83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 391: How Much For Fun?

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad welcome friend of the show Raj Giri to talk about the possible home for WrestleMania 48, the surge in WWE ticket sales, and the rumored interest Paramount may have in purchasing WBD. Eric also reacts to reports that Vince McMahon wasn’t fully sold on AJ Styles when he first arrived in WWE. Plus, Eric reveals his Top 5 favorite WCW Monday Night matches — and some of his picks might surprise you! FACTOR -  Eat smart with Factor. Get started at http://FACTORMEALS.com/83weeks50off  and use code 83weeks50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. SIGNOS - Go to signos.com, and get $10 off select plans with code 83WEEKS. TECHOVAS - Get 10% off at tecovas.com/83WEEKS when you sign up for email and texts. THE PERFECT JEANS - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. SAVE WITH ERIC  - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewitheric.com  to learn more. ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks.  You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. 83WEEKS MERCH - You can now rep some of your favorite Bischoff-isms in style, like “Controversy Creates Cash,” “Heat is Life,” and my personal favorite, “Better Than, Less Than, Different Than” Available now at 83WeeksMerch.com  CONNECT WITH US  Like - subscribe - leave a 5 star rating on all platforms Twitter handles - @ebischoff, @heyheyitsconrad Instagram handles - @therealericbischoff @heyheyitsconrad  Facebook handles - ebischoff and heyheyitsconrad Show handles - @83weeks on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook YouTube - Like, subscribe and turn on notifications at http://83Weeks.com   

Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fischoff, Eric. What's going on, man? How are you? I am outstanding. I'm currently in Philadelphia in this amazing, um, hotel room. It's called River Suites. It's right, I think it's a Delaware River that's right out in front. This place was built like in 1920. It was a, originally it was a steam plant. They brought coal in right across the river, shipped it across a, on a conveyor belt,

and fed this basically electric factory. They powered by steam that supplied about 80% of the electricity in all of Philadelphia. And a building kind of went into disrepair, sat for a while, and a group of people bought it, turned one half of it into apartments, condominiums, and the other half are hotel rooms. It is the coolest building I've ever been in, but it's huge, and it's got concrete ceilings. So if it sounds like I'm in an echo chamber, it's because I kind of am, but it's a cool room. Horrible audio, but a cool room. well we're excited that you were able to make room for us today we're going to have a great time chatting about all things professional rasslin but before we get to that i got to ask why are you in philadelphia can you tell us that are you an official r a f business today official raf business we've met with one of our big investors who's also very closely tied into uh penn state oh i know this hello he's one of the uh leading supporters of the Penn State Wrestling Program and also happens to be one of our major investors in R.A.F.

And Mr. Lubert also owns casinos. And we're talking about figuring out a way to get gambling legal for Real American Freestyle and taking our weekly series on the road in casinos around the country that have television capabilities. So a couple different things we took care of on this business trip, but it was all very, very productive. Well, I'm pumped for what's next for Real American Freestyle. Stay tuned for more news and updates in the coming weeks here on 83 weeks. And speaking of 83 weeks, last week, Eric, we had a lot of fun.

We broke down the top five Nitro moments in history. That is, of course, according to Eric Bischoff, his favorite nitro moments in Nitro history. last week of course was the 30 year anniversary doesn't feel like that should be a real thing but yeah it was 30 years ago and boy did we get them stirred up eric on monday we posted a poll over on the youtube page over at 83 weeks dot com that'll take you directly to our youtube page if you haven't already go hit the subscribe button turn on your notifications bell but we asked you what your favorite nitro moments were and the choices we listed were the initial show at mall of America. Scott Hall's surprise debut to kick off the NWO storyline. Goldberg's world title win

at the Georgia Dome and a write-in option. And as of this recording, Hall's debut is just running away with the vote, which I guess is sort of to be expected. But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that of the fans who went to the other option and wrote in their comments, a huge portion of them picked Lex Lugar's world title win over Hogan and Detroit on the 100th episode of Nitro, which I guess also doubled as like the go home show for Road Wilde, 1997. That was on my honorable mention list last week, but I feel like that show in particular, I don't know, fans, I don't, maybe it's because that they've come around and fallen in love

with Lex Lugar again in recent years. I'm not sure, but why do you think this is getting so much support now? I don't know that that would have always been the case. Is it just the way people feel about Lex or is it something else? I think it probably has something to do with Lex's story and where Lex was, where he's been and where he is now. It's a fascinating story, by the way. It shouldn't be a movie, actually.

Hmm, it could be someday. But I think a lot of it has to do with just looking back at everything the Lex went through and where he is. But I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that nobody saw that coming i mean from lex on down that was like from out of nowhere and that was one of the things that made nitro such a special show because we would do stuff like that and that may have something to do with it as well well we're excited to hear what you guys think so if you haven't already go hit that button over there the subscribe button um i'm curious though do you remember

if you can take yourself back and i know that's a challenge to august the was that really the primary reason you just wanted to give a surprise you knew you were going to switch the title back so long term it wouldn't necessarily affect the storyline as a reminder this is before hogan has his uh collision if you will at starcade with sting so i'm i'm just fascinated why you would even entertain the idea i feel like some traditional bookers may say oh no you got to make them wait for it wait for it wait for it wait for it but because you're going to give the belt back in just a few days i mean i think in that air road while was on saturday so you're only talking a handful of days but is it to push pay-per-view buys is it to just commemorate the hundredth episode or is it just the sarsa formula you got to have a surprise every now and again and long term you can get right back on track if you put the belt on hogan or is it something else no i think you hit it right on the head you actually there's two answers to it one is the sarsa formula definitely story anticipation

reality surprise in action and surprises can come in a lot of different forms right the surprise of Lex Lugar showing up when everybody thought he was working for the WWF that was a pretty major surprise but also if you think about the television audience and when you know they're following wrestling every week and as you put it a lot of traditional wrestling creative would would dictate that oh no you make them wait for it You make it a big deal. You only do it on a pay-per-view or a major house show. And part of the success of Nitro was not only just surprises for the sake of surprises,

but also kind of just breaking up the flow of expectation. When people get patterned, we'll talk more about viewing habits, I'm sure during the show based on a tweet that I got last week and I forwarded to you. But, you know, when people get, they get into a rhythm, their expectations get into a rhythm. And sometimes breaking that rhythm kind of wakes them up. It's a little bit like Scott Hall coming down through the crowd, right? Nobody had ever seen that before. That's not supposed to happen.

Wow, this must be real. And I think in this case, you know, having a World Title change hands on television, particularly in a Hogan match. Nobody expected to see that. The fact that they got it and they got it for free was a wonderful thing, but it also just made people realize, man, I can't afford to miss a nitro. You know, for a long time, now it's different now because everybody is so cognizant of streaming and your ability to watch things on different devices and all that. We all know that story.

But back in 1997, that wasn't the case. and everybody was, if you were a television producer, a major television producer, if for a primetime series, drama, action, whatever it may be, managing viewing habits was a big part of becoming what used to be called must-see TV. I mean, that was a branding slogan. I think it was for NBC back in the late 90s. Everybody was trying to create must-c-TV. Well, how do you create must-c-cTV?

by doing things that reinforce the fact that sometimes big shit happens, not on a pay-per-view, but on your weekly television show. So it is, and the fact that we knew we were going to be able to kind of get back on track the following week had something to do with it. It made it easy for us, but I firmly believe that breaking up the viewing pattern also reinforced the must-see TV kind of mantra that everybody had, including Nitro. I do want to ask you when you think back on just how monumental that moment was. I mean, if you go back and you watch Lugar's title win at the 100th Nitro,

the crowd goes bananas in a way that you almost never saw on Nitro. I mean, you certainly saw it the following year with Goldberg, but this was a major moment, a major happening. And to have the rest of the locker room celebrate with him, I think you could make an argument that at that very moment, Lex Lugar might have been one of the most over baby faces in the business. Don't get me wrong. Steve Austin is getting hot, but man,

WCW is firmly in control in 97. And we know that Sting is certainly the most over baby face in WCW, but he's not really active. He's in the rafters. So as far as the guys in the ring, I think you could have made an argument that, hey, we should go with Lugar. And it's not lost on me that this is the same bill.

where he lost his match for the title and the WWF against Yoko Zuna, a few summer slams prior to this. Do you remember anyone, did Kevin Sullivan or anyone advocate and say, you know, Eric, what if we just rode this out? I mean, I know you'd made Sting and we're on a collision course there, but it felt like Lugar had finally reached the upper echelon and fans were for it. And once upon a time, the timing was off in WCW. Flair had just left and went to the WWF and he was sort of shoehorned.

