83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 394: Mean Gene's 1-900 Hustle

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad head back 30 years to revisit a classic edition of WCW Monday Nitro. Eric shares his firsthand experiences working with the roster at the time and the strategy behind counter-programming a pre-taped Monday Night RAW. Plus, we get a breakdown of how the iconic WCW hotline started and how Mean Gene took it was beyond what anyone expected. Eric also reveals his Top 5 WWE talent hires made during his run in WCW. Plus, Raj Giri joins the show to break down all the latest news from the world of professional wrestling. Learn more about Guy Evans newest book project all about the Immortal Hulk Hogan: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hulk-hogan-book/the-hulk-hogan-story-a-biographical-trilogy?ref=discovery&term=Hulk%20hogan&total_hits=5&category_id=48   MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code 83WEEKS at http://shopmando.com ! #mandopod TUSHY - Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with code 83WEEKS at http://hellotushy.com/83WEEKS  #tushypod BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com  and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. INDACLOUD - If you’re 21 or older, get 30% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code 83WEEKS at https://inda.shop/83WEEKS  ! #indacloudpod 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 CONRAD - 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.savewithconrad.com  to learn more.

Hey, Hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. I see Eric, the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. I see Eric would cruising around there. I mean, yeah, it's like a whole vibe in here. Every one of you people. Well, we're having a little bit of fun today. We appreciate you guys joining us here at 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already, we want you to hit that subscribe button and turn on your notifications bell so you won't miss us the next time we're live.

But boy, do we have a lot to talk about today. We're going to hit a little Hulk Hogan news. Yeah, there's still Hulk Hogan news. We're also going to talk about Nitro from 30 years ago, a little 1995 nitro discussions are always fun. We're also going to touch on Brian Pilman. We'll hit up some, some Russo stuff.

We've got some sting news we want to address. And of course, we'll visit with Raj Geary. He's going to grind some people's gears today. But perhaps my favorite thing I'm looking forward to today, Eric, is we're going to talk about your, your top five acquisitions from the WWF. You know,

people who are critical of you, Eric, ATM Eric. He didn't do anything except spend Ted Turner's money. Well, hey, what were the best investments that Eric made? We'll take a look at that and see how it worked out today. And we want to hear from you guys. So once again, let us know what you're thinking at the bottom. We want to hear right now, who is your number one acquisition that Eric made from the WWE? Drop us a comment below and then we'll see how close you were. Before we get into all of our sports entertainment let's talk a little real wrestling eric what's the latest and greatest from great

american freestyle man real american freestyle is rocking and rolling um card is coming together penn state i think we're i'm predicting a sellout to be honest with you um it's going to be a great night it's going to be a great night of action tickets are on sale now go find them right now at real american freestyle dot com and of course if you haven't already go download the Fox Nation app when you sign up there you won't miss this event that's going to be one of the best values in streaming services right now the idea that you get to see what in another time and era would have been a traditional pay per view is now just included with your regular subscription it's awfully affordable for people to look at real American freestyle don't you think

it is indeed you know what the cool thing is and I know I'm chill in here but I'm proud to do it because Fox Nation is really investing a lot in their content obviously we benefit from that. But aside from us, I subscribe to Fox Nation long before I ever had a conversation about being business partners with them. A lot of great contact, 50 Cent, has got a new series out that I think just started. I saw an interview with Kitty yesterday, actually, on Fox and Friends. And just sort of fascinating guy, if you learn his story, where he came from, how he grew up, how we broke into the industry, and what he's become as a businessman and an entrepreneur, that in and of itself is a movie.

He's just a fascinating dude. But he's got his series out, of course, PBR, professional bullwriters. They've got their weekly series on Fox Nation. Just a, if you're into true crime, great documentaries, it's a great place to be. And of course, Real American Freestyle, Fox Nation, get it. I'm looking forward to the next event. I know that everybody who checks it out will be glad they did. I thought you guys hit a home run at your very first event.

I can't believe we're just like three weeks away from the next one. Go download Fox Nation. Check out Real American Freestyle. You want to be able to say, you know, 10, 15, 20 years from now, oh yeah, I watched that second one live. You want to be able to do that. Say you were there. Grab some tickets while you still can.

Real American Freestyle.com. Eric, before we get into the meat of the matter this week, week. I had something come across my desk that I thought, oh, I got to bring this up to Eric. Because I know you and I have had a blast reading Guy Evans books, not only Nitro, but beyond Nitro. And you enjoyed that experience so much. You actually did a second book with Guy. So you've gotten really, really close with Guy. I think we both have an appreciation for his journalistic approach to things. And he just announced earlier this week that he is going to be working on the Hulk Hogan story, which will be a trilogy.

of Hulk Hogan books. He plans to interview more than 100 people and get the real story on the real life Hulk Hogan, Terry Balea, and the idea that he's breaking it down into three books tells me, Eric, he's planning to get really, really granular. And what I think is so interesting and exciting about that for me, as admitted, Hulk Hogan Mark,

I mean, I'll just call it like it is. I wouldn't be doing this podcast if it weren't for my fandom as a little kid for that character. We got all kinds of detail in this Nitro book. 20 years removed from Nitro being a thing, and that disrupted the narrative that a lot of the dirt sheets and the other novels that had been out there for a long time, creative Turner accounting and a lot of other things. And there's so much about the real life Terry Belaya that we don't know, his early life,

his childhood, his upbringing. I'm excited to learn about Hulk Hogan and sort of separate crack from fiction with a guy who's not trying to sell subscriptions or not trying to drive clicks. he's just a journalist here's all the information and and he wants to present it that way I'm excited about this what say you I am as well and I'm taking a giant leap of faith here because I know we're promoting guys Kickstarter for this book series and when you reached out to me and said hey here's what we're planning on doing are you good with this you know it didn't take me a half a second to say of course because I do know guy and guy has integrity

and his passion for excruciatingly detailed research is what makes him different than everybody else. And I know this is going to sound like a shot at the people that write for professional wrestling. And it is because they deserve it. These are cosplay journalists. they refer to themselves as journalists, and they pretend they're journalists when they're in the cosplay press conferences because it's all just like what happens in the ring.

It's an illusion that people buy into. It's not real, people. Things you're reading on the Internet, things that are coming from so-called experts who study the business, is nothing more than their fandom in a dirt sheet format or in a online news format

and there's nothing wrong with people who are fans having strong opinions and sharing those opinions but when you cosplay as a journalist you lose my respect. Guy Evans is the opposite of that. Guy Evans has no interest in cosplay journalism within the internet wrestling community. Guy Evans is very interested

in doing high-value research, detailed, as I said, excruciatingly so, and presenting a story that you probably haven't heard before, or at least give you a different perspective on stories that you have heard before. And that doesn't come from guys' firsthand knowledge of Hulk Hogan. That doesn't come from his personal experience. It comes from hours and hours and hours of interviews and research. and oh yeah let's throw in great storytelling so i'm excited for guy fully support him and can't wait to read because here's a deal conrad and i've told you this before i probably stood on the

show a million times i learned more about the details of what went down in turner broadcasting with relationship to the AOL time Warner merger and the the creative accounting and the interviews that I did with executives I never even got meetings with but all but all of whom were pulling the strings in one way shape or form and what guy revealed in that book was news to me 25 years after I was in the center of the storm fascinating because of the work you put in I fully expect he'll do the same thing for the Hulk COVID project. As a reminder, I think Guy was the first person to really land interviews with big time Turner executives and accountants and all the other people who've written about

that topic all those years. They were just sort of parroting what everybody else had said. And not to knock that, I mean, hell, that's a source material that we use a lot of times here, which is why the show is so fun. Eric will call, as he likes to say, inspired by my father, bullshit on something. But that's what I like about this too. His guy is saying right up front, this groundbreaking series of books will be informed by over 100 exclusive interviews, meaning he's not reading someone else's interview. He's going to conduct more than 100

interviews, not to mention the comprehensive research for which my books are already known. The final work will be available in paperback, audiobook, and in ebook formats with a special hardcover edition, never again to be reprinted, offered as a Kickstarter exclusive reward. Your pledges will support these substantial research, printing, shipping, and other direct costs that are required in launching a project of the scope.

Pledges of $30 or more will allow backers to pre-order books at a discounted rate and unlock exclusive extras. So what's you going to do when the Hulk Hogan story runs wild on you? We'll include a link in the description or if you just go to Kickstarter and type in Hulk Hogan Story or Guy Evans, you'll find it.

But I thought that was interesting because you never know with these sort of things. Is this something that Eric would want to put his stamp on or not? And without even seeing it, it is a leap of faith. Good on you. It tells me a lot about Guy Evans just by you agreeing to plug it like this. Looking forward to it.

Really am. Well, something else I'm looking forward to is talking about Nitro from 30 years ago. Fans last week really got a kick out of this because we were talking about Nitro before it got cool. You know, before the NWO was here, we're still cutting our teeth. we're finding our voice. We're developing a rhythm. And you sort of established that you felt like that you were in that in like 96. Well, let's take a look back and think what we were doing 30 years ago. There were dark matches. We had Brian Pilman in there with Disco Inferno,

the Dungeon of Doom with Jim Duggan and the Renegade. We don't spend a lot of time talking about the renegade, but it almost doesn't feel like he was in the Nitro era. I know he was, but it feels like his WCW experience sort of predates Nitro. At least, in my mind. I think because that's when you saw the majority of time that that he spent on television was in the pre-nitro era. There was a little overlap there and Renegade was around post, you know, after we launched, obviously, but not for that long a time. One of the things you did on this show is, and again, as a reminder, this is the era where you've got a tweener vibe from Lex Lugar. He's just shown up on the very first Nitro.

And we're not really sure. Is he a baby face? Is he a heel? And on this particular show, he's going to be working with Randy Savage and there's some stakes. I know you've always said that's a big billing point for you when it comes to promoting. You need there to be stakes.

And the stakes here were if Lugar leaves, he must leave WCW or if Lugar loses, he must leave WCW. And we know that didn't happen. Lugar gets the win. But Lugar's approaching the ring, sort of posing like a heel. and write then on commentary, right as you're breaking to a commercial,

you said, don't turn the channel, this is the first time these two have wrestled. And you mention, if you want to know what's going to happen on Raw, call back today's 900 report and he'll summarize Raw. I love that. I mean, you're reminding everybody, maybe not hitting them over the head with it, but reminding them, hey, you're not going to see anything you've never seen before on the other channel. In fact, it's a taped show.

But these guys have never. wrestled and were live, was that strategic to make sure that you did that before the commercial break? And is that an Eric call or is that a television best practice? Is that a Turner call? Talk me through that. No, no. That was an Eric call. That was in the whole, that was in the recipe book where you turn to the first page and it's like item number one, give away their finishes. Well, you got to find different and creative ways to do that. And this was one of them. But Conrad, what I'm I'm really shocked at it as you didn't, you didn't mention the most, I don't know, intriguing part of this stunt because that's what it was.

It was a stunt. It was my way of communicating to the audience. They were watching old news on the other channel. And if you want to see shit live, you got to stay right here. And oh, by the way, if you're curious, Mike today I'll tell you, and I'm making money on it. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, there was a financial component to that strategy. in addition to the kind of, you know, screw you, Vince McMan, watch this component,

which was really the driver. You know, that's probably what made me think of it. I went, oh, by the way, we can make money too. That's awesome. Hey, I do want to ask you about this because so many of us grew up with that hotline, we still have the number remembered. I mean, we've memorized it. It's 1,900, 909, 9900.

