83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 396: Eric Bischoff's Top 5 Marathon

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

On this special episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad look back at some of Eric’s most talked-about Top 5 lists! From the greatest members of the nWo to his most infamous WCW firings, Eric revisits his picks and the stories behind them — and you get to decide if he made the right calls. It’s a fun, reflective, and revealing trip down memory lane on 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff! STEVEN SINGER  - NO ONE DOES REAL DIAMOND JEWELRY BETTER. EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE AT STEVEN SINGER JEWELERS. ONLINE AT IHATESTEVENSINGER.COM. ALWAYS WITH FAST AND FREE SHIPPING. THAT’S HTTP://IHATESTEVENSINGER.COM  SIGNOS - Go to signos.com, and get $10 off select plans with code 83WEEKS. THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30  #CashAppPod As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Direct Deposit, Overdraft Coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. LEGAL BUDDY - Download the Legal Buddy App at 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.

Save with Conrad.com. Yeah, I'm Justin. We're up in Montreal, Tennessee. What got me to Save with Conrad was the 83 weeks podcast. I really wasn't thinking about getting rid of any debt. I just wanted, like, to cash out somebody in the house to do remodeling. But I did both, so that was pretty awesome. Worked out.

We redid the foyer, built pantry space. And it was like little eyes and ends when I first bought the house that I wanted to take of, and we were able to take care of. Yeah, paid off two cars and some credit card debt. So probably all in all, get everything. thousand dollars than that and then i got some 30 000 more equity out of the house and i still plenty of after you left over so hey it's good i lowered my interest rate and a much better spot but i was super easy everybody is great very very awesome people on francis and steve are great to work with

they were they're awesome made it for a very easy seamless experience i'd probably say all in all probably a thousand a month at least i'm lowered my interest rate especially the way the interest rates are right now, which is, you know, that's amazing. I'm Justin Brooklyn from Knoxville, Tennessee. I saved over $1,000 to save with comrade.com, and I did a lot of renovations with that money as well. And that's number 212-9-equal housing lender. Savewithconrad.com. Five, four, three, two, one.

It's time to count down the top five. Brought to you by savewithconrad.com. My top five NWL numbers. My number five is Conan. Man, he was so overlooked in the big scheme of things, because he's in there with Hogan and Hall and Nash. And as great as Conan was, and as much of a superstar as Conan was in Mexico,

he was known in the U.S., but it would be hard not to agree that Conan was really to a degree in the shadows of some talent that had been, you know, top of mind, big-name talent for decades. So I think Conan really is one of the most overlooking members. He brought a level, I think Conan had much more of an influence on the, NWO than people think.

And it's important that people realize the NWO was really a collaborative effort. And it continued throughout the entire run of the NWO. But one of the guys who came in early on, and I think Scott and Kevin in particular really picked up on Conan's vibe, because Conan brought a authentic. You hear the term OG, original gangster. It's thrown around a lot. Conan was the OG of the NWO because he brought such a

cool vibe that was relevant. His finger on a pulse of hip hop Latin culture, which is really merging in the United States back at that time. So, I think Conan really is overlooked in many

different respects. I think Scott, excuse me, not Scott, obviously, if Scott was still with us, he would agree, I'm sure. I know Kevin would too, the influence that Conan had. And of course, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were influenced by Conan Hogan was influenced to a large degree. And Hulk will talk about that.

He was able to create some phrases too, which caught on a lot. You know, catch phrases like, yo, yo, yo, let me speak on this. All of a sudden, when you hear that now, first person you're going to think of. Let's go to number four. This is a guy I've talked a lot about a lot. Have a ton of respect for him. A lot of affection for him. I really, really like six-pack Sean Walman.

But again, sixth member, right? He came in sitting in the crowd. It felt like another guy was coming over to WCW from WWF. Now, I don't think Sean Waltman had been in WCW previously. He might have been in and out for one shot or two shot or something like that. So I didn't have the, hey, I used to be here and now I'm coming back. But Sean was such a big star in WWE. People, they loved his work in WW.

I think when Scott came over to, Again, Scott brought a certain, excuse me, Sean, I should say, Sean brought a certain vibe that was even different than Conant's. Very cool, very relevant, very current, but different than Conan. So that was, there was an authenticity. That's what I'm really trying hard to say. There was an authenticity in Xbox character, six-pack, that really left itself to the NWO.

It was a great addition. It wasn't a delusion. that happened much later on, right? When the NWO became deluded because we were just adding so many people that didn't bring anything to the table. They didn't bring what Conan brought to the table. They didn't bring what Sean Waltman brought to the table with his character, six-pack.

He was the worker of the group. John Wampman could go in here and fly around and do the shit that Scott Hall wasn't in his repertoire, so to speak. It wasn't in his character. It didn't make sense for Scott to work like that. Kevin Nash wasn't about to try to fly around. that would have been horrible for everybody. Hulk Hogan, I guarantee you it wasn't going to go

coming off the top rope with anything. And Sean Walton could get in there. He could fly. He could pump. He could sell. He could provide the physical, the dynamic action that they're larger than life characters wouldn't have been able to do

because, A, it wasn't in their character and B, physically, I don't think they were capable of doing it. I know they weren't like Sean Waltham. Very few people were. Kevin Nash, this is where it gets a little tricky, right? Kevin Nash, big sexy. Kevin Nash provided that threat, that larger than life, intimidation. Visually, when Scott Hall was in front of the announced desk and Kevin Nash came up behind me,

I just signed a bunch of autographs of this picture last weekend in Indianapolis. By the way, great time, great event. I loved it. But when Kevin Nash came up behind me and he's looking down at me and I turned around and all I see is the center of his chest and I look up, looking up at a giant redwood. That visual, that made it. That added so much credibility, right, to what was happening. We still didn't know it was going to be the NWO yet,

but that threat was real. There was danger. An element to having a story. The element, danger. And Kevin Nash provided that danger. All right, let's talk about Scott Hall, the man who jumped started this thing. That moment was so.