horned in and it was just not the same but six years later it feels organic hey the fans are really with him is there an alternate universe where you keep that title on luger and ride it out or was that never going to work with the success of the NWO no with the success of the NWO and I was pretty fixated on that long-term story and building sting and the in the crow character I really that was my primary goal I didn't mind a stutter step like this one along the way, and in a way, thinking about it now, I don't think I had this thought at the time, but looking back at it, I think it also gave the fans hope, because in 1997, WCW didn't have a lot of hope. They were getting crushed by the NWL, by design. But that one night

with Lex Lugar allowed the audience to believe, hey, this could come to an end. As dominant as NWO was, at least there's hope. And hope spots are very valuable. They're very valuable in the psychology and the way matches are laid out. You want the audience to feel those hope spots for your baby face when they're getting pummeled

and they're starting to just about ready to make their comeback. Hope spots are important. In a match, but they're also important I think in long-term storytelling. But in all, honestly, that thought didn't cross my mind then. Breaking at the viewing pattern did,

which is one of the reasons we did it. But looking back, I think it also gave that hardcore WCW fan that wasn't into the NWO, it gave him hope. I want to ask you as luck would have it on this week's episode of Click This, Kevin Nash, in the context of arguing that L.A. Knight should have gotten a brief run as the World Heavyweight Champion coming out of Clash in Paris. He brought up the parallel that it was him that convinced you to give Lugar the title win,

specifically because Lex had gotten too hot to ignore and not to just wait and put it off until Sting had his turn. And it would also sort of break up some of the monotony. Do you remember Kevin Nash being an advocate for this back in 97? Because that makes sense, right? No, he definitely was. Look, Kevin, and I've said this many times in the past, and I know oftentimes when we're doing this podcast, because I'm the one, you know, answering the questions, I sometimes too

often, too frequently, will, I made this decision. This was why I did this. This is why I did that. And when it came to the NWO, as I've said many times, but I think this is a great place to reinforce it, it really was a collaborative effort. I mean, I think I was single-handedly responsible because I did it in a vacuum and I didn't want to share the creative that I was working through in my own head with anybody for a long time. But once the NWO, once we pulled the trigger, it really was a collaborative effort. Kevin Sullivan led that effort. But Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, particularly with anything related to the NWO.

Because their fingerprints, more so than mine, by 1997, their fingerprints were all over this along with Kevin Sullivan's. So, yeah, I absolutely do remember. Kevin was very much engaged, and I liked his thought process. It doesn't mean I liked every one of his ideas, just like I don't like every one of my ideas to this very day. I'm capable of coming up with an idea that, you know, Monday afternoon, I think it's a wonderful idea, and by Tuesday morning, wake up and go, no, that really isn't that great.

In fact, it kind of sucks. but by this time in 1997 if it had anything to do with the NWO whether it was Kevin or myself Kevin Sullivan or myself we very much included Scott and Kevin because they just had an amazing feel for the NWO and its story well something you're going to have an amazing feel for is Factor Eric and I are big believers in Factor and I know you will be too And this time of year, man, people are busier than ever, and that's when Factor can really come in handy.

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box. That's code 83 weeks, 50 off at factor meals.com slash 83 weeks 50 off. You'll get 50% off plus free shipping at factor meals.com slash 83 weeks, 50 off. Eric, we talked a little bit about our YouTube comment of the week. But before we do that, I want to acknowledge Kelly Cox, who joined us over at ad-free shows.com, almost five years ago, a couple of days before Christmas in 2020, we've actually got a live studio audience coming to us right now from ad-freeshows.com. I want to give a shout out to Adam Jefferson and Coach Keith Morrison and Lucas Kinzer

and Coach Rosie. Appreciate you guys hanging out with us on a Thursday afternoon. But right now, Eric, we want to highlight last week's YouTube comment of the week. As we mentioned, Eric, last week's top five really got our viewers excited to share their favorite nitro moments. This one got our attention and it's going to make our YouTube comment of the week. Jason Thompson 9-851, no relation, although I do have a cousin named Jason. hard to pick a favorite since there's so many overall it's how nitro brought my family together over something after my grandmother passed the rock of our family nitro gave us all the reason

to gather together every week and that is my favorite nitro moment and eric i know that you've heard a lot of stories like this where wrestling content that you were getting paid to create and you were having a blast doing it was fun and it made money but years later you're learning man, this meant a lot to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. Talk to us about that. I'll try to do it without shedding a tear because this gets to me. Every single time I have this conversation, it really means a lot. And there was a long time where I really did not enjoy going to conventions and signing autographs.

In real life, I'm kind of an introvert. I'm just not that outgoing. I prefer to be alone on my property with my dog and my wife as opposed to being in a crowd of more than five people. So going to conventions and signing autographs was just not something that was a square peg and a round hole for me. But I did it because I had to for a while. And one of those events,

somebody came up and told me a story about how Nitro brought their family together, right? I think the first time this really occurred, it was somebody came up to me and said, you know, Nitro was the one thing my dad and I, you know, got to do together. And every time, you know, I see anybody from WCW or Nitro or have a chance to meet him,

it reminds me of the time that I got to spend with my father before he passed. And when this young man said it to me, it started to really change the way I looked at why I'm doing these autograph signings because I was just doing them for the money. I didn't really enjoy it. I was doing it because I had to, to be honest. But that one conversation kind of cracked me in a way,

and I started paying more and more attention and engaging with people more frequently whenever I would do an autograph signing, And all of a sudden, it realized that the more I open up, the more I engage with someone and get them to talk, the more fun I have, listening to them tell stories or ask questions. And I started doing that each time I went out. And then, like now, the last one I did where it was in Pittsburgh just a couple weeks ago. and I probably had six or eight people tell me the story about how much Nitro and watching Nitro with a friend, a family member that was no longer with us, meant to them.

And one guy just, he welled up more than I do. He was crying as he was explaining this. He was not sad crying, but just reminiscing. And I teared up. You know, it's just such a cool thing. And I didn't realize when I was doing it, it was my job. And it was a hard job. It was a 70 hour a week job.

It was traveling four days a week job. And being away from home, being away from my family. So it was just work. I never even stopped for a moment to consider that what we were doing, not I, but what we were doing meant as much as it did to so many people. And when I finally, when I connected those dots and realized that I had the blessing, quite frankly, to be involved in something that actually brought so much joy to people.

Not fun, that's great too, but actual joy that they look back on now and was so important in their life. that changed the way I looked at doing autograph signings and going to conventions. I now look forward to it. I try to get people to talk about, whatever it is they want to talk about. But, man, when somebody starts telling me about how much Nitro meant to them, or, you know, watching wrestling in general, but Nitro specifically, obviously. But when they tell you about how much it meant to them,

it made me realize the opportunity I had was a blessing in way more ways than I thought. It's a gift, and I'm grateful for it to this day. We'd love to share some of those memories. I know back in the day, everybody threw a Nitro party. Our friend of the show here, Cassio Kid, he actually submitted a Nitro party tape to WCW back in the day. But we want to hear about your stories. Do you have a family story relative to Nitro? Drop it below, and maybe you could be next week's YouTube comment of the week.

You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. heard only in Canada, reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libson ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts, offering host endorsements, or run a pre-produced ad like this one, across thousands of shows, to reach your target audience with Libson ads. Email Bob atlibson.com to learn more. That's B-O-B-L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. We had a little fun last week talking about, you know, some of the highlights and the best moments of WCW Nitro history, or at least your favorite moments. So we thought this week, we would ask,

Eric, what were your favorite WCW matches on Nitro? So that's what we're going to do. We're going to do a top five for Eric Bischoff's favorite WCW Nitro matches. Here we go. Number five. Coming in a number five is certainly one of the most famous matches in Nitro history. We're talking about Bill Goldberg. and Hollywood Hogan live on TNT on Monday night, July 6th, I believe, 1996,

perhaps it's July 7th, but early, no, wait, that's not right. It's 1998. That's right. This is the nitro from 1998. Man, where does the time go? This is obviously the largest crowd in the, uh, in the history of WCW Nitro, July 6th, 1998, you see there as the show is going off the air. Goldberg is posing with the big gold belt in the right hand and the U.S.

title on the left hand. And this was in the backyard of the home of WCW Nitro. So it does feel like this is a shoe in to be on your favorites list. Were you strutting like a peacock that day? All those Turner executives there and here's this huge crowd. And they're just pandemonium for Goldberg at that moment. And that had to feel like a high watermark of just personal achievement almost for you, right, Eric? I mean, it was, you know, there was, I don't remember what the crowd number was.

I think it was around 40, 45,000, whatever it was. But it was a sellout. And back then, that was a pretty big deal in Atlanta. And I was excited about that. The way the whole thing came together was almost spontaneous. I've told the story before. I want more people with it again. but I'm in California in business,

driving down, I was in Marina del Rey, and looking for an exit. I get a phone call from Hulk, and he said, hey, I got an idea. I want to run about you. I pulled over the side of the road, and he said, I want to build a beat me in Atlanta. So, what?

