83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 389: Jake! What Are You Doing?

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad dive into the recent interview former AEW star Jake Hager gave to Chris Van Vliet. Eric shares his unfiltered thoughts on the conversation and can’t help but ask the question: “Jake, what are you doing?” But that’s just the start. The guys also break down the launch of RAF, AEW beginning its residency at the legendary old ECW Arena, the latest on Chris Jericho’s future, and Becky Lynch finding herself in hot water. All that and so much more on this week’s edition of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff! #wwe #aew #wrestling #prowrestling #83weeks CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30 #CashAppPod As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.    BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. PRIZE PICKS - Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/83WEEKS  and use code 83WEEKS to get $50 in lineups after you pay your first $5 lineup! STOPBOX - Get firearm security redesigned and save 15% off @StopBoxUSA with code 83WEEKS at https://stopboxusa.com/83WEEKS  #stopboxpod 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  

If you want to feel more connected to humanity and a little less alone, listen to Beautiful Anonymous. Each week, I take a phone call from one random anonymous human being. There's over 400 episodes in our back catalog. You get to feel connected to all these different people, all over the world. Recent episodes include one where a lady survived a murder attempt by her own son. But then the week before that, we just talked about Star Trek. It can be anything.

It's unpredictable. It's raw. It's real. Get Beautiful Anonymous wherever you listen to podcasts. Tactically, I think it was a smart move. We've heard it. If we're going to be really honest about it and have this discussion, I won't sugarcoat it. Hulk loved the hunt.

He loved the chase. This is like, it's like we're talking about our kids in grade school. Hey, guys. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? Well, I'm at the beautiful downtown Cleveland Marriott, Key Towers, I might add. Beautiful hotel, 20,000 square foot gym with trainers, in an Italian restaurant, and get this.

A barbershop. It's like everything I need right here. Wait a minute. There's a barbershop at your hotel? There's a barbershop downstairs at a hotel. Walk-in's welcome. It's like four chairs. Yeah.

This is an awesome hotel. The Italian restaurant is fantastic. I stuck my head in here to look at the menu yesterday because I'm going to probably take Lori there Friday night when she comes in here to Cleveland to be a part of real American freestyle. The very first, we'll call it a PLE, coming your way on Fox Nation all right I'm selling too hard I'm sorry no you're not listen I literally just downloaded Fox Nation today and I've got it on my phone now so if you want

to watch Real American Freestyle tomorrow the show is happening tomorrow you don't want to miss it and you can still go ahead and grab your tickets but why not go and download the Fox Nation app you can check it out of Fox Nation.com I just went to the app store, typed in Fox Nation. There I was. Be sure to try to use promo code R-A-F for Real American Freestyle. And if you're in the Cleveland area, by God, stop by. There's still a handful of tickets remaining at Real American Freestyle.com.

And I like that they're numbered, Eric. This has a UFC feel to it. Real American Freestyle number one. Listen, you've kicked off a lot of fun things in your day. Of course, the very first nitro comes to mind. but real American freestyle, are you nervous? Are you anxious? Are you excited? What are you feeling just 24 hours away? Because when folks are listening to this, tomorrow is the big show. What are you feeling right now, Eric? Nothing but excitement. Absolutely nothing but excitement.

Look, we've done all that we can and we've done all that we can pretty well. And now it's just up to the gods or the god it's at this point really there's not much we can do to promote any harder to improve the production we're we're going to bring to to the audience tomorrow night um to the quality of the matches and and the level of athletic competition that we're bringing uh and and i'm confident you know it's live tv right so you know anything can happen. It's live TV. You're flying without a net, but I love flying without a net. And this was such a, Hulk was so excited about this. And I'm not going to lie, you know, the first week or so after he passed, it was, it was really hard to be excited. I knew that we had work to do.

And there were things that still had to be done. And I did them. And so did everybody else on the team. But it was harder. But after about a week or 10 days, it was like, okay, you know, know, anybody that's known Hulk Hogan that really knows him and has worked with him professionally, and I'm not even really talking about inside the ring. Hulk loved the hunt. He loved the chase. It's one of the reasons why he wanted to own his own trademarks and brands and believed until probably his very last breath that it was the right thing to do because he wanted

to build something. He wanted to build a legacy. And that all started kind of, you know, becoming clear to me, you know, in 10 days or so, two weeks after he passed. And then it's like, okay, well, I know how much he wanted this. I've been around Hulk, but he got excited about new projects. I've been a part of some of those projects, many of them, as a matter of fact. And anybody that knows Hulk that's worked with him that way or been around him on a very close base is new man he thrived on the hunt and we get to bring back the bacon Saturday night so I'm just blessed to be here I'm excited for everybody to check it out if you haven't already I encourage you to go check it out at real American freestyle.com you can see all the matchups

and boy there's going to be a name that jumps out to a lot of people why Hendrickson is on this card earlier this year I think it was late March of this year we saw what a lot of people a lot of experts in the field would call the biggest upset in NCAA history. He had history with Cable Steveson. Gable Steveson beat him in 2023. And he was the heavy favorite. I mean, we're talking about an Olympic gold medalist. And guess what? Wyatt beat him. And he beat everybody, of course, along the way. He was undefeated at Oklahoma State. 27 and 0. I can't wait to see this guy in action. I'm going to be watching on Fox Nation. I hope everybody will join me it's easy to download the app and i can't wait to see what this looks like man i think back

to like the very first ufc i think it was back in 1993 or 1994 nobody really knew what to expect and i kind of feel like the anticipation around this event is a similar vibe like no one's ever seen this before eric because it's it is professional wrestling but it's not sports entertainment i'm fired up to see it i can't wait to see the presentation and how it looks and feels and folks can check it out on Fox Nation. Just download the app right now. It's going to be fun. The newest pro Lee,

the newest pro Lee in combat sports, and we're bringing it out Saturday. It's going to be fun. Check it out. Real American Freestyle is happening tomorrow. Be sure to join us. You can download the app right now in the app store. Check it out on Fox Nation.com.

Be sure to use the promo code R-A-F. And as we said, if you happen to be in the Cleveland area, not go check it out in person say you were there real american freestyle dot com r a f number one on deck and today eric we've got a lot of news and notes to cover want to give a quick shout out to our live studio audience greatly appreciate everybody hanging out with us today from adfreesows dot com i know that you've been traveling and all over the place but i want to get your take on i guess that was history made last night as you and i are recording on a thursday morning

It's kind of weird as an old school wrestling fan. AEW did a show in the old ECW arena on the old WCW television station. This is like a convergence of, I don't know, everything 90s for me last night. You know, the big three in the 90s, I guess when I was at my peak fandom for the WWF, WCW, and ECW, and the idea that we're in that same building. And like their hard cam shot, man, it looked just like the presentation for barely legal, the very first ECW paper view. So I like that from a nostalgia perspective.

But I do get that it doesn't, it's not the most TV friendly building. But I kind of like that they're having fun with this, Eric. I mean, if they've got to do 52 weeks of live TV, doing some and some, I don't know,

nostalgic wrestling buildings that works for me as a fan. What'd you think? I get the nostalgia part and that's, you know, I don't feel it like, like perhaps you do. because I had a different relationship with certainly ECW than you did at the time. So I don't have that connection, right?

I have a connection, but it's different. Right. And so to me, absolutely nothing wrong with it. You know, when you're looking for small venues that are suitable for small enough that you can afford them and at least fill them up or get them three quarters full because there's nothing that looks worse on television. There is nothing for your brain. brand that is more challenging when you're producing weekly television than to not have an audience because that speaks to the people sitting at home. It kind of suggests that, well,

maybe this isn't that important. And conversely, when you see a packed stadium, whether it's for Savannah bananas or whatever else, that pack stadium makes you feel like you're watching something that's worth your time. You may decide if you watch it for a while and it's not, but it at least gets your attention and holds you. And when you turn on wrestling, and I live through this in WCW, there's one of the reasons I moved WCW's syndicated production down to a sound stage where I could control the audience to some degree. Because when you show up at an arena with, let's say, it holds 5,000 people,

and you only got 600 people there, and all of them were tickets you gave away. So they don't really care all that much. They didn't buy their tickets. So you're going to get a kind of, eh, reaction on it. most of them. You'd see that, or you do what AEW did, which is to find a smaller venue that you can't produce television in because there's certain requirements of building has to have

in terms of power and clearance and fire codes, all that kind of crazy shit. Not crazy shit, it's all important shit. But there's a limit to that. So I think the fact that they chose, AEW chose that arena because of its nostalgia that it represents to a lot of the audience. And it's suitable for television?