I mean, I don't know my mom's phone number, but I know, I know that number. Like, mom's programmed in my phone. I'll just type in mom or I'll just say hey call mom but I somehow remember the goofy ass WCW hotline commercial shout out to Silva with the immediate graphic VG and holding the mic I don't know why that's funny but it is one 900 900 9900 99 cents a minute kids get your kids get your parents permission I just love that old read and there's been lots of rumor and innuendo about this some people felt like there were low rent stunts and you know People were critical about it in the newsletters.

Others would say, hey, this is where the business was heading. And all I can think is, my buddy Eric always says, you play where the puck is going to be, not where it is. And I love that analogy. But when you're thinking about on the hotline, there's lots of rumor and innuendo that the hotline was a really lucrative piece of business for mean, Gene. What was his structure on that?

It was favorable, but, and I'm hesitating because I'm trying to, remember if there's anything I could repeat with any confidence and there's not I don't remember the exact structure of the deal but what was what made it easy for me to do a favorable deal for Gene is that he wasn't just coming in and hosting the 900 line I'm pretty sure he came in with the idea now other people had had the idea and maybe other people that even tried it but Gene was, Gene came in with a plan. I mean, he came in, obviously, when we first started talking as an announcer, but he had ideas. And he brought them in the 900 line was one of them.

And Gene really wanted to manage the process. He didn't want to just be the host. He wanted to build that line of revenue. And Gene came from a radio background, a general manager, talent, obviously, but Gene O'Cohlin really grew up in the business of radio. And I think Gene was excited at that stage in his life to take much like, you know, you have done, Conrad, is you stumble into something that's interesting for you and you figure out a way to use it to help build your business.

Podcasts in the mortgage industry, for example. Gene O'Clin now was in this sports entertainment space, but he wanted to take the knowledge and the experience he had in radio and find ways to modify or use that experience to help build a revenue model for WCW. And the way he came in and presented it and his ability to execute it, because that's a big part of it.

You know, great ideas are a dime a dozen. The ability to execute him is what matters. And Gene had the ability and the passion to execute it. So he was able to negotiate a favorable deal. Was it 60, 40, 50, 50, 50, 70, 30. Either way, I don't know. But it was more than just, hey, your talent, do this too. It wasn't that. So we do believe he was getting some sort of percentage. We're fuzzy on what, but he was getting a cut. And it was significant. I don't want to, I don't want to sound like I'm just missing it.

Was it, could it have been 50, 50? Sure. Because, and here's the other thing. It was found revenue. Right. It's not like I'm sharing an existing line of revenue, hoping that. this person is going to increase that revenue sufficiently so that I'm actually getting a return on my investment by hiring this person. That would be the normal formula that you evaluate an opportunity with. But in this case, he was coming in with a line of revenue that didn't previously exist. Yeah, it was found. So I'm much more willing to share that.

Hey, I do want to ask, you know, when we're taking a look at the mean gene hotline deal, was he sort of a supervisor it was his baby he assigned the guy to the different days now would he would it be part of their employment contract or was he sharing the wealth like mark madden got a cut or bobby hean got a cut or whatever it was i don't think so i i'm not a hundred percent sure but i'm about 90 percent sure that there was no rev share beyond gene and turner or wcd the rest of it You know, as far as the Maddens and the todays, I believe that was done. First of all, people wanted to do it. It was fine.

They're getting exposure. Yeah. If you're in, if you're an announcer in the wrestling business and somebody asked you to be a part of something and you say, no, there's nothing in it for me, you probably won't be around long. Right. So it wasn't hard to get people to go, sure, Gene, I'll do it with you. And who doesn't want, who didn't want to work with Gene Oakville? Right. right if you're an announcer and you're a wrestling fan and jean calls you says hey i'm doing this 900 line

you might sit in for an episode who's going to say no to that do you remember there being a time where the income sort of exceeded expectations like i'm not here to suggest that it would ever compete with the amount of revenue that you that wcw or turner corporate would make on a pay-per-view or a vhs or a live gate for an event but where there ever spikes where you were like geez and maybe you don't remember exactly what the spike was or what the number was, but do you remember ever really being impressed with the amount of revenue that it was? Early on in particular, now, by 96, 97, you know, financially things had turned around so significantly that relatively speaking, the 900 revenue was very incremental.

It was important then because it was revenue. But it was, in terms of the big picture, it was very incremental. However, when it first started and before we had really turned things around financially at Turner, when we were still kind of on the cusp, 94, in particular, if you want to really step back in time for just a moment, for context, I took over WCW, it was grossing $23 million or $25 million a year, and it was losing $10 million a year in the process. By 1994, after I had been in charge for a while,

one of the first things I spent a year and a half or two years, a year and a half focused only on cutting costs so that we weren't losing that $10 million a year. And it was really simple analysis for me. Stop the bleeding. Yeah. Just stop the bleeding. Before you can think about reconstructive surgery and making things pretty again,

let's just make sure the patient doesn't die. So I focused on the 10 million losses, right? And got that down significantly enough to get Ted's attention. while starting to grow the revenue, again, very incrementally. But the picture looked interesting for the first time since Ted bought the company. Long before we really turned a profit, it started looking interesting, which is why Hulk Hogan. What's why we're able to do, Hulk Hogan? It's why I was able to get Ted, it's why we were able to get Ted to sign off on $2 million.

dollars that wasn't that wasn't budgeted for when the opportunity came up. And where's that too many dollars going to come from? I had a budget at that time to work with. There was not a $2 million haul coke and budget item in there. So I had to go to Ted through Bill Shaw. Well, the only reason Ted agreed to it for Bill Shaw was because Ted had been watching what was going on. And it was the first time there was any indication that there could be light at the end of the

WCW tunnel in Ted's eyes. So he gave me a little more rope. He gave me more rope. We made more money. We made more money. We saved more money. We started creating that revenue spread over the course of three years. So we got to the point where whatever the number was, I don't recall, $280 to $325 million is the numbers

that I've seen floating around. And we were spinning off probably $60 to $80 million of profit before it was all, according to Dick Cheatham, allocated on an intercompany basis, expenses and revenues. So we turned it around pretty quick, but I made my point. Everybody, I'm going to go on for hours. Sorry. No, you don't have to go on. I mean, you don't have to cut yourself off.

Listen, we love hearing about the finances and the business of the wrestling business. And I think a lot of people have always been fascinated by how the hotline worked. And it's great to hear that once upon a time, it was sort of a surprise. That's what I wanted to say. I wanted to, I mean, I've realized I've been talking for 10 minutes about this. But at that time that I was just describing, when we're starting to creep up a little bit in revenues and we're managing expenses very aggressively, what was very incremental revenue by 1996 or 97 was very important. important revenue in 1994, late 93, 94.

It was very significant at the time, especially because it was a new revenue stream. It went right to the bottom line. It didn't exist before. So it had a lot to do with timing. At one point in time, that hotline was the talk of the town at WCW, but by 1997, we're really happy with it, but it wasn't as exciting as it once was.

Is it fair to say that, you know, once WCW was printing money, you know, 96, 97, 98, at times the hotline became more trouble than it was worth based on the revenue? Well, yes. And very much so. And I knew that going in. It wasn't like, wow, I didn't expect this. We talked about, Gene and I and others, talked a lot about, okay, how is this hotline going to work. It's probably not a lot of different than some of the conversations we've had about what do

people respond to on the podcast. What are they interested in hearing? We kind of went through that same process talking about this 900 line and knew that in order to really drive revenues, it's going to have to be controversial. It's going to have to have an edge and such a sharp edge that sometimes it's going to cut. And sometimes you're going to bleed. But you have to be willing, we felt, we had to be willing to walk right up to that edge and take risks in order to really drive revenue. Otherwise, you're doing what everybody else was doing at the time, just bullshit, Pablam, Internet wrestling, dirty, garbage. And we did plenty of that, too, intentionally, sometimes making fun of them. but we also included a lot of opinions

that you would not have heard typically inside of WCW. People would not have, you know, you know, Mark Madden in particular. Mark Madden was a huge pain of my ass because Mark Madden would come at it from the perspective of a very knowledgeable wrestling fan. Yes.

And I'm not talking about being able to tell you who beat who in 1983 in what venue and what match and what the star rating was and all that happy, obsessive, compulsive, horseshit. I'm talking about people that really understood, Mark was the people who really understood what the psychology that drove the business. And he was probably more in tune with the audience than a lot of the people that worked in the business really were,

because they were living in their own bubble, right? They weren't really out there in the same way. So as a somebody who was a really intelligent wrestling fan, not smart, intelligent. Mark was one of those people, and he was controversial as hell, still is to this day. That's why he's the highest paid, most successful sports talk guy in Pittsburgh. I think I got that right, Mark. If I miss something, let me know. I'll do it again.

But I knew it was going to be a hassle. And it was because Mark would say things that would piss off talent. guess where they come first? You know, I have to deal with that. I have to deal with the egos. I had to, I should say, had to do with the egos and the emotions. And sometimes they were absolutely right.

It was not necessarily good for business. It was good for the 900 business, but it wasn't good for story business necessarily. So some of those legit, some of those bitches and conflicts were legit. Was the biggest, had, Uh, head that Mark Madden butted against DDP, it feels like that's the only story that I've

heard with any sort of regularity. I think Mark was critical of, of the real life Dallas page and we'll call him D.D. me, but you have to admit, it's a clever name if you're going to shit on a guy, like you find a way to use his name, but were they just oil and water all the time? I don't know what happened there. I mean, they're, I mean, I like Mark Mann a lot. I, every time I, I, You know, I just saw him a couple of months ago.

I was in Pittsburgh for a Steel City Comic-Con. And I got to spend a few minutes with Mark. I've always liked him. Because he is smart, he's a very, very smart man. I don't know what his IQ is, but he's got to be up there. He's a very intelligent guy. And he's funny. And he's opinionated as hell.

And he doesn't mind sharing it. I like being around people like that. He's entertaining to me. And I usually learn something. but yeah he mark mark was always always a little rough around the edges most guys could take it for whatever reason ddp and mad madman must have said something that hit a nerve because ddp is pretty me he's a chill guy you mean yeah he did his attention for a couple minutes and then it's like hey bro whatever you know he's not a not a very tightly wound

individual when it comes to that kind of stuff no he's got a thick skip but somehow mark got through it well something that won't get through is the stink thanks to mando falls here football season yard work maybe even hunting trips but let's be honest staying fresh can be a challenge that's why you need to hear about mando deodorant from your pits to well everywhere else mando high performance odor control and sweat control actually last all day forget those colognes that just masks the stink mando blocks odor before it even starts. It's one stick that does two jobs.

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Mando's got you covered with deodorant plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat stains and hello to long-lasting freshness. So, Eric, we're talking a little bit about Nitro, and that was a long time ago. But let's talk about something else that happened a long time ago. Frank Bruno became a top guy member here at ad-freeshows.com over five years ago. It was actually April 1st, April Fool's Day. 2020. Remember that Eric? We were all locked down back then. We couldn't leave our houses.

It was crazy. But wow. And I had three shows was born and Frank Bruno jumped on board. We appreciate his patron. It's five years and running. I want to ask you about Nitro though, because this particular Nitro we're covering had one of the most impactful and important angles that it happened on Nitro up to this point. Mean Gene's doing an interview with Hulk Hogan and he's talking about how he got advice from a young sick boy who gave him advice on how he could beat the big, mean, stinky, nasty giant at Halloween Havoc. But as he starts to head back to the locker room, a woman threw something in Hogan's eyes.