real, so believable. And again, from the get-go, it wasn't because I directed Scott much. I worked on the promo with him. I knew what he was going to say, and I crafted it quite honestly for him in many ways. And Scott took it and he kind of made it its own. So the narrative, the dialogue, I was completely involved in. But I didn't direct, I didn't say Scott, now when you come down, I want you looking cool shit i want you to come down through that crowd like you own this freaking building like the key to make in georgia it's on your key ring it's not something you get once a year it's on your key ring mucker father i didn't say that but that's exactly what scott hall did he had the instinct even not knowing for sure where the story was going because i hadn't laid it all

out to Scott and or Kevin at this point. But Scott had the instinct based on his experience to feel where this thing was going and what we were trying to accomplish. And he came down through that crowd. He's like, if James Dean could wrestle, that was Scott Hall. Number one, come on, we all know. And this is not as easy as it sounds, right? Because when you really analyze after the fact and you look at the different elements

and each of these guys brought to the table. If you had to put a valuation on it, it would be really difficult because it's subjective. And sometimes the littlest things can have the greatest impact. When I say littlest things, I just mean the vibe that Conan brought or the vibe that Xbox brought because it were different, right? The coolest of Scott Hall.

All of those, if you take any of those elements out of the NW, the NWO might not have been the NWO. It's not the one we remember because we would have forgotten about it a long time ago, right? Hulk Hogan Turning Heel, the reason it's my number one. And I know, listen, people live to disagree with me and I embrace that.

Bring it on. I like it. I have fun with it. I love hearing different opinions. Hulk Hogan turning heel was the final straw. It was everything the NWO needed to become what it has become today, or what it would become at that time, because it was a massive move that nobody saw coming. Nobody anticipated it, including me. In fact, not only did I not anticipate it, it was up until I saw Hulk Hogan walk in the building about an hour before we were supposed to go out and do that segment because I kept them away from the venue all day. didn't want him walking around because the people, oh, he's the third guy.

Because that's all anybody was talking about. And Hogan hadn't been around for a long time. So if Hogan would have showed up, oh, there's the third guy. It wouldn't matter because this was like before the internet really and, you know, cell phones and all that kind of shit, text messages. It's not like it would have ruined anything, but it would have taken the fun out of it for me selfishly. I didn't want anybody to know because I wanted to feel a real reaction.

And when Hulk Hogan came down and everybody assumed he was there. to back up Savage and he dropped that leg and get up and start to cut that promo. That moment to this day is still one of the most magical moments I've ever experienced. And I've heard a lot of people that were in the audience say the same thing. So there's my top five and my number one. Five, four, three, two, one. It's time to count down the top five. The top five firings that occurred under my watch while I was in W.C.

So let's get it started and see who the top five firings were under my watch in WCW. Top five, your number five is Brian Pilman. Ah, Brian Pilman. That's a weird one, though. I know technically, yes, he was fired, but it's a strange one because it was an understanding that Brian and I have. And I know there's all kinds of history and everybody's got a different opinion. But, you know, Brian was smart enough to realize that the deck was pretty well stacked at the top. Brian felt like he needed a change.

He needed to refresh his character. He was really digging the, you know, crazy Brian Pillman gimmick and taking it to an extreme. And it was fun as hell. Trust me, I enjoyed it. But I think Brian was looking for a way out. He wanted to come back, but he was looking for a way out so he could go expand his character and kind of continue building that whole crazy Brian Pillman character. So while technically it was a firing, both Brian and I talked throughout that period of time when he was in WWF at the time. And we talked about him coming back and when would be the best time.

And it was, it was an interesting situation. But Brian ultimately, you know, ended up doing what he wanted to do. I ended up focusing on what I needed to focus on. At the end of the day, yes, Brian Pimman was one of those controversial firings or terminations, but it was, it was mutual. So I'm going to include it just because it was so controversial. But I certainly didn't enjoy firing anybody. That's another really interesting misconception and narrative that I've heard throughout the year.

I was just, you know, on this power trip, but I love firing people. The truth is, I felt exactly the opposite. I hated firing people. There were a lot of people I should have fired. I never did. Kicking myself in the ass to this day. Most of them weren't talent, really. They were people that were in the office, but nevertheless, I get credit and criticism

for letting Brian Pillman go. But you know what? in reality, if I were put into the same situation under the same circumstances and conditions, I would have made the same decision today. I don't regret it. How difficult, or if there was any difficulty, was it to work with a talent that the lines between reality and character is kind of blurred? Yeah, that's a good question, because there are extremes.

You know, I, on one end, the healthy end of, of that extreme, the professional and profitable end of that extreme are characters who are extensions of their characters, or their characters are extensions of their real personality, so that line is almost always, you know, murky at best, and sometimes it's hard to find it. And I enjoy that. I enjoy working with characters who have strong characters, a great sense of who they are, and push the envelope. And sometimes, yeah, when talent wants to push the envelope. They're creative people by nature, the performers by nature, and they're constantly striving to perfect and in some ways develop new aspects of their character. And sometimes

what they see in their head, what talents sometimes see in their head as a good idea, may not make sense from a business perspective. So it could be difficult. And on the other end of that extreme, you've got people who actually believe they are their characters. that becomes a real issue because the, the connection to reality becomes a problem. And we've seen far too many people who, while they're in the business, can't separate themselves from their character. And that can become an issue. And we've seen a lot of people who, long after they get out of the wrestling industry, still have a difficult time separating who they really, are from the character that they perceive the audience wants to see. And that can sometimes

be sad. But yeah, it's a challenge. But it's, you know, I think it's true Superdave in all forms of entertainment, right? Directors for movies and television have to deal with that issue. I'm sure if you're in a rock band, you know, for any length of time, you've got chemistry issues and personality issues and conflicts. And I just think creative people by nature are constantly pushing the envelope if they're successful. And the harder you push

and the farther that envelope expands so you have to push even further, it does create conflict. But I think it just goes with performers of all kinds. Is it difficult to find that balance of you love the character they're portraying on television and you're pushing them and you're encouraging them.

But then behind the scenes, is it difficult to, like, on one hand, you're patting them on the back and on the other, you're like, okay, wait, the cameras are off. I'm talking to you about business, right? I'm talking to you about direction. Let's focus here. Yeah, it could be in some situation. I never really had that issue.