I don't know. Makes sense to me. Where else are you going to go? Some 6,000, 7,000 seat arena where you can only sell 2,000 tickets. You don't want to do that. So I think it was a good decision. Business-wise, you know, creatively, I didn't see the show, don't want to comment.

I don't know what it sounded like. I don't know how the audio was. I didn't see the lighting. But tactically, I think it was a smart move. Well, I don't know that you saw it, but we have seen NXT run this building before, and they transformed the building. And it didn't even look like the ECW arena. And so to me, it's kind of like at that point, yeah, I even do it.

Like some of the charm of the old ECW arena is like, hey, on the way to the ring, you have to walk past a giant like pillar that's holding the damn building up. There's this steel column right there that's a support beam. And it was just in the middle of the entrance way on the way to the ring. And they kept that. So I think those little tip of the cap to the nostalgia for the sickos. I mean, if you're really trying to super serve that nostalgia audience, and I know that that building holds a special place to Tony Kahn,

I think the story is a well-worn story. He and his dad actually attended a show from Champaign, Illinois. He asked his dad to take him to the ECW arena, I think when he got a good report card or something like that when he was a kid. So he's in the stands wearing an orange Taz shirt in 1996, I believe. So I think it's cool that he is a fan can go do. that. And it makes me think, you know, if there was a building that was synonymous with the AWA that you were nostalgic about, that you might say, hey, why don't we run a show

there in Minnesota? I grew up on this, on Vern Gagne's AWA. I think that's cool that he's able to pull that lever for himself and fans like him. Go Tony. Oh, gosh. All right. Well, let's talk about the other controversy yesterday. I don't know if you saw this, but the day did not go without a little bit of controversy. I guess there was a stage hands union protest outside of the 2,300 arena ahead of the AEW residency. I guess the venue was denying that this is an issue, but there is a local chapter of the international alliance of theatrical stage employees. They're a union there in Philadelphia, and they were protesting.

And the quote is, it came to our attention that the wages, benefits, and working conditions may be below the prevailing area standard, negotiated. by our union, Local 8, in this industry. The union represents stagehands, technicians, and other workers in the entertainment industry across the U.S. and Canada. Local 8 is the organization's Philadelphia area chapter, and they see stagehands get paid $40 an hour when adding up health and welfare contributions, pension, annuity, and training. It's an all-in hourly total of $540 an hour, and the 2,300 Arena CEO,

Roger disputed that claim in an email on Wednesday to post wrestling, and he said something like, our workers are being paid the fair wage that they claim is not being paid. Then AEW, of course, had to respond and issue something to post wrestling, saying all elite wrestling has paid and will continue to pay their prevailing wages to all locals used as part of our residency at the venue, and has maintained a great relationship with IATSC Local 8 for previous events held at other venues in Philadelphia. any current demonstrations being held are between the 2,300 arena and IATSE Local 8. I don't know how this became an AEW issue online, but this isn't an AEW issue, Eric.

This is between the building and the union, right? Yeah, it's one of those situations where a little, a little bit of information in the wrong hands is a bad thing. Yeah. It's definitely a building issue. I don't know that bill. I mean, I know of the building, but I don't know how it operates. I don't know who owns it. I don't know what their plans are.

I've been in it once for a convention a couple years ago. And I would imagine they have a hard time keeping that building booked. I'm just guessing because of the size. It's not big enough to do major shows, and it's kind of on a small side to do even average-side shows. I don't know how much TV they get. I could be wrong about all of this, but I just. Remember that building thinking if my job depended on my ability to keep this building full, that'd be a tough job to have. So if you've got a smaller building that's essentially fitting niche market in that part of town,

and you don't have a good relationship with your union, which clearly, at least in terms of communication is evident here, you got a tough time operating. So I don't know, it's hard to make Heiser tells them, especially, you know, you're reading press releases and damage control and, you know, probably some politicking in there. So I don't really invest much in terms of what I'm reading or reacting to what I'm reading because it's all self-serving bullshit anyway from both parties. So I shouldn't say bullshit. It's self-serving for both parties.

So the truth will come out and it'll be a blip, but it's not an AED. operational issue it is a regardless of all the mud they're throwing around or trying to create um it's a it's a it's a union building to not an AEW union issue yeah just add some more uh context because context is king we like to say here on the show roger does like bar mitzvahs in that building too so i understand why he may have some sort of hesitancy to say hey this isn't always just a television production but I don't pretend to know all the ends and outs of what those issues are with the union. But I do want to ask, you know, when you were running WCW, did you have issues with unions like this through the year?

Well, the only issues I had is having to pay them, which could get quite expensive. Because here's what I say that. So let's take the MGM grand, for example, and we had, you know, Jackie Crockett. We'll talk about Jackie specifically because he's a great example. He was a great example. Jackie Crockett had been shooting, wrestling with a handheld in the corner for probably 20 years before I met him back in the early 90s, right? He'd been around the business a long time.

And he came with the Crockett's or with what was left of the Crockett when Ted bought him out of bankruptcy. Jackie, David, came along and became a part of the original WCW. And Jackie was there when I was hired as an announcer. He was certainly there when I took over as president and everywhere in between. There were one or two other handheld cameramen that were full-time WCW employees. They didn't work for anybody else. They weren't freelancers.

Everybody else on our crew was either a freelancer, or somebody assigned to us by Turner Broadcasting, right? Which is no big deal if you have the same people traveling with you and you're using the same freelancers and all that, it can go fairly smoothly because everybody's got reps under their belt. Everybody understands their job. Your cameraman in Jackie's case, he's been shooting so wrestling for so long. He knew how to anticipate he could do the Wayne Gretzky.

He could be ready to go where the part. is going before the puck took off right so he could stay ahead of the action which is why he very very rarely ever missed a shot now you take jacky out and you take some guy from tb sports that is used to shooting basketball or worse yet football um and you give him he could be an Emmy award winning cameraman for the NFL you put him on a ring corner give him a camera and and and making one of your primary camera shots throughout the night, and you're going to be really, really disappointed. Here's my whole point in all that.

When we would go to Las Vegas, and I know I need to crack in my camera, I'm not going to let some local union camera guy, no matter how good he is, take Jackie's place on that corner. So here is my option. I'm paying Jackie, and I'm paying the union guy, too. he's standing right behind Jackie the whole time and I'm paying him his $300 an hour or whatever his daily rate is not because I need him but if I want to go to the MGM grant which is a union building in a union town I'm paying the union so when I say I had an issue with it and it's only about paying them that's what I mean it's via Madison Square Garden similar you know

when you go into a union market in this case you've got a not non-union building in a heavily unionized market, you have to expect something like this. If you don't, you just haven't going to pay attention. But the way to avoid it is just to make sure you compensate the union by hiring union people, whether you need them or not. Who would have helped handle that sort of thing for you in WCW? Who was your go-to guy for that sort of thing? seeing brezlaw for the latter part of my career there at turner um in wcd um prior to that

it would have been gary jester but gary didn't deal with that much because before i came along and we started filling up m gm grand um the the venues that wcd were primarily uh producing television in were five seven was a good number. Sometimes we go into 10,000-seat arenas, but they were always half-empty. But it wasn't until late in those arenas in those smaller markets,

you never had a union issue. Most of them weren't right-to-work states. Union wasn't really, it's not like Philadelphia. Come on. Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, now, densely, densely, and aggressively unionized. So you're not a part of the union. And, you know,

depending on what you're doing eventually you're going to meet someone from the union and you'll be encouraged to join the union but it was either zane bresloff primarily maybe occasionally gary jester well it's all about the dollars and uh of course it's all about the dollars with cash app i don't know if you've already got cash app if you don't how have you missed it i got to tell you it's my favorite way to send money but really what i enjoy is that it's keeping my money safe you deserve to feel safe from fraud and in control That's exactly what you can always expect from cash app. They've got built-in card security that keeps your money safe,

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and man, you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply, that's money, that's Cash App. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank, banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners, prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, instant discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc brand, visit Cash. Dot app, forward slash legal, forward slash podcast for full disclosures. so wait a minute kind of cash app so if i subscribe to something and i've never subscribed to it before cash app will tell me whether it's sketchy or not yeah absolutely if they think something suspicious

they're going to give you a heads up they've got this thing called security app or security lock where cash app actually requires a successful face id or some sort of biometric authentication to access your account think of it as like your own personal bodyguard i think in wrestling we call it a heater so cash app wants to be your big daddy cool it wants to be your big sexy kevin nash it wants to be your diesel it's going to keep your money safe dude that was outstanding i was going to say man if if it prevents me from subscribing to a questionable subscription melzer's going to hate that he's oh gosh it'll stop you from subscribing to some of these only fans wrestlers that are oh no melzer's going to hate that if this if this thing you know

detects fraudulent subscription. Oh, gosh. Oh, my God. It's getting, Meltzer's going to go down in flames. Speaking of somebody who went down in flames, did you see the Jake Hager interview with Chris Van Vleet this week? Yeah, I did.

