83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 390: WCW Nitro Turns 30

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad celebrate the 30th anniversary of Monday Nitro! Eric takes us behind the curtain to share how the show first got off the ground, why the Mall of America was chosen as the launch venue, and the backstage moves that made Lex Luger’s shocking debut possible. Plus, Eric reveals his Top 5 Nitro moments — and some of his picks may surprise you! That’s not all — the guys also break down the success of RAF 01 and what the future looks like for the league, how UFC legend Holly Holm ended up in the ring, and so much more on this special anniversary edition of 83 Weeks! Watch 83 Weeks on YouTube MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code 83WEEKS at http://shopmando.com ! #mandopod TRUE CLASSIC - Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/83WEEKS  ! #trueclassicpod BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. DELETE ME - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to http://joindeleteme.com/83WEEKS and use promo code 83WEEKS at checkout. LEGAL BUDDY - Download the Legal Buddy App at HTTP://LegalBuddyApp.com . Register today, use referral code LEGAL for your chance to win a $250 Amazon Gift Card. 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.

Wow, that was cool. We are live right now at 83 weeks.com. Thank you for joining us on YouTube. You are listening to 83 weeks with the WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you, man? I don't think I could be better. actually. I'm here in Seattle. I flew in from New York yesterday and got here last night, had dinner with my wife and my beautiful daughter who's running in a marathon, her ninth marathon,

I might add. And this is the one where she is confident she's going to qualify for the Boston marathon, which is her bucket list, next bucket list thing. So Lori and I are here to support her daughter and went out and had a great Italian dinner last night and she's out training right now and I'm here with you guys. well we're delighted to be with you i uh i can't wait to unpack what a crazy week it was in the past seven days for you and and of course we're going to talk about all of professional wrestling and everything else we are taking your questions live for eric right now so if you want to pick his brain join in on the conversation hit us up we will be recognizing and shouting out the super

chats eric i uh i i can't believe it took until unfortunately harry belaya's funeral that was the first time i met montana i feel like i'm like an unofficial being fish off and you're an unofficial Thompson. And she was the missing piece, but I finally got to meet her. I wish it was under better circumstances, though. Yeah, as do I. And I'm sure you'll, you'll get a chance to meet her again. But Montana's a great, great, you know, I think of her as my kid, but she's, she's an

incredible young woman, very successful in the entertainment business. She was a VP of development at one of the bigger production studios in Los Angeles. She started with Jason Hervey and I as a production assistant and kind of worked her way up. and then went off on her own when she outgrew us, quite frankly, in terms of her capabilities and goals. So I was proud to see her go, and then she woke up one day and said, you know what, I want to start my own business. So she walked away from a major mid-six-figured job for a young woman in L.A.,

that's a big move, and went off on her own. So I admire her in so many ways. I'm very, very proud of her. Well, I know the wrestling audience is awfully familiar with Garrett. I'm glad that we're getting to learn a little bit more about, Montana. But I'm really excited to hear about this past Saturday. What a weekend it was, real American freestyle. Am I calling it right, Eric? Are we going to say R-A-F-O-1? Is it 0-1? What is the correct term for that event? Yeah, R-A-F-O-1 is in the books, so to speak, and a tremendous event.

We're already gearing up. We set out on a press release yesterday. R-A-F-O-2 is going to take place in the mecca of freestyle wrestling, Penn State. So we're really excited about that. When I say freestyle wrestling, amateur wrestling, call it what you will, there's full style, there's, you know, freestyle, whatever. But you will not find a more densely populated wrestling environment. Maybe, you know, Iowa.

There's some competition between those two. But anyway, we're going to be going to Penn State. It's going to be a great event. We're predicting a sellout. for all you people that just live and die by ticket sales, you'll tell you right now, I'm predicting a sellout. So we're pretty excited about that.

We're very excited. Got some great momentum on our part. Very, very excited. Well, I was excited to see the event. It felt like I was watching, you know,

UFC won. It felt like the ground floor opportunity of a brand new sport. I didn't know what to expect. I know a lot of people didn't know what to expect, but my household loved it. Mom and dad loved it. Megan enjoyed it. I mean,

it really felt like, happening. Of course, if you're watching with us on YouTube, you see that photo of Wyatt Hendrickson making his walk to the ring, man, just absolutely dominating. When I, when I finished the show, I was pretty resolute in the fact that I felt like he is going to be one of your, your first megastars out of RAF. Tell us about Wyatt Hendrickson, man. What a star. What a star. What a just powerhouse of a human being. I mean, obviously, as a wrestler. Most people, you know, really came to know,

Wyatt, when he won the NCAA heavyweight championship just this past spring and wrapped himself in a flag, Donald Trump came out. You know, it was a big moment for Wyatt, who is in the military. And he jumped at the opportunity to be a part of history with Real America Freestyle and put out just a dominant, dominant match against his opponent, Mustafa. So it was a great match, but you're right, man. The crowd just reacted to him. He reacted to them.

It's everything that we wanted to see for the sport of wrestling. Because for so many years, all of these athletes, from the time they're fixed five, six, seven years old, you know, it's the culture of amateur wrestling in America. It's a good culture, by the way. But it's respect yourself, respect your opponents, respect your team, be humble, you know, grind, let it all out on the mat. Keep your mouth shut, you know, be a great citizen. Those are all amazing qualities. And I admire them so much for being so committed to those qualities. On the other hand, we got to make some TV and we got to see some personalities and energy

and something we don't see necessarily at the Olympics, for example, or the NCAA championships that come around once a year. And we got all of that, man, and Wyatt. He delivered it all. So did a lot of other guys. Real Woods, he's a big. deal. Derion called well, although he lost against Real Woods, one of my favorites. He's just got it. And Sarah Hildebrand, same thing. Oh my gosh. Sarah Hilbran's going to be one of your biggest stars.

I feel like, you know, to use a wrestling analogy, you know, she's going to be like one of your Becky Lynch's. She's going to be a front runner to be one of your top female stars. Don't you think? I mean, it feels like we watched the birth of a superstar in Sarah Hilda brand the other night. We did. I mean, she won a gold medal in the last Olympics. So she's already at the top in so many ways. But you saw that personality. She came out and ripped up T-shirt and did the Hulk Hogan thing because she knew, man. We're here to entertain these people.

We're not only here to go out there and perform as a world-class athlete at your highest possible level. Yeah, you're there to do that. But you're also there to entertain them. And Sarah got that. I think she thrives in it. And the reaction she got, the reaction she's continuing to get, uh, she'll only be more excited about it next time. Love working with her.

Amazing to watch her wrestle. Unbelievable. And she's just a fun person to be around. I want to mention too, you, uh, you gave me a heads up that, that you guys had gotten a curveball from the NCAA. I know you were really excited about promoting Ms. Blades. She was going to be, you know, obviously a featured talent on the,

event there was an NCAA situation where you know sir some of her eligibility may have been in question i'm not exactly sure but i just know that you needed a surprise and you gave me the heads up and you said i may have a lex luger type surprise which we're talking about the very first nitro and never in a million years would i've ever guessed that holly home would be stepping into the ranks of amateur wrestling yes the ufc champion who knocked out ronda rousey yes yes the boxing champion more than a dozen times over, you want to talk about a gamer to just say, wrestling sounds fun, let's go.

I love that, dude. Tell me how that came to be. Well, the late afternoon, I think on Friday, is when I first got word that, and I'm not familiar enough with the NCAA rules and what the issue really was to discuss it in detail. But to kind of paraphrase it all, I guess, evidently it had to do with timing, meaning once her college that she was registered at as a part of the NCAAs, once school started, officially started, then she was no longer able to compete outside of collegiate wrestling.

I think that was the, and it's, it's a small rule necessarily, meaning it's not like something everybody should have just jumped out and recognized right away in terms of the timing. But the NCAA did, and they contacted us and said, look, we love Kennedy. We're excited that she's, you know, participating. However, rules of rules, we can't make exceptions. So Kennedy got pulled, not because of an injury, not because of travel issues, not because she didn't want to wrestle, none of that. She was there ready to go. I love her, by the way.

She's one of my favorite people. But we didn't have enough time to contact NCAA, see if there was a compromise, to see if there was something we could do. It was like, okay, we've got to make a decision. decision. Now, one of my partners, there's two, three of us now, obviously Hulk was one, but Chad Bronson and Israel Martinez and yours truly are the three partners. Is he is the guy that just, he's, he lives in the world of amateur wrestling at a very high level. He's on his way to Croatia for the world tournament coming up, our world championships coming up, I think,

next week. So he lives in that world and he's also a trainer. And Izzy Martinez has trained some of the top collegiate athletes, Olympic level athletes. And ironically, Izzy was Holly's coach for MMA. Izzy is the one that trained her in her ground game. And he's known Holly for 15 years. I see. So Holly was coming to the event anyway as a guest. she didn't we had to get her gear right she was coming just to watch and be a celebrity guest

and maybe say a few words and then izzie went to holly and said hey i know you've never wrestled a match before because she hadn't she had never competed in freestyle wrestling once in her life she trained in it that had never competed right so izzie went to her and she said hell yeah i'll do it izzie came to me and he He said, okay, I got a surprise for you. He said, Holly Holm, I went, wait, what? Because I knew she had a strong MMA background, but never competed in freestyle. So we went with it, and I was like, ooh, wait a minute, this is kind of familiar.

Nobody's going to expect Holly Holm to come out. We don't want to just have her come out and go, hey, guess what, everybody, Holly Holm is here. We thought, let's have a little fun with this. Let's, I remember when I launched this show back in 1995 called Nitro, the thing that people are still talking about is when Lex Lugar came out unannounced. Let's do that. So that's what you got. And it worked really, really well.

And she almost won that match. She only lost because she didn't know how to pin. If you go back and watch that match, she manhandled her opponent, or woman handled her opponent, I guess is a better way to say it. But she did it like she manhandle. and really dominated for the majority of the match, had her on her back at least once, but she didn't know how to shoot a half-Nausen.

So although she had her, you know, she had her opponent completely in control, had her opponent on her back, had she slipped in a half-nousin, that match would have been over. But she didn't, because in Holly's world,

you get somebody down like that, you're either going to chuck them out or beat them up. And both of those options were off the table at freestyle, right? So she did the best she could, but she almost won that match, her very first match, competitive match against an incredibly world-class

credentialed athlete. It was just awesome. I want to give Holly some love here. Think about the guts it takes to say, you know what, I'm going to try this for the first time ever on a huge platform where a lot of people are going to see it, and if this grows to be what we all expect it to be,

this is going to be an event that lives in legendary status for a long time. odds are really stacked against me doing well here but you know what i'm an athlete i'm a fighter let's go i'm ready what a gamer i thought that was so cool dude it it was in as much as we would have loved to see holly win just because of the sheer unique you know story that that would become you'd also have your haters out there because you know let's face it they're out there right everybody would oh must have been a work that wasn't real this must be scripted It's almost like, you know, she was damned if she didn't, damned if she didn't, right?

Yeah, yeah. But she went out there. She almost won it. But the fact that she went out there and did it at such a high level, she's probably got more fans in losing that match than she would have had if she won the match, if that makes sense. It makes total sense. I loved it.

I know you will too. Do what I did. Go download the Fox Nation app. Sign up. I couldn't believe it's only $7.99 a month. I got this event that in an alternate time. line would have most definitely been a paper view that I would have shelled out 30 40 50 60 bucks for for under eight bucks I got it go do it right now check out fox nation you can grab that replay right

now I uh I think it's really cool man that you've got this uh fertile ground in front of you with real American freestyle and just seeing that some of the positivity that's been piling on online I mean it is uh it's kind of overwhelming the support you've seen were you surprised with the reaction you saw online, Eric? I don't want to say surprised, but extremely grateful. Maybe borderline relieved and grateful because it has never been done before. And I think, you know, you always are battling against expectations, right?