I mean, I didn't. Again, because I've always enjoyed people who were really invested in their characters. But I've never really had a situation backstage where I had to, like, verbally shake somebody out of their dream and wake them up to the fact that we're not really on TV right now. This is, you know, two people talking. This is business.

This is in performance. It happened, but it was never really an issue for me. All right. Let's go to number four. Sean Walton. That's an interesting one, right? Because I always like Sean Wilman. you know, I, I, from the first few times that I saw him in the ring, you know,

one, two, three kid in WWF. You know, he's from Minneapolis. He's from North Minneapolis. He actually didn't live, he lived a little bit four blocks for me for a while when we were both living over in North Minneapolis. And I always liked him. I respected what he did. He was able to deliver, you know, that was in a time when you didn't see a lot of guys who

were not 225 pounds up. You know, it was before the cruise. weight division. So John immediately brought in athleticism and a presentation to the ring that very few other people at that time were doing. He could fly, he could bounce, he sold, like, he was an amazing, amazing performer when it came to selling. So I always enjoyed him. And certainly when he came to WWE as six or whatever we called him at the time,

six o'clock, um, there's a spinoff one, two, three kid. Get it. Pretty smart, right? I can man. But, you know, I was really happy that he showed up in WWE, that he came to WW, and I had a chance to bring him in. But the chemistry between him, Scott and Kevin were so good. I mean, Sean Walman really brought a layer of, I don't know. I hate to keep using the same word too much. But authenticity and vibe.

just brought a vibe to the NWO that just enhanced the kind of cool factor that the NWO was embracing at that point in time. And I like Sean. I always got along with Sean. We never really had any problems backstage, at least that I can remember. Nothing significant. Communication was always pretty easy with Sean. For the most part, you know, he really conducted himself as a pro. Because, you know, there's time he pulled flares trunks down on purpose and,

showed his ass. Not that that hadn't happened before, but actually I was under a fair amount of pressure from Turner Broadcasting at the time to kind of tone down some of that, some of those elements of what happened in the ring, because it was, it was causing an issue with ad sales and advertisers were noticing it and speaking out. But getting rid of Sean, that was an issue and it really wasn't an issue between Sean and I, because Sean and I had worked out an agreement. In fact, we had set, we had negotiated Sean's agreement, I think it was a renewal at that point in time, or an extension. And we had negotiated money, time, you know, a number of days in the contract, all the, all the standard details had been negotiated over the course

of a couple months, really. It took some time. By the time you start negotiating with talent and agents, and then the attorneys get involved, and then they write contracts, and they get drafted and redrafted and redrafted, redrafted, attorneys love doing that shit, man. They just, because they get paid by the hour, most of them. But by the time we got it all done, we finally had the contract done, and I had signed it. We thought we had a done deal, and we, meaning WCW, myself particularly,

sent it off and didn't hear anything back for a period of time. It could have been a week or 10 days, two weeks, whatever. And that didn't really bother me too much because, again, we were slow getting the contract to Sean so it was you know at least half of our fall but uh all of a sudden it started going beyond a week week and a half two weeks and finally put some pressure on Sean's agent at the time and lo and behold that he said yeah we don't want to agree to what we've already agreed to we want to new we want to reopen negotiations and that was like that for me was a red line you know when you shake hands with somebody

verbally agree with somebody, come to a meeting of the minds, as they say, in contract law. I take this stuff pretty personally. You know, when I give somebody my word, I give my work. I say, I'm going to do something. I'm going to do it. Good or bad, whether I want to do it or not, after thinking about it, if I commit to it, I'm going to follow through and chuck it up as a learning experience. And when Sean's agent, manager, whatever he was, decided he wanted to take advantage of an

opportunity to renegotiate a deal that we'd already been talking about for a long time. It's like, nah, can't do that. And in a way, it was, I don't want to say it was unfair to Sean because he was a participant. But he was relying on his manager and his manager overplayed his hand, didn't think that I would make a move. And I did. Fired him immediately. And like within a week or less, next time I see Sean Waltman, he's in the ring for

W.WF cutting a promo on me and a part of DX. And I really do think that DX became a much more viable version of the NWO because that's all it was, folks. Hey, Dave Meltzer, if you're listening, because I heard some video of you the other day talking about how, you know, Vince McMahon ended up being the ultimate heel owner authority figure, you know, before I did. And you're wrong. Once again, you're wrong. I created that character. I evolved as that character is probably more appropriate a full year before Vince McMahon decided to come out from behind the broadcast desk and take a role as that heel dominant manager or owner. But I think Sean Waltman added so much authenticity and credibility to DX for no other reason. Setting aside his abilities in the ring,

and all, but he, Sean was a big part of that NWO vibe when it first took off. And to lose that was, I don't want to say it was a mistake, because again, faced with the same situation, particularly when you come to a meeting of the minds, you can't, you think you've got a deal, and then some, you know, manager decides he wants to take advantage to renegotiate, that's a fucking no-fly zone for me. That's just an absolute no-fly zone. I would probably do the same thing. I know I would, even if I saw that doing so would probably come back to to put pressure on

us creatively, as it obviously did with DX. But yeah, it was, you know, it's fun now. Sean and I are friends. We talked through it. You know, I see his side of the issue. He sees my side of the issue and we both laugh about it now. Sean turned out just fine. He did just well, fine with his career.

And as did I, ultimately. So it is what it is. but yeah losing Sean firing Sean it was a tough one it was a tough decision but again one that I would probably make today given the same circumstances you know in certain parts of the wrestling world people say oh I hate eric Schoff oh I just hated that guy you know I never liked Eric Eric's got a lot of heat but he would tell us that heat is life you know who everybody hates myself included Stephen Singer okay not really I do have some exciting news remember my friend Steven Singer. Yeah, the I hate Steven Singer guy. Well, as you know,

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Crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's going to happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today, Beautiful Anonymous. Number three, Raven. Ah, Raven.

Raven. That wasn't hard. I didn't enjoy it. Let's be clear about that. I didn't enjoy it. I never enjoyed firing. Well, we'll talk about that. But for the most part, I never really felt good about firing anybody.