I did. I have only met Jake Hager a couple of times. I had a great time with him. I'll admit we were at a bar at WrestleMania and it's always been in social settings and he's always been super cool. I don't know if he was drinking during the interview. I mean, it certainly sounded like.

he was they were referencing scotchy scotch and other things but it did feel like man he just decided to go scorched earth he's decided he's done with wrestling and he wanted to do an old school shoot interview i guess it felt like something that rf video dropped in the mail to us in 1997 what did you think of jake hager's interview i saw clips of it i didn't listen to the whole thing and i probably saw three or four different clips of it so i got a pretty good sense of what what the whole interview was I've met Jake um got inducted to the TNT Hall of Fame this past summer with Jake yeah um I like Jake met him backstage at AEW I think I met him once or twice at WWE it just seems like a really grounded kind of average normal guy that I'd like to go out

and split a steak with and have a beer or something but here's I just hate it when guys feel like they need to burn a bridge now they don't feel I'm sure Jake didn't feel like he was burning a bridge he was just venting but man when you leave something behind leave it behind don't don't make it worse by burying the people even if they deserve it because it reflects badly on you in a long run it's and I learn that the hard way I've done it Trust me, I've done it. Maybe that's why I'm an expert on it, because I've done it a lot. But I've also looked back and realized it doesn't do you, the individual, any good.

You may feel better in the moment, but in the long run, you won't feel good about it when you look back at it and see it, you know, three, four, five, ten years later. So just don't do it. Just move on. Forget about it. Forgive. Be happy. Do something else. Keep your mind occupied.

So you don't even think about it. So I just don't, I hate when I see anybody do it. Anybody. I just, I'm disappointed. Well, he decided to spill the beans on a lot of AEW stuff. He said something along the lines of,

uh, there being a talent meeting at, uh, he decided to take some shots at Tony con. He says, after all the punk shit that went down, the boys got together and we had a meeting. This was the boys only,

no office. Things in there show Jericho, Brian, Mocks. They're all staring. or standing rather at the front of us talking us through this shit and lo and behold who comes in the room storming in it's daddy's little billionaire he's yelling at us because i think it was dax and cash didn't want to come in they didn't like the storyline so they refused to come to tv that day

and he was like listen i'll put you in a six man six minutes before the show and you're going to do it and we're all just all feeling disrespected i still to this day wish i would have stood up and said a lot of things you just told sting that you're going to put him in a six man in six minutes and then you're going to honor him for his retirement. We became his little playthings. We had to wait outside of his office. His storylines were very good at debuting, but he could never carry anything through.

It got to the point where you couldn't tell him anything. He couldn't take criticism. He was fucking up and we were all just having to deal with it. We all had blood, sweat, and tears put into that company. We were all there from the beginning. We all had our careers behind us to help build that company. And then we all just had to sit side by side and couldn't do anything because he wanted to run it the way he wanted to run it.

I mean, that's quite a rant there about Tony Kahn, but I mean, on some level, isn't this the way it always has worked in wrestling? I mean, we've heard forever and ever guys had to wait outside of Vince's office. And I know everybody's individual story is most important to them. But if you've got a hundred plus talent under contract, there's just not enough time in the day to make everyone happy all the time. I'm not trying to stand up for Tony here, but I am saying some of this sounds like sour grapes, in my opinion.

I don't know. Where do you land on all this? I think much of what Jake said is probably true, and it's not the first time we've heard it. If we're going to be really honest about it and have this discussion, I won't sugarcoat it. But I have heard consistently from people that have no gripe, no bitch that happen to be there about how things operate behind the scenes. And I withstood my fair share of consistent cursory. criticism from guys like Dave Meltzer about the chaos backstage in WCW. And from what I've heard from people who I trust who have no vested interest in telling

me what they think I want to hear, it's way worse than WCW ever was. And we've seen it play out. It's not like we have to take anybody's word for it, for crying out loud. We've seen it. And they've used it on television to promote themselves. So do I think Jake is misleading or overstating? No, I don't. Because it's consistent with just about everything else I've heard.

And we've seen play out on television. So no, it's unfortunate. I still feel the same way. I wish he wouldn't have done it for his own benefit. It's certainly not going to hurt Tony. May hurt his feelings. They're upset him for a minute. But at the end of the day, the only person that's ultimately going to her is Jake,

because when you do that kind of shit, here's maybe this is why I feel the way I feel. Whenever someone would, I may have said this to you before, whenever somebody would come to work for me from WWE, I can pretty much tell within the first two or three minutes whether I was going to really connect with this person. in that two or three, four minutes, whatever it was, or just initial getting to know each other, if someone felt the need to bury WWE or anybody at the time

or bury anybody in WWF, what that says to me is that person's telling me what they think I want to hear. I don't want to hire someone like that. I'm never going to have that great of a connection with somebody that walks in my office and buries the people that he used to work with. You know why? Because at some point in time,

we're going to separate. Either I'm going to fire you or you're going to quit. You're not going to retire here. Nobody ever does in the wrestling business necessarily. So this thing is going to come to an end. And if I have to think, oh, God, I'm going to at some point this guy's going to leave or this woman's going to leave and then they're going to go out

and bury me, I'll save myself the trouble. So, and I guess that's why I feel the way I feel about Jake's comments is whether they're 100% true or not, it hurts you, man. Well, it doesn't help anything. I'll tell you that. Nobody's going to read that or see that interview and then say, you know what? On second thought, let's bring him in. Let's do business with that. Like, that's probably for the same reason.

Because if it doesn't work out, who wants somebody out there with a megaphone burying you? Well, here's the reality. let's just be honest. You say if it doesn't work out, it never works out. It never works out. If you have a hundred talent under contract, it's never going to work out where the office and all hundred talent are happy all the time.

I've never heard of that ever, not just in wrestling, but anywhere in any company, in any organization, in any business, it's never going to work out for everyone. There's always going to be people who were disappointed and, hey,

we thought it was going to work out better than it did and it just didn't. And we move on. But the idea that, I don't know. I thought it was odd that he had these strong statements about Tony Kahn, but he didn't say anything about Vince McMahon. Because it's not like all the Vince's creative was a home run. It's not like people weren't frustrated with the way Vince managed.

I don't know. It's just, it's weird that he just randomly in the middle of the pod said at least once a day, I say, F Tony Kahn. Tony Kahn lives in this dude's head now. That's weird. I don't want that for Jake.

It feels odd. Well, hopefully he'll move on. He will have learned a lesson that I learned multiple times over the decade so I'm sure he'll survive oh there's no doubt he'll survive I'm pulling for him he's in the trucking business now wrestling's in the rearview mirror at least for now but he's got a couple of trucks he's learned he's actually demanding one he's hired another driver I like when guys find success after wrestling but somebody who is still actively wrestling

is cash wheeler he took issue with those comments about FTR and he actually posted a private text message conversation between himself and Jake Hager to sort of clear the air where he sent the tweet and Jake said, I apologize if you're upset. I said, I think it was you two. Didn't say it definitely was, but that meeting happened. And Cash responded.

I know, but to say I think and then actually say our names make us look like asshole, but it wasn't even us. We're assholes, but we show up to work. And Jake said, I apologize. I shouldn't have said your names,

especially when I didn't know for sure. So I can appreciate that Jake is walking back to some of this, but it's a little silly. it's another example of why you don't do this right these guys are so freaking fragile i mean this is like it's like we're talking about our kids in grade school i mean this is this is i just makes me laugh these fragile there's dax and cash oh my god you said my name oh god don't get that started up again i don't care with the white care you know what i'm saying is true if you don't everybody else does this fragility in professional wrestling

has got to stop well but you know the reason catch does it because the internet trolls are going to be oh these guys don't even show up to work and that's not true and i hear you By posting that reaction, you're going to fire those internet trolls up even more. You think, I'm not if you do, damned if you don't. You're better off if you don't when it comes off like that. Come on, keep your character alive in social media, guys. It'll serve you well. This dancing back and forth between your fragile self and your tough guy image is not good.