Usually, you know, those kinds of conversations would take place over the course of weeks of convincing and what ifs and where do we go from here. So for Hulk to call me spontaneously and throw that out there was very memorable. I was excited about it. And I knew it would be good. I knew it would be well received. But I think the reason it's one of my favorites is because for the very first time,

Turner executives, those people who for years were trying to convince Ted to pull the plug on WCW, we're all of a sudden first in line trying to get tickets for their friends and family. And that was more of an achievement to me from a corporate perspective than almost selling the building out. Because that was a constant battle for WCW. It was a constant morale battle.

Now you've got 60 or 80 full-time employees working for you and they show up at work every day knowing that the executive committee at Turner Broadcasting would prefer that they don't show up to the building. In fact, they actually did move us out of the CNN Center, but you just felt like that unwanted guest at a party, and then to have it turn around in such a relatively short period of time, and now I'm getting calls from members of the executive committee who want to bring their kids and their kids' friends to a nitro. That was a major accomplishment internally,

and I think that's one of the reasons it's one of my favorite matches. If you're curious, 41,412 fans in the building that night for a Monday night TV show that they could sat at home and farted in their own couch and watched for free but instead they got in their car on a school night I guess it's not technically a school night but a work night a weekday drove down and paid for parking and bought a ticket nobody wanted to miss such a monumental moment people still talking about it

I mean no disrespect to Bill Goldberg we've celebrated the legend he recently had his last WWE match. But without him beating Hulk Hogan, his career doesn't look the same, right? Don't you agree? I mean, this is the biggest moment in his career for sure. It absolutely was. I think it, you know,

look, Bill had a lot of steam behind him. He was really coming on strong, very, very successful, obviously. But beating Hogan on Monday Nitro, I think that just put the well-deserved, crown on Bill Goldberg's head. That was the moment where he was officially a bona fide

superstar. I mean, not to beat a dead horse here, but I'm just saying in an alternate universe if you guys had decided to not pull the trigger and not take the belt off of Hulk, and Goldberg was unsuccessful in his attempt. I mean, some of the mystique,

it's off, it changes forever. Like, I think it changes the course of his career and maybe WCW. If Hogan just beats him, I don't know if it's the same. Like, I'm glad that you guys had that vote of confidence in a new guy, a young guy, respectfully a green guy.

And you put it on him and man, he got to take the ride. I think it's such an interesting thing to think. What if the booking was a little different? I think it all shakes out a lot differently in hindsight. 100%. In fact, I had a phone conversation with Bill yesterday.

We talked about this match, actually. And, you know, in Bill's words, This is the match to put him on the map. It's easy to see why that was number five, but we're not done. We got a few more. Number four.

This is a surprising pick. I guess it shouldn't be because we know how much you love and appreciated and respected and certainly highlighted the cruiserweight division. Coming in at number four is Ray Mysterio and Dean Malenko. from july of 1996 this is from universal studios and malinko is going to be defending his cruiserweight title against a familiar foe again malenko is uh well established here in this division or at least more established but the new bright shiny object in wcd in a big way is ray mysterio and this

is like a a coming out uh coming out party if you will but what a performance and And what an amazing moment when Ray is able to reverse a Tilta World backbreaker into a Huracanana, grab the legs, and Penn Malenko. And this is really the first great cruiserweight division match in the history of Nitro. We would see these continue through 96 and 97 and 98 and on and on. But I think we had seen some cruiserweight stuff before on Nitro. I think most people would point to this one and say, hey, that's it right there. For me, Conrad, and to this day, whenever I have an opportunity to go back and watch, look, Ray Mysterio is in a universe all of his own.

We all know that. He's an amazing performer that broke so much ground, and so many of the athletes, the wrestlers that you see today that are not 250 pounds. Right. Which is a lot of them now. Right, both in WWE and AEW and in TNA. They owe a debt of gratitude to Ray Mysterio because he proved to the world that you don't have to be a larger-than-life character to be a great performer.

That be said, Dean Malinko was my favorite. Now, that's a personal thing, right? It's subjective. Not comparing him to Eddie Guerrero or Ray or anything. I'm not talking about his in-ring technical expertise compared to those individuals. Right. But Dean made me believe in a way that very few other performers did. The minute Dean came through the curtain, he had this cold, deliberate, just this aura.

that he brought to the ring with him long before he stepped foot on the map. And it was his believability and the way he carried that character. Obviously, his performance in the ring was outstanding. I actually preferred Dean Malenko style a little bit more than I preferred Ray Mysterio style,

because to me, Dean was more believable. Again, it's subjective. It's just based on what I like, right? I'm not trying to compare them, really, but their styles were different. And Dean was so believable in everything he did. To this day, he's one of my favorite performers. I think he's, everybody acknowledges how great of a wrestler Dean Malenko is,

but I think he's still underrated, underappreciated. He was magic. He was flawless. I dare anybody to go back and watch a Dean Malenko match and look for a botch look for anything that looks like it could have been a botch you're going to be up all night looking for that shit he was so good at what he did

and so good at making me believe what he was doing perhaps not the best analogy but I know exactly what you mean I know his gimmick name or his nickname was the ice man but there was this quiet deliberate confidence

that on some level almost makes me think of the Michael Douglas character and falling down where you see the guy who's sort of unassuming he's got a short sleeve button up, a briefcase, a tie, and kind of some nerdy glasses, and you just don't expect much. But there's something about the look in his face and his expression where you're like, oh, that guy's not here to mess around. We need to get out of his way. That's kind of the way I felt about Dean Malenko and his approach to the ring and just adjusting his wrist tape. It was so matter of fact. him all face there no i think it's exactly what i mean it's a perfect example of what i was talking

about it was just something about him you know he used to come he'd walked he'd walked on a ramp and he'd be doing this yeah you know he wasn't posture to the crowd he wasn't pimping he wasn't peacock and he was just getting ready to fight for his life that's the way i felt when he walked through that curtain and i felt that way all the way up until the bell rang and ended the match that this was a guy who was coming to the ring to fight for his life. And it's impossible for me not to become really engaged whenever I see that kind of a presentation, particularly because it was so different than everybody else's.

You know, he didn't need the gimmicks. He didn't need all the pyro. He didn't need dancing girls. You know, he didn't need to bring a tiger to the ring. He just came out there ready to rip his opponent's head off. you mentioned that he was fighting for his life, and I know that you've been fighting to extend your life, which is why you've been bragging about Cygnos. You jump the gun on this the last few weeks. You've been excited to tell people what you've learned about monitoring your glucose

and why it's important. And before I let Eric give you his testimony, I just want to hit you with some quick stats. 88% of Americans are classified as metabolically unhealthy, and global diabetes diagnoses are projected to reach 1.3 billion by 2050. In fact, 73.6% of adults here in the United States are classified as either overweight or obese. And Eric, you've learned a lot about Cynos. What can you tell us about Cynos and the continuous glucose monitor or the CGMM that you've been using? Carter, you know I'm in a rabbit hole when it comes. comes to health, nutrition, longevity, you know, I'm 70 years old. My grandson just turned four yesterday. And I have a lot of plants, a lot of plants. There's a lot of things I want to do

with Wayland. And in order to do them and to share the experiences I want to share with my grandson and to be an active participant in his life, I don't mean just sitting on the couch, you know, eating a bag of chips, looking out the window while he plays football, you know, with his buddies, I mean, I want to take him hiking, I want to take him hunting, I want to take him fishing, I want to do some shit, and I can't do it if I'm not healthy, just is what it is. So about a year and a half ago, I, really a year ago, I got really serious about nutrition and working out. And as disciplined as I thought I was and really being careful,

with what I was eating, I realize, now I've been using this thing this is my third week, all right? I realize early on that even the things that I was eating that I thought were good for me from a metabolic point of view, shockingly weren't. And what I've learned, because I did a lot of research, once I, you know, I put it on there, it's right there. Where to go?

there you go. Big mouse, yeah. Tell me the truth. Once I started monitoring, like I monitor my, I bet you I look at my blood glucose measurement at least 30 times a day. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, check my blood sugar. Because I realize how much better I feel, and this is what I really want people to understand.

Sure, I want to lose weight. Sure, I want to, you know, get stronger and all that. I want to look good aesthetically. I'm human. You know, I've got pride in an ego, just like everybody else. Those things are important to me. But what's really important to me is how I feel. I don't really care if I look good if I don't feel good.