That woman turned out to actually be Kevin Sullivan in drag, which is hilarious. He's going to be joined by the giant and zodiac. But then they do something that we'd never seen before, Eric. And I know you're laughing like I am about. Kevin Sullivan and drag, because these guys are clearly just trying to pop each other and make each other laugh in the backstage area. But what they do with Hulk is something I've never seen before. They shave his mustache off.

Now, this is a pretty iconic deal in Hulk Hogan fandom. And I know that most people now say, yeah, it's just a mustache. That's kind of silly. But it was such an iconic part of his look. It just felt, I don't know, in an era where they still had hair matches and they were meaningful, changing Hulk Hogan's mustache, he doesn't even look. like Hulk Hogan without the mustache. Was this a hard sell for him? Was he doing it anyway for a movie role? How does this come to be a situation where he doesn't stroke the mustache and say,

that doesn't work for me, brother? How do we get here? I'm not 100% sure, but I would bet a lot of money it had to do with a movie role or a commercial opportunity. Because otherwise, there's no way he's doing that. Right. I would think so. He's not selling that hard. for no you know i don't see it i think there had to be there was an agenda attest that creative and i don't think it had anything to do with wrestling i think there was either commercial role tv role or something to that effect in an alternate universe and i get that what you just laid out is probably the real situation he knew he had to shave it for a role or a shoot or something so let's do something with it on tv i get that's how it came to be but don't you wish

With the benefit of hindsight, you could have actually had a match where if he lost, he got it shaved off or something like that. Like you could feel. If that would have been a discussion that happened four weeks in advance or six weeks in advance and you build a story around it, I mean, it would have been so much better. But this was probably, you know, let's see, we're shooting TV on Monday, Friday afternoon. He probably got a phone call from his agent. And there's going to be an audition on Wednesday.

So what can we do? I'm going to have to shave your mustache off anyway. Let's work it into a storyline. It's very conceivable that it came about kind of like within that kind of a time frame. You know, when we're thinking about, I know this sounds silly, but we've heard a lot of hair matches. I mean, we've all had like favorite hair matches. Maybe we remember this guy or that guy.

The facial hair is almost never a thing. But if a guy had a really long beard, man, that would take a lot longer to grow to growing your hair back out, right? that's a much bigger deal. Why don't we see more of that, do you think? I don't know. There isn't that in. I don't know. When you think about all the different looks that you went through in WCW, I don't necessarily mean you personally, but I mean there were lots of characters evolving. Ray Mysterio comes to mind. Was there a conversation you ever had with someone where you said, hey, I'd like for you to

cut your hair and they were hesitant or resistant to that? Do you remember having that situation in WCW? And I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't think I ever had that conversation. You know,

maybe somebody will pop up out of the woodwork and will say, remember that time back in catering when I ask you if I want, maybe something like that, but nothing comes to mind that was any kind of a serious conversation. One of the angles that Jeff's dad, Jerry, did in Memphis that Jeff still, talks about to this day is there was a match with Bill Dundee and Jerry Lawler. Jerry Lawler put his hair on the line and Bill Dundee put his wife's hair on the line

and everyone just assumed well of course Jerry's going to lose and Jerry won and they shave that woman's head. Mrs. Dundee got a haircut. Can you even imagine if they tried to pull that off in 2025 like would there be activist group after them or what would happen there? that is so ridiculous that I love it number one it's so Memphis it's not even funny that is if if you have to try to give a territory a personality that scene you just described the Memphis territory wow it's crazy what would happen if you did it today I I don't know, probably end up being some version of a Broadway play. I don't know, man, it's so crazy you could work. I don't know. I like it.

It's crazy fun. Wow. You know, this is the era where you're doing a two-hour nitro, and on this particular show, you're shaving off, you know, you've got, if Lex loses in his match with Randy Savage, he's got to leave WCW. You're shaving off Hulk Hogan's mustache. you've got Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko wrestling a match. You've got the giant chokeslamming dudes left and right.

And you've got Rick Flair and Arne Anderson in a match building towards or as a fallout of their September fall brawl pay-per-view. But really to set up the inevitable turn where it feels like Rick Flair at this point has no friends whatsoever, he's a man with no country and Sting is saying, hey, I'll have your back, but if you, you know, if you double cross me, I'll leave you for dead. And of course, we know exactly what happens. Rick does that, puts the horseman back together. But how much fun were the real life Rick, Claire, and Arne Anderson having working together? Because this is the only period of time where that really happened.

They were tag team partners forever. But the idea that they worked against each other, it's just these few months here, August, September, October of 95. Did they enjoy that or do you remember them being hesitant to do? that. I'm going to come back to that but and finish with that. But what was interesting the way you kind of described what was going on with the show this particular week and he kind of ran through who was on the card. What a well-balanced show that was. Yes. If I dare say so myself. If you look at, you know, from the Dusty Rose perspective of wrestling as a buffet

or whoever came up with that, I think it was dusty, meaning there's a little bit of something for everybody and like the best buffets of when you go and every selection is outstanding. You know, you got Rick Flair and Aaron Anderson. There's a segment of the WCW audience that was really, really into that. The former Jim Crockett promotion audience,

the Southeastern Territory. right for the territory people that grew up and were wrestling fans in their preteens and early teens were big fans of this in their 20s and early 30s that was a very important demo 18 to 39 18 to 45 really critical demo for nitro so that match served that audience you've got oh I don't know Eddie Guerrero and Ray Mysterio No, Dean Malinko. Yeah. Right? Pretty cutting-edge stuff at that time, right, for a mainstay. You've got the attraction, the giant. When he's early in his career, he was awesome because all he had to do is be a giant and choke slam people.

And it was so much fun. It was kind of like Goldberg sparing people. We just didn't let it last quite as long. But you have the attraction. You had the traditional audience. You had the new audience, the younger demo with Eddie and Dean. We had it all. But it was very well balanced.

Back to Rick and Arne. I couldn't tell you other than observing, you being around them after the show, backstage, you know, occasionally before the show, just in general, they were having a blast. from my perspective. Now, they may tell you differently. There may have been something going on I don't know about, but whenever I was around and after the shows, inevitably,

the energy was really positive. I suspect because they absolutely 100% trust in each other at that time in the ring. It probably outside of the ring, for all I know. But specifically in the ring, you know, they both knew that they were in there, with one of the very best in the business as far as their ability to tell stories and really put out a good show and they knew each other

inside and out. How could you not have fun doing that? It's not even like going to work. So that's my perspective though. We should mention, as a reminder, this is October 2nd, 1995, and this is the show

where Lex Luger wrestles Randy Savage, and if Lex loses, he has to leave the company. They shave off Wolf Cogan's mustache, Eddie Guerrero gets a win over Dean Malenko and Rick Clare wrestles Arne Anderson. Now, you might be asking yourself, self, what was Monday Night Raw doing? Razor Ramon beat the one, two, three kid in under three minutes. Hunter Hurst Helmsley, who was still the blue blood from Greenwich, Connecticut, beat Barry Horowitz in five and a half minutes.

PG-13, that's another Memphis Act, J.C. Ice and Wolfie D. Got a win over Al Brown and Sonny Rogers. It was an enhancement match. And Brett Hart wrestled John. Pierre Lafitte, aka the pirate. This is a terrible time for WWV creative, and yes, they have a lot

of stars, but they're not doing much with them, and they're not in their highest and best uses as of yet. You guys had a clearly better show that night. I mean, I think everyone would say objectively your show was better that night, don't you think? I would imagine,

but what's also obvious to me there is our show was targeting 18 to which was the mission for Nitro and their show based on what you just told me was the perfect illustration what i've been saying forever on this show wwe until we forced them to do to follow our lead however you want to say it was clearly targeting teens and preteens and just you describing the two shows should make that pretty clear if you're curious they were head to head and it was a tie 2.5 to a 2.5 to a 2.5 But listen, if I was a wrestling fan choosing between those two shows today in 2025, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd pick it up. The really interesting rating, because everybody likes to look at ratings and try to tell a story based on their biases.

But what would be really telling is to find out what the rating was the following week. It was tied again, 2.6, 2.6. Wow. Okay. I was hoping for a different number. I would have thought that it would have been up more than that. Yeah, the following week, two weeks later, Raw would actually go ahead, two six to two, two, but you would flip-flop it the next week and you would be two-sixth to their two-two. So we're knee-deep in the battle of the Monday Night Wars and you don't need to be doing battle in the restroom.

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fired up. Stay tuned. We'll do our YouTube comment on the week next week or in our next segment. But first, who do you think was Eric's most invaluable acquisition from WWE? Let us know in the comments below. Eric will start at the bottom of the list. It's only top five, so it's not really bottom of the list. Coming in at number five, you've got the one and only Rowdy, Roddy Piper. As a reminder, he was at WrestleMania in 1996 as a stand in for Scott Hall against skull dust in the back lot brawl of WrestleMania.

But then at the end of Halloween Havoc, right after Hulk Hogan had beaten Randy Savage, here came another icon from the 80s. I think it's fascinating that Roddy Piper did WrestleMania and Starcate in the same year. He's also the same guy who was on the first Starcate ever and the first WrestleMania ever. He was making trips back and forth here and he comes in at number five for you. why was his 1996 acquisition such a big deal Eric for me it kind of came from out of nowhere it's not like I was

having conversations about the possibility of bringing in Roddy as a matter of fact I wasn't looking to bring anybody in we had a pretty full roster I didn't feel like we had any additional needs at that time but Roddy became available and I learned about that through a guy by the name of Mitch Ackerman, who at the time was vice president of production at Disney Studios in Los Angeles, and Barry Bloom as well.

And they had set up a meeting at Mitch's house. Mitch and Roddy were really close friends and ended up just hitting it off. So, I mean, I don't think like the week before I had no intention to ever. I didn't, you know, Roddy was not even on my radar. And then he became available. He became interested. He put the, you know, Barry Bloom together. And Mitch Ackerman reached out to me.

And I went to Mitch's house. We had a great meeting. And I just got along with Roddy. I just enjoyed him. I enjoyed talking to him about creative. He was out there, like really, really out there. But he was one of those guys that, one of those people, I compare him to race horses. and I'm not like an expert on horse races.

But I know, generally speaking, that it's a lot easier to slow a fast horse down than it is to speed a slow horse up, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Roddy was a really fast horse. He was out there. Well, you could bring him back,

or you could take some of those ideas and kind of center them just a little bit, so they weren't quite as, outside the box is sometimes they were presented and you ended up with really good stuff and then you add to the fact that no matter what it is you planned

and what you thought you were going to get with Roddy Piper on a live television show you were always flying without a net you kind of thought you knew what was coming but you knew you couldn't be sure because Roddy wasn't sure And I kind of like that energy.

It made it fun and exciting, slightly dangerous. But that's where we were. That's where our stories were. That's where our characters were at that point in time. We're fever pitch with the MWO. So between my personal feelings about Roddy, having gotten to know him just a little bit, you know, business-wise, just my vibe for him

his reputation obviously had a tremendous amount of equity within the audience not like nobody knew who Roddy Piper was or his story and previous relationship with Hulk which kind of gives you an automatic

backstory to at least springboard from in one way shape or form so it was really important and it came along at a critical time and Roddy had a big impact Coming in at number four on Eric's top five list of acquisitions from WWB was the macho man Randy Savage. I mean, this is a big one.

Clearly one of the biggest icons of 80s wrestling. When you think about that golden era of WWF, I think most people agree, Hulk Hogan's biggest star in the world is certainly in that genre. But Randy Savage was probably the number two for the 80s, don't you think? Yeah. I was just sitting here thinking, what's a good analogy or metaphor I could use?