And I think part of it for me was I was very confident in our ability to produce the show and make it look good on TV. Now, I'm going to tell you right now, I've only watched the first 45 minutes on television because I've been literally traveling since last Sunday. I did a Fox News hit Sunday night, got on a plane Monday morning,

and I just landed in Seattle last night. So I've been moving constantly, and I haven't had time to really sit down and analyze the show from a production perspective. But I did watch the first 40 minutes. And there's a lot of little things, transitions, you know, tosses, to tail of the tape were awkward in all a bunch of little things that can be easily cleaned up.

I think next time I'm going to want to put our announcers. I'm going to somehow find a way that we can position in with the crowd behind them as opposed to just a static graphic. I think that'll kind of create some more energy. Just a lot of little things that I saw in the first 40 minutes that we can tighten up and do much better. So the show really pops and moves and flows smoothly as possible. So I was confident in our ability to produce the show despite some of those little changes we're going to make. But I obviously wasn't confident about how the crowd was going to react to it. You know, it's never been done before.

What were the expectations of the live audience? Could we deliver on those expectations? It took about 45 seconds to figure that out. And very mostly grateful, this whole thing is nothing but a blessing from the Lord. That's what this is. This opportunity on my lap right now has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with the blessing that it is and the people I get to work with. As confident as I was in many aspects, I was nervous about how it would get responded to,

but the audience responded. And I want a special shout out to Gavin at Fox Nation took a big chance on us. Most people would not have taken that risk. They would have taken them wait and see a process. after we put the show out on YouTube a couple times, you know, and all that. But, you know, Chad Bronstein did a great job. I think Fox had a fair amount of confidence in my ability to pull the show off. And they saw the potential.

And I want to thank everybody that subscribed to Fox Nation and encourage you, if you haven't seen Real American Freestyle, go now, support Fox Nation because they supported us. They're supporting amateur wrestling. They're supporting now Real American Freestyle, real professional wrestling. and let's show them some love too, man. I appreciate that. Hey, I want to ask you, you know, I think everybody wants to know, and I don't know what you can or can't share,

so I get if you have to be cagey right now, but are you getting any viewership figures from Fox Nation? Were they happy with how the debut performed? Like, are you getting positive feedback from a corporate level, I guess is what I'm trying to dig at? Yeah, so let me spend some time talking about that. I left Cleveland Monday morning thinking I was going to spend the week at home because I'd been on the road for a week.

And on the way there, on the way home, I got a text asking me to turn around and head back to New York for a meeting on Thursday. I got home, got to, you know, empty out of my bag and my suitcase and, you know, repack it with some fresh stuff. to leave the next morning, fly back to New York because they wanted to have a discussion about our future. And I knew it was going to be good because I had heard from the president of Fox that night, Laura Patterson. She actually came to the event with her family. It was awesome. She sat right at Rinkside, had a great time.

And I could tell by watching her, she was really into it. Her son was really into it. Her son's an amateur wrestler. He was running up and getting everybody's autograph during the masses. I'm like, this is not bad. You know, not bad. It's the first time I ever had a network executive at that level come up to me on an introduction and just hugged me. I went, I think we're good. This is going to be fun. But I went back to New York with Chad, obviously, and I didn't get any data that I can share in terms of viewership.

Evidently, that is strictly guarded information that is not disseminated outside of the research department at Fox. But here's what I can tell you. In terms of subscriptions, we exceeded expectations. Okay. Substantially. Like in a really cool way. And I won't give you the data or the comparisons because that would probably be inappropriate of me.

But there was a reason they wanted to meet us on Thursday to discuss our future. They're very, very happy with us. They see the big picture. They see what freestyle wrestling at a professional level can be. They recognize that Real American Freestyle is it emerging new sports league? And to be able for them to be in on the ground floor or any other network or streaming platform is a major opportunity. And I could not be more excited about our relationship with Fox Nation. Hi, gosh, that's great news, dude.

Congratulations. I'm so excited for you. I do want to hit a few more questions about Real American Freestyle. If you're curious, yes, we will be talking about pro wrestling after our first commercial break. We will get there. But this is a big weekend and there was a lot going on. I was shocked to see how amazing Chale Sonan was. I've known he was the most hugely entertaining UFC fighter in all time, at least in my opinion.

I know he drew from pro wrestling inspiration and some of those promos. I know he's a fantastic talking head on social. media and on his podcast and his YouTube platform. But I thought he was absolutely terrific. Little did I know that Tito Ortiz was maybe hypothetically going to have a cocktail or two and throw down a challenge. Is this real, Eric? Are we going to see Tid Ortiz and Chale Sunning at RIFO2?

I just, I mean, that thing just happened. It was not planned. It wasn't in the format shortly before the final match. I mean, like 10 minutes before, Tito came to me and said, hey, man, I want to make a challenge to chale. I said, absolutely not. We're not going to blindside chale. That's not going to happen. And somebody got to chale and said, hey, you up for this and chale was up for it.

So once I got the word that chail was okay with the challenge, I didn't know what it was going to be. I don't know. I just knew it was going to be a challenge. So I, against all best. better judgment, quite frankly. And when I say that, not because I like Tito. On a personal level, Tito and I are cool. Really, look up to him in a lot of ways.

He's doing a lot of good things down in Florida. He's coaching, you know, kids. He's part of the community. He's doing a lot of good things. But, you know, I wasn't ready for him to come out and challenge a real American freestyle of that, right? He challenged him to wrestle a real American freestyle, I think. that was a little awkward

and we're not going to do that kind of stuff again, but I listened to Chale's, I saw him on Instagram on an interview with a guy by name of Christian Piles over at Flow Wrestling, FLO, check him out. And Chale was like, yeah, we're going to do it, let's just make sure this is it.

We're going to bury the hatchet. I don't want to be walking around, I'm paraphrasing. I don't want to be walking around with this, you know, issue between us for another 30 years, man. If we're going to do it, let's agree that this is it. So when I heard that, I went, damn, this might actually happen. So we'll see. Time will tell. It's really up to Chale and Tito, if they really want to do it. And, you know, I know what people are going to say, but you know what? Chale Sondon is a stud. Yeah. And he, if he's

confident, Tito's confident, they might not be out there competing, you know, on a regular basis but I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't discount either one of them man I think it'd be a hell of a match it'd be fun to watch and maybe just maybe they'll settle their beef after all these years well I'm excited about it I know they hooked up once upon a time in in Bellator but that was not without controversy I know Tito won with a choke but I think under the confines of wrestling and only wrestling not all the other MMA stuff but strictly wrestling I think Tito's in trouble. Chill is,

I think he was part of the national Greco-Roman wrestling team. That's all upper body locks and throws. Yeah. Yeah, it's just sounding gets a hold of you. You're going to go for a ride. You know, I don't know.

I'd kind of like to see that match. I'm talking to myself into being excited about it, but it's pretty cool. And Tito is, Tito's a legend, man. Tito's fun to watch. So it could be cool. We've got lots of live questions coming in.

Let's hit some of those. a little Jimmy Sorensen, friend of the show, says what was the most exciting part of a real American freestylety? What was the most exciting part last weekend, Eric? I think the Evan Wick match, I really got excited about that match because as I said earlier,

one of my concerns was, are we going to be able to present amateur wrestling in a visually dynamic way that's really going to get the sport over, get people excited about the sport of freestyle wrestling? And because sometimes, you know, you watch wrestling in the NCAA finals, for example, or even in the Olympics, it's pretty conservative, right? You've got to be a real fan to keep focused on it because it looks, it's chess, right? It's physical chess.

And sometimes that's less than dynamic to watch, right? It's not eye-catching, unless you're a super fan. But Evan Wickwin out there, man, he's throwing people around. They're up in the sky, they're upside down, they're inside out. is definitely the best match of the night, best performance of the night as well as the best match. So that's the one that really got me excited. Sarah got me super fired up.

I think Sarah actually is the one that got me most excited just because she brought so much energy before she touched the mat. I mean, that made me, that brought a big smile to my face. So it's hard to say, but I'd say one of those two moments. We got some other live questions here

about real American freestyle we should hit. Adam Clemens is with us here, and he wants to know, Eric, is there any chance we'll see Gable Stephson join Real American Freestyle? He'd love to see that Hendrickson-Stevenson rematch. I think they're tied at one apiece. Will we get a rubber match, you think, in R.A. I think there's a likelihood to what we will. We were talking to Gable initially about coming on board,

and Gable was still deciding what he wanted to do with MMA. So he obviously made the decision he made, but we're still in contact and we're still in discussions and let's hope. You know, I think that would be a great matchup. That's not something that I'd want to do right away. I'd want to build up to that match. It's really, Israel Martinez, that's really his area. And I would let him, you know, decide what the best way to approach this is.

But from a television point of view and a promoter's point of view, I'd love to have a couple months to build up to that because it would be a massive, massive draw. not only, you know, in the world of wrestling, amateur wrestling, but way outside of it. I think it would be a really good marquey matchup to have. Adam Clemmons says, I'm hoping the weekly R-AF TV show will provide more time to showcase the wrestler's personalities. That's an interesting idea. Do you think there is a version of Real American Freestyle where it does have weekly TV one day,

Eric? I can not only imagine it, we're executing on that vision as we speak. I just did an interview with the Hollywood reporter and talked in depth about the plans for our weekly show. And yeah, we are going to go out with a live weekly RAF series, Real American Freestyle Series. It won't be, if you look at what we did Saturday as our version of a PLE, right, or a pay-per-view, if you will. That's our big show, right? Just will this use, you know, WWE as an example, this is our monthly PLE. We are going to have my goal, my plan.

It's not even a goal. It's a plan. You have a goal. You execute a plan. I'm executing the plan to launch a two-hour, almost likely two-hours, a two-hour live real American freestyle that we're going to tour 52 weeks a year every week. We'll be in smaller venues, probably the larger casinos that have television capabilities and things like that. And the athletes that will be competing all high levels. athletes, not the world-class level athletes, Olympic champions and former world champions and that, but the guys and gals that are coming up, and they'll be competing on the weekly shows for an opportunity to get a match with one of the big stars that are on our monthly the elite. So that's the basic format. We hope to be, my goal is to have it on the air by the end of first quarter, at the latest, at the end of first quarter. And we're already making moves to make that happen. We're exploring, again, aggressively, all the approvals necessary for us to allow gaming,

gambling, on our live shows. Because these shows are going to tour in casinos, like I said, all over the country, they have TV capabilities, and there's a lot of them. But we're also going to bring the gambling aspect to it. for the people that are there that want to gamble live or on your phones for that matter. So you know, you could find Real American Freestyle on Draft Kings before you know it. Oh, man, I can't wait for that. We're getting lots of questions about location.

Like Uncle Daddy, he wants to know. Eric, we're watching anxiously here in the South Pacific. Any chance we could bring this style of wrestling to the South Pacific. Is it only going to tour in America? And I did see some comments asking, hey, how can I watch the event in Canada? Does Fox Nation have global capabilities or? No, they're geo-blocked, and I've been getting a lot of those questions myself, Conrad, and I unfortunately haven't been able to respond to it in all of them.

But right now, you know, distribution is exclusively on Fox Nation only in the U.S. Now, we own the international rights to Real American Free Sale for broadcast, meaning, you know, Fox Nation has nothing to do with that. So we, in fact, I was on the phone this morning with two prospective agents who, work in Los Angeles with one of the big agencies that have a plan for us to take our broadcast out

internationally. So eventually, yes, you will have access to Real American Freestyle, but currently it's only on the Fox Nation app. However, our platform, however, we're talking about, I talked to Aunt Evans, our YouTube

Shurpa Guidesman, who you were so kind in introducing me to originally. Aunt is also taking, he's in control of our YouTube channel and helping us build that. And Ant and I talked about maybe releasing, you know, one match a week or one match every couple days because it's a three and a half hour show, right? But we want people to see it and expose it internationally. So we're thinking about releasing it almost on a match-my-match basis.