It's just not doing you any good. Eric, when you were calling the shots in WCW, did you ever hear or participate in meetings that were held by the boys? Do you remember there being a talent only meeting at all in WCW? I mean, it may have been that I didn't know about it as talent only, then I probably wouldn't have heard about it necessarily. Or if I would have heard about it,

I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But I would have been curious. That's not true. I would have thought once, I would have wondered what that's about, and then I'd find out. So it's not like I had to be there. But I don't recall it ever happening. I'm sure somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall it. If you were to put yourself in Tony Kahn's shoes, you know, what kind of frustration do you feel?

I mean, because I know you were there before when a talent refuses to go with the plan. Like we don't know what Tony was referencing when he said, hey, if I want to put you in a six-man, six minutes before the show starts, I'll do it or whatever. I know you had to have points like that where in your WCW tenure, people were frustrated and they maybe weren't happy with creative or whatever it is.

Talk to me about. More comedy here on 83 weeks this morning. This is awesome. Yeah, it happened a lot. I was just joking with Chad Bronson. We were doing an interview for TMZ. And before the interview, we were talking about dealing with wrestling personalities and how challenging it could be.

And he asked me, he said, man, you had like, you know, 80 guys under roster at one and how did you deal with all those? So then, you know, you survive it. There's no magical technique to it because, you know, you've got all those different personalities and, you know, they have different levels of bitches that deal with and different egos and the personal relationship. I mean, it's complicated stuff that you have to manage. And they're in a subjective business.

They're not in a business that you're judged by how many widgets you make by the end of the day or how many mortgages you make, mortgage applications you may close in a given month. You're judged by this subjective opinion, primarily of the people running the company, but a close second by the audience. The audience isn't going to react to you if the company doesn't want them to. So it's kind of a symbiotic relationship.

But essentially, you're in a completely subjective business. And that doesn't necessarily breed stability inside the people that are in it. So that's what you're, it's emotional crap that you're dealing with. It's not like what's right or wrong or what could be better or not. Most of it is emotional baggage. Now, it's dressed up like a wrestling issue and, conversation, but as often as not, it's just ego, insecurity, sometimes ego and insecurity fight for the number one position, and it's usually a close fight, and just lack of

information is what causes it. And it's a pain in the ass. I'm sure if you looked at my liver today, it would be very, very, very healthy, based on my recent blood work, by the way, once every 90 days religiously. Boy, can I not wait to tell you about my glucose monitor? Changed my life. But yeah, if I would have had a glucose monitor back in the day when I was dealing with what Tony sounds like he's been dealing with from time to time, my blood glucose levels would have been off the charts because I would have been pounding beers on a regular basis.

when you see interviews like this and think back to the not so fun times of dealing with the yuck of WCW at times how happy are you that wrestling professional wrestling sports entertainment is in the rearview mirror I you know it's still I think I have I have a theory about people who've had a good career in professional on wrestling and have to transition out of it, some people handle it really, really well. Some people don't handle it well at all. I probably fall somewhere in the middle

because my transitioning out has been kind of, I'm transitioning out, then I'm back in, then I'm out, then I'm out, then I'm out, then I'm out, you know what I mean, I've been back and forth so many times. But now, at this stage of my life, it's a weird... I got kind of a two-minded feeling about it. You know, one part of me is, man, I would never want to do that again. It was, you know, it was hard.

It was not fun, the dealing with the egos and talent and all that. On top of, you know, oh, creating, you know, a new television format, you know, for professional wrestling and doing everything we did. But the hard part, that was a fun part, the hard part was dealing with talent. And I would never do it again. I will never do it again. Not because I'm not capable of it. I'm probably way better at it now than I ever was because I've gotten older and a little smarter and I've got the scar tissue to prove it. But I would never voluntarily do it because it's not rewarding.

It takes, the process takes from you. And you don't get anything back. Half the time you don't get a thank you. So I would never want to do that again. But I'm glad I did it. That's the other part of it is I'm really grateful for it because I learned a ton. Not that I'll ever need to learn how to manage talent again, but I'll have, I've learned how to handle issues better in general. And not to let my emotions react first, because that's usually what happens.

What it used to happen with me is, you know, my first faced with the challenge of any kind. my first reaction is fight it just fight it and and then once i got through the once i got to the point where it's like okay i don't have to fight it now i just have to manage it the way i want it managed and that's a step in the right direction but it's not the ultimate way to manage issues so i've had to learn that because i sucked that at the beginning it does sound like uh the guys were trying to have a bit of a state of the union address if you will after the whole punk thing when we're talking about this talent meeting that Jake was referencing years ago, you had to have a few of those through the years. I know the one about Rick Flair

comes to mind. I know there was one where there was the Raven incident where he took you up on the offer to leave WCW. How routine were the sort of state of the union meetings in WCW? They weren't routine at all. They were usually a reaction to something that reached a level that I couldn't just let other people manage it or hope that it'll just die down and go away, which a lot of it would because some of it was like high school bullshit that escalates.

I mean, some of it was so freaking childish. It's like I'm not wasting my time on this. Fight it out amongst yourselves. It's stupid. Not physically fight it out amongst yourselves, although that happened a couple times, and it's probably not the worst way to manage some shit. Just get it out, get it over with, move on with your life.

ADP and Scott Steiner comes to mine, you know? I mean, just handle your shit. And I guess, for me, I only did it when I felt like I absolutely had to. You know, when I, when I, the Rick Blair thing came to mind because, you know, not to get into that whole mess again because you're going crazier than he already is. But it's like, sometimes it's better just to let it go and let

it take care of itself, but when it reaches a certain level, as it did in the case with Rick, because it was making headlines in the Atlanta Journal of Constitution. So it's not like I could, it wasn't an internal only situation. It was now in public, and it had to be managed.

It's not that I wanted to do it or I was trying to prove on tough. I was, you know, trying to prove how tough I was had to draw a line in the sand because if we wouldn't have it would have kept happening but that was a one-off. I didn't have those kind of meetings once a month or

they were only as needed and I think there was only a couple what were those? I mean besides Flair I know there were some people who were unhappy I know there was the Raven meeting but is there another one? but that's the only two that I can think of. There might have been other ones,

but they weren't like headline grabbers in the dirt sheets because they weren't a reaction to something. It was more informal. Probably talking to talent about Disney, for example, when we made that transition because it came with a lot of, okay, guys, here's how we have to handle ourselves and we're on the Disney lot. There's little kids running around here,

so don't go running out in the parking lot. you know take a hit off your cigarette and your thong you know just wise not you know i'm making light of that but um those kinds of meetings yeah they probably happen but none of them were standouts that i can think of i'm sure somebody out there can tell me i'm wrong the frustrations that jake had with uh the end of his AEW tenure is that just par for course for wrestling do you think it'll ever change or is this just the way it's always going to be that you know talent is going to be frustrated that it doesn't end the way they want and then there's going to be hurt feelings from then is this just far for course in wrestling or

is there a way not in wrestling it's human nature yeah absolutely human nature and it it seems I don't know if it's becoming more common or if we were becoming more aware of it because of social media but the entitlement factor you know I mean perfect example is that woman on the board of governors of the treasury who just got caught red-handed lying on her mortgage application and then claim she can't be fired and she's going to be bitter when she leaves right because she thinks she deserves that job and she deserves whatever she thinks she deserves and she deserves to be able to rely on mortgage applications because while she's special.

That exists in so many parts of life that we see now is you don't get what you want, you become bitter. So, yeah, it's always going to be there because it's human nature. It's not like wrestlers are unique. Jake was no different than that woman who feels like she was entitled to something. That's probably a bad analogy, but I think you give my point. anytime anybody gets fired, or in some cases, just don't get the opportunity they felt they deserved. That's another big one in wrestling, right?

I never got to push. This guy, bad mouth needed the boss, I didn't get the push. Otherwise, you know, the jealousy, going back to the insecurity and the subjective nature of what we do, what we did, what I did, that adds to it. Right? So if you don't get an opportunity, you think you deserved a shot at the world title at WrestleMania and you didn't get it, when it's over, some people are going to be bitter and resentful and angry and they'll carry it around for the rest of their lives, Brett Hart, or someone like Lash Ralu will get in the ring, attempt his dream, live a part of it, be grateful for it, and continue. in an entirely different way to entertain and engage with people, do something meaningful for himself and for others.