And I can't think of one other than, you know, Hulk Hogan coming to WCW was like seeing a giant piece of snow coming down from the side of a mountain. Randy was like not as big as a big chunk of snow, but he's like the littler chunks that start coming when the avalanche begins. right so you get the big break and then you get some smaller breaks and start coming and before you know what the whole side of the mountain is coming down around you and randy was that randy was hulk came first and it obviously got everybody's attention but when randy came it signaled something different hulk coming signaled one thing randy joining hulk and leaving he left in a he left an opportunity to be announcer randy didn't want to be a color commentator Vince thought that randy's career was over in the ring thought he was too old he aged out

so he wanted randy doing color randy didn't want to do color because he didn't think he was aged out he still believe he had he had tread on the tire in the ring and he believed in himself so much that he said no i'm not doing that i'm going over there and he came you know it it it almost was as important as Hulk coming over in the sense that it gave permission a lot of to a lot of other guys who might not have previously felt comfortable exploring an opportunity in WWE or excuse me at WCW to at least start having conversations and are you saying that Eric because other guys would say well yeah of course they do that for Hulk but I'm not Hulk and they felt like Savage was more relatable to them more relatable but

Randy was also paranoid as hell and everybody knew it. So if Randy was making that move, I got you. Might, might be something to it. Let me ask you, you know, I know you're not Randy Savage and you're not in the mind of Randy,

but do you think the performer in him, because I thought about this a lot, like if Hulk Hogan, you know, let's say he retired after WrestleMania three or four or whatever, like let's say no holds barred is a huge hit and he becomes a megastar. and Hollywood came calling, Savage had all of that built-in equity from the megapowers and getting that rub and becoming the world champ at WrestleMania 4.

I mean, how do you follow WrestleMania 3 with Hogan and Andre? You have Hulk Hogan endorse Randy Savage. That's what happens a year later. So it was a big deal. But I've often wondered, hey, if Hogan sort of pieces out and say 88 with the success of the box office of 89 and he just says, I'm full-time Hollywood. would now. I think everybody would have understood if that opportunity presented itself. It didn't work out that way. But Savage had to think, if Hulk's not here, I'm the top guy.

He may have thought that in 88 because that's what happened. When Hulk left to make the movie, Savage was the top guy. But when Hulk came back, of course, Savage moved down the cards a little bit. So my question is, when Hulk leaves for WCW in 93, do you think subconsciously somewhere in the back of his mind, he may have thought, hey, now's my chance? And when he got the insight from Vince, that he was going with the youth movement. He realized, not only do I not have a chance to take Hulk's spot, I might not even be on the freaking show the way I want to be. I don't know.

And I've never had those conversations with Randy in terms of whether or not he thought he could be the number one guy in WWE with Hulk gone. I didn't get that impression. Randy made it really clear. He just wanted to work. He wanted to work in the ring. that he just was convinced that he had more to offer as an in-ring performer. And he just wasn't ready to give it up.

It was really that simple. And I don't think, I really don't think Randy cared whether he was the top guy in WWF at the time or whether he was just prominently featured on the card and able to work in the ring. He just wanted the juice. He wanted the fix of going out there and performing. he still had so much that he wanted to give he wasn't ready to cash it in and Vince wasn't ready to have him not cashed in so I never got the impression he was worried about being the top guy do you think he could have been the top guy because he was always top guy adjacent like

it was Hogan and Savage was his friend don't get me wrong not being ugly just being honest he was never really positioned as the top guy even when he's the world champ Hogan is in the orbit somewhere. Like, you don't think that's sort of gnaught at him on some level? Like, I want to prove that I can be the top guy because as a wrestling fan, I totally buy Savage as a top guy,

don't you? Yes and no, to be really honest about it, there are a certain, I think wrestling is no different than acting. It's exactly the same. It's just a different

kind of acting really some people are just born as stars some of them don't even have a great deal of talent let me take them back some of them are huge stars but not because of their talent there you go some people have a tremendous amount of talent but they're lacking that something that allows them to become a star. I mean the star, not a co-star, not a supporting cast member. And I don't think Randy had that quality that the audience would have embraced as a long-term megastar, a rock, a John C. An Undertaker, Hogan, Flair. He just didn't provide, and it had nothing to do with talent.

And it was amazing. He was so unique. He was so gifted in so many ways. But there was that something that was missing. Don't know what it is. And I think there's other stars today that fall into that same category. and other stars in the past that fall into that category. Brett Hart comes to mind.

Brett Hart was so good from a technical perspective. There's probably nobody that didn't want to work with Brett Hart because much like Rick Blair, in Brett's own way, and Rick Zillian, they were different people. But the one thing they had in common is they could make just about anybody they work with look good. In fact, they could make anybody they work with look great in some cases. So anybody in their right mind would want to work with a Rick Flair or Brett Hart.

And because of that, they were very elevated up the card. But with the exception of Rick, and I can't go into the NWA era and all that because I wasn't around. I wasn't paying attention to that. And we'll just focus on Brett because I think he's actually a better example. Brett Hart was so good in so many ways. we can all agree to that. Yeah. But there was something missing.

They tried it. WWE tried it with him. And Brett's always got an excuse. I always working with Bad News Brown. I'm always supposed to have charisma if I'm working with Bad News Brown. Okay, it's Bad News Brown's fault. You don't have any charisma. There was always a reason why Brett was prevented because of somebody else

for actually making it to the very top for an extended period of time. To be in the same category. as a Rick Clare or a John Sina or Steve Austin or an undertaker. Brett never got there. Not because it was anybody else's fault or not even because it was Brett's fault. Brett was just not born with that one thing that kind of put you into that star category. You can call charisma. You can call it whatever you want.

It's a presence. And you either have that presence or you don't. And you could have a tremendous amount of skills in every other. area. But if you don't have that one thing that makes you a star, that one intangible thing that is consistent with everybody who is a star and consistently lacking in those people who never quite get there, whatever that is, Randy kind of fell into that category. I hope that made sense and that sound disrespectful, but it's true. It's the same thing in Hollywood. You look at people who are never going to be stars, but they're always going to be

working with a star. There's a reason for that. Do you remember there ever being discussions that you had with Savage or Piper? Did they ever express to you that they felt offended by their previous WCW negotiations? As the story goes, Jim Hurd was really high on both of these guys and would have loved to have been able to snag them, but I guess he just didn't have the budget for that. Have you heard that did they say anything like that no did you know go ahead sorry no this is the first time hearing anything like that do you um did you know right away that you would be able to underwrite a lot of savages salary with a slim gym deal or does he present that in person or how does that conversation come to be

probably not in the very first conversation, but definitely in the second or third one. Like it wasn't front and center. Front and center was creative. Randy was feeling me out, kind of feeling out the situation. Hulk was there, and Hulk was instrumental in getting Randy to join, by the way.

I mean, they had this weird, you know, love-hate relationship. And at that time, it was Hulk that called me, And it was Randy called Hulk, Hulk called me, I called Randy. You know, that was the three-way phone tag. Randy was really feeling me out a little bit because he didn't know anything about me. Right. But once we got past the feeling out, let's get to know each other conversation, which probably will last one conversation because I don't spend a lot of time doing that shit.

We got into, okay, how is this going to work? And that's probably when Slim Jim came into the picture. And Randy put me in touch with Slim Jim right away. I mean, guys that Slim Jim were as excited about Randy coming to WCW as Randy was. Because Slim Jim wasn't going to get a lot of love with Randy as a commentator. Still get a presence. Still be there. But not quite the same thing as Randy in the ring.

I do want to ask you, do you think with the benefit, hindsight that Savage deserves more credit for the Nitro boom, I know that he played his role with the NWO, but when you go back to the very early era of Nitro, it feels like his feud with Randy Savage and the involvement with Miss Elizabeth. I mean, that really was a shot in the arm to WCW House show business, and he was such an identifiable character. Like every wrestling fan or anyone who had watched wrestling in the last 10 years knew who the macho man was. He was such a pop culture icon at that point. And I feel like when we talk about the success of Nitro,

we almost immediately talk about Sting and Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan and the NWO. It almost feels like we sort of gloss over Savage a little bit, don't you think? Yeah, I think this part of because Savage moved around a lot. You know, his character kind of changed fairly regularly within WCW. And it was always good. He was always doing something fun.

Um, No, I don't think Randy is underappreciated when it comes to the success of Nitro because he had so many moments that people do recognize. But I don't think, you know, if I look at it from his perspective, to answer the question, would Nitro have been any less successful if Randy would never have joined? Probably not. Did it become any more successful specifically because Randy was part of it? probably not but was randy absolutely one of the top contributors along with a lot of other people at the time a number of other people that were core contributors absolutely he was but it would be hard to go you know if it wasn't for that thing that we did with randy and this match over

here and that storyline nitro would have NWO whatever nitro would have never been as hot i can't honestly say that the big question everybody wants to know with the benefit of hindsight How bizarre is it that McMahon didn't have him locked down where he couldn't leave? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a story to that. I don't know it. But it is kind of interesting because you would think after Hulk Hogan left,

that would have been kind of like, all right, better button up. Better button things up here because things are not the way they used to be anymore. and clearly he didn't do that with her any other may be a reason why he didn't do it he may have undervalued randy to the point where he didn't think randy would go to wcw or didn't for whatever reason perhaps vincent didn't think wcd would take randy savage i don't know it's hard to imagine but it is unique that he didn't have locked up given what he just went through with hulk oh man you said there's a story there and Maybe it makes me wonder, do we need to get into Cloud to have that story?

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and a better mood showing up right to your door. And as always, please enjoy responsibly. And huge thanks to Enda Cloud for sponsoring today's episode. Eric, let's talk about number three on your top five acquisitions from WWB. No surprise here. The Big Bang, Kevin Nash. comes in at number three i got i mean this just feels like a laydown to me but i'm surprised since very shortly after he makes his debut he sent you on a pretty rough crash landing why does

kevin nash come in at number three kevin nash was chapter two of a three chapter book called the nwl and really all the the last three guys really you can interchange them in some respects, at least with Scott, and Scott is number two, Hulk is number one, so I'm going to spill those beans, but I have to do that in order to kind of frame this. Kevin and Scott coming in, because really it was a tandem creative strategy, intentionally from the get-go, once I knew Scott became available, once Scott became available, and then And it seems like within a week or so, Kevin Nash became available. The idea for the NWO started to form in my head, as we've discussed many times in the past.

Scott Hall coming down, Kevin Nash showing up is a surprise. Who's the third man? Ooh, Hulk Hogan sees this on a VHS that Jimmy Hart sent him. Ten days later, he's calling me, wanted me to come out to L.A. Hulk wants to be the third man. All of that happened. but it started with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. I mean, those two are like number one, number two A and two B,

and we should eliminate number three. But it was such a pivot point in WCW. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, together. They came in at different times, obviously, on the calendar, but they kind of both came in at the same time for the same reason. definitely a major pivot point not only for WCW but for the freaking industry to this day well no doubt about it you've already spilled the beans number two on your list they go together like peas and carrots we're talking about Kevin Nash and of course number

two Scott Hall the outsiders is it just because he's first or was it he had a bigger personality. I mean, why, why does Scott Hall come in at number two over Kevin Nash? It was. Oh. Maybe because he came in first. Maybe because he's the first one to reach out to me and Kevin Cole the week later. I don't know. It's just how in my mind the way it plays out.

And there's really no justifiable formula for it. It's just the way. deal we know that uh scott hall was upset that his income fell significantly in 1995 it was a bad year for the w w f i think as bruce tells the story events would often say he had to pull six million dollars out of his ass meaning that was just a loss there was a lot of red ink and he's having to self-fund the thing at that point it can no longer just stand on its own so the boys start to feel that they're paid on the houses too and they're looking for, as the old wrestling cliche goes, the money in the miles.