And what I've learned is my blood, I feel better because the way my metabolic fingerprint is, we're all different, right? We're not all the same. But for me, if I can keep my blood sugar down around 90 to 95 throughout the day, the difference in the way everything feels. Brain function is vastly different when I'm managing my blood glucose, I mean, significantly different. My energy is off the charts. I don't remember ever feeling as good as I feel right now. even when I was in my 30s, because I wasn't watching at 20s, even when I was training heavily and involved in martial arts

and traveling around fighting for fun and all that kind of stuff. Man, I didn't feel nearly as good then as I do now because I wasn't eating right then. Now that I am, the difference in the way I feel is, I know I keep saying it over and over again because it's hard for me to believe that I could make this much improvement and feel this much better simply by really tracking what I'm eating and noticing what happens to my blood sugar

and then paying attention to how do I feel? Do I brain fog? I'm like kind of losing a little bit of steam around two or three o'clock in the afternoon, which is typical or was typical. But now it's like, and I go from 5 o'clock in a morning to 10 o'clock at night, and I don't have an issue with it.

It's amazing. It's a game changer for me. It really, honestly, is a game. change you. Cynos packages an AI-powered platform for deciphering unique metabolisms with a CGM or continuous glucose monitor or biosensor, which enables users to see how food choices, timing, activity, stress, and even sleep affects their bodies in real time. You're going to learn which foods actually cause spikes because you're going to see it in real

time. You're going to get in the moment alerts when your glucose is rising. And you're even going to get personalized suggestions like take a quick wall. you'll understand the difference between physical hunger and stress eating and here's a fun fact we make more than 227 different food decisions each and every day now imagine how much easier those decisions could be if you had personalized data gathering you and guiding you that's exactly what signos is all about signos has taken the guesswork out of managing your weight and giving you the personalized insights for how your body works and with an AI powered app and biosensitive

answer, Signos can help you build healthier habits and stick with them. And right now, Signos has an exclusive offer for our listeners. Go right now to S-I-G-N-O-S dot com. That's signos.com, S-I-G-N-O-S dot com. You'll get $10 off select plans when you use our code 83 weeks. That's Signos.com and the promo code is 83 weeks. Let's pick it back up where we were. I think it's time for another match from Nitro.

back with number three no surprise here we're going back to what started at all the very first match on the very first nitro ryan pilman and jushin thunder liger on the debut nitro it was labor day 1995 september fourth and of course this is a famous rematch i think we all remember the super brawl match from a few years prior to this maybe that was back in 92 but it was like the gold standard for what WCW was doing different land, the WWF in 1992. So what better way to stand out than, hey, let's run it back. And you played a few of the hits on that show. You had Sting and Rick Flair on that show, but you also had Pilman and Liger.

Now, we know with the star power of Sting and Flair, and it's a proven draw on Turner, hey, we need to pop a rating at the clash. Get Sting and Flair back over here. This is different. this is Eric making a statement I feel like why was this the first nitrail match oh so many reasons I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that by this point in time I was spending a lot of time in Japan became much more familiar with Tushen Liger probably learned to appreciate his style and his presentation much more than I had previously it was always a huge fan

and Brian Pilman. I knew that Brian and Liger could have a phenomenal match. But it also had a lot to do with building the brand. And as you pointed out, being different than my competition and doing something that made people recognize the difference between the format that I created for Nitro and the format that had been created for just about every wrestling show up until the, up until Nitro came along. It just fit. It gave us a more international feel, which was important to me. But I also just knew the match was going to be outstanding. I think Liger might not have been at the peak of his career at that point in time, but he was so freaking fun to watch. And so was Brian Pilman. I just knew it would be a great match. It was a great match. And we want to hear from you

guys. What were your top five Nitro matches? Let us know in the comment below. And And we'll cover those next week. Another special one that I know a lot of our fans and listeners remember so fondly comes in next. I can't wait for this one. Number two. I think we all remember what happened in May of 99. Tragically, Owen Hart lost his life and over the edge. And you guys allowed Brett Hart an opportunity to play, to pay tribute.

to Owen. And technically this happens when you're not with the company. You left several weeks prior to this and went fishing. But Brett Hart and Chris Benoit had a really special match on Nitro, a match that I still hear fans talk about today. They went 32 minutes, which makes it one of, if not the longest nitro match in history. But it really was an ultimate sort of back and forth. I know we all think of Chris Benoit as a main event guy now. That wasn't necessarily the case by 99. He not yet won the world title and not main invented any pay-per-views. Certainly within the business, if you were a hotline listener or a newsletter reader, you knew he was one of the best in the world. But that

day, they brought out all the stops. Two Canadians, thank tribute to Owen Hart, Brett Hart, and Chris Benoit. And what sticks out to me about this one, Eric, is you're technically not even there. But the respect you had to have for both guys and the meaning behind the match that comes in at number two for you right yeah i'm a little bit sketchy on this one what was the date on it again it's october fourth nineteen ninety nine nine they're at the camper arena in kansas city as a reminder that's the very building where owen's accident happened so this would have been brett's first time being back in the building since his brother passed just five months prior less than five months prior and i think it's really classy that wcw and the turner organization

allowed him the opportunity to go out there and honor his brother in the best way he knew how have a kick-ass wrestling match with Chris Benoit. Well, you talk about two complimentary performers, athletes, amazing psychology, impeccable, technical, work in the ring,

the emotion of the moment, because of everything that happened, as you pointed out, with Owen and Brett wrestling in that same building. I just think, whose ever idea it was, I'm not sure if it was Brett's or Rousseau's or whoso's or whose ever idea it was, was a phenomenal idea. And I just think the match brought so much emotion, but yet was such an amazing presentation because of the skill, of both Brett and Chris. Absolutely one of my favorite matches. It's a phenomenal match.

I encourage everyone if you've never seen it because I realize, you know, by late 99, respectfully, WCW wasn't as fun. Eric would agree with that too. But go watch this very special match. Brett Hart, Chris Benoit, October 4th, 1999, a tribute to Owen, 32 minutes. It was a kick-ass match. And there's one more that makes your list, Eric, and I can't wait to see what people think of this one.

Number one. You know, we all know that you in real life have always been tight with Diamond Dallas Page. But DDP and Sting tore it down April 26, 1999, and it's for the world title. This is the era where DDP is going to become the man and become the world champion. And there's a red hot crowd here on hand at the Fargo Dome in Fargo, North Dakota. You know, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about that. Why do you think the Fargo Dome did so well with Nitro?

And I don't remember there being a lot of great WWE moments. But it feels like WCW, you guys had like a stronghold there. Yeah, we did. It's hard to explain. I guess probably a lot had to do with the fact that Fargo is from a routing perspective. Like if your job is to book buildings but do them an efficient way so that you're not going from one end of the country to the other end of the country. Fargo often gets overlooked or did at that time. Fargo often got overlooked for major television shows, major events. probably even big concerts. Like, I don't think the Rolling Stones ever would have played Fargo. Maybe, because they were in Minneapolis.

But for the most part, a market like Fargo, because it's in the middle of the country, the northern part of the country, it's hard to get to. There's nothing remotely close to it as far as a major market. So if your job is to efficiently route your tour in major markets where you can sell out a show, but yet it's efficient from a travel perspective, Fargo is not going to be high on your list of things to do. When we brought a big event to Fargo,

it was like the biggest deal that had happened there in a long time. So I think that had a lot to do with it. I like to think the fact that, you know, there was a lot of Minnesota in WCW at that time. And that may have had a little bit to do with it too, but I think primarily it was because we were just a big damn deal and Fargo didn't get a lot of big damn deals back in the day. Just to add some context to what made this match so special,

and it does bring up a point you and I've never really talked about. It's that DDP had just won the title 15 days prior at Spring Stampede, and it was a four-corner's match with a celebrity guest referee. It was literally a who's who. It was its own Wrestling Hall of Fame, even in 99. Then there was DDP, who I'll admit felt like, which one of these is not like the other. I mean, you've got Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Sting, Rick Flair, and respectfully, DDP.

He was the new kid on the block. And I think that's why it worked so well. He was the people's champ. He was the ultimate underdog. And he, that character wanted you to count him out and he wanted to prove you wrong. And 15 days later, I guess Sting takes exception to how Dallas won the match and he challenges him. And they work their ass off in this.

I mean, I even read a reviews that said, this fantastic match was an indicator of Page's desire to produce his champion and a reminder that Sting could still go and he was not bogged down by aging legends uninterested in delivering the best in-ring content possible.

And that crowd, without them, who knows if this match would have been as extraordinary as it proved to be. But what's interesting about this, the reason I bring it up is this is the end of DDP's longest title run. Now, technically, he won the title three times. But between all three

reigns, Eric, it's 17 days. I mean, he won it again for two days and less than one day. He lost it on the same day in WCW in 2000. So it's weird to think, hey, he was the world champ three times, but for a total

of 17 days. Now, I know nobody really keeps up with that stuff and it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. But with the benefit of hindsight, do you think that should read like, hey, Dallas didn't need the belt because we hear that a lot like hey the undertaker didn't need to be champ hey jake the snake didn't need to be champ he was an attraction on his own did it work

against the underdog character the ultimate underdog character that ddp was if he was the champion or wasn't something else no it was it wasn't because it was for no other reason than page in my opinion fell into the category where he didn't need the belt but boy the belt sure helped him because he was the underdog. He was every man. I mean, DDP as the character made no bones about it that, you know, he got into the business late in life and the cards were stacked against him and, you know, he was swimming upstream and whatever other metaphor you want to come up with. That was part of who his character was. So for Page to be able to finally achieve that goal, it meant a lot to a lot of people.