But with Raven, they're really, I was just so tired of his antics. You know, Raven spent a lot of time burying the company and kind of talking to the dirt sheets and doing radio interviews and trying to advance whatever agenda he had by trying to put pressure on me at WCW from the outside. And that's, again, that's another no-fly zone. It's just really, it's just not the way to conduct business. And I just get tired of it. And when I offered, you know, at one point, there was a lot of that going on.

And it was really unfortunate because in many respects, WCW was at the peak of its success. We're just selling out arenas, selling out, you know, nitros, selling out just about everything we did, generating revenue on top of revenue and exceeding expectations, budgetary expectations set forth by Turner Broadcast. We're blowing those those. goals out of the water. And it's funny how you would think that when things are going bad, that that's when

people would be the most aggressive and dissatisfied, wanting, you know, something different for themselves or something better for themselves, the frustration level across the board, when things are bad. You would think that's when people start stirring the shit. But ironically, it was when things were really going. well financially. I guess that's probably where some jealousy and envy and frustration comes in because if you're someone like Raven was, who was, you know, he was like in the upper third of

the, you know, television roster on any given, you know, Nitro, guys like that want more. And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. I respect that. You shouldn't ever be complacent in anything that you do. So I never had an issue with somebody wanting more. But with guys like, and Raven wasn't the only one. and there were others. But I remember, I think it was in Minneapolis.

It might have been here where I'm at right now in Minneapolis. And I just got tired of hearing all the bullshit, you know, in interviews and reading dirt sheet nonsense. So I called everybody together and said, look, if you don't want to be here, I'll let you out of your deal. It was more of a, for me, it was more of, okay, I'm going to put people in check. They're either going to stand up and say it to my face. or they're going to know that I know that they're just chicken shits

and spreading shit on the dirt sheets trying to advance their agenda. Raven was the only one to raise his hand and said, all right, I'll go. And I respected that. Actually, I had more respect for Raven at that point than I had had at any point up until that moment. Because he was standing up for what he believed in, and it's hard to disrespect people that do that. I have a lot of respect for people that will look you in the eye and tell you how they feel and given an option, take one that is better for them at that moment. And Raven believed that it was better for him to leave, probably was at that moment, at that time. And he left.

And again, Raven is another guy that, you know, we've had on the show previously in an interview. And again, great relationship with Raven today. We both, you know, have the benefit of experience to look back upon things and kind of no longer react to that situation with emotion, just kind of looking at it for what it was. And I think Raymond probably feels good about the decision he made. And frankly, so do I. It was just time. Number two, Steve Austin. Ah, that's a fun one.

God, it was a fun one. fun terminating them again never enjoyed terminating someone but I was a little motivated you know I've told the story before I won't spend a lot of time talking about it we've all heard it but you know Steve had injuries and that's not why I let him go I let him go because while he was out with an injury living in Atlanta my goal was to keep his character alive I didn't want people to forget about Steve so wanted to cut a promo with him backstage promo with Tony Shavani and just to keep his character out there and keep some anticipation for his return.

And I asked Tony to reach out to Steve to see, because he wasn't scheduled to his credit. He wasn't scheduled, but he lived in Atlanta. And I thought, early in the days, let's get a hold of Steve, have him come in. We're still paying him. Let's have him come in and sit down and we'll do a promo with him. Chivani went out, made the phone call, and when Chivani came back, he explained what happened. And evidently, I wasn't on the call, so, you know, it could be some murkiness in my recallingness. But I believe what Tony told me is, look, I called him, his wife answered the phone.

I explained to his wife that we wanted to bring Steve down to Center Stage, where we were producing WCW Saturday Night Live at the time. and cut a promo with him. And I guess the way I remember the conversation with Tony is Steve's wife at the time said, hey, Steve, they want you to come in and cut a promo. And Tony was able to hear Steve say, tell them sons of bitches to go to hell or something along those lines. And Tony related back to me. And I thought, yeah, that's not going to work for me, brother. And I made the decision to let him go.

I'm really glad I did is one of the best decisions I ever made Steve Austin feels exactly the same way I do it was one of the best decisions I ever made and really he ever made was leaving WCW because at the time again I were going to just come in

Steve had an idea of something he wanted to do with Hulk but the time wasn't right Steve was frustrated and I'm sure the injuries frustrated him as well he probably felt like he was losing ground because he wasn't able to work for for for a bit um but look if i wouldn't have let Steve go there would have never been a stone called Steve Austin it took a while for him to find that character and and I actually did Steve Austin's podcast with him several years ago

I happen to be in L.A and Steve and I always stayed in touch and he he had reached out and said hey I'm doing a podcast you know would you want to come over he lived in over marina del Rey at that time not far from my daughter actually only blocks away from where my daughter was staying and I was visiting her and I was there on business so I went over to do a podcast we thought it was going to take an hour or two and we ended up spending about three or three and a half hours and as soon as I left steves he called me called me on my way back to my hotel and said hey you want to come back tomorrow and do another one you know and I did and we drank copious amounts of beer like whoa and just had a great time but in that if you go back and find it you know I'm

sure it's in the in Steve's archives we talked about you know Steve's perspective then, Steve's perspective now, as well as mine. And Steve's words were something to the effect of, Heller, if I were you, I would have fired me too. So it worked out for everybody, right? And for me personally, because keep in mind, when I fired Steve, he wasn't a stone cold Steve Austin. He was stunning Steve Austin. When Steve left, he went to ECW, where Paul Heyman, to his credit, let the talent try to find their own characters and do what worked for them. And it was during that period of time, as I recall Steve telling me that Steve was able to kind to tap into what became the Stone Cold Steve Austin character.

And then Steve left ECW and went to WWE as what? The ringmaster. Well, that didn't work. but it did open the door for Steve to kind of recreate or bring that Stone Cold Steve Austin character that he had really developed in ECW and bring it to WWE and the rest is history. Now, for me, I'm grateful that I fired Steve because as a result of all that backstory, and for years, people thought Steve Austin and I hated each other. Like, it was real heat there.