I mean, there's your two contrasts. Some people will recognize, okay, it's time to move on, another chapter of my life, and it'll go out and make something of themselves and other people's, that chapter of their life will close and they'll spend the rest of it being bitter and angry about it. We'll do one more piece about Jake Hager and then we'll move on from Jay.

He had a chance to, this is all coming from an interview with Chris Van Vleet, by the way, Insight with Chris Van Vleet. If you want to hear the whole interview, Chris does a fantastic job, printed the show. Jake said something about John Sina that caught a lot of people off guard. He says, uh, John Sine refused to put him over. Oh yeah, he absolutely refused to do it. I was told that was what would happen because the original plan was I was going to beat him Monday night on raw and not do the tease of cashing in the money in the bank. But I'm a young guy.

I've been there for a cup of coffee. So what are you going to do? But I'm not the only guy he's done that to. He did that throughout his career. I was surprised to see what happened with him in truth lately because usually he tried to take that glory. But I feel like this time he's the one who said, we better go with truth and get him back here. Man, you almost never hear negative stories about John Cena. Did this shock you? that he was refusing to put someone over. That doesn't work for me, brother. I mean, we hear that associated with Hulk Hogan all the time,

but Jake Say and Sina did that too. I don't think a lot of people were ready for that. I'm not buying it. And you know why I'm not buying it? Mr. Silva, put that quote up one more time, please. The last one. Oh, yeah. He absolutely refused to do it.

Absolutely. I was told that's what happened. He was told. He was told by who? Who told him that? Or did he, or did someone say something that led him to believe that because he wanted to believe that? And I'm not, look, I don't, I think Jake's a straight up, dude.

I don't think he's a liar. But you also have to realize that what you think you remember. Number one, it depends on who told him that. Was that some agent trying to get himself over? Or some agent making a comment that, to try to motivate, Jake. I don't know. I wasn't there. But anytime you make a statement that starts out with, oh yeah, absolutely, because I was told, you kind of lose me. You lost me in the first 30 seconds. Well, something that you won't lose in 30 seconds is a raging hard on. Thanks to our

friends at Blue Choo. Guys, Eric Bichoff is entering rooms in Cleveland this weekend, Dick first. You see, Blue Chew isn't just a tablet. It's a cheat code for your crotch. Stronger, harder, longer lasting. Like somebody gave your downstairs a pep talk and a gym membership. Blue Chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets for better sex. Yeah, my meat telescope saw God and winked. Guys, this isn't just about performance. This is about legacy or third legacy. Nothing makes you more of a legend than a little blue chew. So go discover your options at bluechew.com. We've got a special deal for our listeners. As always, it's your first month of Blue Chew free. Yeah, free. Just use the promo code 83 weeks at checkout. Pay the five bucks for shipping. That's it. Join

Blue Chew's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust at a time. Head on over to bluechew.com for details and important safety information. And a big thanks to Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast. So, Eric, let's talk a little bit about this weekend. It feels like everybody and their brother is doing a lot of international shows. This past weekend, AEW, set a big record at the O2 Arena for their forbidden door. They broke the 2023 money in the bank record for attendance nearly like 19,000 people in the building. And now this weekend, it's WWE's turn.

They're doing Clash in Paris. John Sina is going to wrestle his last match in France this weekend against the one and only Logan Paul. Who are you picking in this one? You think Logan Paul is going to get the dub or is it another celebration for John Sina in Paris? I'm going to go with Logan I like it

you want to give us some context why you think you're picking Logan John's on his way out and Logan's on his way up there you go simple as that it's just money it's a financial decision you're going

you're going to invest in the short term or the long term with a guy like Logan. I would go long term on this one, and I'd bet Hogan, or excuse me, I'd bet Logan. Let's talk a little bit about Logan Paul's recent quote about John Sina. He says, John Sina is the greatest of all time for now. I intend to be the greatest of all time, if not one of the greatest of all times. I want my name thrown in the hat. There's a real thing when it comes to being a locker room leader, like the guy who leads the company is the face of the company is respectful to everyone in the crew, to everyone who helps make this well-oiled machine work.

And John Sina has been that guy for 20, 25 years. I fully believe I have the capacity to do all of that. What do you think? Do you think Logan Paul can be the next John Sina for the WWE? I don't. Not because he doesn't have the talent, not because he's not full time. Is he going to make the commitment that John Sina? John Sina made to be that locker room leader, it's not like somebody just annoys you one day

or you politic for it, like prom king, you know, to be recognized and respected as a leader takes a fuck ton of commitment. And does anybody think Logal is going to make the kind of commitment to WWE that John Sina did? nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with potential, everything to do with being there and being committed. Well,

we know that Seth Rollins is committed to defending his title in a four way this weekend against L.A. Knight, Jay Uso, and C. and Punk. Of course, we're knee-deep in story about Punk and Rollins. And of course, L.A. Knight has been on the bubble for, golly, over two years now. Jay Uso, just recently, the World Heavyweight Chians, himself are you picking in this one Eric who run that by me one more time give me the

matchup Seth Rollins Jay Uso L.A. Knight see and punk Rollins is the champ punk jay no no it's a four-way dance you're picking one guy oh I thought they were tagging I'm sorry man I haven't watched it obviously the world high way here bud I'm going punk okay well look there i don't know what's gotten into you all of a sudden you're a big punk fan over here no no that's not true it's not all of a sudden i'm just kidding bud but i i think much like i felt about logan um in his matchup long term i'm i'm going with punk in this one

and i know people say yeah but that's not long long term right but he's got so much momentum right now that you'd have to be blind not to see it and I'm pretty sure everybody there does I guess it could be a matter when they want to cash in because everybody knows where he's at that's backstage and that matters it's just when do they want his run to begin and there's a good chance they want that to run begin right now there's a whole host of other matches I think we're Roman Raines will have fun with Bronson Reed. Seamus and Rusef are going to have a good old-fashioned Donnybrook match.

Becky Lynch is going to be defending her icy title against Nikki Bella. And Becky Lynch has actually made some headlines this week. She sure has. Did you see that? Let's remind everybody, we had Monday Night Row in Birmingham, England. That's the birthplace, of course, of Ozzy Osbourne, who was recently laid to rest. And well, Becky and her promo said something that I guess upset Ozzie's daughter Kelly.

Becky went on TV and said, I guess it was Netflix and said, the only good thing that came out of here died a month ago. But in fairness to Ozzy Osbourne, he had the good sense to move to L.A., a proper city because if I lived in Birmingham, I'd die too. I thought that was just cheap heap dumping on, you know, the town. She's just doing heel stuff. Kelly took to social media and said, you're a disrespectful dirt bag. Birmingham would not piss on you if you were on fire.

Shame on the WWE for allowing such things to be said about my father and his home. And there's even rumors that I guess the relationship is so good for so long with the Osbournes and WWE that WWE might actually make a formal apology about a city, about heat. I don't know. This doesn't feel like an Eric Bischoff thing. The Eric Bischoff I know loves the heat. What do you think of this? Not that heat.

And, you know, now, it's just, it took, it's too far too soon. And it is cheapy. It's not, it's not creative at all. I was disappointed because I am a huge Becky fan. I love her work. I, I've referred to her many times on this podcast, going back to 2019, 18 is when I first started paying attention to her because she was so good at using social media to get attention for a character that hadn't really been established on television.

yet. And I'm waiting for people to figure out that formula and really start making it work. And more and more Kallin R. I'm seeing it. But Becky, I don't know if she wrote it herself or if she had somebody doing it for her, but she really used social media amazingly well to get her character over while she was getting it over on television. So this to me was, who wrote that? Does she not have a writer? Did she just come up with that on her own? Or did she have a writer who wrote that and somebody didn't throw a flag? Because it's not that someone like Ozzy should be off limits for a joke, although for me personally, and if it was my company, I wouldn't want to have done it,

I wouldn't want to have done it or had my talent to it, whether I had a relationship with that person or not, because there's a lot of fans out there that had a relationship with Ozzy. Why piss them off? it's not going to do you any good. That's cheap heat, meaning you don't get anything back for it. That's just heat for the sake of heat. It's not going to pay off. So why do it?