And I think it got Page way more over than, say, winning the belt would have gotten Scott Hall over. Scott was the embodiment of a world-class professional wrestler who absolutely did not need a belt. Not that Page did need it, but it sure helped them a lot. Well, something that we can't help ourselves with is to brag about ask Eric, anything, man, we've had an exciting week over at ad-freeshows.com. So far this week, we've had Tony Chivani, David Crockett. Later today, we'll have Jeff Jarrett. We already had JBL.

We got Jim Ross on deck. In fact, tonight over at podcast T. Wrestling, we've got Diamond Dallas Page. But as you're listening to this, tomorrow night, or tomorrow afternoon, rather, Saturday, September 13th, we've got Ask Eric Live. This is happening at ad-free shows.com. Now, that's different from being live on YouTube. because when you go to ad-free shows.com, man, you're talking face-to-face to the man.

You're on Zoom, he's on Zoom. You get a real moment, get to interact. And Eric takes this very seriously. I mean, he considers you a member of the ad-free shows family. So go check it out if you haven't already. That's ad-free shows.com. And by the way, when they join you, Eric, you might just be sporting one of our brand new 83 weeks teas that just dropped.

And now you can rep some of your favorite bischoffisms in style like controversy creates cash heat is life and of course everybody knows my personal favorite better than less than different than it's all available now at 83 weeks merch.com and to make things that much sweeter the first 10 orders placed this week will score a personalized phone call from eric come on now pick up a new tea help support the show and get a call from easy e at 83 weeks merch.com you know that would look excellent with some perfect genes. I don't know if you guys have been hearing what we've been talking about, but Eric's been rocking the perfect gene. And next time you see him on real American freestyle,

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we sent you fuck your khakis get the perfect gene I love it of those knees, by the way. I mean, it's like, if I'm getting on a flight, I'm wearing perfect jeans. That's, that's why I really appreciate the noise. They're so comfortable. Well, we appreciate Josh Hoffman, who has been a member here at AdFree shows with us. For gosh, over four years now, too sweet. Appreciate you hanging out with us.

And speaking of hanging out with us, we're going to do something we don't normally do because there's been so much late breaking news today. We thought, why not bring in a friend? you for watch that who wants to be a millionaire show back in the day eric oh yeah i love that man what did they call that the it was a phone friend yeah it was great well what if your phone a friend was also a millionaire ladies and gentlemen raj geary is with us raj what's going on man welcome to 83 weeks how are you buddy what's going on guys hey raj hey guys hey guys hey guys good to see you again good to be seeing

so listen there's so much news eric i thought you know i know i know you've been American freestyling. I've been mortgaging. We need to phone a friend here and get the latest and greatest on all the news that's been going down today. And before we clicked record, you said, hey, Raj Gehry's one of my favorite follows on Twitter. What's going on with that, Eric? Well, you know, you and I had a conversation several months ago. And I don't know what led to the conversation, but I said, you know, I'm just going to back off for a little bit because I was spending too much time, in my opinion, with constructive criticism, but it didn't really come off as constructive criticism, partly because of me. I tend to be pretty direct and

blunt about things, don't sugarcoat much. And I just thought, you know what, it's too much. But I found Raj, and Raj kind of picked up where I left off. Now, Raj isn't quite as aggressive as I tend to be, but he's still making the same great points. He's giving you real information, real numbers, an objective opinion. And I just love what Rajah has to say, man. There's a reason why Raj is sitting on a pile of cash and enjoy a life like nobody else I know his age, and it's because he's got his finger on the pulse, and he knows how to communicate, and I love that.

Well, Rod, you're excited to welcome you to the show today because, man, it does feel like a pretty monumental day. I guess there's news that broke today about WrestleMania. I know everybody's going to be talking about this, but I'll admit, I've not been by the computer all day. What's going on with WrestleMania? Is Saudi Arabia the story? What's happening, Ron? WrestleMania 43 and Saudi Arabia in 2027. So you got the Royal Rumble next year in 2026 coming up here in January or February, rather.

And then, yeah, WrestleMania 43. I think, you know, once the Saudi deal with WWE was originally announced, and you just saw the amount of money that was involved, I just feel like everyone thought it was only a matter of time before they would make that crazy bid for WrestleMania. And, you know, I think Vince, as crazy as it sounds, Vince wasn't as willing to, you know, forego some traditions for that extra money as TKO, as TKO is going to go with the highest bidder and you're not going to get a higher bidder in Saudi Arabia. So originally, WWE wanted to do it in 28, but with Saudi Arabia in, in 27, it's going to be the 300th anniversary of the first Saudi

state being formed. So they wanted it in 2027 to make it a huge deal. So yeah, and you know, according to report, they really want the big names out there, you know, Rock, Stone Cold, you know, names like that. And, you know, we saw Rock just a couple years ago, still look great. Austin against Kevin Owens a few years ago, you know, look tremendous. So we're still talking two years, you know, a few years away. We'll see.

But, you know, they have the money to have everything want to happen to happen. So it's pretty crazy news. It is crazy. and Eric, I want to get your opinion on that. How does that strike you? The idea that, and I know some people are going to say, well, this is the first WrestleMania outside of America. That's not technically true, Canada,

but it's the first outside of North America. Does it lose, I don't know, something not being in North America to you, Eric, or is this just the evolution of the business? It's both. It's the evolution of the business. It's reality. TCO is a publicly held company. They have a responsibility to the shareholders

that are part owners of the company to deliver the biggest return they can to the bottom line. It's just a fact of life, especially for a publicly held company. But it's also breaking a tradition. And I can relate to Vince's concern. You know, professional wrestling truly is an American phenomenon. Yes, it's taken place all over the world and blah, blah, blah, blah. Technically speaking, but it really is an American phenomenon. It's uniquely American.

And to take it outside of the country, Canada doesn't count. It's just like another state. It's just a big state, but it's just another state. And it's easily accessible by people in the United States for the most part. So taking it to the other side of the planet is a big move. And it's going to come with a cost. You're going to have people disappointed in this decision. It's probably going to get some negative publicity because, well, that's just the way people are, particularly in social media.

So to me, really, it's a little bit of both. It's inevitable for a publicly held company for the reasons that Raj pointed out. But it's also a little disappointing for me. I like I said I relate to vincis hesitancy let's put it that way Raj I know there's no way for us to know I mean but if you had to speculate because I do think it's out there that you know WWE has been receiving about $50 million for their Saudi Arabian events and that leads to a lot of speculation of what will the payout be for Royal Rumble next year what will that

look like. And then you got to assume it would be even bigger the following year in 27. Are you going to venture a guess on either of those numbers? I won't hold you to it, but could you venture a guess? It's got to be multiples of what they're making, especially for mania, you know, and Eric, I totally agree with you with the tradition thing. I think there is just something like when a big movie opens, going on a Friday night as opposed to going to a matinee or, you know, if the Super Bowl were to be in London, waking up and watching in the morning is just not the same as, you know, watching it at night. But, you know, but obviously the money is there and it's going to be, it's going to be ridiculous. I'd say for

WrestleMania is probably three, four times what they're making for those other events. And Raj, I think you, I mean, you mentioned it, the Super Bowl, but in terms of the way people feel, their association with the brands, WWE, it really is similar to the NFL going, you know what guys? Yeah, we've been doing the Super Bowl here. It's uniquely American. It's a big deal in our country. But this year, we're going to do it. Oh, I don't know, in Greece. It's like, what? How could you do that to us? So there's going to be, there's going to be an issue to some degree because of that. But money talks, man. Yeah. We know that there's recently been conversation. I think it was this past Wednesday where we heard from Mark Shapiro at the

Goldman Sachs conference and he said something along the lines of. WWE is not where the UFC is yet on ticket yield. We have work to do there. We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn't totally focused on maximizing the opportunity there. Now that we've seen what we can do with UFC, we're replicating that in terms of ticket yield and holding back and advanced sales when it comes to on location on the WWE side, and it's working out really well. Eric, that's something I want to get your take on, because, you know, this has historically been a family event.

I don't think anybody ever really talked about MMA as if it were a family event. That's not to say that there weren't younger fans and things like that, but a lot of our listeners grew up going to the matches with their family. I mean, we just had a heartfelt comment earlier that Nitro was a big part of the way that that family celebrated their grandmother. If we're continuing to raise ticket prices, do you lose some of that? Some of the,

I don't know, the heart of wrestling. I mean, is it still going to be able to pull those emotional levers, I guess, if it becomes all about a cash grab, Eric? In the short term, of course,

no different. It'll be exciting as hell. But here, if I was in, if I was in a meeting, a strategic planning meeting in WWE, and the subject came up, I would, when called upon, voice my concern about the longer-term impact. Of course, in the short term, you're going to make more money.