Everybody knew this story. I fired by FedEx and all that kind of. crap because Steve used that to help get his character over in ECW. Steve talked about it all the time. He did, you know, a parody of me wearing a wig and, and all that. And so Steve used the fact that I fired him to help get his character over in ECW so that by the time he got to WWE and got through the ringmaster gimmick, became Stone Cold Steve Austin again.

I show up in WWE at some point, 2001, whatever. whatever it was. And now there's a built-in storyline between me and Steve Austin. The backstory had already been written. The backstory was like everybody knew about it. You know, wrestling fans were really aware of it. Because, again, Steve used it to help get his character over. So now I'm in charge of, as a character, in charge of Monday Night Raw.

Vince McMahon comes up to me and says, you know, okay, here's what you got to do. you know, you're going to keep your job, you've got to go sign Steve Austin. And because we had so much backstory that we didn't have to regurgitate, it was all right there in the top of everybody's minds. It made that storyline so effective because it was real. The lines between what was creative and scripted and what was real had been being blurred for so long that it just made that story so easy for the audience to grab a hold of and

and it worked and ultimately I got to work a lot with Steve promos in the ring co-GM stuff but the cherry on top of it all was walking out at no way out in Montreal wrestling stone cold Steve

Austin now in fairness wasn't really a wrestling match it was more of an ass kicking but that's what the people wanted I'm not a wrestler I never was I knew what the gimmick was going in and Steve was still Steve was still feeling the effects of the injury. So Steve was in no position to take a bad bump from an unskilled, want-to-be professional wrestler.

So I knew what my role was. But going out into that crowd, coming down the ramp in Montreal, solo crowd, one of the best crowds you're going to find anywhere is Montreal, just rabid Toronto same way, walking out there because I had so much heat. at the time, knowing that when that match finishes, that place is going to explode. And that was the anticipation of me. That's what I was excited about. And it's so over-delivered. It was no question about it the most fun I've ever had in the ring. You know, it's not the best segment I've ever done or segments.

You know, that goes to the, I just hear three minutes, whatever, or say three minutes. that was that was cool but rustling steve austin of montreal was one of if not the highlights of my career and none of it would have happened if i wouldn't have fired him so one of the best decisions i've ever made for steve and for me all right eric are number one does anybody know who this is you're all listening i know we're not taking questions and comments i really wish we were drop it in the comments drop it in the comments let's see if you got number one right number one is the hunky talk man the hunky talk man was left the building baby

and I was so happy to see it that's the one exception that's the one exception I actually enjoyed firing him and only because he deserved it he was such an ass and had such an incredibly

unrealistic and high opinion of himself at the time And then, you know, that old school, I'm going to work the young boss. You know, I'm going to take my shot. And he gave me an ultimatum. And that's another thing that I don't respond well. I don't respond well at all to ultimatums. I never have.

I just, if anything is going to push a hot button, it's giving me an ultimatum. So since I didn't have a lot of respect for, not that I didn't respect the work that he did in WWF, because he did. He had a great career there. And there was a time and a place for a character like the honky tongue man. Unfortunately, time moves on and honky tongue man still felt like that gimmick was viable and I knew better. And when he decided to call me out and see if he could give me an ultimatum and have me succumb and give him what he wanted, which was a contract, because he was on a per night deal. And when he refused to go along with what I wanted him to do, which was to, I believe it was to drop the TV title to Johnny Be Bad.

It was like, no, I'm not doing it. Cool. I really didn't want to hire him anyway. I was kind of pressured into it in a way by Jimmy, Jimmy Hart. And ultimately, Jimmy, you know, tagged in Hulk to put in a good word for Burdus, or not for Burdus, but for Honky Talk, man. And Hulk did. Not with a lot of enthusiasm or pressure, but, you know, he did.

because Jimmy asking to. So I brought Hunky Tuck in kind of reluctantly, paid him like $1,000 a night or something. And when he gave me that ultimatum, it was like, oh, man, if there's ever a time to feel good about making a decision like this, it's right here and now. Thank you, baby. Thank you very much, Hocky Tocke Tull, man.

I appreciate everything you brought to the table. You don't mean the shit to me anymore, but hey, you go be you. You know, that was fun. I enjoyed it. And it's one that I'm proud of. It's it after you were. released The Honkuttonk Man.

Did Jimmy ever come up to you and say, Hey, hey, baby, hey, baby, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about it. No. No, I think Jimmy was disappointed because Jimmy, I think Jimmy believed that there was money in Honky Talk Man, and I understand why. You know, he had a lot of success with Hockey Talk.

And Jimmy, like a lot of us, a lot of top talent. Then, and to this day, go back to things that worked in the past. And formulas that worked in the past. I think Jimmy really believed that there was money in Honky Tonk.

It's just that at that point, we were evolving away from the kind of cartoonish, silly characters and into more of reality-based characters. Not that they all were. I wasn't going in that direction with everybody. There were still some very animated characters that were part of the roster, as there should have been. This should be to this day.

You know, Ivar in WWE is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. That's a very cartoonish animated character. I have our character. Now, he has since come out with something new recently, a little bit more of a reality-based character, but, you know, there's always a place in time for certain types of characters. You don't want them all to be the same.

But I think Jimmy believed that there was money in it. It's just that we were evolving away from it. And Hunky Tuck Man wasn't one of those animated characters that I was interested in keeping. I just didn't see the value in them. And I think I was 100% correct. All right, guys, need to talk about our friends over at Cignos.

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It's time to count down the top five. Welcome to 83 weeks.com. This is Derek Sabato. I'm here with Eric Bischoff, the king of the 83 weeks and the 83 meets. And we're here today talking about our top five series that we've had going on here at 83 weeks. And a big topic of the conversation and discussion, Eric, right now is Vince McMahon. We've got a big series coming up on 83 Weeks.com talking about the Vince McMahon series coming up on Netflix. coming to you Wednesday at 6 Eastern.