Come up with something better, I dare you. Come up with something a little more creative. That you could have hired a freshman out of college drama class or whatever, theater, and they thinks he's going to write the next big movie, and he would have come up with a line like that. So, eh. Was there ever a time in WCW where a talent crossed the line and TBS Brass was

upset and you had to do some sort of an apology? Can you draw any sort of parallel to this situation in your time in WCW? Not an apology. But yeah. I mean, Scott Steiner was wondering on TV on a fairly regular basis back in a day. You know, to his credit,

he wasn't used to live TV. at the time when we first launched Nitro and you know when you're in a tape show a lot of stuff gets cleaned up in the post post edit process live TV is a little different it took everybody a little bit of time to get used to that fact and in the meantime yeah I had a lot of stuff the answer for but I never had to go on the air and apologize anything do you think this could affect any sort of advertising or mainstream opportunities or is this just about securing the relationship with the Osbournes I think No, I don't think there's any other issues other than just smoothing it over, apologizing,

and, you know, showing some respect because it's very disrespectful. Making fun of using, you know, Ozzy's death as a brunt of a cheap heat line in his hometown. Yeah, it's very, it's not heat. It's just disrespectful. So, yeah, clean it up and move on. It's not going to, in the long run, it's not going to change anything. let's talk about Chris Jericho he's been making some news recently there's lots of rumor and innuendo that he might actually be returning to WWE it's been covered in a

lot of different news outlets and anytime there's some sort of major outlet that posts I don't know a hypothetical that he might be headed to WWE fans are picking up that Jericho is actually liking those posts somebody in w.E is clearly having fun with this because the WWV Vault channel on YouTube has started to upload some of Chris Jericho's classic matches. I think this is great. This does make me think about the Monday Night Wars era where people could go back and forth

because as far as I know, his contract is not up. So it's not like Jericho can have any sort of official negotiation right now. But it's keeping his name out there. And I know you have been tight with Chris for a long, long time. What do you make of all this? Do you think he's going to hang around

around AEW? Is this a big part of a big story? Or is he perhaps going back to WWE? What do you think? We're going to camp out on this one for a minute. Here's why I find it interesting. Well, there's a couple of reasons. One being Chris has a unique ability to completely reinvent himself. Chris has been off TV for quite a while. Right? I haven't seen or heard of a being on camera. Chris was looking a little pudgy

the last time I saw him on camera. Pudgy won't fly at WWE. Not like that. Chris has so much pride and competition in him. He's a competitive person. My theory for weeks, I haven't brought it up to you necessarily

because there was no reason to, but for weeks maybe longer, thinking to myself, I know what Chris is going to do. He's off TV because he's going to come back looking shredded. Yes. Now, I didn't think about him getting shredded

and going to WWE because I wasn't paying attention to when his contract is up. No, I'm still feeling the same way. There's a reason he's off TV. It's a very good reason. So now you throw the WWE possibility and here's the part where I'm entertained.

If I'm Chris and I'm getting shredded and Tony's excited about getting me back and my contract's coming up in four or five months, I'm going to make sure that contract is as fat as I can make it. So what better way than to create a market for yourself or a potential market for yourself with a couple little comments or liking a tweet? all that does is stir the pot on the internet Tony lives on the internet that's his heroine he loves the internet he judges he makes decisions based on the internet

and Chris is smart enough come come on you know it's true and Chris knows it's true so if I'm Chris I'm Chris I'll come on daddy because somebody's going to pay me. I love it.

Do you think that Chris sees what's happening with like this John Sina farewell tour? Not that he would compare his career in WWE to John Sina's. Obviously he had a much different career, but do you think he sees that and thinks even if I don't have

a Sina farewell, I want a WVE version of a Jericho farewell? Or do you think he would rather end his career in AW? If you just had to guess. I feel strongly, and look, I'm not close to, I mean, we're friends, but we don't chat, we don't, you know, if we see each other in a restaurant, we'll probably sit down and have a meal or something like that and have a great conversation, but it's not like we stay in touch. I hope he goes to WWE.

I hope he ends his career in WWE, and this is not any intended disrespect to AEW. But it is, AEW is what it is, the audience is what it is, or isn't what it isn't. If any performer is going to go out, why would you not want to go out on the biggest stage of them all? Who wants to win a trophy in AAA ball when you can win a World Series ring? And that's really the difference between the two companies. one is AAA ball what is the New York Yankees why would you want to end your career

in AAA ball well I appreciate that you say that but we know that man they did a fine job with Sting's farewell and I know it's a different WWE but you take a look at the way WWE let Kurt Angle end his career and then you take a look at the way

Sting was celebrated to end his career in AW and it's there's no comparison And Kurt Engle really was more of a WWE guy than Sting was an AEW guy based on tenure, I think. But I could be wrong on that. But it is going to be interesting to see what happens with Jericho. I mean, when you were thinking about this sort of John Sina farewell tour, who in your history in the business do you think deserved a farewell tour but never really got one?

And I know everybody wishes they could have. I mean, it deserved. What is, you know, how do you, how do you qualify? deserve, you know, again, subjective, right? I mean, anybody that's been at the top of any company for a period of years, I mean, but, you know, you also think about a guy like Steve Austin, he couldn't do a farewell tour, he couldn't have held up, you know, in a completely different, you know, kind of fantasy land.

example, it would have been great if Brett Hart would have been able to, because Brett Hart's the kind of guy that fans would have really wanted to be a part of that experience. And it would have been great if Brett Hart could have gone out, you know, on a farewell tour. I think it would have been really, really successful as well. But circumstances are circumstances. It's hard for me to wrap my head around and deserve. It's like, who would, who could be successful with a farewell tour? Right. that's really what it comes down to do you think that um you know when you we think about

chris jericho post wrestling we're just talking about jake hager post wrestling and i don't i don't think this is true but i even had some conspiracy theorist texting me hey do you think jericho has put jakegher up to to dumping on tony kine and i'm like no that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard no of course time but do you what do you think jericho does that's like in the bubble talk a little it movie. Do you think Jericho, because we know he's a rock star, like he's touring with his band Fossey. He likes to make movies. I mean, he's got his crew. He's got plenty of other business opportunities. Do you think he'll ever pursue any sort of like front office or management position in wrestling post wrestling? Because we heard even in the Jake Hager interview that he was

at the front sort of addressing the group. And we've heard from a lot of guys that he's like a locker room leader and helping other guys and trying to make other guys. Do you think he has any interest in, I don't know, being, quote, unquote, office in the wrestling business. He may, I've never, I've never gotten that impression that that was something that he'd be interested in, but that was what, you know, Chris was very young in his career, he was early in his career when I was working with him, right? So, he wouldn't have had those aspirations.

When I worked in WWE as talent and Chris was there, he spent a lot of time with Brian Gowertz, the head writer. And he seemed to enjoy the creative process a lot, not just because he wanted to make sure he got his stuff in, right? Or his story, whatever it was. But, you know, I used to watch him and Brian work together, and it was fun for Chris. So that suggests to me that he has a strong interest

in the creative part of the business. And if he's got an interest in a creative part, He's obviously, you know, forgotten more about in-ring action than most people will ever learn. He would be great as a producer. Do I know if that's something that he'd want to do at this stage of his life? Because that can be a grind. It's a little bit of a thankless job. It's work, hard work, all day, hard work.

It's not showing up at the building, working out your mansion and going back to your dressing room and hanging out with friends. It's, you know, be at the building at 11 a.m. or 12. and by the way, you're there standing in guerrilla until 11 o'clock at night. And when things go great in the match, you get a pet on the back. And when things go wrong, whether it's your fault or not, you're going to get shredded. And it's your responsibility. So it's not the greatest job in the world. If you're in your 30s and 40s and all that, sure, give it a world for a couple of years.

Make some big money, have some fun, stay in the business. But at Chris's stage in life, given that he likes to perform, he likes to travel clearly, he does it enough, he is a creative guy, he does like music. I don't see him taking a producer role if I had to bet, but I could also be very wrong. It really comes down to what does Chris Jericho's second half going to look like. What does he want it to look like? Because he gets to pick and choose. Well, you get to pick and choose with prize picks. This episode is brought to you by prize picks and preseason football is underway and college football is here and I'm so excited.

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price fix run your game all right eric we should talk about a friend of yours man we all got a scare scrolling through social media earlier this week when we saw ddp was in the hospital but when ddp lets people know he's in the hospital he does it and perhaps the most ddp way possible let's take a look and you can always do little ddp yoga stretches remember when you're stretching out your exhale and bring him back in back up. This is why I can always do that. This is a little stiff because it works it a little hard a couple days ago, but still right here, right here. Flexibility. If you having trouble with that, just bring it in and as you exhale stretch. You might

only come to here. That's okay though. Bring it in. Exhale. Is that the most DDP thing of all time, Eric? I'm reading a text that I just got from page at 1238, so less than an hour ago. I'm not going to read it because I haven't read through it yet. I don't want to, but it's so DDP. Have you ever seen those videos on social media of people who start talking when they're coming out of anesthesia? Yes.