As long as the market will bear it, you can keep raising prices until you finally find the point where you've gone too far. It's easy to figure that out. so much easy data is so much more easily assimilated now and aggregated to help you make decisions but here's the long-term impact that I would be concerned about this is the point I would try to make is that one of the reasons that professional wrestling as we know it in the United States around the world is it's been as successful as it has since the beginning of television time because it's family entertainment it's a generational experience parents can take their kids and their kids friends, and you could go to an event like

WWE or AEW or TNA, and you can afford to bring your kids, and those kids are going to be adults a day who are going to bring their kids to share that experience. Very few other sports fall into that category. Baseball probably still does to a degree, but it's just, I mean, it's getting really, really expensive to go to an NFL game too. And, you know, just it gets real expensive just to park your car. And God forbid you bring three or four kids with you and they all of a sudden get hungry. And then you're dropping $22 on a freaking hot dog, $9 on an 8 ounce cup of Pepsi or whatever. So my concern would be great.

You can keep pushing that envelope and you could probably in the short term, continue to increase your revenues. But what happens 15 years from now? When all of a sudden, the kids that used to come to the events with their parents now have kids, and they can't afford it. It's just too much. So that would be my concern. I think, again, I sound like a Vince McMahon agent here,

but I think I would have voted with Vince on this one. I think you have to make a decision, in my opinion. to remain family-friendly in the context of making it affordable so parents can bring their kids, and it's something that you can all enjoy together. There's just not a lot of that left. In fact, it's really funny. We were just talking about that today in my previous meeting about Real American Freestyle. You know, there's a reason why UFC isn't necessarily family-friendly.

Part of it has to do with how much it costs to go. you know, the ticket pricing, obviously. But it's also, you know, you hear things in those interviews post-fight that, you know, if you brought your 10-year-old kid, son or daughter, you're kind of getting an airfield of stuff that you don't necessarily want your kids to hear at that age. And one of the things that we talked about with Real American Freestyle for our long-term brand-building kind of strategy is to not only keep it affordable for families, But the presentation should be family-friendly, too.

Not everything has to be F-bombs. Like, I get it. I was the one that initially decided to target 18 to 49-year-old men, and you do have to push the creative envelope and do things or allow things that you might not allow if your audience is a teen and a pre-teen audience. But when you get to the point where it's too expensive to bring your kids, and if you do spring for it, your kids are being exposed to things

that you might not be comfortable with at their age. You know, it's not a road that Real American Freestyle wants to go down for that very reason. Could we increase ticket prices and push the envelope a little bit? Sure, we could. It would be that hard, but it's not necessarily the right move,

at least for us, for Real American Freestyle. But I even think for WWE, I would be concerned about the long-term implications of what this does to my audience 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now. I do want to ask you, Raj, you know, do you think that there might be a PR problem on the horizon here? I mean, I'm wondering how much further can WWE push the envelope before it does feel like there's some backlash? I mean, we've seen comments of even videos posted where fans just run into Nick Con at Universal Studios or what have you.

And they're addressing the pricing and are not able to afford to go to. of the matches anymore. But when you have the CEOs, you know, the executive managers coming out and saying, we're kind of trying to price families out of the market. And oh, by the way, WrestleMania is now going to Saudi Arabia. Do you think there is a, there's potential PR storm brewing here or am I reaching there? Well, I think one of the issues has been like if you look over, over the decades, again, and this kind of goes back to Vince, ticket prices have just been.

going way, way, way, way up. And, you know, I'll see people compare, you know, like AEW ticket sales to WCW and they're saying, well, if you got accounting for inflation, you can't account for inflation only. You got to account for this change in ticket prices. Because ticket prices are just a different monster today than they were, you know, in the 90s. And I think Vince kept the prices lower than other forms of entertainment, you know, especially the last 15 years. years. As Eric mentioned, going to a football game is just so much more expensive now than it was 30 years ago, going to an NBA game. And WWE didn't really keep the pace of increasing prices with, you know, in tune with those other forms of entertainment. And now you're seeing TKO making up for lost time. And it's such a drastic move that I think it is catching a lot of people, you know, by shock. But, you know, it's for a product and how much it costs, it's not that much more than other forms of entertainment. It's not much more, you know, it's cheaper than an NBA ticket on average, way cheaper than

NFL or UFC. And, you know, it's one of those things where, look, I'm not super corporate greedy or anything, but when you say ticket prices are too expensive, I hear what people are saying, but these shows are selling out. Or, you know, or you'd rather sell, you know, it's kind of one of those things where do you rather sell 200 tickets for 100 bucks or 500 tickets for 10 bucks, you know, which makes you the more money. But they have these high ticket prices and they're selling out. So you can't really say at this point they're too expensive. Once you really start seeing people not going to the show because of the ticket prices and those shows not selling out. That's when you could really say it's too expensive. But, you know, just, you know, back in the

90s, I remember in 95 going to a WWF house show. And I took 10 friends. No one watched wrestling that. The product was ice cold. But the tickets were like 20 bucks. So they're like, yeah, we'll go. They didn't know who anyone was at that point. But they had a good time. Now I can't do that. Now I'm not going to be able to get 10 people to spend 100 bucks for, you know, if they're not familiar with the product. So it is different. It does price out a lot of families, families who might take their cousins or other people who may not be into the product and expose them to the product that otherwise wouldn't have been. So it is sad to see it, but it is happening everywhere. And that's just kind of the way the world has been

moving. Raj, I also want to ask, you know, and I know we're just guessing at this point, but there's been, I've seen some speculation that perhaps this news was not supposed to be out. maybe they jump the gun on this. There's been speculation that perhaps they're going to announce it at the fight this weekend, and we know there's been lots of monster boxing paper views that have happened in Saudi Arabia. Do you think that was the original plan? And then I guess the follow-up would be, do you think that in 2027, there will be what

we've heard for a few weeks now or a few months now, that there might be a world where there's two wrestlers in the year? Do you think that'll happen in 2027? Well, just like there was once upon a time. a world's greatest royal rumble in Saudi Arabia, but we also had a royal rumble that year in America. Do you think we'll see dual WrestleMania's come 2027, Roche? I hope not, just because I do feel like,

even though I'd love for WrestleMania to be in the States or North America, I think having more than one a year dilutes the product. And I also think, you know, Turkey Al-Sheek, he's the one behind this. He's spending a ton of money to bring WrestleMania, and I don't think he wants that brand diluted. he wants the one, you know, I don't think he wants half of half of the package. So I don't think so, you know, again, I think with the amount of money that they're getting that it's going to be, it's going to be the full thing one time a year.

And then, you know, hopefully, you know, hopefully it returns somewhere like New Orleans or, you know, somewhere where it's easier for the majority of the fans at watching project. Eric, what's say you? Do you think there's a world where we could see multiple WrestleMania

has come 2027? I hope not. It's just dilutes. As Raj said, he pointed out, and I agree with them 100%.

It, to me, it would just have an adverse impact on the brand, WrestleMania. Not on WWE, but on the,

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This was breaking just before we actually went live today. I guess there's rumors and innuendo about maybe a major media shakeup. What can you tell us about this? Yeah, I mean, there's been rumors for, for a little bit about Paramount Skyd buying WBD. You know, David Allison had taken over and

you know, they've been really aggressive with spending their money. And, you know, they made the big offer for the UFC with the $7 billion for the rights to stream UFC on Paramount Plus. They struck a deal with the people behind stranger things, the Duffer brothers. They secured the rights to a call duty movie.

So they've really been pushing their money around. And And the Ellison group, you know, the kind of money that they have, the father, Larry Ellison, just earlier this week with Oracle, Oracle shares shot up earlier this week. He made his net worth basically jumped $100 billion in a single day. So they have a ton of money that they're spending. And so, yeah, it came out today that they are preparing to make a bid to purchase WBD. Now, originally a lot of people thought it would be one wing of WBD because that's splitting into two. And the Warner Brothers, which would have the movie division, and it would also have HBO Max.

Then you'd have Discovery, which would have the cable networks, T&T Sports, and all of that. But it came out today that they're looking to purchase the whole thing. And so far, WBD has not received the bid yet. They're expected to get it by early next week. but, you know, there's been so many media mergers and everything like that, and this would be, this would be a huge one. And this is one that, you know, you've seen TKO involved with the Paramount Plus Paramount Skyd side. And obviously we have AEW on the WBD side. So this has, you know, potential repercussions with pro wrestling and TKO and everything going forward.