We'll have more information on that once we figured out. Stay tuned. I can't wait to learn what's next for Real American Freestyle. I want to hit one more question before we move on to professional wrestling. Joe Walker Jr. That's weird, right? We just got them talking about real professional wrestling. Now we're talking about another professional wrestling. It's just weird. Joe Walker Jr. has a question that sort of combines both of those. He wants to know any chance we see someone like Shana Bazler on Real American Freestyle following Holly Holmes' appearance.

That's interesting. We know she's got an MMA background. We know she's got a pro wrestling background. And I think, you know, maybe through a stroke of luck, a lot of the UFC contracts do allow some of their contracted talent not saying that shana is necessarily one of those right now but they are allowed to participate in grappling competition which i think this would qualify as sure we'll see shana basler or perhaps other ufc stars like i think bo nickle is under contract ufc so it feels like there is an opportunity for crossover for both ufc and sports entertainment is that fair yeah no it is fair in fact i i'm so we as a company and as a league now I can say that. We're a league. We're not just a company. But as a sports league, having somebody like Bo Neckle, who is such a high profile, current fighter, in fact, I think he's got to fight November 15th in the UFC, right? So for Bo Nickel, for example, to become our very first world champion in his weight division and then, you know, six weeks later be competing, you know, at the UFC. That's good for us. It's good for UFC. It's good for Bo. It's good for the sport. Because it helps people realize that, you know,

Yeah, there's this relatively new thing in many people's lives called freestyle wrestling, but freestyle wrestling is such a major, major cornerstone of MMA. You look at all of the top fighters in the MMA, and they all come from essentially a wrestling background. Arguably, Jiu-Jitsu came from the wrestling sport, the sport of wrestling. And certainly, you know, guys like Bo Nicol are proving it out.

John Jones, you know, another amateur wrestler turned, you know, legend, for that matter, in the UFC. So to see, you know, guys like Bo Nickel and, you know, if Shana were to come along, you know, if she's interested, if she's got, you know, freestyle wrestling, you know, competition and experience and she wants to pull a Hollyholm kind of situation or just sign and get promoted, I think it would be awesome. Anytime there's crossover between MMA and what we do, I think both companies and the athletes themselves benefit from it highly. And it certainly helps Real American Freestyle. Well, we all loved R-AF-O-1. I hope you'll check it out on Fox Nation. As a reminder, it was only $7.99 for me to sign up and see the first event.

I highly recommend it. You're going to get more than your money's worth. I'm even seeing in the live chat here that we have some veterans who are watching this right now and they got real american freestyle for free they were able to sign up and get uh because of their prior service history a hookup from fox nation so go check that out the fox nation app is available in the uh apple app store that's where i found it and 799 what a value and speaking of value we're overdue to talk about our friends at mando what a fabulous product this is i actually have it sitting right here in front of me i mean here's the reality fall is here guys

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Eric, the questions are continuing to roll in here about Real American Freestyle. And here's an interesting question from a cell Rader. I'll probably butcher that name. Eric, who are your top five toughest women in a real fight? also did you get my apology at Ask a Bum I don't know what his apology was about oh no I'm so glad I'm so glad ask Bum thank you so much that was really I was really impressed with with your letter and fully intended to respond got a little busy right after I received your letter do not worry about it brother I know it came from it came from a good place it came from passion and respect that's how I took it

no need to apologize, but very impressed with your reach out. And five toughest women in a street by Jesus, I don't know. I don't think I'd want to mess with Holly Holm after what I saw. Yeah, no doubt. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with her anyway because, you know, I saw her take Rhonda Rousey's soul. She literally took her soul. And Rhonda's been a shell of her former self ever since. So I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that.

But after watching her wrestle, you know, I figured I could stay away from her fists. I'd try at least for a while. I'd probably be all right. But the way she wrestles, there's just no stopping her. So, no, I wouldn't want to tango with her. Any of the, you know, women that were on our car would be a really bad choice to get physical will. unless you know you know but I don't know man beyond that I guess I'm not as familiar with badass women as I should be because it would be good to know who

not to mess with I love you for that but yeah I just put Holly at the top of the list and have to do a little research which I should do because you know I'm capable of saying some stupid shit I just think it was you want to talk about guts I mean, I almost wanted to say the balls it took, but since it's Holly, I'm like, okay, the guts it took just to be like, you know what, I know I've never done this before, but I'll do it in front of a live audience and a massive audience on a historic event and yeah, let's go. Why not? You don't talk about somebody who is comfortable. That's a warrior. That's a warrior right there. Yes, I love it. Uh, well, listen, let's talk about yesterday. This is a huge day and I know that it was a big day for you because of everything that was going on in New York, but it wasn't. it lost on me that when you're in New York having these conversations about what you called the most exciting opportunity of your life to Justin Barrasso earlier in the week it was also the exact 30 year anniversary of the debut of Monday Nitro how wild is that dude I didn't even

realize it till you texted me I went oh wow that's right the and when I said to you earlier I look at this opportunity as a blessing. There are so many reasons why I'm convinced that it is. And they're all little things like that. It's just, I told this to Lori about a month ago. It's like everything I've ever done in my life has led me to this opportunity, to be ready for the preparation on a personal level, on a physical level. I've been working out pretty hard for about a year. I'm really grateful for that because I can keep up with 30-year-old people. In fact, I can work most of them into the dirt, except for Chad and Izzy, those two guys go. But, you know, just everything I've done, all the experiences, good and bad, all led me to this moment and opportunity.

And the fact that yesterday, while I'm sitting in a meeting that I didn't even know was going to happen last week with the head of the network and our television partner talking about our future in such a positive way, that other. call that irony. I just call it a nod. It's supposed to happen. That's how I feel about it. It is supposed to happen. I mean, let's not forget. How did, how was the whole idea for Nitro born? I mean, I know you've told us the story a million times, but give us the Cliff Notes version again, like how Nitro was created. Out of fear. I went to a meeting with Ted Turner to talk about international distribution in China and an opportunity to do a major deal with Star Television, which was owned by Rupert Mardock at the time, probably still is.

Rupert and Ted were like, yeah, this all the time. So I had to go ask for permission because, you know, I couldn't just go do that deal without risk of ramifications from Ted because it was very personal. The competition between Ted and Rupert Murdoch was very real and very personal. So I prepped for that meeting like a good boy should, And went to that meeting to pitch my ass off and, you know, 30 seconds in, I got, oh, what's it going to take to be competitive, you know, the rest of the story? I walked out of that meeting kind of numb and somewhat overwhelmed, that's mild, got to my office, locked myself in a room and said, okay, now what?

You didn't ask for this. You didn't vote for this, but you're going to do this and you're either going to succeed or fail. So I locked myself in a room and said, okay, how can I be, how can I do it? I can't beat the WWE. They're too good at what they do. If I go compete with their model against them, I'm going to get killed eventually, sooner than later, probably. I didn't want to be a distant number two because we'd already been that.

I had to be competitive. And I thought the best way to do it would be to be as different as the WWE as possible, starting with their live, then they're tape, Dinner live, dinner tape, screw it. I'm going to go live every single week. Because I knew back then, live television always performs better than tape television. It just is what it is. Okay, I'm going to go live.

They're focused on teens and preteens. I can't beat them at that. I'm not even going to try to beat them at that, but they're ignoring 18 to 49-year-old men. So I'm going to shift the presentation of my programming to appeal to 18 to 49-year-olds more than what we've been currently doing, which is imitating WWE's teen and preteen architecture. I'm going to shift that architecture from teen and preteen over to 18 to 49. I'm going to go live. Oh, and I'm going to throw some reality-based storylines in there,

let wrestlers use their real names, take real-life situations and blow them up into fiction. All of that was my goal to attract an 18-to-49-year-old audience. That's how Nitro became Nitro. It's fascinating to me, just the thinking. of, because I think a lot of people would say, hey, I want to avoid competition. What was it, do you think about Ted that made him say, no, let's go right into it. Let's go heads up with them.

I ask because sometimes we've heard like, you know, there'll be a Home Depot and then right next to it, they'll build a loaves or there's a gas station and they'll build another one right across the street. And I know there's a lot of theories about that, but I'm sure Ted had one of his own, right? I don't know what his theory was. I didn't question him. I just left the room and went. Oh, man, what am I going to do now? But look, if you go back and you look at Ted Turner's history as a businessman, he took big risks.

He was, Ted was the last of the real entrepreneurs in television, right? One of the last. Certainly, Fox's Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family are right there too. But Ted was a visionary. Ted was a competitor. Above all else is brilliant. Ted was, Ted was really like, in my opinion, at least, he was like the media version of Elon Musk. He saw things that other people didn't see. He believed things could be achieved that

most people would not even spend time talking about. And he took big risks. But I think, you know, Ted always believed based on what I've read, not in the conversation with Ted, but what I've read about Ted, in his biographies, for example, is that he believed in the loyalty of the wrestling audience. He knew that that audience would always be there and that he could use that audience to promote other programming too. So it was an anchor audience that Ted knew that he could depend on, and it didn't cost him as much as buying movie libraries and, you know, syndicating shows and things like that. And you could own it.

And Ted believed strongly in owning, look, Ted's vision was create the content, own that, own the distribution of the content, and own the library that you're building with it. And Russell provided a perfect opportunity for that. Now, in terms of going head-to-head, I think that's just the competitive nature of Ted. Ted liked to fight.

Ted was very confrontational. he was strategic and he believed in great you know he was a student of of great battles in history he understood the art of war as it applies to business and i think that was probably just his instinct because it was such a strong part of who ted turner was i want to ask you about that first nitro we know that it happened in the mall of america and i know we've touched on this before but why the mall of america what why did you think that was necessary and why that date as a reminder september 4th i believe was a holiday and i think raw was preempted was that the rationale you knew they wouldn't be on so you wanted to give them a chance to sample your wares

and if that's how you land on the date how do you land on the location of the mall of america absolutely the reason for the date because we could have picked any date we wanted to but knowing that WWF Monday at Raw at that time I think it was preempted for the dog show that's right might have been another show but it was a special on USA it was advertised we knew a year in advance or whatever so it was like wow if there's an opportunity to get their audience to sample our show it's on that night and that's all we were hoping for for just sample us. You know, it's the best you can hope for. Didn't expect to be, you know, to break any records, but we did. And the audience did sample us. And we were competitive from

that point forward. A lot of people go, oh, you only get, the nitro only got hot because of the NWO. You're an idiot. If you go back and you look at the ratings for Nitro from day one all the way up in two, July of 96, we'd win two, they'd win two. We'd win one, they'd win two. We'd win three, they'd win one. We'd win one, they'd win one. There was a lot of back and forth, but we were competitive immediately in a head-to-head environment.

Now, clearly in 96, with the NWO and all the drama and the interest that that created, then we just walked away with it. But we were competitive from the very, very beginning. And I'm kind of proud of that. And I think the September 4th show set the tone. It was like, okay, here we are. And here's how we're going to be different than what you're used to because we believe in surprises. We don't believe that we have to promote every single freaking thing you're doing.

Because by the time it gets there, the audience has already made up their mind whether they like it or not. let's create a must-see TV environment and psychology by doing big things that we don't tell them about in advance, because that creates the sense in the viewer that, I can't afford to miss the show because they're going to pull some rabbit out of their hat. I don't want to miss that. That was the psychology in developing the format that became Nitro, is to create as many of those moments.

that subconsciously communicate to the viewer that, look, this is live TV. We do some crazy shit here that you're not going to expect. So number one, don't leave. And number two, don't miss it, whatever you do. And it works. I want to give a shout out. We've got people in the live chat right now watching from Turkey and from Portugal. We've got an international flair on this Friday afternoon.

Thank you for being here with us. Keep those questions coming. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell. you don't want to miss us the next time we're live we know eric you were able to pull off a major surprise on that first nitro and i know you've indicated before you did market research heading into it and that's how you started to develop the sarsa formula and obviously one of the biggest surprises in the the history of the monday night wars was the very first episode of nitro lex luger showed up and he was there having worked a w wf house show the night before

so I don't know how much time we've spent talking about this I'm sure it's been years but you had to have some legal conversations to just verify are we sure we can do this when were you positive that you had Lex Lugar appearing on the show was that a week before the day of the night before how quickly and when does all that come to dick together and you realize we've got a special surprise now no I knew legally we were we were fine early on There was no question about that because I had the contract sitting right in front of me, right? Or lawyers did. I didn't have the contract.