And I think the guarantee was important, but almost equally important, at least for Hall and Nash, was the limited number of dates because they had families or they wanted to, right? Yes. Kevin was starting his family. And Scott had one. And look, we say limited number of dates. It was 180 dates that we could book them.

but guess what there's a travel day on each side of those dates right so it's not like they were working on a part-time schedule right there were still 250 days away from home in their world or so potential but at least it represented stability yes it was better than 325 days away from home. 250 was better than 350, I guess. And it was also the stability of the income. How do you get a more, you're in the mortgage business. You're in a mortgage company. It's really tough for people to get mortgages when they've got jobs that sometimes they pay them a lot. Sometimes they pay them not so much. It's hard to budget that. It's hard to plan for that. It makes life, you know, challenging when you're a freelancer and you don't know from week to

week or year to year, how much you're going to make? How do you plan for retirement that way? I mean, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it makes it much more complicated and challenging and hard to stay on track. So coming to WCW, they weren't going to make potentially as much money as potentially they could in WWE because of the nature of pay structure. But I don't think either one of them felt like they were going to end up in that top of the card position for any long period of time to make the.

the serious money that could have been made potentially. I think they both recognized how Vince perceived them on the ladder of characters. And it would make a lot of money, but they'd be given up so much of their life to do it. They looked at WCW and went, huh, I guaranteed money looks awful sweet. This is at least as much or more than I'm making now. And I get to be home with my family. go do that and that's really all it was based on what they told me again i realize it's hard to compare back in the now but i just want to draw a comparison because i think the number that we've

often heard for these guys on their first contract is 750 000 or as a lot of people would throw it around sting money that was an industry term once upon a time and the idea that they're going to come in for that amount of money back then felt like a king's ransom but by today's standard If you adjust that number for inflation, that's like a little over $1.5 million and $2,25. And I don't think anyone could argue or dispute that they were worth that. By today's dollars, there's probably two dozen guys who make more than 1.5. And I would argue, respectfully, that very little had the effect, not nearly, not all of them had the effect that Kevin Nash and Scott Hall had on WCW for that money, don't you think? a hundred percent i don't think probably half of them added together generated as much revenue

as scott holl and kevin nash were responsible for in wcw well to the surprise of no one i mean we already know what's coming the absolute number one biggest acquisition from the w w f for wcd is holt kogan it changed everything when he comes in and you announce the match with Ted, with Rick Flair, it's the first time Ted Turner says, hey, let me be on camera. I want to do the contract signing for this. It was big business. It meant a lot to Ted. It meant a lot to WCW.

They set a gate record, an attendance record, a pay-per-view record. Every record WCW had was shattered after Hulk's very first pay-per-view. That gets lost. People want to immediately jump into, oh, they were tired of the yellow and red. They may have been eventually, but they weren't in July of 94. And man, when he turned heel, it was like trying to drink water from a fire hydrant. Just how massive and immediate the success was for WCW. I mean, just from a licensing standpoint, not just the things we saw on camera,

but behind the scenes, this is the most significant jump in wrestling history. Is it not? It is. And in so many ways of people, you know, we don't talk about much. But here's one small example, not sexy, not cool. not going to be a headline in anybody's dirt sheet. But one of the reasons that we began to get more favorable pay-per-view scheduling opportunities is because of Hulk Hogan.

WCW was not on anybody's list of things to get excited about when it came to pay-per-view distribution because we didn't have a track record of generating revenue. So we had no leverage in negotiations or discussions. We were on the wrong end of a 60-40 split when I took over the company, meaning we'd do a pay-per-view, we'd charge somebody a dollar, the pay-per-view distributor would get 60 cents, we would get 40 cents. Hulk Hogan comes along and we're 50-50. We pick up a 10% margin on pay-per-view just because Halko is on the team.

Now, 10% margin doesn't seem like much. three, four, $5 million of pay-per-view, $10 million of pay-per-view? It's a lot. It's a lot more than we were paying Hulk. It shows up on the bottom line, but it doesn't make any headlines. That's just one example. And then you look at the licensing and merchandising opportunities you just brought up. We couldn't even have a serious conversation with anybody that was legitimate in that business

because they all knew we weren't licensing. our product was so fucking dead nobody wanted to put our brand on their product it is it was what it was until it wasn't and it wasn't because of Hulk Hogan all of a sudden people that wouldn't even return our phone calls in the in the licensing industry we're now reaching out to us because Hulk had a track record they knew they could bet on it they knew what they could expect or thought they could expect. So he changed so many things in so many ways that impacted the bottom line in so many ways beyond Professor Dave Meltzer's analysis and the dirt sheet analysis and the common

just narrative that only measures how so ticket sales and questionably pay-per-view. And nobody knows anything about how ad sales operate. So that number never gets impacted in these discussions or referenced even in these discussions. But across all metrics that you can imagine, licenseeer merchandising, pay-per-view, ad sales, sponsorships, anything else that's out there, it all scaled up 48 hours after Hall Cogan joined WCW. And then you look at what happens afterwards. Randy Savage comes along. I don't think Randy would have made that move.

If Hall Cogan wouldn't have made it first, I really don't. I didn't fan. I still don't. In fact, I didn't fan and I'm even more convinced now. He never would have done that. Hulk Cogan was the canary in the coal mine for Randy. If Colcogne came to WCW and said, hey, Randy, you might like it here? Randy's gone.

And that's exactly what happened. Hulk Hogan doesn't show up in WCW. Randy's not coming. He's sticking with the sure money. Because Randy was tight with his cash too, by the way. He was smart with his money. He would have stayed where he stayed, but he was willing to take the risk because of Hulk.

So so many things that just looking at the surface of the information that's available, you don't really appreciate the impact sometimes that certain individuals have or certain strategies have. but I don't think anybody can underestimate or undervalue what Hall Cogan brought to WCW. No doubt about it. I think Hulk Hogan is going to be number one on everybody's list. But do you disagree with Eric on one through five? We know coming in at number one was Hulk Hogan.

Number two was Scott Hall. Number three was Kevin Nash. Number four, which I'll admit, I don't know that I would have guessed it this way, Randy Savage. And then number five, Roddy Piper. I don't think I would have put Piper on the list. I don't know who it would have been, but I was shocked to see five for Piper for you. What is your top five?

Let us know in the comments below. We definitely want to know who your top five acquisitions were that WCW picked up from WWE. And next week, we're going to talk about the top five reasons the WCW invasion failed in WWE. So when we get to return the favor, like we know what the NWO sort of invasion angle was with the outsiders and the success that led to WCW, why when we finally got to live out the cover of all those after magazines, it didn't

work? We'll get Eric's take on those top five reasons next week here on the show. But right now, I want to talk about last week with our YouTube comment of the week. Eric, last week, a ton of our listeners were buzzing about the top five reasons the the NWO failed in WWE. Everybody put on their fantasy booking hats and it was kind of fun. And I liked this one. It comes from Johnny Skinwalker 4095. He says,

I love the idea of these guys showing up not together. He's talking, of course, about Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall of Kevin Nash. But what I would have done is a strategy to take over. You bring Hogan first and you promote his coming in in a big way. The WWF fans cannot wait to see their conquering hero. he comes back in red and yellow. You can have Austin or Rock

do a promo with him in the ring, and then you set up a match with him at WrestleMania. How about against Taker since he was a heel at the time? At the end, Big Show appears, wanting to cost Hogan the match, but it backfires and he punches Taker and it leads to Hogan doing a rollout and Taker is counted

1, 2, 3. Meanwhile, Hall and Nash are in the crowd still watching the show, and then of course Hall and Nash immediately joined the company as well. All of them are painted as good guys wanting to make amends but of course it would be them playing possum and big show would join them and reforming the NWO in a big important moment so let's just take that beginning premise idea what do you think let's bring in Hogan first in the yellow and red get that out of our system and then we go to the NWO thing could that have worked

it's kind of like we talked about last week where almost anything that would have had a story would have worked as opposed to the evil Vince McMahon bringing in the NWO to ruin his own company. That was such a flawed premise from the get-go. Anything other than that would have worked better than that. This would have worked because it would have been some, this part of it. I was half interested in this part of it. It falls apart for me later on, just because it's kind of typical overbooking. There's a little too much going on there with the giant and all that.

But the opening, opening part of it was interesting. Well, we want to hear from you guys. Jump in and let us know right now what you think the top five acquisitions WCW had from WWE. And maybe you could be next week's YouTube comment of the week. Promotional consideration paid for by the following. Shout out to our boys. Blue Chew. Guys, this time to enter the room, do it first. Blue Chew's not just a tablet.

It's a cheat code for your crotch. Stronger, harder, longer lasting. Like somebody gave your downstairs a pep talk at a gym membership. Blue Chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets for better sex. I tried Blue Chew and now my hog has a zip code and voting rights. Guys, this isn't just about performance. This is about legacy or your third legacy. Give her group chat something to talk about. Nothing makes you more of a legend. than a little Blue Chew, go discover your options right now at bluechew.com, and we've got a special deal for our listeners. As always, get your first month of Blue Chew free.

Just use the promo code 83 weeks and check out. Pay five bucks for shipping. That's it. Join Blue Chew's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust at a time and head on over to bluechew.com for details and important safety information. And a big thanks to Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast and Eric's Weiner. It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary. Raj, what's going on, man?

How are you? Hey, guys. How's it going on? Man, we are delighted to be here with you. There's so much going on in wrestling. I guess I want to start with the biggest news that as we're watching on, as we're recording this on Thursday, called everybody off guard last night. Andrade is back in AEW.

This guy has figured out like the Jeff Jarrett hack. He's able to go back and forth. My buddy Matt Coon on Twitter said he pulled a Rick Ruto, which made me laugh. How does this happen, Roche? Well, he had a few wellness policy violations. And so the latest one happened around SummerSlam time, which is why he hadn't been on television after SummerSlam. And apparently, WWE just decided it was time to partway.

So they fired him outright with there was no 30-day, waiting period or the customary 90-day, you know, waiting period. He was, he was a free agent as soon as he was fired. So, you know, generally, most of the WWU releases lately have been usually budgetary. And so they usually include that 90-day non-compete, but in the case of Andrade, it didn't. Eric, I don't know how much Andrade is on your radar, but we know that, you know, he's been a really talented wrestler in Mexico, in Japan.

He had a stint in WW, AEW, back in WW, now back in AEW, this is amazing. I mean, he switched companies as many times as Big Show went face and heel back in the day. What do you expect? Is this just based on wrestle dream? Do you think, Eric, and it's going to be Kenny Omega and Andrade, or do you think, you know, hey, if WWE is doubling down on their Lucha offerings, we need more of that here in AEW? I can't make any sense of it. And part of it is because I just don't know enough about Andrade or anything else that's going on in TNA's universe, or excuse me, in AEW's universe to project, you know, what could be going on there.

It seems like an odd decision to me, an odd choice. Now for Andrade, I mean, where else is he going to go? So he had one option left other than, you know, going straight indie. I'm sure he's making a lot of money, which is a smart move on his part. I'd do the same if I was him. But does anybody think anything unique is going to happen with him there? Is it going to matter six weeks from now? Probably not.

It's just another one of those, oh, he's signed. This is crazy. Oh, I'm so glad to have him back. Let's make it look like everybody's happy's here. Okay, everybody's happy's here. And six weeks from now, it'll be whatever happened to. It'll be in the witness protection program.