My guess, I'm sorry. Conrad, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I was just taking you up. Go ahead. My guess is that this is a good thing for AEW. Yes, TKO's involved with Paramount Plus, and I understand that. I mean, you look at TKO's footprint with WWE's footprint.

Is there a network that they're not on? I'm sure there is. A lot of TV. Man, they're everywhere in one way, shape, perform. AEW is not it's not a big audience. It is what it is. 500,000 viewers

in prime time is nothing to brag about even if you're Dave Meltzer. You can turn yourself into a fucking pretzel if you choose trying to do it, but you make yourself look like a knucklehead. There's nothing new for Dave. But it's 500,000 consistent viewers. I think they've hit bottom, to be

honest, but not quite yet. They'll take a bigger hit this fall. By this time next year, they'll probably be hovering around 425,000 viewers, in my opinion. By the end of their third year, they'll be probably dancing around 300 to 350, just based

on their current level of attrition. But it delivers a consistent, relatively consistent audience, and it has a big upside. So I don't think it's as doom and gloom for AEW as might appear to be on the surface because of the TCO involvement. One of the mistakes that AEW has made over the years when they've renegotiated this deal is staying exclusive to one partner. And so you are,

you're locked in to whatever happens with that one company as opposed to spreading your wings and having multiple partners. So if something happens to one, you've got other ones to fall back on, you know, right now, as you mentioned, TCO is locked up with so many companies. You have the only ones out there really right now are like Apple Plus, Amazon, and Fox, as far as the major ones. YouTube is doing some stuff on, you know, the side. They did the stuff with the NFL. So that's where it gets a little scary is that they have this relationship with WBD.

They know, you know, a great relationship that they've had over the years. We don't know what the relationship. is going to be like with Paramount, David Ellison, he's really tight with Ari Emanuel, the owner of TKO. He's called him a mentor in the past. So we'll just have to see. You know, obviously you don't want to, you know, TKO doesn't want to interfere with any negotiations that may happen with Paramount and AEW because of what happened with the MLW lawsuit.

You know, MLW was about to announce a deal with two. be literally down to the day of. I mean, we had received that when I was with Wrestling Inc. We had received the press release. It was an embargoed press release announcing it. And that morning, they were told not to run it. And, you know, allegedly, WWE stepped in. And they ended up paying in court.

So they don't want to be in a situation like that. So AEW being on Paramount is not with, you know, outside the realm of possibility. But at the same time, you did not have TKO as aggressive with AEW as they have been. So we'll see. I think it's always better to be with the company that you know, and that's been WBD. But now there's so much uncertainty that we'll see. We'll have to see how they value the product. But they are throwing their money around.

So if they are interested in AEW, there is a good chance that they could get a good increase because Paramount is showing that they're willing to spend. Raj, I greatly appreciate you breaking off so much time with us today. How can everybody listening keep up with what you're doing these days? Yeah, follow me on Twitter at D-Rodge Geary. I'm also on podcast Heat. We do massive heat every Monday night after Raw with myself, Mr. Matt Morgan, the blueprint, and Jack Farmer, right after Raw, you know, catching up with the news

and also reviewing the show. So definitely check us out there. Podcastheatrestling.com. Raj, thank you so much for all the time today. We greatly appreciate the chat. Take care, guys. Good to see, Raj. You too.

Bye. You know, I know that he has fun doing his best Derek Bischoff online. You know, heat his life. But my man knows his stuff. Does he know? Oh, man, he's so smart. He really is sharp. I had a chance to sit down and have dinner with,

with Raj. I spent about a year, year and a half ago just to get to know him. And by the way, we had great Indian food, because you know it's my jam and uh we had a great meeting we got to know him a lot better and he is really really a smart guy really look i love listening to him i love his take and he knows what he's talking about eric i want to um i don't want to end on a sad note so i'm going to save our conversation for john seen his retirement tour for a minute but i do want to talk about some other news that maybe the world hasn't processed yet, but Mike Johnson

yesterday, as we're recording, posted that Joe Gomez has been hospitalized in a Tampa area hospital. You remember him from the, uh, the days of the glory days of WCW. And well, in recent years, he's been the real life running buddy of the nature boy, Rick Flair. And they've had a lot of fun and spent a lot of time together. And I know that he is well thought of in the wrestling community. And I know he's a friend of yours and Gary.

and it was like everybody who spent any time in Tampa. He's like the unofficial mayor. And it sounds like he's going through a rough patch right now. So I don't know how many people know that, but I wanted to spend just a minute and send some positive vibes, Mr. Gomez's way, because I know we sure do like him a whole lot. We do indeed.

He's a great guy. In fact, he came to Real American Freestyle August 30th in Cleveland, and I got a chance to hang with him for just a little bit. He's a big supporter. He's a great guy. He's got a lot of friends in the business. And I did get some news just about an hour before we went live here that there's been some improvement.

So there's reason to be optimistic. Say a prayer for Joe Gomez. He's a good man. He's done a lot of good things for a lot of people. And I wish him the best. Kick out, brother. Kick out. Amen to that.

We're all pulling for that. I wanted to take a minute and acknowledge some news that I didn't really know at the time. But yesterday, I guess it was Wednesday. morning. I was recording with JR and somehow we brought up Jerry the King Lawler. Oh, I know what it was. We were talking about best wrestlers to transition into commentary and he had Lawler as it's number one. And he just sort of casually threw out there. I heard he's not feeling well. Have you heard that Connie? And I had not. And I said I had not. And now just before we went live or actually since we've been live, I saw a report online that I guess there's a report that according to TMZ Jerry's recovering from a stroke. this past Friday. And I know he's had some health challenges in recent years, and I hate that we're doing this back to back, but let's keep those positive vibes and those thoughts and prayers going for Jerry the King Lawler. You want to talk about a one-of-a-kind character. I mean, a lot of people, Jeff Jarrett, among them, thinks he's perhaps the most utility player in the history of

wrestling, you know, from booking, from commentary to wrestling as a baby face, as a heel. now I know a lot of that was not always in ring on a national stage but man when it came to wrestling there weren't many much better than Jerry Lawler and to know that he's going through it right now man thoughts and prayers don't seem like enough but but they're out there for right now for him yeah Jerry is what an interesting cat he's been around for such a long time he's been involved in some really big moments I mean people are still talking today about the Andy Kaufman Jerry Lawler you know broken neck gimmick or whatever it is or whatever it was he's one of a kind he is truly you know the term legend gets thrown around a lot

but if there is one person alive today that is the personification of legend that would be Jerry the King Lawler thoughts and prayers to Jerry the King Lawler and Joe Gomez

Keep them in your prayers, and let's throw some positive vibes their way. Two of wrestling's best dudes. I want to talk about another great dude in wrestling. John Sina, he's winding it down, and it seems like there's lots of rumor and innuendo that Washington, D.C. is going to be the home of his last match. Saturday night's main event. I think a lot of people expected this December 13th card to be in Boston.

Well, Boston's going to be on November 10th. New York City is going to be on November 17th. Why do you think D.C. gets the nod for John Sina? I'm not being critical of it. I know you had multiple major shows in D.C., including the most famous show of all for WCW, Sting and Holcogan, right there at the MCI Center and in Washington, D.C., so I get it. But I think it's a little curious that,

and I know he was our white meat, baby face, All-American Boy, but Washington, D.C., for the last one, what do you make of this, Eric? I think they're trying to recreate history in a way. You know, Washington, Washington, D.C. was the site of Eric Bishop, the very first professional wrestling match on television. Oh, that's why. They just want to celebrate you.

That's exactly why. They're going to recapture the historical significance of that moment when I wrestled Larry Zavisco, and they're going to bring it back with John C. you know, no, I, you know, was there a site fee involved? Now, listen, I'm glad you brought that up because that was the speculation. And I believe I heard Dave Meltzer say something along the lines of WWE was looking for a rights fee similar to what they got for SummerSlam in New Jersey. Now, I've heard from other people who say, that's absolutely not true.

They just didn't have the availability. And I think sometimes people lose sight of the fact that, a lot of times these buildings have to be booked way out in advance, especially if they host a regular sports team. So if you're hosting a regular sporting event like hockey, like baseball, like basketball, like football, that can affect your venue opportunities. And that doesn't even take into account, you know, touring acts,

you know, musicians and so forth. But I think it's interesting that it might be DC. Now that led to a lot of speculation with people saying, oh, they must be trying to get Trump there. and I'm not trying to have a political conversation but I find that hard to believe that there'd be a sitting president at a Saturday night's main event. Am I wrong on that? Oh yeah. Yeah, you're wrong about that.