But I was assured by my lawyers over at Turner Broadcasting that absolutely pretty clear, no problem there. And I had every confidence. Once I got to that point, once I made the decision to bring Lex in and we talked through how we were going to do it, he was comfortable with it and excited about it. once I got the green light from the attorneys, which would have probably took, it probably took place three or four weeks before the actual appearance. I was 100% confident that it was going to,

I wasn't 100% confident on how people were going to react. It was never been done before. So I was hopeful, but I was confident he was going to show up and we were going to execute probably. Hypothetically, let's just go down this hypothetical train, and I know we're sort of fantasy booking, but not really. If you wouldn't have been able to put together the Lex Lugar deal, did you have

another idea up your sleeve? Would it have been a different match? Would it have been a different debut? Because I know on that show, we certainly tease him and Lugar at the end. And we even ran a promo to hyping up the debut. Next week, we're going to see Sabu for the first time. And I'm not saying that he was necessarily for the masses. But did you have a plan B?

Like I know when when Hogan turned, if he didn't turn, the backup plan, And thankfully, it worked out, it was going to be Sting. Was there a backup plan for Lugar at all? Nope. Nope. I mean, it was a bit of a different situation. I was 100% confident that Lex was committed. He was excited.

There was no, you know, Lex didn't have a reputation, at least with me, of kind of being indecisive and changing his perspective on things. Hulk did. Hulk was tough. You can be all in on a Monday. And then Thursday, you're going to get a call. because now he's had time to think about it and see how it plays out, you know, three weeks after the fact.

Hulk was very good about, okay, this sounds fun, but what's next? Where does it go from here, right? In fact, that's one of the things that, you know, when Hulk would, when I saw him communicating with Vince Russo and Vince Russo would pitch Hulk a really big idea, and Hulk would use strokers who meant you and go, okay, well, where does it go from there? and that's when it was like deer in the headlights. Fuck, I don't know. Yo, bro, bro, bro.

That's just the way Hulk was. It wasn't, yeah, that sounds like fun and a great idea, but where's the business go afterwards? And if you could solve that, if you could answer that question in your own mind and convince him, he was solid as a rock. But if there was any doubt about where it's going in the future, he could talk himself out of something

that he previously had been talked into. And I knew that. that's why the plan B, you know, for staying and for Hulk had he not, you know, executed in July. I didn't have that same concern with Lex. I knew Lex was committed, you know, barring something unforeseen, like, you know, plain delays or, you know, he'd be taken hostage or something. I knew he was going to be there and I wasn't concerned about it. So there was no plan B. I guess I meant in terms of if legal from Turner had said, we might need to wait this one.

I don't know who it would have been, you know. I would have known because the idea of focusing so much on the surprise and the reason that we went to the extreme that we did to keep it as surprise, meaning Lex bought his own airplane ticket, which he booked his own hotel, because I didn't want his travel to go through the corporate system because somebody would have said, oh, Lex Lugar's back. There it goes, right? Yep, yep. So Lex bought his own plane ticket.

He booked his own hotel room. He got himself over to the Mall of America. snuck in the back door. We had security medium to go hide them in a restroom that we blocked off from the public. So I did all that because I knew the value of surprise, but knowing the value of surprise, that element for me came out of the extensive research that we did all over the United States prior to launching and creating the format that I created for that trope, just listening to a diverse group of wrestling fans talking about the things they love about wrestling and the things that they don't like about wrestling and finding those things that I could exploit in a

positive way and build into my formula on a consistent basis. And the element of surprise was like the number one thing across the board that wrestling fans talked about why they like professional wrestling over other forms of entertainment. So it did not, if legal would have come to me and said, oh, can't do it, their Congress soon as whatever, I would have had to come up with another one. I just don't know what it would have been, but I would have. Michael's with us here live and he wants to know when you decided to run the first nitro live from the Mall of America.

What was your biggest fear that night? You know, we talked about the Mall of America a minute ago, but it's a unique location. Certainly visually, it looks cool. I know Silver was flashing some pictures up on YouTube for us a minute ago, but, I mean, it isn't out there decision to make. Did you have any fears about running in a mall? Look, yes and no. From a production point of view, you know, David Crockett had gone out, did a site survey.

We knew that from a physical production point of view, no problem. I was excited about, and you asked that question earlier and I failed to answer it. So Mall of America, when it was built, you know, being from Minneapolis, not from there, but having lived in Minneapolis for 25 years, the Mall of America, America was like the largest mall in the world and it was being celebrated. It was a destination. It was like a little universal studios, you know, in the middle of Minnesota somewhere. Not in the middle, but you know what I mean.

So it had been in the news so much. It had become a destination that I thought, okay, it's got its own brand. You know, it's not Disney MGM studios, but the Mall of America was in, at least in the public eye, it was kind of a big damn deal. So I thought, okay, it's got that going for it. Minnesota has always been pretty good for wrestling, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to get an audience there. And if worse comes and worse,

that's going to be a mall full of people that are going to just stop and watch and go, what the hell's going on? And my biggest concern is always, it's no different than Real American Freestyle. My biggest concern wasn't my ability to produce the show, certainly not, Izzy's ability to get some of the greatest athletes in the world to go out there and put on a great match.

That wasn't my concern. My concern was, is anybody going to show up? This is a new sport being promoted in a completely different way. We're not part of the NCAA system. We're not the Olympics. Are people really going to show up and support it?

And we had over 4. I was like 42 or 4,400 people that were rabid freestyle wrestling fans. So with Mall of America, you hope you're going to draw a crowd. You promote and you pray that people are going to show

up and be interested, but you don't know until they do. And that was my biggest concern. But here's the other part. I knew I was comfortable with the risk because I knew if I could get people to show up, the look would be freaking phenomenal. I wouldn't need 5,000 people to make it look cool for TV. It looked like Fight Club meets the Mall of America. You know, you had the ring down in the center of the floor and the center of the atrium and you know your your structure was built so you're 360 degrees surrounded by people standing all the way up to the top of the building or the top floor it just looked cool on television and I thought you know it's worth the risk if I can get people to show up this will look really freaking cool on television and it does look at me it looks like a

roman coliseum and a modern day version of it it was awesome it is a classic shot to see the very first Monday Nitro at the Mall of America and it did look cool and if you're looking to look cool look no further than true classic you see a true classic it's never just about the fit or the fabric it's about helping guys show up with confidence and purpose every single day their clothes fit where they should they feel incredible and they don't cost a fortune you get that tailored look without sacrificing comfort or blowing your budget but what really truly sets true classic apart is the mission behind it all, from uplifting men in their day-to-day lives to giving back to underserved communities, and yes, even making you laugh at ads that maybe don't take

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It really helps the show and you're going to love the way you feel. You're going to love the way True Classic feels at trueclic.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, we're live and we've got a live studio audience right. now on YouTube at 83 weeks.com and sort of proving your point, 70% of the folks who are here with us who voted in the poll say that Lex's appearance was the best part of the very first Nitro according to our poll. And I've always been curious, you know, we started with a one hour show, but eventually it expanded to a two hour show. Did you, when you first launched Nitro, did you have any benchmarks that you needed to hit in order to get that second hour? I know it

comes around in the spring of 96, but does that not even come up in? until later, or did you already have that in your mind's eye when you first started? No, I did not. No, that was, you know, based on the success of the one hour, because we started out as hot as we did and continued to build the audience. I think once Brad Siegel and Ted, Scott's ass, I'm sure, once they saw it, wow, this is real and it's actually working, let's just give them an additional hour because the cost of doing a one-hour show is really no more than doing a two-hour show.

There's a substantial economy of scale there. If you could hold on to you, and that's a big thing, back in my day, you know, you establish your audience, and then your goal is to build audience all the way up until your main event. If you fail to build your audience throughout the show, that's a failure from a production point of view, from a television producer's point of view, a programming point of view. As an ad sales executive, you don't want a show that starts at one level and continually deteriorate throughout the one hour, or in this case, two-hour period. You can't sell that shit. So our goal was start here and build to the very end. I knew I was confident we could do that in a one-hour format.

I never even thought about two hours until I get a phone call from Brad Siegel saying, hey, guess what? Starting on this date, your show's now going to be two hours. From a business perspective, I understood exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. Because, again, economy of scale, he's getting higher rated programming that he can sell in the marketplace on nitro that he possibly could get on a movie or a syndicated sitcom, for example. So it made financial sense for us at WCW was a little overwhelming initially. So my God, we were so used to one-hour formats that a two-hour was like, oh, that's going to be tough at the level that we were competing at, right? Who would have just been on TBS?

Probably would have been no big deal if we weren't in a head-to-head environment. But to be on the TNT network in primetime competing with WWE, that was a bigger challenge to go two hours. and we did it and we were successful and it continued to grow all the way to the point that somebody went hey Eric guess what we're doing three hours for the same reasons but it puts a lot of creative pressure on the team for sure we are live and we're looking for your questions for Eric Bischoff I see heater one blackbird one is here live and they say get the ads off of here please as a reminder ad free shows.com is your hookup where you can enjoy all of this content without commercials and uh over the next week or so eric's going to be

going live again at ad free shows.com with a zoom he can see you you can see him you can ask eric any questions you'd like so if uh you'd like to enjoy this experience sans ads you can do that on patreon over at ad free shows dot com we uh we wanted to celebrate nitro eric i can't believe it's been 30 years by asking you what were your top five wcw monday night nitro moments and i thought hey what better way to celebrate nitro than to ask you your top five moments and we want to hear from you guys right now live on youtube what were some of your top five nitro moments we'll start with your number five eric when diamond dallas page disguised himself as laparca this was a major surprise i remember losing my mind as a young

fan when i saw this he's knee deep in his uh his feud with randy savage in 1997. LaParca was one of my favorite luchadors and then all of a sudden, wait a minute, did LaParca just hit a diamond cutter? Bang, here's the big reveal. I loved it as a fan, but why was this one in your top five and so special to you, Eric? Because I think for me, now,

GDP will have a different perspective because, you know, he lived it and I didn't. But for me as a producer, it was like, It wasn't the peak, certainly, of Page's success, but he was sure on his way. And I think it was the moment, in combination with a lot of other things, but it was the real pivot point for Page to go from stardom to super stardom. And it's the magnitude of how that moment catapulted,

DDP into the level that he ultimately became. It was an important moment, and it was so well executed. You know, even in a shot that Super Dave just put up, you look at that crowd, they're behind the finish. They got the diamond cutter up. They're all on their feet. And when you can create that much energy and reaction as a television producer, and I'm certain as a performer,

it's a real sweet moment and that was one of my favorites what a magical moment it was i know it's got to be on ddp shortlist too but when we're asking you about your top five monday nitro moments and again we're live on youtube we want to hear your top five below the number four moment that you picked was the genesis of crow sting so to set the back story the nw o has become a thing when Hulk Hogan joins the Outsiders in July. And then we've got the August pay-per-view where the NWO is now in control of the big gold belt and they spray paint the world title.

By September, well, that's the month for war games. It's going to be WCW versus the NWO. And you guys had a quote-unquote fake sting, Jeff Farmer, dress up and Sting's gear. And we had a cliffhanger on a nitro that made people wonder, hey, is Sting with the NWO? And of course, we find out at the pay-per-view. it was the NWO trying to pull a fast one and and confuse other people in WCW

and it wasn't too long before wait a minute what the hell's going on who's that it's sting but he's not colorful he's not neon paint it's black and white and he's got a leather jacket and he's sitting in the rafters why is the uh the the birth of crow sting in your top five eric probably for a lot of the same reasons that the DDP moment as La Parker was because it was, and I think for me, it even goes a little bit earlier than that. I think Sting was doing an interview, we had his back to the camera, and he just dropped some kind of, he foreshadowed what was to come in a way that had people scratching their heads, right?