Let me ask you about that, Ron. Do you think that Andrade is actually signed or is this a special event? I mean, Russell Dream was almost like a crossover year in years past where there was a new Japan presence and an AEW presence. Could he be making this as a new Japan appearance or a CMLL appearance? Do you think that will be the way it's framed or do you think Andrade is actually back inside the tent, Raj?

I believe he signed. And it's been a while since they've gotten, you know, a star from WWE. You know, it's kind of been going the other way a lot lately. So it is someone with some name value. I see Eric's point that it probably won't matter much in a month or so. But, I mean, they clearly are putting him in a big feud with Kenny Omega right off the bat. So they're not wasting their time with utilizing them and making their money off of them.

So it's good for him. And hopefully it works out because, you know, there's only so many chances you get going back. and forth before people give up on you. So, you know, I hope he makes the most of it and I hope it works out. I mean, he must have, you know, some pretty interesting redeeming qualities for people to, sorry guys, I had to stand up,

my knees getting stiff. He must have some potential or some redeemable qualities that people see that makes it worth taking the risk because clearly WWE and AEW again has been willing to take the risk. So maybe the reports of what went on

previously just weren't really that bad. I don't know. It seems interesting, though. Again, I wasn't there. I don't know, but allegedly there was a physical altercation between him and Sammy Guevara a long time ago in AEW. And I think that amongst other things is why Dave Meltzer has come out so hard against this signing. Where do you land on this, Raj? Do you think, are you with Dave? I know you guys aren't normally aligned. Do you think that this was a bad signing or do you think it was a good pickup? I mean, I don't, I feel like you don't want to, you don't want to look weak either. You don't want to make it look like you'll just take somebody back from WWE just because they're available.

And, you know, he did have some issues there. So I kind of agree with Dave on this one. I'd almost make him weighted out, see how he, you know, performs on the Indies. And, you know, if he really shows that desire and really wants to come back and help the company, then bring him back. But not right away. I wouldn't, but, you know, at the same time, I don't want to be voicing an opinion against somebody making a living. So it's great for him, but I agree with Dave on that one. I probably would have waited.

I just find it interesting that Dave came out so hard against this, you know, like, in the scheme of things, who cares? I don't know. It felt like he took this signing personally a little bit. Yeah, he seemed very offended, which, I mean, he went on like an 11-minute rant on on the latest rest of the radio. So he definitely has strong feelings for it. I don't get having that strong of a feeling against anyone getting a job. Has Dave lost his shit or what?

I mean, is it just me or is he getting crazier by the day? At times, it shocked me at times where I'm just like, oh, you know, what's going on here, you know? you know back in the day you know Dave has a general like for a certain type of wrestling and that's no big deal um and that's his opinion but it's correct more and more into his analysis of the business and data which i know a lot of people turn to him for and it's now he proves hourly that he doesn't have a clue he is the most out of touch absolutely out of touch and this is coming from a 70 year old for crying out loud he's the most

out of touch person and the internet wrestling community that regularly talks about the business of the wrestling business he's fucking clueless yeah i can't really uh can't really say much to that I mean, it has, you know, a lot of his stuff that he said over the years, especially the last, like, really the last five years, five, six years has really kind of surprised me. And, you know, now kind of claiming that dynamites getting more, kind of getting better numbers than raw and things like that where it just does not pass the sniff test at all. And you see what SmackDown's doing. It just does not pass the sniff test at all. I mean, just standing back, looking at, you know, common sense, it's just, and you see the attendance numbers, and you see how it's fallen and fallen for AEW. And with AEW, anytime their TV ratings have done well, their attendance has got it.

When their attendance has gone down, it's when the TV ratings have gone down. So you take out all the max nonsense and you just look at actual numbers you can prove, and it just hasn't shown to be the case. it's great entertainment i will say that Eric let's talk a little bit about 90 day non-competes i know that that wasn't really applicable to andrade because he was released you know not like his contract was he was fired i mean let's just call it what it is he's gone and so now he can go work anywhere i think i like that better and i guess what i'm getting to is as a wrestling fan

i think it's a net positive if we don't have to wait 90 days and I get from a business standpoint you would say well strategically if we've got that investment with them blah blah blah i almost go hey man if they were really moving the needle you probably wouldn't be firing them and letting them go in the first place so what does it really matter in the scheme of things is that an old played out thing that we can do away with in wrestling like wrestling fans would enjoy it more if you were on a show one day and then you're on the the opposition the next day that is more fun it is more exciting and in the scheme of things does it really matter Does it really affect either company, either way, Eric, today in 2025?

Sure, it does. To your point, and I think Raj touched on it as well. It affected AEW, didn't it? They got to take somebody that was fresh off. Now, granted, he got fired, and he's not necessarily a big star. He wasn't being positioned in a powerful way. He wasn't involved in any big main storylines recently. So it's not like a big WWE stars coming to AEW.

but it's a guy who's relatively underutilized for whatever reason who got fired, who's now coming to AEW, and they still manage to make a big deal out of it or try to. Once that wears off, we'll figure out where it goes. But to your question, does it affect either company either way? In this particular case, it clearly affected AEW. They made an effort because it affected them or the opportunity. affected them to make a big deal out of it. Cool. Here's where it can get complicated. Again, using Andrata, and this is me not knowing anything about what was going on in WWE with him at the time.

But since he wasn't involved in any high profile stories, he probably wasn't moving any merchandise. If there was any merchandise out on him, there were probably no other promotional opportunities that they could have used him for, knowing that they wanted to get rid of them anyway or they didn't have confidence in them in a public-facing manner, you know, showing up at a licensing show or representing WWE in any kind of, you know, public manner. They probably scratched them off those opportunities

and there's no reason not to just let them go. But what if you've got somebody who you don't necessarily have an adversarial relationship with? You're not terminating for cause. You're simply having to cycle this person out for budgetary reasons, and you may want to do business with them again. That's a good reason to give them 90 days because they get paid for 90 days and they can take that 90 days while they're getting paid and not having to go to work to figure out how they're going to go to work after the 90 days is up. So it benefits the talent in some cases. And you may also have a situation where that talent may have been obligated.

scheduled for personal appearances, promotional purposes. You may be doing a talk show at a local Des Moines, Iowa, you know, morning drive time radio station to promote an event. And you want to wrap that stuff up. So there's reasons why 90 days can work for the talent as well as work for the company. And there's reasons why if it doesn't exist, a company can take advantage of it as AEW did. I mean, I hear you, Eric, but it feels like just a minute ago you said in six weeks, this won't matter.

It won't matter. I'm telling you what could happen, not what will happen. Okay. All right. Well, there's the difference. I appreciate that. Right now, I want to take a time out and talk to you about our friends at Legal Buddy. You know, life happens fast.

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The Legal Buddy app, always on your side. Download the app today and enter the referral code. legal. Raj, there's some other news this week I want to touch on. You know, Johnny Ace is back in the news. We haven't heard his name in quite a while. What's going on there? Yeah, he's, he was recently subpoenaed.

This is, this is that lawsuit that's led by the Ohio Laborer's Pension Fund that was filed. It's been almost two years. It was November, 2023. And so Johnny Ace was not a defendant. He was just subpoenaed, so they're, you know, getting written statements and things like that as they're moving forward. But the defendants are Vince McMahon, Nick Kahn, Polovec, and the WWE co-presidents at that time, George Barrios and Michelle Wilson. And the lawsuit,

you know, alleges that Vince didn't do what was right for the stakeholders with the merger with the UFC to start TKO. And so that is the, that is the crux of it. And they're saying that it's because the UFC and TKO, they were willing to take Vince back. That's why he chose to make that deal as opposed to other possible deals that were out there. That includes how Liberty was one of them, Liberty KKR, Liberty Media KKR. And they were allegedly interested in buying WWE. Vince went with the merger with the UFC.

And they're alleging that because of the Janelle Grant lawsuit, you know, that's Wade Vince's decision to go with the UFC. And so I'm sure John Laurenitis, who was part of that Janelle Grant lawsuit, he was dropped from that lawsuit back in May. He was originally a defendant dropped from that lawsuit in May. And now he was dropped after he said he would help them obtain evidence against Vince. So I'm sure that's part of it, trying to figure out what that evidence is. But that's the crux of the lawsuit.

The one tough thing is that when this lawsuit was filed, the TKO stock was hovering around 80 bucks a share. And now, you know, it's over, it's about, it's at about 200. So it's on almost 90s. Yeah, that's a little bit of a problem. It's called proving damages. Right. Yeah, exactly. But Rajin was interesting about that.

And I get, you know, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I've been sued enough times to pretend I am one on TV or podcast. this case. But those other potential suitors, they brought money. They didn't bring the strategic play that TKO brought. I mean, you can't, I would imagine a large part of the defense in a case like this in defending the decision to go with TKO is because the strategic benefit. There's a lot of parallels between the two business. There's a lot of parallel between the audiences, between the advertisers, the venues that they all use. It would be, for whatever reason you think Vince may have wanted to make that choice, the obvious benefits of the strategic

partnership far outweigh it. So it'll be fun to listen to the arguments on that one. Yeah. I mean, if you kind of step back and look at it, you know, with a hundred foot view, it seems like a no-brainer now. You know, the synergies that were there, you know, at the time, I think everyone was expecting WWE to get sold to a media company, you know, like Disney or NBCU. Or Saudi. Or Saudi, yeah. Remember that?

Rumors about Saudi. And so, you know, now looking at it, it just seems like it makes all the sense of the world, the synergies that are there. Now they're expanding into boxing. So it definitely does make sense. But, you know, we'll see if they have proof that Vince kind of, swayed the way the sale went. It'll be interesting to see.

But, you know, again, like you said, the damages part's going to be hard to do when that stock is, you know, up 98% since they went public. I do want to ask, Raj, is the inference here, you know, when they're trying to press this issue that maybe there was some sort of, and again, I don't know,

I'm asking, do you think there was some sort of a backdoor deal? Is that what they're alleging that, hey, the folks are Emmanuel and the folks in Endeavour, and they knew here's what's going on with Vince. He's got this legal issue, but we don't care. We're going to keep him in power. And maybe Vince thought, hey, by doing a deal with these guys, I could still stay in power,

whereas I may be forced or leveraged out otherwise. Is that what they're basically alleging that they had some sort of an understanding? And obviously it didn't work out that way. Vince is on the outs. But is that the thinking or rationale? What would Vince's motivation have been otherwise to do a deal? like this, right? Yeah, absolutely. You're exactly right. That that's basically what they're alleging is that Vince orchestrated that deal to ensure that he remained in power because a

different deal, they probably would have kicked him out or gotten rid of him. So this deal ensured that he, you know, because when the deal started, he was in charge of WWE as Dana White, you know, in charge of UFC. So it ensured he was in power. And then obviously everything came out And that was not, that quickly went away. But that's what they're saying is that he made this deal at that time to to remain in power when another company probably wouldn't have that. Raj, you know this space better than I. I'm just going to ask a question because I'm just a country boy from Alabama trying to learn.

When we have these two personal assistance events who are now going to, I guess they're being subpoenaed for documents, people never even talk about their names. We don't have to say them here. but he has two personal assistance one's a trainer one helps with everything else i think but i read that they're actually being documents that they've been requested to provide i don't remember seeing that before because i don't know that they ever worked for w we maybe they did they were always just fences personal assistance i guess my question is could anything that's used in discovery for this particular lawsuit about the merger

could those documents then be used in some of these other lawsuits or is that a whole other cattle of fish? Usually when you see lawsuits like this, they get settled. So I would be surprised if this went to trial. But I mean, the case is currently in discovery. So there's more depositions that are going to be occurring. Liberty Media, you know, I mentioned KKR, the private equity firm. They both, they're scheduled to be deposed. So, you know, it's hard to say right now, but it would be interesting if more stuff came out. Eric, I want to ask about John Laurenitis. You know, you had a chance to get to know him better than Raj and I ever would.

