Supercard pay-per-view, which I'm going to be watching as soon as we get off of here. It features the Kevin von Erick's two sons, who are good wrestlers. Can this work for the business? Is the Von Erick dynasty over?

See, I want to have fun with that question. It's a good question. I really appreciate you asking it. But the real question in that is, can this work for the business? For whose business? For the business, to me, that's the global wrestling industry. So can the Von Erichs work for the global? wrestling industry.

That's kind of hard to answer. Can Devon Eric's work? Anywhere. AEW or wherever they're at, Ring of Honor. Why couldn't they work? Not only why couldn't they work, why shouldn't they work?

After all, they've got a famous name. And they're good kids, by the way. I've met them. Any good wrestlers? They come from a wrestling heritage and legacy with a name that still matters. So much so they just did a movie, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah, the Iron Claw.

Yeah. So, yeah, we get the Netflix vibe going for us. So given that they're good wrestlers, they're good-looking kids, they come from a wrestling lineage. There's a built-in backstory somewhere in there, pretty easy to find. Well, yeah, I try to make it work. And if it does work for AEW in any way, shape, or form, then by default it's working for the industry because AEW is a part of it.

So the real question is, can they work in AEW? Will it work? is a better question in AEW remains to be seen it certainly can as we just established and it certainly should as I think I've established so let's see what happens that's a hell the way to end the show dude one more quick quick question no no that's the close of that show we've got to get our super we got to get our super chat son I'm just kidding go ahead I'm having fun Why was Beach Blast changed to Bash of the Beach? I think I even messed up earlier in the show calling the pay-per-view beach blast,

but then realizing it was Bash of the Beach. Yeah, I was going to correct you, but I wasn't sure if you were right and I was wrong or I was right and you were wrong. So I just let it fly. I think both names work. I don't really see an issue with either. You know, it could have been, I don't know is the real answer, but here's when it could have been.

One of two things. easily one and two things. It could have been a copyright trademark issue. Some other entertainment brand could have thrown a flag and that would have caused us to shift from Beach Blast to Bash at the Beach. Maybe. More likely somebody just said,

let's just call Bash at the Beach. It's Bass at the Beach. It's Bass sounds like a party. party at the beach especially after we had the midget blow up the boat we're a little sensitive about that's a party if that's not a party it's just it's taking it's killing the vibe

it's the wrong message for the children think about the children now you don't want the children to think that there's midgets under the bed that'll blow up their boats so let's name it something else because we got to get off that whole boat blowing up thing all right

got to go eat man i got to go eat absolutely thank you everyone for joining us a3 weeks dot com thank you eric and uh i'm filled in for conrad thompson thank you everyone i say this was fun we're going to do this again sometime this is fun i'm happy to fill in whenever needed man uh you take care have a good weekend everybody else enjoy all of the wrestling this weekend and uh we will see you next time see you guys