It's like, wait a minute, what did he just, why has he got his, he's turning his back to us? People were confused in a great way, right? That was the goal, is to get people going, and what the hell is going on with Sting? And then obviously the Kroosting character began, and as you just talked about the real genesis of the character itself, because it was so phenomenal, man. I always like to go back to the beginning of anything.

It's one of the reasons I talk about, you know, the spider web of life. Yeah, I'm here right now, but if you really look at the reason why I'm here, you've got to go back to this, which will take you back to that, which will definitely take you back to this. and I love kind of tracking the timeline of great moments and great ideas because they all start somewhere and the Sting character, the Crow character, the genesis of that character really started for me I think on September 16th, 1996 and it became such to this day, you know, something that people

still talk about and Sting, Steve Borden is still traveling the world, signed an autograph as Crow Sting. So how do you not look at that moment and go, you know, that was pretty important. That was pretty cool. It is interesting to think, too, because, you know, you take a look at a guy like Hulk Hogan, who certainly had two different iconic personas. We know what we're talking about, the red and yellow and then the black and white. Well, Sting kind of had the same thing, too. He had the neon colors and then he had the crow thing.

But where we would see Paul Kogan sort of post wrestling when he's just making public appearances, he could go back and forth. Some days he'd do the yellow and red, and other days he'd do the black and white. I find it interesting that Sting has not really done that. He is maintained with the exception of that one-off at Starcast, and then when his son's dressed up to pay homage to the past and his final match in Greensboro last year,

he's maintained the crow persona the entire time. I know we talk about the importance of the NWO to WCW, but the importance of the NWO to the Sting character can't be overstated because he never went back to neon. He stuck with the crow look the entire time. It changed his career. He may have been the biggest beneficiary of the NWO in totality.

It may have been Sting. Man, that's an interesting perspective, and I agree with you on that. If you think about, again, you know, stepping back, don't get mired in, you know, if you would have been to whole clean and whatever.

Like, take your armchair quarterback or your armchair booker hat off. Just step back and look at it and think about it from a perspective. Sting was originally supposed to be the third man. He didn't get that opportunity, which in some respects was probably a disappointment for Sting, especially given where the NWO eventually landed. And it continues to exist, right? NWO is still one of the top 10 merchandise items in the WWE merchandise catalog to this freaking day

and Sting had the opportunity to be the third man and he wasn't but if you look at as you pointed out so well who actually benefited the most as a talent arguably Hulk because it was a second career for him it was completely reborn as a character and enjoyed a tremendous amount of success as a result.

But Sting, I think in many ways, benefited even more than home. I mean, Sting's been able to make it a lot of money with that Crow Sting character for the last, what's it been enough? 25 years? Yeah. 30 years, whatever it's been. It's a big benefit. I think it's pretty cool.

And it certainly catapulted Sting. Sting was never as popular as a character in W. WCW as the Surfer Sting character. He was not a fraction as popular in WCW then in terms of scale, people that were watching and supporting as he was the Crowsting character. There was a much bigger character for him. I just think it's so interesting that, you know, the nostalgia is there for almost every wrestling personality.

But where Hogan could reach back in his bag of tricks and come back with the red and yellow or the black and white, Sting has maintained the Crows thing. you got to think it's because it just resonated with fans in a bigger way. I had a conversation with him not too long ago, and he told me that the NWO angle really connected him with a large portion of wrestling fans who maybe were bullied at school or in youth sports or whatever.

They could identify with this one guy against this band of bad guys, these rebels, these bullies, because that's what the NWO was. and Sting sort of represented the vigilante who could overcome all of that. So those people who maybe felt they were being picked on or isolated from others or what have you in their real life, maybe that character resonated more. But I definitely feel like it pulled an emotional lever with fans that the neon

surfers thing never did. Yeah, the neon surface thing was cool. It was exciting. It was colorful. It brought a lot of positive energy. Woo! And all that was fun. You know, it's engaging.

The audience could participate in it, right? And that's always really, really freaking important. But I think the psychology, as you laid out so well, the psychology behind the character reached the audience at a different level. Now, the audience theoretically, they're watching because they're living vicariously to one degree or another. They're living vicariously through these larger-than-life characters that they see on television. Same is true with dramatic series and probably sitcom.

at some level. You relate to those characters in some unique way that makes you interested in them, right? Whether you're interested in their sense of humor or their ability to tell a story, their ability to make you feel certain things that you don't feel in the course of your normal day life. The psychology with distinct character who's really an anti-hero, right? He was the ultimate good guy that's now willing to pick up a freaking baseball bat and clear a room because that room deserves to be cleared. That's like an aspirational quality, I think,

that most people at least like to believe as deep down within them. Some people probably believe it's right on the surface. And for some people it is. But I think almost everybody wishes they could be that guy that would show up and clear that room of the bullies that deserve to be cleared out. We all want that.

We all want to be the hero. Sting was that hero in a relatable way, not in a visually dynamic way. Isn't it interesting too that the two hottest acts that WCW and the WWF had, and we'll call it 97, 98, were really doing the exact same thing. They were allowing the audience to live vicariously.

With Sting, you know, you were able to, you know, that character was going to go take care of the bullies and he was going to stand up for the little guy and he wasn't going to be picked on and he was a vigilante and on the other channel who didn't want to live vicariously through stone cold steve austin and flip their boss off and tell him to kiss your ass and give him a start everyone wants to beat their boss up everybody wants to beat up bullies like i think it's interesting that wrestling fans in 97 if you had some angst you could live vicariously on nitro or USA and yeah both characters uh certainly Steve Austin was that blue collar every man

it's got to show up to work and take crap from his boss or co-workers and just said you know what enough of that I'm not doing this anymore that's every I mean I've worked a lot of jobs in my life a lot of construction jobs physical jobs landscaping digging ditches roofing houses you know jobs where it's it's tough work and you realize early on that almost every place you work there's somebody an immediate supervisor or somewhere up the line that just everybody's kind of like, man, I'd like to get that guy behind a, get him out behind a bar one night, just let him know how I really feel that was

Stoke Steve Austin. But he did it in a fun way. It was visually fun to watch and live vicariously through it. Kung Fu Stick is with us here live and they say, Eric, who was the person who could have did the sting gimmick not the sting gimmick but the sting gimmick the idea being we've talked about this a lot with the undertaker if anyone other than mark callaway does that i think we all agree doesn't come off quite as well you know maybe it would have been a six week or a six month i don't know that it would have been a 20 plus year career but if someone

else were to do this pro character i'm not saying surfer sting if if surfers sting just stays with Steve Borden, if we need someone else to do this vigilante angle, and he's going to don the crow face paint and put on the black coat and sit in the rafters, is there anybody else that could have pulled it off or did it have to be Steve Borden? I think it had to be Steve Borden because, again, you got to go back and kind of remember, at least, what the general direction of the NWO and WCW was, was NWO is going to come in. decimate WCW and WCW is going to rise from the ashes and regain their position on the throne by taking out the NWO. That was the premise of the long-term story that we had for that. Obviously,

it took a lot of twist and turns all the way in between, but that was the general premise. We knew initially that it had to be somebody that the wrestling fans identified most strongly with as a WCW Hero. And you had a choice at that time, arguably Rick Flair was that guy in the minds of many. But the younger audience, the audience that we really had to kind of draft up and bring up along with us and expand, that was sting. You know, your hardcore wrestling fan, your devoted traditional wrestling fan, it was Rick Flair all day long. but the younger wrestling fan, the younger part of our audience, it was definitely Sting. And given the choice between Flair and Sting, I couldn't imagine Rick Flair

dressing up like the crow, the bird on his knit shoulder, sitting up in a, I certainly couldn't see Rickler scaling down on a rope getting dropped in the middle of the arena. I could see Sting doing it, and it was the right choice. I don't think anybody else could have done that. I mean, physically, could somebody else have done it? Sure. A lot of guys could have done it.

Could have been Crow Guerrero, I guess. But here's the reason why I think Sting worked so well. Keep in mind, Sting had been studying acting for a long time. In fact, I executed, produced an independent film with Sting called The Real Reason Men to Make Crimes, I think. I was the executive producer of that. I think it aired on TBS or TNT, one of the other. But Sting was really committed to acting. He was learning.

He was studying. He was training with acting coaches. And that character, you had to kind of immerse yourself in a character. You didn't have the luxury of the spoken word. There were no interviews to get that character over. There was very little physical contact for a long time in order to get that character over. There were no matches. There were no two-minute promos. But the character had to grow and build. And I think because Sting understood how to use his body, his presence, his eyes, even though he was in full

makeup, he made that character believable. I don't know that any other wrestlers on the roster at that time would have taken the same approach to that character as Steve Borden did because of his passion for acting. And I know people go to say, what do you mean acting? You know, I have to do standing with a bird. Yeah, try doing that and getting a reaction sometime. It was more than just the outfit and the gimmick and the staging. It was more than that.

It was a character that didn't talk, that did very little physically, that connected to that audience in amazing way. And that's great acting. Well, you don't have to act with Bluetooth. you guys now you can enter the room do it first blue chew is not 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 you know i've been kicked out of four museums for carrying a loaded sculpture guys this isn't

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Join Bluechew's mission to upgrade humanity, one thrust at a time. Head on over right now to bluechew.com for details and important safety information. And a big thanks to Blue Chue for sponsoring today's podcast. Uh-oh. Hold on. Hold on. I went here. I've lost my audio. I'm going to let you sit here and talk to my beautiful wife. We're live.com. And this is what happens when you go live. But speaking of going live, well, I saw a great comment just a moment ago. I think it was Michael Collins who pointed this out. And he said that one of his favorite moments in WCW Nitro history, a guilty pleasure favorite moment, a fan nailed Scott Hall in the head with a drink at the perfect moment right after he said too sweet and the camera zoomed in on him. Even Eric got splashed. I think everybody watching this remembers that

moment where all the sudden a beverage just slides in and what does he do? He just takes his two hands and slicks his hair back like nothing happened totally ignored it, kept it moving fuller than the other side of the pillow. Only Eric Bischoff, the NWO and Monday Nitro. We're live we want to hear from you uh jake from the windy city says the mall of america doesn't feel lively anymore well maybe we need to get a uh maybe we need to get a another monday night show up there katherine somers who's been with us for 14 months here at 83 weeks dot com says you sold your reaction well but inquiring minds want to know how did you manage keeping lex's appearance so tight-lipped uh leftover birthday cake is amazing and turning 48 yesterday has never looked so good

congratulations on your birthday mrs summers greatly appreciate all your support. I know you've been a day one gal here hanging out with us at 83 weeks and we greatly appreciate your support and happy belated birthday. But yeah, I thought it was interesting that he shared that, hey, you got to book your own airfare. You got to book your own hotel room. We don't want it to go through the travel department. We don't want any leaks. Crow Guerrero says, Eric dropped the ball with me. I could have been huge. I love that somebody set up a fake YouTube profile already calling themselves Crow Guerrero. visiting Eric's top five Nitro moments as a reminder. Number five was DDP doing his

best LaParka in the middle of the Randy Savage angle. Number four was the creation of Crow Sting. But number three is one that everybody remembers. This two is 1996. This will be our second 1996. This is from late July, just a couple of weeks after Hulk Hogan has become bad guy and Bash at the Beach. I guess we'll call it the Disney, massacre where we saw Ray Mysterio Jr. used as a lawn dart, but this got so real, Eric, that the actual authorities were called. This had to be a good feeling for you. It was so exciting. And yeah, to have ambulances and cop cars in a fire truck rushing to the set because people that lived in proximity to Disney MGM studios that was watching Nitro live on television

called 911 because of what they saw happening on live television. Man, if that's not the sweet spot, I've talked before about the sweet spot. What's the sweet spot you say, Eric? The sweet spot is when you get an audience that knows everything you're doing is scripted, but then you're able to create a scenario, a scene, a moment where they go, yeah, I know this stuff is scripted, but that's not supposed to happen. That's real. That's the sweet spot.