Eric, five the top things you've done, the mess with Vince McMahon. There's a lot of them, right? There's a lot of things that we tried. Before we get into it, though, it's fascinating over the last couple of days to see Vince come out and respond

because I think it was through his public relations agency. and kind of give us his take on this series before we even see it. I think everybody's tuning in. I don't think there's any new stories about Vince McMahon. I doubt that we're going to learn anything new. We may hear more detail and hear from people that we don't typically hear from. Perhaps I don't know for sure, but found it pretty interesting. It was a weird move with the federal government looking in, you know, the SEC Securities Exchange Commission looking into Vince.

for Vince is it like the first time he's ever sold. That was always the thing. I kept hearing, you know, long before in Nitro, you know, whether it's Randy Savage or Hulk or anybody that had worked for a long time with Vince, one of the things they would always say is the guy never sells. And I thought, huh, well, we'll see about that. I'll see if I can make him sell. So part of the things that I did with Nitro is obviously I believe firmly and proved to be true.

Controversity creates cash. So some of the things that we did tactically were to get attention to create controversy to at least get people to sample the product. That was the goal initially. And then hopefully deliver a product that they would stick around for. And I think we achieved that. but some of the things I did was really at the risk of sounding smar me not just to screw with him like to entertain myself but I really wanted to try to get into his head I wanted sorry my dog came in I wanted to get Vince yeah I wanted to make himself but I wanted to get into

his head because I thought if I could kind of disrupt his thinking or his patterns or the way he normally did things with the show that perhaps it would give us a little bit of an edge. And I think, you know, it worked for a long time until it didn't, when Vince got tired of being screwed with and decided to launch the attitude era in response to some of the things that we were doing. And it's one of the reasons why I say all the time, you know, I take a lot of credit for the attitude era.

I wasn't there, but I was largely responsible for it. Because all the attitude era was, was really WWE, whether was Vince Rousseau why he was there or anybody else, looking at our formula, looking at the way we presented our product, realizing that we had kicked their ass for almost two straight years, forcing them to abandon the way they normally did business because we did get into his head and into his pocketbook. and Vince's response to all of it was the attitude here. So give me a big round of applause, everybody, for creating the attitude here. But let's get to it, Derek. Tell me what you think about this. I think this is the... One of the fun parts of having this conversation and full disclosure, we're taping this right now.

It is September 24th at 739 Eastern, and Vince McMahon tweeted out a statement yesterday at 453 Eastern by this taping. He's already fired his PR people. So that is very interesting 24-hour difference in reaction from the statement yesterday, depicting that he is not a believer in this Netflix documentary and the finished product to today, letting go or separating himself, I should say, from the PR firm that seems to have put that together. So quite the interesting 24-hour change, and I'm sure there's going to be more within the next 24 hours, and coming from the documentary that drops on Netflix. But when you declared war on Vince McMahon, that's got to be in your top five, does it not?

I think that's number five. I mean, that was really the shot over the bow that started war, in all honesty. I don't think Vince took, nor should he, have taken WCW very seriously as competition. because we weren't. We were in the same much. It's a lot like I say all the time about Tony Con and AEW. Every time Tony Khan tries to present himself as the challenger brand or somehow put himself in AEW in the same category as WWE, clearly it's professional wrestling.

They're in the same business, but they're not competitive. They're not even close to being competitive. And neither was WCW until 1995 when we launched Nitro and went head to head. Even going head to head when that announcement was made, I don't know this for a fact, but I doubt anybody in WWE took that threat seriously. Why would they? WCW at that point had never done anything to demonstrate

that they had the ability creatively or otherwise to do the things that were necessary to become a legitimate competitor. I think that changed pretty quickly because not only did we go head-to-head, there was a time slot that the WWE owned. They were the incumbent. Nobody thought, and it's interesting because a lot of the dirt sheets all predicted, and I understand why, for the same reasons that Vince McMahon should, have taken WCW or Eric Bischoff seriously, neither did anybody else.

And everybody, everybody predicted that this would be a horrible disaster, Nitro. So I take a particular, still do to this day, puts a smile on my face when I think back of the Dave Meltzers and the Wade Kellers and so many others who were just like, oh, my God, you believe WCW trying to go head to head with W. That worked out okay. But, yeah, I think number five was just making a decision to go head to head. And in fairness, in honesty, I should say, that wasn't my decision. That was Ted Turner's decision.

Right. I just had the benefit of doing it. It's funny you talk about one of the major parts of, you know, the wrestling industry at the time and Vince McMahon not thinking anything that you'd be competitive. Paul Heyman was even on record at that time as well, talking to his good friend, Wade Keller, that Bishel is going to get the strong. This is a disaster waiting to happen. But at the same time, trying to build his brain, wouldn't this been something that he would, you know, looking back, be thankful for two hours primetime,

regardless if it was against the WF or not WWF, and that you have the balls to step out there and say, I'm handed two hours, I'm going to go against them in the longest running time slot professional wrestling on cable television from the 80s back to primetime wrestling to 1995. that point. It was insurmountable, but at the same time, you guys really did have two different markets you are going to, and you brought that market with you with the launch of Nitro. Yeah, we did. And a lot of people don't realize. Again, I'm going to make references

to AEW, not because I'm taking any shots, but to put everything into context, even before Nitro, and a lot of people just don't realize this. If you just look at the ratings for Monday night in prime time and the ratings for WCW Saturday night, which was Saturday night, 605 Eastern, 305 Pacific. That is not exactly a great time spot, right? Oh, crap. Could there be any worse? But even with the disparity in the difference between time slots, primetime versus Saturday night

at 605 Eastern, we were competitive. They were doing 25, 2.8s, 3. we were doing the same, some weeks we'd even beat them by hair. But WCW, from a ratings perspective, really was competitive before my joke. But the real disparity was in live events, licensing, merchandising, pay-per-view buys. That's where, at that, when you look at those categories, from a revenue perspective, WWE was number one, WCW, much like AED, is now was a distant number two might as well have been number 22 or 22 for that matter

when you compared revenue. It's crazy to me to think you declare war on the World Wrestling Federation. I'm going to go head to head. One of the major things you need at that point in time to fill two more hours of content because you didn't lose any other content pieces, but you added two hours to what you're doing and the goal is to go live and the goals. to be in arenas, you need a talent. And the way to get talent at that time was to go out and spend money, was it not?