But most people who are listening to this podcast, we don't know anything about him. He's never done an interview. He's never done a shoot interview. He's never written a book. There's not a bunch of quotes out there. I don't think that the internet wrestling community really knows anything about John Laurinitis, other than what they've read online from Dave Meltzer. or The Observer or Brandon Thurston or something like that.

What can you tell us about Johnny Ace? Can you give us any context to who he is as a person? Because I feel like any time I see his name online, it's always met with like an eye roll and ugh. And it's like nobody even really knows this guy, but you did get to know him a little bit. Yeah, I got to know John in, I can't remember the year.

It might have been late 98 or early 99. I brought John in because I needed I've talked about this so many times on the show. Finishes sucked, and I knew it, I knew it in 93, I knew it in 95, I knew it 97, and I knew it 98, 99. We didn't have somebody who really had a good handle on finishes. And Paterson wasn't available, but I kept hearing guys that I knew. Now, I had never met Johnny before. I knew his brother, Joe.

I never met Johnny didn't really hear much about Johnny I knew he was part of a tag team called the surf dudes or some shit yeah whatever they were I knew of that and I knew that he was Joe's brother but I really didn't know much more than that other than he had been working in Japan I think it was for all Japan and he was in charge of their finishes or at least finishes for a lot of the American matches that would come over. And I was looking for somebody that was really knowledgeable, specifically in Japanese-style finishes.

So I found out that Johnny was available, and we had a quick meeting or two, got along with them really great, Minnesota guy, mutual friends. We didn't know each other, but we knew a lot of the same people. so it was very easy to get comfortable with Johnny for me. I ended up leaving shortly thereafter, but Johnny was going to be my version of Paterson and have a strong handle on talent relations as well.

That was the plan that I had for Johnny when I brought him in, whatever year that was. I didn't really get a chance to work Johnny much after that. We worked together for a few months, and I loved working with him. I loved his approach to finishes. He was easy to communicate with, meaning he understood. You didn't have to go into great detail. He regressed concepts quickly, and would approve upon them. You know, when he gave him an idea, sketched out a quick finish or squatched out a quick scene. He was able to take that information and kind of shape it and tweak it and make it better, which is what I was

looking for. So nothing but positive things to say about Johnny. We stayed in touch. Obviously, he went to WWE. I ultimately went to WWE. We worked together at the same time. Off and on while we were both there. Always got along with him. I enjoyed his company. Didn't hang out a lot, really just social bullet shows. And I didn't really get to know him beyond that kind of a relationship. Well, it'd be interesting to see where all of this lands, the legal stuff and the lawsuit stuff. Raj, you mentioned a minute ago that Johnny has been dropped from all legal proceedings. I think you're talking about the civil lawsuit against him and Vince where he was named along with WWB and Vince.

And now I guess that's not the case. But I felt like you said something there, if we rewind our conversation, where you felt like he was going to be providing evidence against Vince. Has that been reported somewhere or do you have an inside track you can share with us? Yeah, this was reported back in May that when Johnny Ace was dropped from the Janelle Grant lawsuit, part of the deal was that he would be providing evidence against Vince. Well, it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. Do we have any sort of end in mind on that civil lawsuit against Vince that Johnny Ace is no longer named in?

Do we have, I mean, do you think that lands in arbitration or will we actually ever see it go to a jury trial if you had to venture a guess? I think it goes to arbitration. It feels like it's been going on a long time, but that's the legal system. So, you know, it could, these things could take forever. But my guess is this ends in arbitration if I had to put money on it. Well, let's talk about where Monday Night Raw is going to be. I don't know if you saw Eric, but they're changing the time again. So they started the show a little earlier.

Now they're going to a later start. What's next for Raw, Raj? What can you tell us? Yeah, it was a three-week trial that they were trying. They were trying to start it an hour earlier. So that way, they get a head start on football. And just seeing if that changes numbers a bit because, you know, football every year, it just crushes Raw.

And even though now that they're on Netflix and a lot of the audience is international, it still has an effect. And Eric, I remember you saying, this a few weeks ago that just once football season starts, it just has an effect on ratings overall. So they're trying different things, trying to maximize viewership. But then, you know, the last week's episode, not this past Monday, but the week before, the September 22nd episode, it did 2.3 million views according to Netflix data. And that's the lowest they've done since the move to Netflix. So I don't think the experiment really worked. And so I think they're just going to

stick with the regular start time starting next week. You know, it's interesting as, you know, you hear people talk about appointment viewing. You read about it in the variety and Hollywood Reporter and all that kind of stuff. When you're reporting on television, usually when it comes to successful shows, they refer to them as appointment television. That's a goal, you know, that's like they used to say water cooler, you know, buzz, right? that doesn't exist anymore because it's all now on social media. But it's the same thing. And Raw has been around so long at the same time that I understand the temptation to try

and just to see what would happen because you have that flexibility. There's no real risk, meaningful risk. But I'm not surprised it didn't work. I think the audience is just so. accustomed because the show's been on for so long it's a part of their culture it's part of their lives that changing the time i could see that not working out as well as someone might hope Eric i want to ask do you think that that monday night raw or wrestling period is still appointment television you just referenced that but i would even argue that we're watching

things differently like i have to admit i don't watch sports when i'm talking about college football or pro football or the NBA or whatever. I don't record a game and then go back and watch it later. My dad can do that, but I want to watch it live. And if I missed it, I missed it. I'll just see the highlights. But when it comes to Raw and Smackdown and Dynamite and Collision, I have to admit, I'm a DVR watcher.

I'll let the show finish. I'll find the things I like. I'll fast forward the things I don't like. You know, and a lot of that, and we've talked about this before, Eric, I'm watching television at night with my wife. And the last thing she wants to watch usually is pro wrestling. So we wind up watching something that she and I will both enjoy. And then when it's just me alone watching TV for a bit,

I can get my wrestling fix. I'm wondering, do you think that is the future of wrestling? Because it does feel like that's the way people are consuming streaming. And I'm wondering if maybe there was a shift where people thought, hey, I have to, if I can't watch it live on USA, I miss it.

But now that it's on a streaming service, I guess what I'm saying is no one binges traditional TV. But we will sit down on Netflix and be like, oh, you want to watch another way? Let's watch another one. Is that going to change in pro wrestling? Do you think, Eric?

Yes, it's inevitable. As streaming becomes more and more dominant in terms of viewer market share, it's inevitable happen. But it's not going to happen overnight. There is still a large, a very large audience. that still is appointment viewing. I mean, look at the numbers that Smackdown does. Take Netflix out of it right now.

But look at those Netflix numbers. Often the highest rated show of the night, sometimes of the week, including against network in some cases, not regularly, but it has happened a couple times a year. That's still appointment television. and it's still working. It's just working less and less and less over time

as streaming and that viewing pattern and the patterns that come with streaming start to become more and more dominant. But it's not going to happen overnight. That's why live sports is so expensive. That's why networks are looking for live sports. Because for the most part, like you said, Conrad, people that enjoy live sports, live action,

enjoy it in large part because it's live. There's an aspect of live television. It's why I created Nitro to be a weekly live format for this very reason. Watching two fleas have sex live can be interesting. If you use a macro lens and you give it, you know, kind of a national geographic vibe and you play some cool, you know, amazing in the background.

You can make it interesting if it's a lot. And I think there's still, as long as Smackdown and raw are live, you're still going to have a strong appointment viewing audience, but it will change over time like everything else. Raj, what say you? Yeah, I think people are creatures that have it. I think you saw it like even with the NFL, you know, when they do a morning game or that first week when they were back and they,

they had that Friday night game, right? It didn't do as well as the Sunday night game or the, or the Thursday night game. And it just, you know, when Raw is on, they did those shows from Paris and Europe. And when they show it live on Netflix earlier in the day, it just doesn't do as well. And again, the creatures have a thing. If it's on during the day, I'm just not used to it and I'm not watching it. I'll just read the results.

And if something big happens, then I'll watch a YouTube clip or something. But I still think a lot of people with wrestling, just like with live sports, they're used to when it's on normally. And when you shift it or move it, move it around, it just doesn't do as well. But, you know, that being said, I get them wanting to not, you know, go up against the NFL or at least not the entire time, the entire show. So it was worth trying out. It was only three weeks and now they get to go back. But, yeah, it definitely didn't do well the last week with the new time slot. Well, you did great.

You did more than well. we greatly appreciate you every single week, Raj. Where can folks keep up with what you're doing weekend, week out? Yeah, as always, check out Mass of Heat. We're on live after RAW on podcast Heat Wrestling on the podcast Heat Wrestling YouTube channel, myself, Matt Morgan and Jack Farmer. We had Maven on this past week. I wasn't able to make it.

I was at Monday Night Football, but Maven was the special guest on the show. So definitely check it out. And thank you guys, as always, for having me. Thank you, Ross. no thank you for joining us and uh we'll be back after uh these words all right guys by now you know i love running my mouth about old school wrestling the only thing i like more than that is helping people save money if you haven't ever done it i want you to go check out some of my reviews you can do that at conrad reviews dot com what you'll see is we've got well over

a thousand reviews our average rating is 4.7 four stars which by the way if that would if i was a wrestler and my average match rating was 4.75 i'd be in every hall of fame okay just kidding But for real, I've been doing this since 2001, and that was back during the original invasion. And thankfully, my mortgage career has worked out better than that storyline. But I'd love to help you. And I'm talking to you. Yes, you, if you're in a 30-year loan, it's not a matter of if I can save you money. It's a matter of how much.

I want to show you how to shorten your term and cut years off of your loan. Hey, listen, we all want to get out of debt. But if I can help you get out of debt faster with cheaper monthly payments, isn't that worth a look? Because here's the worst case scenario. You type into your browser right now, save withconrad.com, you spend 10 minutes on the phone with us, let us run the numbers, and we'll shoot straight with you. And we'll say one of two things. Hey, man, you've got a pretty good deal. Keep doing what you've been doing. That's the worst case scenario. There's no cost. There's no obligation. But what if we hit you with, hey, dude, how's $800 a month sound? What do you mean? I can reduce your monthly payments by $800 a month. I heard that earlier today going through the halls. I couldn't believe it was a real number. Think of the raise they just got. That's almost like working a part-time job that you don't ever clock into. And had they not called us and spent time with us at Save WithConrad.com,

they just keep working for that money, pay taxes on it, and then just give it away. Hey, if you're cool with the bank's taking your money, I guess I am too. But when you get tired of it and you decide, I want to get out of debt, I want to knock out my credit cards, I want a cheaper monthly payment. I want to pay the doggone house off. Don't forget you've got a friend in the mortgage business. That's me. Conrad the mortgage guy, send me an email, Conrad at savewithconrad.com, call me toll free 888-4250105

or get a quick quote, even talk to a live person right now at savewithconrad.com. Oh, did I mention no house payments for two months? Yeah, take a little Christmas vacation from house payments and get a better deal for your family with my family at save with Conrad.com. NMLS number 2129, equal housing lender, save with Conrad.com. Eric, we should talk about some other news. Man, you want to talk about sad, sad stuff. I want to get this out of the way and then we'll move on to happier stuff.