And we just nailed that sweet spot. It was awesome. It was unbelievable the reaction from the fans and all these years later. I mean, people are still saying and referencing that that lawn dart scenario. We got to touch on number two. I think a lot of people would argue this could be the number one. But Scott Hall coming through the crowd, May 27th, 1996.

I think this is your birthday. How old did you turn that day, Eric, on May 27th, 1996? 96. I would have been 41. it's unbelievable to me to think about you at 41 years old driving scott hall to the show and your Porsche you know you've got the former razor Ramon you've got this idea little did we know that it would become the biggest angle in the history of professional wrestling that it would literally catapult WCW from second hind teeth in this monday night war or just in the

promotional war of in the wbF had been king for so long And with this one move, the winds of change were here. It's number two on your list and well deserved. Scott Hall's a big part of the entire success of Nitro, don't you think? Without question. You know, in that moment, again, it's, you know, the same thing with the DDP thing, you know, with playing LaParka and, you know, kicking off the Randy Savage angle or, you know, the very, all the things we've already talked about.

It's like, for me personally, it's like, where did it all begin? What was the moment that changed so much because those are the moments that I put so much value in, right? They're not necessarily the most fun moments, but they're the most important ones. And I think when Scott Hall came down through the crowd, never been done before, everybody thought, oh my gosh, this must be real because I've never seen it before. and we does this, and if they don't normally do this, then therefore it's not supposed to happen, therefore it's real. That was the psychology behind that scene. And to see it play out, not knowing then what we've all learned since

about how, again, W.O.O. would become and how it would impact the industry, really. But to go back and look at that moment now or to relive that moment in my mind, it's pretty freaking Austin because that was the beginning of so much that was the beginning of Stone Cold Steve Austin. That was the beginning of the attitude era. That was the beginning of

you know everything that you saw in WWE roughly a year later started occurring because of that moment when Scott Hall came down through the crowd and let

everybody know that he was here to do he was here to make a statement. It was awesome. We're live right now at 83 weeks.com. Hit that subscribe button and most importantly, turn on the notifications bell. But let us know below what's your top five moments in Nitro history. Yesterday was the 30 year anniversary. Eric's breaking his down.

Number five was DDP doing his best laparca. That was 1997. In September of 1996, the birth of Crow Sting came in at number four for Eric. The Disney Massacre, which led to Ray Mysterio doing his best lawn dart impersonation. That was late July, 1996. That's number three on Eric's list. Number two, we just heard is the debut of Scott Hall coming down through the crowd.

But Eric's number one, top five moment in Nitro history is the Lex Lugar debut. Why is this number one, Eric? Because it's set the tone for Nitro and Nitro changed. You know, people always said, oh, it's going to change the wrestling business forever. whatever, okay, whatever. Very few things, very few moments, very few ideas, very few decisions actually changed the industry. The rest of it is like participation trophies to make people feel good about themselves or each other. This moment, the launch of Nitro, and because of the impact and the buzz that Lex Lugar created, absolutely catapulted Nitro, right?

of the gate. I talked about it earlier. We came out of the gate competitive. We didn't have to work up to trying to be competitive with WWE. We went from a distant number two, pretty much where Tony Khan is today, and about the same relative position. We went from that to kicking his ass in less than 12 months. But that initial 12 months, we kick his ass one week, he kick ours the next. We were competitive right out of the shoot. And it was because, in many respects, because of that moment that we created. If the wrestling audience told me they wanted, it was born out of research, as we've already described. It wasn't like, oh, I got this great idea. I'm so smart. I'm the most creative wrestling person in the world. No, I just listened to the freaking audience and figured out a way

to do it. That way was Lex Lugar. And Lex Lugar, because of this situation, again, timing is everything, right? Sometimes it works for you. Sometimes it works against you. timing was on our side. The audience was telling us what they wanted. It was the key to our success. The situation with Lex Lugar was so unbelievably unique in terms of the timing and the opportunity that it created. That moment to me is why it's my number one moment, because that moment, in my opinion, changed not only my fortunes, Lex's, everybody in WCWs, but if anybody should be thankful for that moment. It should be any stockholder in WWE

because that's the reason WWE started doing what we were doing, which is targeting that 18 to 49 year old instead of teens and preteens, going live every week, just like we taught them to do, introducing more reality-based storylines, Stone Cold Steve Austin,

all in my Tyson, Mr. McMahon. All of that was a result of that moment with Lex Lugar. in my not so humble opinion we're live here and we've got a comment from yes have some who says the first episode of nitro was burned in my brain and i consider it one of the best television pilots of all time alongside the sopranos lost and breaking bad i know you have a whole second act after pro wrestling where you just did television but to hear that your first episode of nitro at least in this fan's opinion is up there with the pilots for the sopranos

and lost and breaking bad that's got to make you feel good doesn't it sure of course i'm a human being i like to hear good shit i get enough of a bad shit so every once in a while yeah i'll take that all day long and and be grateful for it thank you very much well we're going to talk about some more good shit as you said because i felt like man i could not have a different a more different list than you because i don't think i could have a top five nitro moments without mentioning when I'm going to squeeze into your honorable mentions list. Goldberg beating Hulk Hogan at the Georgia Dome for the big gold belt. Like that felt like the high watermark for me for WCW.

Like I think this is one of those moments where as a wrestling fan, you remember where you were when it happened. I was at my parents, uh, timeshare at the landmark in Panama City on front beach road. And Monday Night Raw was a tape draw where they had DX doing some regrettable cosplay as the nation of domination, but you had Goldberg, this unstoppable force that came out of nowhere. We didn't even know his name a year prior. Now he's beating Hulk Hogan in the Georgia dome in front of what seemed like a hundred thousand fans. Of course it wasn't, but that's on my list, Derek, and it's got to at least be an honorable mention for you, right? Oh, of course,

and arguably it would, it could be on anybody's number number one at the list, because it was a huge moment. I think we had like 40,000 people in attendance and it was huge and you know, it's like it goes back to the beginning of Nitro. You know, part of the format, the Nitro format that changed the wrestling industry

legitimately, not as a participation trophy phrase. Arguably this match in putting it on free TV, which was part of the strength of Nitro. I talked early on. would-night show in the format. We're going to bring

matches and angles that you typically wouldn't see on real television. We're going to bring that pay-per-view quality content to weekly television. And a lot of the people, a lot of the dirt sheet writers at the time, it was like, oh, it's going to kill the business, this is going to be horrible, the pay-per-view business is going to die.

They're putting all these big matchups on free TV. All of the geniuses who've convinced themselves and others that they understood the wrestling business because they, quote, unquote, studied it. all of them said that it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Well, here we are years later, after dominating the WWE with a formula that everybody said was going to fail to take it to the next step and put arguably, in fact, a lot of people were so critical of it. How could you possibly give this away on free TV?

And I reminded everybody because Ted Turner said we were in a television business, not in the pay-per-view business. That's why. Brick and knuckleheads, it's not hard to figure out. You just do what your boss tells you to do. Keep your job. Make some money. It's how the world turns. And that's what this match was. It was absolutely pay-per-view quality.

In the minds of probably the majority of wrestling fans, absolutely should have been a pay-per-view. In fact, some people say, that's the beginning of the downfall of WCW. Like, what the fuck? But, yeah, that was a very cool moment. And arguably, number one, in a lot of people's minds. I feel like Lex Lugar is perhaps criminally underrated when you think about magical moments because you have as your number one Lex Lugar's debut switching teams he was in the WWF doing a house show on Sunday night on Monday night here he is at the Mall of America

challenging Hulk Hogan but it was when he beat Hulk Hogan on Nitro 100 the first ever three hour nitro from the palace of Auburn Hills the same building where years prior he was supposed to win the world title at SummerSlam from Yoko Zuna. He's unsuccessful. And I think everybody thought for sure based on the Lex Express, well, he's definitely going to win the world title. It didn't happen for him. But it does a few years later when he does the unthinkable.

He beat Hollywood Hulk Hogan? How in the world is this even possible? That is definitely on my honorable mention list. I mean, just the reaction from the crowd alone, I think it's got to be on the list of biggest pops in WCW history. But then even the backstage celebration after it, where you see Ray Mysterio, Lex, and others trying to furiously scrub that NW spray paint off the world title.

This has to be on the honorable mentions list, doesn't it? Oh, it's such a cool moment. And again, because the way my mind works, I'm always looking to go back to the genesis of things and where it all began. To me, that's the most fascinating. without question in terms of a big moment Goldberg Hogan, obviously, this right there with it for different reasons, but this moment's right there

with the Hogan, Goldberg, you know, matchup and Goldberg beating Hogan. We've, we're going to have a little fun with this last one because this is my list. I got to come up with the honorable mentions for your top five. And we want to hear what are your top five moments, the honorable mention so far that I've brought up for Hogan beating Goldberg for the title and Luger beating Hogan for the title. But Hogan's not involved in my last one. It was Rick Flares

return to WCW television in the fall of 98. He comes out and they recreate the horseman and announce that he's back and it leads to a fiery confrontation with you on camera. And people who had been reading the observer in the torch and calling the hotlines, they knew that there was a back and forth. That led to the iconic fire me. I'm already fired. I mean, just a great moment on WCW television. The reaction from the fans that night in Greenville, I mean, it was a, it was a pretty special moment. Uh, that makes my list of honorable missions. Would this be on your list as well? Nah. I mean, it was a cool moment. And if you're a Rick Flair fan, especially, absolutely one of his highlights.

Then I thought it was excellent television, but I don't know if I'd put it in there with your other two honorable mentions. It wasn't quite that impactful, but it's certainly a great moment. I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. I got to go out there and work with Rickler.

If you can't have fun working with Rickler, you're in the wrong business. So for that aspect, you know, really dug it. I don't know if it had as much impact on me as maybe it did on others. Well, it was a fantastic moment as a fan who was keeping up with some of the behind the scenes, because I think as wrestling fans, we all want to suspend our disbelief. We want to be able to point the things and say, well, listen, I know what the show is, but now this, well, that was real. That felt real. It felt like.

Well, it mostly was real. Yes. That's the sweet part. And I guess I shouldn't be looking at this a little differently in terms of significant moments because it was another example of the formula that made Nitro successful, which was the reality-based television. When I talk about that, and I reference reality-based television, it probably means different things to different people. But for me, it's taking real-life scenarios that people are aware of, modifying them somewhat, playing with them a little bit, getting a little creative with them, and bringing those real-life issues into a scripted environment and doing so and keeping it believable.

This was a great example of that. You know, one of the challenges, you know, I don't mean, anybody that knows Rickler knows, he wears these emotions out of sleep. It's not going to be hard to figure out what Rickler's thinking in any given minute, right? That can be challenging at times, but can also be a real gift. And in this case, from a television producer's point of view and a talent's point of view, in my case, working with Rick, the same reason I used to like to work with Steve Austin

because it came so easy. Because Steve Austin could make you believe it was real. McPowley could make you believe it was real when he wanted to. Rick Blair could make you believe it was real. And in this scenario, with this backer, with this backstory, which was very real, and because Rick did wear his emotions on his sleeve, that intensity is seemingly portrayed hatred of me.