It was the only way. And this will probably lead into the conversation about guaranteed contract. But again, try to frame this so that's, I'm not saying the same things I've said in the past, but also making it clear. WWE had a mature business model. It'd been around for 20-some-odd years, 25 years, before we launched Nitro, whatever it was. They'd been around a long time. Sure.

The brand was so well established up and down the East Coast in major markets across the United States, obviously. But they had a very sophisticated licensing and merchandising operation. WCW didn't. because WWE did have a mature and very profitable licensing and merchandising division, Vince was able to share in revenue. So he didn't have to give big guarantees because talent knew that as long as they were working and they were in a good position and Vince was using them that between the splits, the profit sharing, if you will, for lack of a better term,

profit sharing in licensing and merchandising, profit sharing and pay-per-view, profit-sharing based on revenue at house shows. There was enough money there that Vince was able to create that kind of incentive-based revenue model, or I should say, not really salary, but compensation model. WCW didn't have that.

We couldn't go after any WVE talent and try to be competitive in a negotiation by saying, well, tell you what, Randy Savage, we're not going to give you a guarantee, but we're going to give you 2% of the revenue of any pay-per-view that you're on or whatever the formula would be. Because if you looked at WCW's revenues on pay-per-view, they just weren't sufficient to share any revenue with.

So we were forced, really, because we didn't have a lot of the revenue, mature revenue streams that WWE did, We were forced to offer guaranteed contracts if we want to be competitive, much like Tony Kahn is doing now. And the business has changed a lot, obviously, since 1995. But Tony's faced with the same situation. It really doesn't have licensing and merchandising to any significant degree.

It's pretty much crashed and burned with their video game and whatever merchandise they sell at retail. it's not a big number, sure. Their pay-per-view numbers are big, but I don't think they're big enough to attract talent in lieu of a pretty sizable guarantee, particularly now when WWE is making those large guarantees. So, yeah, paying top talent and being able to say, you know, you're going to make 750 grand a year,

you're going to work a maximum of 180 dates a year. There is no profit sharing. You're not going to get any pieces of the licensing and the merchandising or the pay-per-view or any of that other stuff, but you are going to get a check every two weeks. And that check every two weeks was enough for a lot of guys to make that move, especially guys with families and who had been in the business for a long time. Because you know, when you're young, when you're single, when you're early 20s,

you know, life is great. It's rock and roll. You're on the road. It's fun. Everybody's having a blast. You're making great money. You're not thinking about tomorrow too much or next month or next year. But if you've been around a block for a little while,

while, or you've got a family, you've got a mortgage, that guaranteed contract, even in some cases, if talent was making less money than they were making in WWE, with the profit sharing seven months, they were inclined to take the guaranteed contract because they knew that they could plan their financial life. So it was definitely a big advantage for us. Do you consider the fallacy of the fact that you were the first offer guaranteed contracts? I know that's not true whatsoever. dating back to Jim Crock of Promotions, dating back to Bill Watts, getting back to really anyone not named Vince McMahon in a power position,

but it was still a shot across the bow against Vince when you're walking over to Kevin Nash and Scott Holm going, here's 120 dates for $750,000 and then go back to Vince, and Vince goes, I can't match that. Well, he could have, but it would have completely upended his compensation model. He had a very sophisticated, very successful compensation model for independent contractors. But our approach would have required that he totally turned that upside down. And I think it's evolved, obviously since this time. There are some pretty significant guarantees in WWE. You know, Paul White was probably making 400 grand a year when he left WCW, whatever it was.

It wasn't that much. Paul wasn't that highly paid when he left. would have been in position to get a perfect guarantee. But he decided to go to WWE because WWE offered him $1 million a year. That was a big deal. And I don't know if there was anybody else prior to Paul that was getting that big of a guarantee. I was led to believe by others who may know, maybe not, that that was the biggest guarantee that Benson had ever offered anybody, especially somebody.

coming from WCW. So that was like a big turning point for WWE, but we forced it upon him. He didn't do it because he, out of the goodness of his heart, he did it because we forced him to do it. And that's just another way that I, we,

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point because I think it's a good one. You challenged the business model and brought up salaries that go along with additional revenue. You're running more live events. We're going through all that, but at the same time, to be competitive, you're going to have to spend money. And the instant WCW went away, you watched a mass roster exodus of top stars out of the WWF, coming out of the invasion, coming out of that. You watched a lot of those top guys come in and out of the company and didn't last very long, and Vince was able to reset the market at that point in time as well. He pushed Brock Lesnar to be a bigger star on somebody who's not making the same amount of money as, let's say, a rock was at the time. Resetting the market took place because WSW ultimately

went out of business. You pushed the next echelon of stars into Crispin-Loss, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Sleck, Slugher, all the way to the outsiders. And at the same time, without that push, Is anyone getting the Sting contract? Is anyone getting the Paul White contract? And that had to be a shock to Vince's system that he thought no one's ever going to be able to compare or match. But I'm able to provide to you merchandising and all that where you had to step up and go, here's what it's going to be. Here's what I'm guaranteeing you to get.

That was your play in the market. And it was a fight with Vince in negotiations at that point forward. Was it not? Yeah, it certainly was. It was a fight with the way Vince McMahon and WWE conducted business. You know, it's funny, Derek, today, when you read about business and you listen to interviews with people who are successful, who appear to have kind of come from out of nowhere with the next big idea, the next business, and oftentimes they're described as disruptors.

It's like a badge of honor to be a disruptor. If you can look at a business and figure out a way that you can make an answer, entry into that business, but do so so differently that you actually force change in the market and you get that tag of being a disruptor that everybody's so proud of. But really, that's what we were. Sure. We disrupted in a major, like seismic way. We disrupted the way the business had been established and run for a long time. So we're going to call the change in the business for guarantee contracts number four is that fair yeah i think that's i think that's fair now you're getting closer to the good stuff yeah speaking of the good stuff what do you got for number

three in terms of your top five fights with vincent kennedy mcm i think number three is challenging vince to a fight that was so much fun so much fun and i got to tell you it wasn't an idea that just that I've been planning on for a long time. It was really a reaction to Xbox coming out and cutting this promo when I fired him from WCW. Don't need to go into that. We've covered it. But when I let Sean go, and he went immediately to WWE, and I've often given credit to Sean, Xbox, Sean Walman.

he John Walman was probably as responsible for the success of the attitude era early on agreed and particularly the what was a group DX Xbox made that work and no just disrespect to any of the other talent they were all amazing talent they all contributed in enormous ways but the fact that I had just fired Xbox And he went to, he went to WW. We cut that promo and then, you know, DX showed up, you know, in Norfolk and showed up at CNN Center. That was a good move, by the way.