It just so happens that this week is the anniversary of when we lost Brian Pillman in 1997. And he passed away right before, we found out right before there was a WWE pay-per-view, his last appearance in front of folks and ultimately where he took his last breath was in St. Paul. They were doing a live event there on their way to the Sunday pay-per-view in St. Louis. And I know that he was only a couple of years removed, maybe less than that, even from WCW. And I wanted to talk about the impact that

Brian had on wrestling and WCW and what wrestling might be like if he was with us today. But we found out today that earlier today, Brian Pilman Jr. posted that his brother passed away. So this is one of Brian's sons and Brian Pilman Jr. wrote, I lost my brother today. He was a badass, highly intelligent, witty and charismatic dude who grew up in the 90s. He loved video games, Warhammer, R.A. Salvatore, among many other cool, cool bro stuff. Recently, we had been on Discord playing StarCraft 2 co-op together and he was enrolled in classes at the University of Cincinnati. He was a veteran who,

suffered from issues after surviving some traumatic events while serving in Afghanistan. He loved his country. The last Facebook post was this. Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or soften the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. Of course, that was from FDR. And Brian Pilman Jr. says, some words to live by.

Battle with your demons is now over, brother. Rest in peace, Jesse Morgan. And he posted a picture of him and his brother serving in Afghanistan, rather. and I wanted to talk about what a tragedy it was that we lost Brian Pilman but now to hear that man one of his sons to golly my heart goes out to the Pilman family man it feels like they've been through the ringer and back boy I that's a lot you know losing you know of course when Brian Filman died you know son was just a young kid didn't really get to know his dad growing up and then to lose your dad at such a young age and then to lose your brother it's tough man it's say a prayer for him it's tough feel horrible it's a lot it's a lot of loss to deal with yeah let's uh let's try to take this as a teachable moment to uh speak a little sweeter be a little

kinder try to extend a little more grace i think sometimes we all get ourselves worked up on social media and you know you see something like that and you're like man some of this stuff that people think matters it's not really all that important i mean godly talk about perspective i do want to uh to ask you a little bit about brian pelman you know i don't know you know we know that you guys got involved in an angle and and there was going to be you know some big payoff of this loose canon character We've talked about some of that in the archives. But I know that part of the idea was we want to sell that this is real.

And so you had to fax him his release so he could show that to be up here on ECW programming. And he actually used it to get a deal with WWE. And I'm just wondering, you know, when you think back on that time period, do you think anything plays out differently? Like had that creative gone differently, how would Brian have fared in an NWO, era of nitro like the NWO era of WCW I could I can get excited about Brian Pilman in that era it would have been fantastic you know I mean this is armchair kind of fantasy booking I guess but if you step back kind of take a look

from a macro perspective what was going on in WCW what started out as us putting our toe in the water with reality wrestling, Lex Lugar showing up, you know, unannounced, unpromoted. Nobody had ever done that before was even when somebody was coming in a terror, you made a big deal out of it, you built up the audience's expectation, you know, throw a ticker tape parade at Disney World, whatever, right? Lex showing up was the first shot across the bow of bringing reality storytelling into professional wrestling as opposed to the team. and pre-teen creative approach that both WWE or WWF and WCWCW were engaged in at the time. And from the Lex Lugar step forward into that space, into that way of telling wrestling stories,

it only continued to grow until it crescendoed with the NWL, which was, I think, the ultimate, is it real, is it not real? Are they really invading? and what, you know, that, that confusion that W.W. Attorney Jerry McDivitt convinced a judge and a jury of, that confusion that was created within the audience and the audience debating whether this is really a WWE invasion or not

is what drove that angle. And Brian, stepping into that world of WCDG W, when that style of storytelling was just beginning to peak, would have been awesome. It would have fit like a glove. But it didn't work out that way. Man, my heart goes out to Brian Pilman Jr.

And the whole Pilman family, I know they've, they've had a rough go of it. And I can't imagine how hard this is to deal with this. But I start. to send him some positive vibes and hope that he can keep his head up and keep a positive mental outlook and know that tomorrow's coming right on time let's uh let's talk a little bit else about wrestling from way back in the day uh specifically 20 years ago this week eric t and a made their debut on spike tv now you may recall this is after w v had just left spike to now return to

their original home u s a but that created an opportunity And I know that there were some hurt feelings on the Spike side about the WWE exit. And at the time, Spike is still heavily invested into UFC and trying to grow that brand. And they'd learn the same painful lesson twice, I think, ultimately. But when TNA landed on national TV, was it on your radar then? You've told us the story before that you remember getting the call from Jerry Jarrett. And he was talking to you about this weekly pay-per-view concept. And that was back in late 2001, early 2002, and you weren't really interested.

We know ultimately you wound up signing with WWE in July of that year, just a couple of weeks after TNA became a thing. I'm sure it was just a coincidence. But I am curious. It was a coincidence, but go ahead. It wasn't for you, but I don't think for a second it was a coincidence from WWE. I think they wanted to take you off the table. I think WWE was strategic.

You can't tell me they, they, they did. view and then two weeks later all of the sudden now's the time to bring you in the time to bring eric bischoff in was during the goddamn invasion the time to bring eric bishop the n w came back to to be clear and and fair they did try to get me to come in a year before i finally agreed to come in i turned them down the first time they tried to get me to come in i told the story it was in july of whatever year it was a year before i actually ended up the green to come in they called and jim ross as painful as it was for him at the time was designated to make the call to me and make me an offer and he did a horrible job getting me interested in what

he had to say pretty much want you to be right no he didn't want me to take the deal he didn't want me there and it was pretty obvious to me when i was i knew jim pretty well it wasn't like was the first time i'd ever dealt with jim he was my boss for a while i know jim really i knew jim really well so I could tell on the phone it was like no I'm sorry I got a party I'm throwing this weekend can't make it but thanks for the call wasn't it quite like that so I you know I get it it's a cute little thing to say and you know get some props to Jerry Jarrett and you know boy Vince was afraid of Jerry Jared at the time and didn't want Eric going to you know TNA that's fantasy nonsense well either way I'm curious

when you see that hey wait a minute it's not a weekly paper review concept it's not a time by in the middle of the freaking afternoon on friday now it's in the old raw on the old raw channel now it's in prime time now it's on cable that had to at least get your attention right really didn't i mean i i was familiar with tna i had watched a segment or two or a match or two here and there. If I heard something, you know, going on, I went, I'm going to see what that guy's up to or what she's doing on the show or whatever. I would do that, but it's not like I would sit down and watch the show on any regular pattern.

So I was aware of it. And what I saw was small. Before I say this, you've got to make it clear. Context is really important here. my interest in professional wrestling at this point in time had nothing to do with watching it as an entertainment property. It was a business that I was very familiar with and was still very interested in as a business.

As a form of entertainment, not so much. Particularly, again, you have to put yourself in my shoes. I had kind of started at the bottom in the AWA and I kind of ended up at the top for a while and lived through that journey and appreciated that journey and understood the price I had to pay for that journey. I wasn't interested in going on another journey

for something that was so small. I wasn't interested in wanting to help build somebody else's business. I've already done that. And wasn't too interested in doing it again. for obvious reasons. So that's why when I say it felt small to me, I don't mean that to be disrespectful. I mean to represent my perspective on that opportunity

from my point of view at that point in time, I was not interested. Because I just wasn't interested. I don't even need to try to explain it. It's just the same reason I'm not interested in pickled deeds. It's not interested. I can't believe you're going to get on here and disparage the good goddamn name of pickled beats on the program.

I had to be careful with that because there are some pickled beats that I actually enjoy. You know, I'm curious. This is a deep cut for a long time, 83 weeks listeners. Eric, has your relationship with liver sausage changed at all? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I am craving some good liver. Now, look, liver sauce is like any other product has... scale. The bottom of the scale, it's crappy buy it, on sale at whatever big box grocery store

you shop at, right? But there are people who make liver sausage, Bronswager, that have turned it into art. Like there's grape juice and there's $1,500 bottle of wine. You are people that treat Bronswager liver sausage much the same way. And I'm going to Minnesota. in October to see my brother and sister rent a little Airbnb at an apple orchard out in the country. Can't wait. It's going to be fun. But

where we're going, there is a specialty store that has the best liver sausage I've ever eaten in my life. Yeah, can't wait. Hey, Eric, I can't help but notice you're sporting another cool t-shirt this week. Let's take a look at that beauty.

Oh, it's my favorite. I mean, it's classic EZ, right? How do you not love this shirt here? I'll give you a better look at it. Check out those dimples. They're awesome. Right now you can rep some of your favorite bischophisms like controversy creates cash or heat is life.

My personal favorite, better than less than different than. We've got all of this plus limited edition Nitro 30 gear. That's right. We've got your stickers, your hoodies and your t-shirts. We're not doing these forever. These Nitro 30s, get them while you still can.

Your home, of course, for all of this merch is an 80. 83 weeks merch.com. That's 83 weeks, M-E-R-C-H.com. Eric, we've got some news that I got to admit, I can't wait to ask you about. I don't know if you've seen it. I know you've had your head down working real American freestyle,

but it's come out that Sting's son, Steve Borden Jr., is going to make his pro wrestling debut this week at an art exhibit in New York City. This is kind of a cool thing. We saw, it wasn't that long ago. Sting had his last match at Revolution last March in Greensboro. And I love that we got the kids to come out and dress up as the different

eras of Sting. We've seen a ton of second generation wrestlers. But Sting, that's one I got to ask you about. What do you think? Is this going to be a fun hobby? Is this a fun outlet? Or could you see him actually trying to pursue this as a full-time career?

I have no idea. I know nothing about his son. Is it Garrett? this is steve warden junior steve junior um don't know him last time i saw him he was like maybe knee high

to me couldn't tell you i'm fascinated though i'm excited for him i'm excited for steve it's it's a cool thing and where is he doing this at a art show that's exactly right yeah and it's happening today uh

And next Friday, as folks are listening to this, today on October 3rd and a week from today on October 10th, it's a part of the 52W Hardway Art Exhibit by artist Raymond Petibon in association with Darby Allen and AEW backstage personnel Charlie Ramon. I'm a big fan of that guy on the right, Rock Hard Diper. Shout out to him. But the fellow on the left, Darby Allen, he's the guy who's taking an interest in helping sort of pay it forward to Sting's son of course we know how closely aligned they have been on screen and behind the scenes Darby and Sting I mean I think it's cool that

Sting helped give the rub to Darby and now Darby's going to try to help give the rub to sting sun I love that about pro wrestling and I think it was maybe last year we heard on a podcast that Steve Jr. had been training with Adam Copeland and FTR and Darby Allen. It feels like this has been a long time coming. I think it would be cool to see. I mean, we've seen Rick Flair's daughter, you know, following his footsteps, Sting, son, that could be fun. I love that about pro wrestling. Yeah, I'm excited to see and hear how it turns out. All right, that'll do it for us this week, boys and girls. Thanks for tuning in. If you haven't already, follow us on social media. That's easy to do. It's at

83 weeks, everywhere you enjoy podcasts, of course. But you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, all at 83 weeks. If you'd love to have a discourse with Eric Bischoff, he's easy to find. He's E. Bischoff on Twitter at the real Eric Bischoff over on Instagram. And if you'd like to grow your company, let me tell you, it's easy to advertise here on advertise with Eric.com. I'm especially talking to you if you target men 25 to 54 years old. No better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 weeks.

You've heard us do some of the same ads for the same companies for years. Why is that? well, because it really works. And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. So go right now to advertise witheric.com and find out more about advertising here on 83 weeks. And we'll be back next week. I can't wait to get Eric's take on that top five. The top five reasons the invasion failed.

Hey, Eric did it flawlessly. But when Vince tried to do it, not so fast, my friend. Can't wait to hear what Eric says about that. Join us next week. Hit that subscribe button. Turn on the notifications bell. And for goodness sake, it helps with the algorithm. Throw us a like, would you?

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