That was not acting. That was Rick wearing his emotions out of his sleeves and just letting me have it, but within the structure of a story that had a payoff. That's kind of magical. When you can get it, it's magic. It can go wrong. too it can go real shitty real fast in the wrong in in in the right or slash wrong

situation but in this case with Rick it was it was pretty freaking awesome it was awesome and we want to hear from you guys what makes your top five moments in Nitro history and I want you to be thinking about next week too because we're going to be breaking down the top five matches in Nitro history so hit us with some of those suggestions in the comments. I want to talk a little bit about John Sina because we've got some news that I want to cover with you. We've actually got a follow-up

that I know is going to get a lot of people's attention from last week. And some of the comments from our live chat are backing up. We're going to get to all those. But first, I need to brag about our partners that delete me. You see, delete me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time

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get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com slash 83 weeks and enter the code 83 weeks at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash 83 weeks and the code is 83 weeks. Eric, we

want to hit some of these live questions that we've had coming in. We'll try to hit some of these as quickly as we can because I do want to talk to you about John Cena. Ash 1-1-1 says, hey, Eric, I'm a huge fan. I wonder if Ryan Pilman didn't get injured or passed away. Would he have been a big star in WCW if you re-signed him? So if the cards landed differently and he wound up in WCW,

could you have made money with Brian Pilman and WCW? Well, clearly. And we'd establish that with the, you know, the story and the angle and the character that Brian developed with Kevin Sullivan, you know, capped off with the Bookerman, you know, comments. in the corner. But, no, I mean, the whole loose cannon thing that started in WCW could have easily carried forward because it was so unpredictable. You could take it in any direction at any time. And Brian was so good at that character because he was basically half that shit crazy

at the time. We've got another great question here. This one is really more of a comment from Jeff Morland. He says, thank you for everything you've done for the industry. I'm a huge fan of you and you are amazing. It's also so good to see how much of a true friend you were at a Hulk. I miss Nitro. Eric, if you had a time machine, would you want to do one more Nitro? Could it be fun to do one more just for nostalgia's sake? Nah, no, I mean, I'm so grateful for it. It changed my life, changed my family's life.

It changed a lot of people's lives. In many respects, it changed WWE's fortune in lives. but sometimes it's really cool just to look back and be grateful for it as opposed to really wanting to do it one more time I'm real cool with where I'm at and I'm real cool with what I experienced grateful for it but I don't think I'd want to do it again Frank says hey Eric do you have a favorite WCW Hulk Hogan moment or yourself with Hogan so what about your favorite moment that you shared we'll call it on screen with Hulk Hogan because so many times you were synonymous I and you're coming out with him pretending like you're flying a plane and he's playing

air guitar and you're holding the mic for him. Was there one moment when you think back and you just, maybe it was nonverbal, but you looked at him and he looked at you and you guys were like, man, this is as good as it gets right here. Oh, there were so many. I'm trying to isolate just one of them, but a lot of it was real subtle stuff. You know,

it wasn't, you know, a big wrestling type moment that the audience would even recognize. But there were so many. I think when I was revealed as part of the NWO, that was pretty freaking cool. That was a moment. But really, most of the, when I think about Hulk and the things that I'm most grateful for,

as you were leading up to finish that question, I wasn't sure how you were going to finish it. For me, there's only really very few moments with regard to Hulk and I, that I remember that really stood out because there's so many of them that did, but there's one that really stood out, and it was a conversation. There were no cameras.

It was a conversation we had to back of a limo. I think I probably referenced this on the show. We were on our way to the building in Detroit, probably 97, maybe early 98, and everything was going great. We were kicking WWEs ass. We were making more money than anybody expected we could or would, including me.

We're beating our own projections from the year before by a significant margin. And I remember Hawks saying something, and I'm paraphrasing it, saying something to me that sounded like, you know, enjoy this moment, but don't think you're going to be here forever because things can change fast. It was really putting me in check. Maybe you probably felt, he probably felt I was getting a little too full of myself, which is probably true. and he just got us like you know father time the voice of experience just settled me down

and he did it in such a meaningful way not admonishing me not like you know making me feel less than just that voice of experience saying you know don't get too comfortable it's the entertainment business kid good advice uh Sal Rader wants to know, was rude friendly backstage the night he came back? We've touched on this before that, you know, you weren't necessarily crossed, but I don't think you guys were best of friends when he was in WCW the first go around. But when he comes back in the shadows of the Montreal screw job, was it, you just pick up

right where you left off as far as being a professional or did you have to clear the air of some sort? There was no. I did look, Rick Rood and I were friends when I first got to WCW. He was a Minneapolis guy, right? We had a lot of mutual friends, a lot of things in common. A lot of mutual friends in common. So Rick and I hit it off right off the bat.

I used to drive to buildings with Rick occasionally to produce TV. So there were no issues there. Now, you know, it became contentious towards the end of Rick's life because Rick really wanted to get back into the ring. We were hot as hot could be. Rick knew that. Rick knew it was a great opportunity for him, but Rick got himself back into a corner with the Lloyds of London policy. And Rick was able to cash in on that Lloyd's of London policy.

But here is the catch. If Rick would have stepped into the ring again, Lloyds of London would come back after Rick for the payoff that he received, which was substantial. Rick wanted WCW to pay that. I couldn't make that happen. I couldn't go to my bosses and say, look, here's what happened. Rick got injured.

He had a Lloyd's of London policy, and the Lloyd's of London policy paid him off this amount of money. We're talking mid to high six figures. And we want to get Rick Wood back in and ring again, but before I can do that, Mr. Turner Finance, or in this case, Ms. Turner Finance, I need WCW to pay off Lloyd's of London. And then we got to pay Rick. route. That wasn't going to happen. And I tried my best to convince Rick that I couldn't do it, but I think Rick, in his mind, believed he wanted it so badly. And in his mind, well, if he's got enough money for this guy and he's got enough money for this guy, surely I'm worth paying off my

Lloyd's London policy. He didn't say it that way. But that's what he was thinking. And that's what he was angry about that I couldn't in his mind wouldn't pay that policy off so yeah there was he was angry at me uh I'm sure you you know shared that with a lot of different people um but there was nothing I could do about it but up until that point Rick and I were always good friends there was no making up for anything avalon d is with us and I don't want to spend a ton of time on this question but I do think we should address that he says hi eric warriors on record saying the reason his match with Hogan was bad at Halloween Havoc was because Hogan didn't want to plan anything had the match been great would Warrior have been kept in

WCW and did WCW have dark matches so start with the last one first you guys had dark matches right yeah that's where we found Bill Goldberg but um we found the Bill Goldberg character because because of dark matches you know we think Bill Goldberg would come out and nobody ever heard of them before we didn't even know what we're going to call we just want to see him. What happens when he wrestles in front of people? We know he can do some shit in the power plant. Cool. What happens when he gets out in front of people? You know, that's always an unknown until you see it. And we put him out there completely unknown, no promotion, no hype, no nothing. He walked out and placed popped. Wait a minute. We've got something

going on here. A couple more dark basses and we can't wait. Forget the fact that he only knows three moves. We can make that work. And that's exactly what we did. I said, yeah, Yeah, we had dark matches. You know, look, I don't want to spend many calories responding to the comments of someone that's no longer here to defend themselves. Right. So I'm going to just suggest that that was probably frustration, resentment, anger, disappointment, but it had nothing to do with facts.

The facts as it related to Warrior and his experience in WCW. Well, let's put it this way. we had a plan going into his first interview how'd that plan go yeah i guarantee you it wasn't a plan for a 24 minute promo to work through two commercial breaks i can assure you that was not part of the plan so i think that was probably unfair for warrior to suggest but he saw it from a different angle so who knows i'm sure he saw it from hey when you tried to make me back in 1990, we spent forever working on the match down in Tampa, Paterson's, and maybe eight years later, Hogan thought, well, he's probably got it figured out now and maybe he didn't, but we'll move

on because I do want to talk about John Sina because we've got some kind of big news from John Sina, but before we talk about that, I want to mention that life happens fast. You know, one minute you're driving home after work and the next, man, you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Your heart skips, your hands tighten on the wheel, and you start asking yourself, what do I do now? That's when you need someone on your side. And with the legal buddy app, you can connect with a local attorney in seconds, not hours, not days, but right when you need it. Whether it's a DWI, a car accident, a criminal charge, or even just a traffic ticket,

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download the app today, and enter the referral code legal. So Eric, we've been talking about John Sina. He's winding it down. He's had a phenomenal career. He talked about the clash in Paris, his match with Logan Paul, and I think a lot of people are realizing now There's eight scheduled appearances left for John Sina. He's going to do Smackdown later tonight in Chicago, and it's been confirmed this is, in fact, his last Smackdown. And of course, we all recall back in 2002 when he did his ruthless aggression angle with Kurt Angle

and really made his television debut in a big way. It was in Chicago. Well, he's back there tonight. 10 days from now, he'll be doing Raw in Springfield, September 15th, five days after that, probably the one everybody's got circled right now. It's Russell Palooza in Indianapolis, the first show on ESPN,

it's going to be a gigantic affair, allegedly him and Brock Lesnar. Crown Jewel will get him a few weeks later in Perth, October 11th, and it was announced earlier today that on November 10th, John Sina will have his last appearance in Boston. I think most people assumed that his last match would be in Boston.

Certainly the rumor and innuendo that we heard earlier in the year, or at least that's what the speculation was. The following week, John Sana will say farewell to New York. His last appearance there will be on Monday Night Raw on Netflix on November 17th, and he'll make his last San Diego appearance, his last Survivor Series appearance on November 29th for war games. But Saturday night's main event on December 13th has not officially, been announced. And it led to a lot of speculation of where will John Cena's last

match be. And there was an interview that he did earlier this year in the UK where he said he's famous for not picking his opponents. We'll come back to that in a moment. But he would like to advocate for London to get a WrestleMania. And he said, I know when I say that, people just assume that I'm trying to say what people want to hear for the show. But he would be fine. with having his last match in London because those fans are rabid John Cena fans. I thought that was maybe a clue that maybe we're going to see Saturday night's main event from London.

And then I thought, well, hang on, if we're paying an homage and we want it to be a star-studded affair because he is a Hollywood actor now, maybe we'll do it in L.A. The site of where he won his first world title at WrestleMania 21, beating JBL to become the world champ. It makes sense. Hey, that's where we kicked off the first.

first smackdown on Fox. Maybe we'll have John Sina say farewell from Los Angeles. A friend of the show, John Alba has reported today that WWE took bids on John Sina's last match. Like this was a premium live event. And the town that everyone assumed was going to land at, Boston was outbid by Washington, D.C. And now there's all kinds of speculation.

Is the president going to be at John Sina's last match like this is a crazy idea and i know that the the ufc has suggested and i guess they're actually trying to facilitate a ufc on the white house lawn next year what do you make of this do you think we'll see john seen his last match in washington dc is this real i hope so i hope that that's the case i think it'd be very very cool look you know politics aside because i know how people are just that shit crazy now and families are you know splitting over this friendships dissolve because of politics i'm just not into it at that level i don't get it it's bizarre mental behavior for me to to watch listen to but i just john cina's kind of like

apple pie to me man he's america this is an american sport professional wrestling as we know it yes it exist all over the world, but it is inherently an American genre that was created here and grew here and has influenced everyone else around the world, this unique sports entertainment style of wrestling. And I think John, as much as anybody represents America. So I hope so. And I hope President Trump gets involved. I hope so. Because Because WWE and professional wrestling sports entertainment, as we know it, is so profoundly American that I couldn't think of a better place for it. It's going to be fascinating to see how it all shakes out.

Also fascinating is, well, what showed up last week is our YouTube comment over the week. we are indeed live and we want to hear from you guys including matthew de cox who says i love this show hey man we love you for hanging out with us live here and we're looking for those comments last week when we were speaking of john sina we discussed claims by jake hager about john sina allegedly not putting over talent well friend of the show former w w superstar matt morgan took to youtube and commented on our clip he says hey guys it's matt morgan again I can 1,000% vouch that John Sina has at least 10 different times told the company

he's not putting certain talent over the years. That's his prerogative to do once he became the megastar he became. But for Eric to act like John was allergic to that is insane. There's a reason top guys stay top guys. And a big part of that is refusing to put over and commerce that the fans are starting to change, start rooting for i.e. Zach Ryder, Jack Swagger at the time, Alberto Del Rio at the time. Please tell me who John Cena put over Eric

from the years 2004 to 2012. She wouldn't even allow NXT as an entire group in Stable to beat his ass down where Wade Barrett would have came out as the world champion eventually. It was the hottest story in the company in the last five years when it started and he still said no. I'm not knocking them for it, but I think Eric doesn't understand any of this because he was not watching wrestling at the time in his defense. But that's where Roman Raines came up with the Golden Shovel promo. It was 100% to say it.