I don't think that's the issue. I don't think they would make a booking decision on a building because of the possibility of getting Donald Trump there. Because let's be honest, he's the president of the United States and there's a lot of stuff going on right now. So you could go ahead and make all of those. changes hoping that Donald Trump would show up and Donald Trump probably would want to show up but it's maybe a 50-50 shot at best it's a lot easier for me to believe that there's just a scheduling issue what else goes on in that building

in Boston you mean well there's the the team called the Celtics you know so we could look and see what they're doing yeah I mean because WWE with just the complexity the size the scope of that show in the move-in you know they're There was a point in time when if need be, you could set up, you could have your crew setting up starting at midnight on Sunday night and be ready for rehearsals Monday morning. But that show has gotten so big and so complicated, you need two days to load in and test and rehearse. So it just could be a conflict with something else that's going on there on Sunday night. and WWE just was not able to get in in enough time to do an adequate job setting up.

Well, it doesn't look like they're hosting a Celtics game that night. I don't know exactly why it wasn't in Boston, but I am curious why DC. I'm sure the answer will reveal itself. I'm sure they'll have some sort of special send-off. We've got plenty of time to talk about December. Right now, it's time to talk about your boner. I'm in the room, Dick first. Blue-chew is not just a tablet.

It's a cheat code for your crotch, strong. harder longer lasting like somebody gave your downstairs a pep talk at a gym membership and blue chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets for better sex this ain't a supplement it's an erection resurrection guys we're not just talking about performance we're talking about legacy or third legacy give her group chat something to talk about you know when you lay it down they're talking about how it gets up nothing makes you more of a legend than a little blue chew discover your options at blue chew.com and we've got a special deal for our listeners as all Always, get your first month of Blue Chew free.

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Well, if Eric's in the room, three thumbs up. And I've got the three thumbs up for Christopher Huerta's. I probably butchered that, but I'm trying. We appreciate you joining us over at ad-freeshows.com. He just joined a couple of weeks ago, Eric. It was like everybody's jumping on the ad-free shows bandwagon. I appreciate you guys supporting us like only you do. Eric, I've had a lot of fun with our special guest today, Raj Geary.

I hope that we can make that a regular thing. But I also want to talk about AJ Stiles before we wrap things up here today because there was a busted open interview where, Nick Nimeth, the former Dolf Ziegler, had a conversation about Vince McMahon and his opinion on AJ Stiles. I want to give a shout out to wrestling ink.com for the transcription of this, but Dolf said something like when Stiles was coming in the WWE behind the scenes, and this is second hand, but the boss boss was like iffy. The way he saw AJ is he still had that 80s mentality.

If you're six foot five, okay, I can go with you. You look like the warlord, whatever the situation. is. Now, AJ is Jack, but he's not six-five. At the time, I had heard that because of him having somewhat of a Southern twang to his voice, that basically he sees him like Keith Slater telling a joke. Oh, that's AJ Styles. Okay, I can't even take him seriously. Because that's his mentality from his brain from the 60s and 80s. Oh, he's not from New York. He doesn't have this accent we have. I kind of secondhand and firsthand heard AJ was fighting an uphill battle. Even already coming here with all his accolades, everything he's done, everybody

knows what he's capable of, whatever he did in his body of work while he was here, which by the way is effing fantastic, he won over the boss. And I think that's an interesting perspective and story because we often hear that, you know, guys who would complain, like respectfully J.R. would complain that Vince Rousseau and Vince McMahon thought he was too Southern and Bruce Pritchard just said to Tony Chivani, hey, Vince thinks you're too Southern. And I know when you took over WCW, maybe you felt like it was too regional.

And so it felt like there was an anti-Southern bias. But I don't think any of us imagine that that was still a thing. Gosh, what was it? 11, 12 years ago when AJ Stiles came to WWB. Were you surprised to hear that perhaps Vince still had a anti-Southern bias, even for AJ Stiles? Yeah. I do.

Look, when I made the comments I made about Jim Ross being too representative of the South was primarily because WCW was a Southern, effectively, in many respects, a regional promotion. Yeah, TBS was nationwide before you jump in my shit on social media, to point that out, I'll save you the trouble. while they were distributed on TBS, distributed where they were in cable on TBS, and that was available around the country, the footprint for the viewing audience was definitely 75% southeast. Because that's where WCW was born out of Jim Crockett promotions.

Most of the people that came over from Jim Crockett, most of the people in WCW when I got there came from Jim Crockett promotions and we're all typically from the south because that's where Jim Crockett Promotions was based. So there was just a predominance of a southern accent and a southern presentation. And that was an issue for WCW because my mission was to become more of a national promotion and not be so dominantly southern. So that really was a problem for me.

It's certainly not a problem in WWE. In fact, if I were there now, I would look at somebody like AJ with a southern accent as an attribute because he's different. He doesn't sound just like everybody else. That's a valuable asset today. 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I could understand the argument.

In fact, I made it myself. for the reasons I just explained. But I don't think that's it. Now, the size thing, you know, perhaps Vince had opinion, subjective opinion based on AJ's overall look. Could height have been an issue? I don't know. It didn't seem to bother Eddie Guerrero.

Certainly didn't seem to hold Chris Benoit back. I don't think Ray Mysterio walks around with lifts and his shoes when he shows up at WWE. So I just don't think that that's real anymore. It may have been 15, 20 years ago, 12 years ago, but I don't think that's the issue now. There may be other issues. I don't know what they could be.

AJ's a phenomenal performer. He's an amazing performer. And to this day, even though he's gotten older, probably lost a beat or two in terms of his speed and some of his abilities in the ring. But he's made up for it in so many other ways. it really doesn't matter. I would be disappointed and very surprised

if AJ doesn't have one really big run left in him over the next couple years at WWE because he's too solid of a performer. Well, the reason this is coming up, I think, right now, Eric, is they did a thing on Monday with AJ on, on, on, on, on Netflix, where maybe we weren't supposed to see it. Hey, this is, you know, there's people in the back there's a guy in the back who doesn't like me and he doesn't want me here and he doesn't want

me to succeed and he's shouting out gallows and Anderson so I perceived it to be you know a work shoot brother and and I think if they're playing off of the real life story that once upon a time Vince didn't like AJ that could be interesting I'm interested to see it's it's an outsider's perspective right if if this is the opening act of act one The opening scene of Act 1, it's a good one because I'm an outsider. I don't fit here. I'm an underdog, is what that really is saying. And damn it, I'm going to make you understand why I'm here.

It's a great premise for a solid angle going forward. That's my take on it. I did see the clip. It was on social media, so I was able to see it. And I almost sent AJ a text, you know, said, man, that was an awesome, awesome interview. because it was heartfelt and it reminded me of AJ back in T&A when it was the homegrown stars kind of premise that was a big thing for AJ back in the day at TNA and it reminded me of that which is why I smell story as opposed to a real issue could be wrong well I tell you

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Eric, I had a blast catching up, and I'm looking forward to next week's conversation. We're going to be talking about, and I can't believe this is real, the top five WCW fails. So we're going to the other end. We've celebrated all the greatness of Nitro the last two weeks. We're going to have some fun poking at some silly stuff next week. That's fun. I can't wait to do that. I can't wait to do that.

And I also can't wait for tomorrow, Saturday, to do Ask Eric anything over to have free shows. If you're not a member, you should be a member. I have an absolute blast doing this show. And there are no, nothing is off limits. If you've got a question and you think I probably won't answer it, please, I dare you. a double dog dare you join us join us tomorrow at free shows dot com ask eric anything i really really am looking forward to it by the way if your business targets being 25 to 54 years old there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 weeks you've heard us

do some of the same sponsor's ads for years and years and years why is that well because it really works you see with our super targeted audience there's very little waste to go right now to advertise with eric.com and find out how easy it can be we also just rolled out some brand new merch at 83 weeks merch.com my favorite is better than less than different than you also got controversy creates cash heat is life and a whole lot more check it out at e i'm sorry look at easy e shirt you got to you have to rocking that next week i'm i never thought i would wear a shirt with my own picture on it but i'm going to make it yeah dude 83 weeks merch dot com and how about this. Eric is a man of the people. Make things even that much sweeter. The first 10

orders placed this week will score a personalized phone call from Eric Bischoff. Come on now. Pick up a new tea, help support the show, and get a call from EZE. Follow us on the show at 83 weeks on Instagram and Facebook. You can find us on YouTube at 83 weeks on YouTube.com. And you can actually interact with Eric at your own risk on Twitter at E. Bischoff. Over on Instagram. He is at the real Eric Bischoff. Now, I'll admit, on Instagram, you're going to see a lot of real American freestyle and a lot of wagee. And I'm here for it. But if you just want to piss him off and see how fast it takes you to get blocked or schooled and put in the corner with a dunce cap on, then come get some at E. Bischoff on Twitter. And that'll do it for us this

week. Tune in next week. Same bat time, same bat channel. Eric, this was a blast today. Looking forward to next week, man. I had an absolute blast. And a little. Bernie told me there's going to be some cool changes going on at 83 weeks. So hopefully next week we're going to present you with a couple little tweaks to the format. I'm looking forward to that. I can't wait. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.