And they're crazy shit they say. Yes. That was DDP. He sounded like he was coming out of anesthesia. And when he versus, you grab your head and you're stretching your ass. I thought he's going to say you're stretching your ass because I thought he was like coming out of anesthesia. A different video when you stretch your ass.

Oh, gosh. It was so funny. But that's, you know, that's him. um he's hold that real i'll give i'll summarize it for you he's he's offering to help me with anything i need help with so yeah he's feeling pretty good he'll be back he's nuts he says uh he's all good he's got a little appointment coming up in a few weeks but he's good to go and uh he's in a good place i just thought that was perhaps the most ddp thing of all time to let everybody know he's okay by doing dd p why

in a hospital gown, in a hospital, probably under anesthesia. It's unbelievable. You know, I saw the video this morning when I first woke up. I was kind of hands down yesterday. I wasn't paid attention to much online. I saw the video, but I didn't hear the audio. And I thought, oh, my God, what happened to be stretching in a hospital bed with oxygen? This is stupid.

But now that I've heard the audio that goes with it, it makes perfectly good sense to me. I get it. I know when I texted you yesterday, I was like, hey, we got to talk about D.D. being in the hospital. I probably should have added more context. He's fine, by the way, because if you watch the video, you know, and he's still promoting. Chad Epic is with us here live as a member of our live studio audience from ad-free shows.com and you should come be a part of the family. You can be a part of the live studio audience and get a whole host of bonus content that you can't find anywhere else. But Chad says, uh, when will WWE change the warrior award to the

diamond award? And with all the good and positivity that DDP's brought to the wrestling universe and just the world with DDP why I can get behind that why not celebrate DDP's legacy changing it to the diamond award yeah I don't even know if they'd have to change anything I think as an award representing you know what what former wrestlers have done post their wrestling career to contribute to the betterment of others is in itself a noble thing to give a word for and I think

DDP is an example of someone who as we talked about earlier you've got two choices you can either close that chapter

GDP could have walked around and blamed everybody in the world and been miserable because he didn't get his real shot inside of

WWE and Ledland he had enough bitch to he could have wallowed in it he could have lived on it

it could have been his sustenance until his last dying breath or he could have closed the book on that chapter in his life, take all the good things that came out of it, figure out how to leverage it and use it, and go on and do something else that you love even as much if not more.

That's what Page did. So I think anybody that follows in his footsteps or aspires to do something great for former wrestlers or non-wrestlers could be in line for that award as well. And I'm sure there are many of them out there. Let's talk a little bit about Vince, Vince McMahon has been making the news recently. I don't know if you saw, but he was actually in court earlier this week. And I guess his attorney is asking that this case be thrown out.

I guess Vince was charted with a reckless driving charge. And TMZ is reporting that Vince's attorney, Mark Sherman, as he filed a motion to suspend and dismiss the matter, this is all based on a car wreck that happened unbelievably on the exact same day that Hulk Hogan passed away. What you're seeing on YouTube right now is his crashed totaled 2024 Bentley Continental GT. I think that's the 12-cylinder version there. And he ran it up in a B.M.

40. Along the way, collided with a median wooden beam guardrail. I guess there was even a Ford Fusion involved. But either way, everyone was wearing their seatbelts. No one had injuries. McMahon has not commented on this publicly at all. but he made headlines there and he made headlines when all the sudden people spotted him and Bruce Pritchard and JBL and Gerald Briscoe all coming out of a party with Vince

I want to talk about Vince's 80th birthday party but before we do did you ever ride with Vince because we've heard J.R. and Bruce Pritchard and other people tell stories about how he was a speed demon he was dangerous to ride with did you ever ride with Vince? No, I never did. But I'll tell you what, there was a couple of times when I was there in 2019 and I would fly on the corporate plane along with Vince and Triple H and Kevin Dunn and Bruce and Paul Heyman and whatever, whoever was on a plane. So, and you don't want to be late for that plane because if Vince gets on that plane and you're late, you're going to have to find your own way to the building.

I mean, there was no messing around with him. And I respect that. I love people that are on time like that. So I would always get there 15 or 20 minutes early. Usually the plane's open so you can get up in there, you know, get your seat and get comfortable, grab something to eat. I always had sushi on a plane. First thing in the morning, you could have raw fish for breakfast. It was awesome.

So I'd always get to the plane early. And one morning I was sitting up in a plane. I had the window right next to me right in the seat. I'm looking out and Vince comes flying up in his Bentley. And I had heard all the stories about the way Vince drives. Now I'm looking at me, looking at him coming at me sitting in his. this, you know, full million-dollar plane, like cops are chasing them. Who's chasing him, man?

He just drifted right up to the side of the plane and jumped out like it was no big deal. And I thought, uh, those stories are probably true. We, uh, we got to talk about crazy wheelman. Who was the craziest driver in wrestling you've ridden with? Who was the worst and worst? Page, I didn't ride with a lot of people. I didn't, you know, I didn't. Most of the time I flew.

Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making shows during the week. So, but I, you know, I'd travel with Paige who was multitasking as he's driving, usually eating or opening up something to drink or mixing up a protein shake while he's driving and throwing stuff out the window that he was done with. You know, I emptying the food out of his Tupper container. You know, I mean, while he's driving, usually at an excessive rate of speed, sometimes in the rain. Yeah, it used to make me a bit nervous.

preferred to drive when it came when you uh did you ever have to pile up in an a w a car with other guys like pre wcw i'm just wondering if there was a i got piled up in a car with larry's abisco and smoked enough weed to put put down a small army that was the only time were you driving and he was smoking or he's smoking and driving he's smoking and driving he's smoking and driving well okay uh in the that's your limitations it was over 30 years ago folks give it up when yeah i mean listen we've heard how many wrestling stories about they throw beer bottles at the road signs so we we know that that's that's an old school thing uh when you did travel what would the the car

look like you and ddp and who else would it just be you two or would there be too no no no i think no we may have taken someone else once or twice but I don't know two people to a car is as much as I'm willing to do for anything more than you know half an hour 45 minutes have you uh have you seen any of the the stories or heard any of the stories about Vince McMahon's 80th birthday party just what I've read on TMZ I mean I knew what was happening um yeah people that I know um but I didn't think about it at all and I saw the pictures um some of the posts so I'm glad he's 80 years old man he's changed a lot of people's lives for the better you can do with however you want to deal with the controversy but you know i'm glad he still has friends that that are willing to be friends it's a good thing it's not a bad thing well there's lots of reports out there i know some of them are not true people are saying that acdc and kid rock performed i don't think that's for true but i know it was well attended and i know that uh vince spared

no expense. I don't think I'm supposed to share all the details, but Jerry the King Lawler actually posted a picture of himself and a lot of current and former WWE talent. You see left or right there. It's Ms. and Maurice and Titus O'Neill and, of course, Jerry the King Lawler, Seamus and Drew McIntyre were all in attendance. We know that JBL and Jerry Briscoe and Bruce and others were. Were you invited? And if you would have been, would you have gone? I mean, it's not like you had free time this past weekend, but 80's a big deal. I didn't know I wasn't invited and know what I haven't expected to be invited

and what I have gone probably you know I look I'm disappointed in what went on with Vince and mostly what I'm disappointed in is what it's done to his family and the stress that it's put on people that didn't deserve it but I still respect Vince

for what he did for this industry that you wouldn't be talking about or I would have not been involved in or so many others would not have benefited from if it were not for him so because of that respect sure I would have gone I don't know if you saw this picture but one leaked earlier today and it was a picture of Vince's I guess we'd call it his bust that was floating on the on the mirror there behind the bar I think it wasn't a restaurant.

I don't know if they made these busts or who got these busts, but I just think the idea of a Vince McMahon birthday party celebration with sounds like a lot of people. I don't know, a couple hundred people maybe. It's got everybody chirping and wondering, hey, is Vince coming back?