Next up, Eric, please name any WWE agent on God's Green Earth that would actually pull Jack Swagger aside and say, I'm not supposed to tell you this, brother, but Sooner doesn't want to do the job for you. He means Sina. LMFAO said no WVE agent of all time, LOL. They would be fired the next day. They know that they get in where they fit in. None of them in one million years would cross John Sina as agents. None of them, not one.

He was their money trained at the time. Why would they do that, Eric, for Jack Swagger, hashtag, come on, son. So first of all, shout out to Matt Morgan for watching the show and commenting. I appreciate that. But boy, it feels like he's got the inside track on wrestling politics. This isn't something we've heard other people in wrestling say outside of perhaps dryback. And I guess now Jack Swagger, but we're starting to hear people come out and say these

sort of things. Do you take this with a grain of salt? Is it a blind spot for you or is it sour grapes? So it's not a blind spot for me. I just have a different perspective on life in the way. really works than perhaps Matt Morgan does. I like Matt. We're friends, but he wrote it, so fuck it. Here you go. Name me, Matt, one top star in the last 20 years in either WCW or WWE, who doesn't get to voice an opinion about, A, who they work with, and the storyline. People like to often talk

about guaranteed contracts and creative control. One person had creative control. Paul Kogan. Everybody, a couple of guys, had a right to meaningful consultation, which in the real world doesn't mean anything. In a court of law, for me to be able to satisfy a meaningful consultation claim is pretty freaking easy. Doesn't mean we have a meaningful conversation, and I have to agree with.

you, right? There was only one person who had creative control, and he only used it one time. But, effectually, Rock, John Sina, Steve Austin, oh, he didn't like it? He walked away. Literally walked away, left Vincent McMahon holding the bag. Name any other world champion And you think the Undertaker hasn't had conversations? Brock Lesnar, MJF, name anybody in AEW who doesn't get to vote on who they work with. Let's be really honest about it. Creative control of people, just because John's, and I'm not defending Johnson,

I wasn't in those agent meetings. And I agree with Matt to the extent that if you're an agent, You're not going to pull talent aside and give them inside information. You're not going to share management's perspective that isn't meant to be shared with the talent. You're not going to do that because you would be fired the next day. And by the way, you should be fired the next day because now you're playing politics. Now you're trying to grease your own skids. Now you're trying to put yourself in a favorable position with the talent and fade the heat to somebody else because you're a chicken shit.

There's no chicken shit agents in WWE. That I can assure you. And I'm not even there. but I know how it works. But to suggest for Mansport, at least the way I interpreted that, what you read to me, that John Cena was some kind of control freak and had power over people and exercised it, sure he did, just like anybody else that's ever been in his position. You're the top star.

You get to vote whether your contract says so or not. And guess what? You vote by having a conversation. I'm sure Vince McMahon and John Cena had many conversations about finishes in opponents. And if John felt like he could get somebody over and it was from a business perspective, added value for WWE going forward, that would be one conversation. But if he didn't feel it, didn't see it, didn't think he could make it work, that's a different conversation. It doesn't mean that he was imposing his will and forcing his way of life. and in his way of doing business on everybody else around him,

like he's some kind of evil character. John was doing what anybody in the business before him and since that has been doing, which is voicing his opinion and getting a vote, whether he had a contract that says he quit or not. We want to hear from you guys. What do you think? Is Matt Morgan on to something,

or do you side with Eric? Don't forget, we're going to be highlighting those YouTube comments of the week. A rapid fire want to acknowledge some of the other live questions that have come in. Michael Skoggin says congrats, what are must do is when you're promoting and gaining interest for an event

or fundraiser? You get any promotional tips you can give real quick, Eric? I mean, if it's a local event, man, tie into whatever local causes, groups, support, people that have a similar vested interest, just take advantage

of the local market. You know, you can advertise as much as you want, but it always does come down to grassroots and getting the local interests involved. So, you know, whether it's a charity, whatever it may be, engage, share, you know, tie people in to benefit one way or the other from your success and give as many people working for your cause as you can. Best Wrestling Cameos says, would the NWO bounce back if COVID hit in 90s? that's a weird alternative unit diverse question like you know it was based on heat if there's no fans there boy that would have been challenging in any era right of course everything was challenging i mean television generally sucked life television sucked back then so yeah it would have been a challenge i don't know how i don't know what i would have done i don't have an ulterior plan alternative plan it's such a bizarre old hypothetical that i'll have to spend a day thinking about that one. A cell Rader says, would you go on Stephanie or Demolitions Podcasts?

Have you seen the Stephanie podcast controversy this past week? No. She had Shark VPN as a sponsor and she basically read copy that said something like, are you still watching WWW the old-fashioned way where you have to sit through boring commercials? And then she can do you copy. But I'm like, wait a minute. What?

uh anyway you didn't see it i want to ask you to comment on it would you consider going on stephanie's podcast if she asked you to go on that show right i like stepney i've always like step from from the first day i met her uh i like to have a ton of respect for she's a fun person to be around and you know she's she's fun to work with i had a great time working with her did you hear over the weekend or this past week that they're bringing about Cole Cogan's rock and wrestling cartoon starting tomorrow. I did hear that. I did hear that. That's awesome.

It is cool. Tank 156-2. Damn you tank. Boy, did you call the under 500K AEW rating or what? So are you taking some victory laps on this online, Eric? I'll give you the floor if you want to say anything. Look, I wish AEW and Tony,

well, I got no issues. I could care less. I can't even describe to you how it's relevant anything that has to do with AEW really is to me but I do like screwing with their ridiculously stupid willfully ignorant fan base who just absolutely collapse and overreact

to anything that is said about AEW they are the lowest of low they're the low hanging fruit that's so low hanging to the ground the fruits starting to rot on the vine. That's the typical online AEW fan base. And collectively, the dumbest group of people I think I've ever been exposed to, right?

So it's fun to tweak them because they're so easily tweaked. And at the head of that group of rotten, low-hanging fruit is your buddy Dave Meltzer, who is proving himself on a daily basis to be the single, most out of touch person to talk about, write about, or watch professional wrestling. I have never met anybody so out of touch with the mainstream as Dave Meltzer. But now it's becoming evident to everybody. So what was it about a year ago? Eight months ago, I was sitting down and there was this debate about ratings and, you know, network deals and what the AEW could be doing in the future.

And I just, I sat down with a glass of wine and I just, I looked at the last two years of, of, of the previous two years of ratings for AEW and a simple math. If I can do it, it's pretty simple math. I had a little, you know, $8 calculator and a glass of cheap red wine. I went, I'll punch in a couple numbers. They're losing an average of about 22, 23% of their audience every year. Here's where they're, and Dave, this is for a guy who studies so fucking much, you should just figure this part out. It's a simple math equation. I took their existing audience, averaged it out over whatever it was three or four months.

I said, okay, that's my baseline of what the EW is currently doing. Now, I went back and looked and they've been losing about an average of 22 or 23%, whatever it was at the time. So I just did that simple math, Dave. You don't have to study. You just have to actually do shit. And I did the math. And I went, oh, well, this is where they are now. This is where they're going to be a year from now.

This is where they're going to be three years from now, unless they've been. reversed the 20% average attrition per year. And I came up and I said by the by the end of their existing contract, they're going to be hovering around 300,000 viewers. But I projected in November, on November 14th, 2024, I said a year from now, they're going to be, they, meaning AW, will be hovering around 500,000 viewers. And I'm was absolutely right. Once again, any moron can sit back and watch something that has already happened and then give you their out-of-touch inverted logic perspective on anything. It doesn't take any particular talent, clearly in the case of Dave Meltzer. But who can look at the

present and predict the future with the precision and prescience that I can't. The answer is nobody. Nobody that's writing about talking about professional wrestling today can tell you not only what's going to happen, but tell you why it's going to happen. And just to make it a little sweeter, tell you when it's going to happen. You're only going to get that here in 83 weeks. there's nobody else out there folks nobody you may hate it and you may you you AEW low-hanging rotten fruit fanboys may cry it may ruin your freaking day but here's why

I'm gonna tell you why oh no because it's the truth and the truth is so painful to people like Dave Meltzer and the sycophons that for whatever bizarre reason listen to him or think that he has any idea what the wrestling industry is really all about. Those are the people that I like to tweak. Not Tony. Tony's doing the best he can. Tony's living his dream. I had access to a couple billion dollars. I'd be chasing and doing some silly stuff too that made no sense to anybody else, but I wouldn't care. I'd just be going out and having fun, whatever that was. does. And that's what Tony's doing. So God bless Tony and his father. We're allowing him to do it because it's a gift. But man, tweaking those wrestling fans, there's people that have emotional

breakdowns by making a simple comment. That's fun. And I was stuck on a plane. I flew from New York City to Seattle. I got a 20-minute layover in Chicago. But when you're on a plane for six hours, I'm not watching another John Wick movie. I'm just not. I'm going to have some fun. I'm going to entertain myself. And what better way than to tweak AEW fan boys because there's a bizarre group of people. And it's fun to mess with them.

Well, it's fun to help people save money too. And that's exactly what we just did for our man McIntyre. He's a listener of ours, a plumber for Myrtle Beach. He had a baby on the way and had some new expenses. rather than going and taking out a new loan. He came to us. We showed him how to use the equity he built up in his place. Purchase that new car, knock out some credit card debt, skip a couple of house payments.

He's saving more than $1,000 a month. And you can do it too right now at save with Eric.com. Let Eric Bischoff. That's right. Eric Bischoff and his team run the numbers for you right now for free. There's no cost. There's no obligation. And if we can't help you save some cash, we won't waste your time.

And it costs nothing to look. What are you waiting for? find out how much money you can save right now for free at save with eric.com in a molest number 2129 equal housing lender save with eric.com Eric we we've got one more comment here we're celebrating 30 years of nitro Instagram who wrestling the story and always bringing the good questions and he wants to know Eric when it's all said and done what was your favorite venue for nitro of course you had the club lavella nitros you had the mall in America

nitros you had outdoor at Disney you had the Georgia dome you had the palace of Auburn Hills there were lots of really cool locations and moments for Nitro but is there one venue that stands out as your favorite? Chicago Allstate Arena

I don't know what it's called now but it was called Alcad Arena back then just the energy it was a perfect size venue it was big enough that you could put a meaningful crowd in there But the acoustics in that venue, the way the venue was designed, the camera shots you could get out of there, the energy that came from that building is my favorite. That and just for personal reasons, I love San Francisco, Cal Palace.

That was a cool building. It's just that building spoke to me for some reason. In fact, that building, I always wanted to do a table top book, mostly photography, but it's a story. And I even came up with the title for it. These walls can talk. Because if you look at the history of some of those buildings, now unfortunately some of them are going away, but you look at the history of some of those buildings and the performers, the moments that occurred in those buildings. and what it meant to the audience at that particular time. There's so much history in those buildings that I wanted to do a tabletop book

that would really dive into the stories of each one of those iconic buildings, Cop Palace being one of them, that really was the initial thought. So, man, that would be a really cool book because there's so many other buildings. And they're not necessarily always big buildings. There's a lot of little venues. around the country that have so much history. And I mean, it would be a great documentary to do as well. But, yeah, I would say Allstate Arena, as far as really producing great television,

but Cal Palace and San Francisco just because of the history. We want to hear from you guys. What was your favorite Nitro venue? And what are your favorite wrestling venues? WWE's in one later tonight for Smackdown. It's the Allstate Arena. It's John Cena's Farewell. I'm sure we'll be talking about it.

next week here on the program. We're also going to be talking about your top five favorite matches from Nitro. We'll hear from Eric, his favorite five, but what were your favorite five? Let us know in the comment below and stay tuned. We'll be back next week right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bishop. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson.

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