Because it does feel like he's, maybe he's always been a really private person that we never see out of the confines of WWE and he's been kind of strategic. He's showing up at the freaking Super Bowl. and now he's got this well-attended birthday party. Do you think we're going to see Vince out in public doing something soon? I think Vince is probably transitioning back into the public eye, not necessarily because, you know,

there's any expectation of being involved with WWE necessarily on camera. But I think, you know, Vince is not going to slow down. He's not going to stop. We've talked before about, you know, what we're hearing in terms of his investment, for example, in real estate in Santa Monica for a production facility and things like that. So that suggests to me, and I know that he's been actively interested in investing in

sports properties. That's no secret either. So clearly he's not going to float around on a yacht in a Caribbean somewhere. He's going to be back in business. And I think he's probably in a very strategic and well-timed manner, easing himself back into the public eye to make that transition back into business. easier because he's been out you know because he has been you know he went from being you know on television in prime time four hours a week or whatever it was half the time to you know

the headlines and the lawsuit and such and you know losing control of his company so to speak and he went he went dark we haven't seen or heard of him so it's time to see and hear of him and he's easing his way back into the public eye. I think that's all there is to it. Let's talk a little bit about some news that has just recently broken earlier today. We saw the report about Monday Night Raw changing their start time. I don't know if you've seen this, but for years and years,

we've known that Monday Night Football was serious competition. And now it's been made clear that Raw is going to start at 7 p.m. Eastern 6th Central on September 15th, 22nd and 29th. It's reported that the decision has been made some time ago as WWE and Netflix want to see how Raw performs with an earlier start time against Monday night football. What do you think of this strategy, Eric?

I mean, obviously you were in the Monday night business with Nitro against Raw and of course Monday night football. There's no other wrestling competition on Monday. And now in fact, WWE isn't even on television. They're on Netflix. but everyone's competing for those eyeballs and clearly the NFL is serious competition.

What do you think about this? Let's get a jump start on them. I like it. Time won't tell if it's going to work, but here's the beauty of Netflix and their business model versus a linear television model where you've got, you know, hour blocks, used to be half hour blocks,

but our blocks and everything has to be time perfectly, and you've got advertisers and commitments and fulfillment and all kinds of other pressures that come along with a robust ad sales program. You don't have that in Netflix. You've got a lot more flexibility. You can take risks and try things to test the results. And if it works great, if it doesn't work, you can move back to your original time. It's a lot easier to move your program time around on Netflix.

than it is on NBC, for example, or even a cable. So why not try it? If it's an issue and if you think you've got a strategy that will increase your viewership by shifting a time period and there's really no downside to it, why would you not try it and let the data tell you? That's what research is for. It's a great thing about streaming. The amount of data that you could scrape now from streaming platforms, and I'm just learning this, working with Fox Nation,

it can tell you a lot, a lot more than traditional research can. All right, guys, let's be real. Owning a handgun for self-defense comes with serious responsibility. You need it secure, but also accessible when it matters most. Too often, that means choosing between locking it away or leaving it out, vulnerable to kids, guests, or intruders. That's the problem Stopbox USA set out to solve,

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a legendary UFC and pride, MMA fighter, somebody who I know you're familiar with and think a lot of, and I do too. And his son has, uh, well, let's just say it, assaulted an independent wrestler. I'm sure you've seen this story. It's a well-worn story right now. We haven't heard from you. What did you make of what you saw and what do you expect next? I don't know what to expect.

There's a couple different ways this could go and I don't want to profess to know enough about the law or even the situation. I only know what I've seen on social media. I wasn't there. I set a text to Rampage and I was really sorry for him and for his son and certainly for Stu. This whole situation is a sad, unnecessary situation, and it didn't have to happen. It should never have happened. I just pray for everybody involved because, you know, Raj will get through this, Stu will get through this, Rampage will get through this, everybody will get through it.

But I just hope they all learn something because, you know, there's something to be learned by all three of them. and a lot of us. I think it all comes down to my gut. I don't know, Rajah. I don't. My gut is because it's the kickstream and it's trying to get attention. It's the same thing everybody else is doing

is trying to get attention, using social media to get themselves over, and taking it too far. That's my gut. Was it there? Don't know the principles, not passing any judgment, but just knowing the environment,

knowing the kind of environment it was, meaning young wrestlers trying to get themselves over, everybody knows the power of social media and some people take it too far. I think that's what this was. I think the whole thing was ridiculous, but driven by need to get yourself over. I think everybody agrees we want the best for Stu, and we would like for this to be behind everyone.

I want to remind you that we will, include a link to Stu's GoFundMe in the description for today's show. Rampage Jackson issued a statement that said, I feel bad about what happened to Sicko Stu. I don't condone what my son did at all. I'm a father, so I got to have my son's back, but I'm just going to let justice play out and take its course. Ain't much I can do on that side, but be a father.

The shit put me in a bad mood. I feel bad about Stu and his family. His family had to see that shit. I just wish I could have been there. but I couldn't. Hopefully one day I can meet Stu and shake his hand and have a man to man with him. You all need to know that I don't condone righteous conduct and I hope Stu can forgive me as a dad for not understanding everything. I think Rampage is in a terrible spot here and he's done as good as he can with it. And we've heard reports that Stu is getting better. You know,

he had a swelling of his brain and he was in critical care and he was having trouble. walking and having trouble talking so there's been a lot of challenges to overcome he's got broken teeth and broken orbital bones and it's a mess but uh i'm hopeful that we can find a happy ending to this story that's my hope i guess eric is that sue's able to make a full recovery and maybe if we can find a silver lining it's that he gets uh i don't know a little more opportunity in his professional wrestling pursuit if he can if he decides to continue that I hope he does. Again, I don't know Stu.

I only know what I've read about Stu. But what I've read, I have a ton of support for Stu. You know, as ridiculous of the situation as it was, and he was a participant in it, you can, someone else can judge how guilty someone is or is, and I don't really care. He was part of it. It's part of the incident. And I think there is a way to come out of this. everybody better off.

I think there is. It just all depends on what everybody's goals are. Is Sue going to press charges? If he does, that's one outcome. If he doesn't, that's another outcome. I just hope everybody can just put this behind him. I know this sounds like I'm some kind of whatever. I just hope these guys can all put it behind them as quickly as possible

and move on in the best possible way. I know, it sounds pretty general, but there's a way to do it. I'm looking forward to that, and I hope that everybody can move forward in the best possible way. I hate to bring this up, but it happened and it broke while we were on the air. So I do want to ask you, there's a report out from TMZ. I don't know if you've seen this, but I guess Sky Belaya, the, I guess widow of Hulk, and what a weird sentence to say, has revealed that she's planning. to file a malpractice suit over his death.

Have you seen this, Eric? I have not. It's, man, what a story. TMZ has more details. I know you haven't seen it, so I want to ask you to comment on it, but I, uh, golly. I'd hate to think that there was something else at play there. But I guess we'll get more answers as time goes on. Um, we're going to, we're going to call it today.

As you can tell, we've had some Wi-Fi issues with, uh, with Eric, he is on the road because tomorrow as you're listening to this is the debut of real American freestyle and you should do what I'm doing download the Fox Nation app I've signed up by the way it's only 799 a month and you can actually get it cheaper than that if you do it annually but if you use promo code RAF you'll be glad you did find out about all the matchups and all the details at real American Freestyle.com or hey if you're in Cleveland go grab a ticket A Ticketmaster that's happening tomorrow. Real American Freestyle number one, the inaugural event, the very first one.

Think about all these years later. If you could say I was at the first WrestleMania, I was at the first UFC. You can be at the first real American freestyle event tomorrow in Cleveland. So right now to Real American Freestyle.com for all the details and all the information. Eric, I'm so excited for you. I mean, this feels like a big deal, a big dog on deal for. you and your whole family. I'm pumped for this opportunity, man, and shout out to everyone at Fox Nation who's pulling levers here. And I think behind the scenes, there's a couple of

names I've heard in the wrestling space. Is it true that Raphael Morphy and David Sahati and there's some other folks that we've heard of are going to be involved in this behind the scenes? Yeah, we've been, I've been working with Raphael. We've been working with Raphael since the very beginning. And he helped us with the building in Cleveland as working on our next event, which will be announced next week. So, yeah, it's great to have someone with experience that we've worked with before in that it's a critical role. And David Sahadi, I'm having a, David, David's become invaluable

and has really helped put together a great team that I'm really, really excited to work with. So, yeah, it's fun when you can work with people that you've had experience with and kind of know each other shorthand and things like that. It's been great. I hope everybody checks it out. you know we'll be talking about it next week and we've got a heck of a topic next week we're

going to be talking war rooms right here on 83 weeks at the subscribe button if you haven't already be sure to turn on the notifications bell you don't want to miss us the next time we're live and eric next week we're going to start highlighting the youtube comment of the week so we want to hear from you today drop one below and uh we'll talk to you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Save with Conrad.com. My name's Rajeev. I'm in Sacramento, California. I came to Save with Conrad because I've heard Conrad talk about how he helps people all the time save money and the best route to go for

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