That was an Eric Bischoff move. That's something that I would have done. I love the idea. I hated that it was me on receiving it, but I love the idea. It was a great idea. But my reaction to Sean, when he came out and cut that promo on me was, okay, I know who's calling the shots. It's not you, Sean. You're just a toy.

You're just a tool. hogging the wheel guy who's really behind all this is Vince McMahon so I got no beef with you Sean I'd rather fight your boss whatever I said I don't say that was the point

well you you said a lot that day I remember I can hardly remember it to be honest with you when you challenged him you challenged him to a fight in his backyard because the slamboree paper view was coming up in the worst scissor war Kester Coliseum yeah easy for me to say right in Vince's backyard Now, Bruce Richard has gone out and say that you had jumped the shark when you did this

and that you knew Vincent wasn't going to come. What was your goal at the end of the day if Vince showed up? Quite a. And look, I love Bruce Richard. He's one of my best friends. I don't have a large circle of friends. I'm just not that guy. But Bruce is definitely in that circle, for sure.

Love him to death. But I didn't know he wasn't going to show up. I'm sure Bruce would like to think that at the time, or even now, perhaps, but it's not true. I didn't know for sure whether Vince would show up. In fact, Paul said, dude, what are you going to do when he shows up? Like, he was, there were talents there, Paul being one, Randy Savage being another, that were really concerned. Like, they pulled me aside.

I said, dude, what are you doing? So what do you mean? What I'm doing? I'm challenging Vince to a fight. It would be great. If he shows up at the pay-per-view, that would be awesome. And they put me aside and said, dude, you don't know this guy. You have no idea what he's capable.

I said, I've had my ass kick before, guys. It's not the first time. It won't be the last, probably. And we're going to make a lot of money. So, I mean, this isn't like me trying to be a tough guy, but I've had my ass kick so many times throughout my life. It's just not that big a deal. And if I can get paid to get my ass kick, sure.

It's not only not a big deal. I'll show up for that most any day. I would have back then. Probably think twice about it now. Don't heal as fast as I used to. But yeah, I thought for sure he, I didn't know for sure he would show up. But I was told by enough people, Hulk and Randy, and others,

that knew, that did know Vince really well, that they thought he was going to show up all the way up until the time he didn't. When we introed him and he no-showed, they were convinced he was going to show up that day. I think my favorite part of the whole situation when you challenge Vince was that Jerry McDiveth, the longtime W.E.F. lawyer sent you a letter, legal letter stating that Vince wouldn't show up. Not only in that letter said that, he said that by you challenging him and saying that he's not going to show up, it's going to make people think he will show up. I know, right? That's reverse psychology, Jerry. That's how wrestling. looking where it's you dip shit. He's not a dip shit, actually.

Jerry, you're a hell of a great attorney. I know you're retired. The whole dipshit thing, that's just me being entertaining. I didn't mean it. It's not disparaging. When you're not being how long. It hurts your career. This is called Cover Your Ass right now.

I'm going to do it. I've had my ass to do. I don't want to tango what Jeremy did it ever again. No, and I don't think W.O.E. wants to anymore now that he's retired. But that's neither her and her there. But my other favorite part of that, you even had Michael Buffer introduce yourself and Vince at the pay-per-view. And then had the referee count to 10

to make sure that Vince was counted out. So in the only singles match in WCW history for Vince McMahon, Eric Fischoff, has the victory. Yeah, I'm not only beat him for 83 weeks in a row, I beat him in the ring. I mean, that's, no wonder I'm in a WWE Hall of Fame. Who else can say that? Not people.

Who is walking the planet today, in this universe, living or dead can say that they not only beat Vince McMahon and head-to-head competition on television they beat them in the ring there you go not many people and that's why you are the leader of the 83 week army

that's for absolute sure and obviously Derek as I said earlier there were some of these tactics and these are tactics they weren't strategies they were tactics they were just one-off kind of maneuvers or moves designed to create controversy or get in Vince's head

and challenging him to a flight was really me trying to get into his head because again I didn't know Vince I had never I met him once briefly 1991 for a minute but I didn't all I knew was his reputation and I was led to believe

that he was a hot hit I was led to believe that he'd rather fight than do almost anything else I almost said something that shouldn't have said I knew that he liked to fight, and his preference was to fight as hard and as dirty as he could, which is why I thought there was a chance he would show up. So much so that I told Big Show, day of the event, it's truth.

If you ever talked to Big Show, you can ask him. I pulled Big Show aside because I knew, like, Hulk and Randy, those guys didn't, they didn't weren't going to get, look, those guys knew that at some point they may have to go back to work for WWF. Sure. They weren't really that excited about getting that crossways with Vince McMahon. which is another reason they were really not comfortable with me doing what I did. Because I was taking this competition between the two companies to an entirely different level

in challenging Vince's manhood, essentially. And I knew that if things went bad for me, I was pretty confident myself. I mean, I wrestled in high school. I wrestled in college, Greco-Roman and freestyle, A.A. freestyle wrestling, wrestling. I was in martial arts for a long time. I competed, took a couple pro fights. I got a bouncer in a barn downtown Chicago.

for a while. So, you know, contact wasn't something alien to me, but I was also told by people that, so he's, you know, if he, if he shows up and comes at you, he's going to try to hurt you. And again, I was confident enough of myself, but you never know. There's always somebody tougher. And I pulled big show aside and say, Paul, here's a deal. Do not get involved. If it goes bad for me, do not get involved unless it looks like the damage may be permanent. So if in your judgment, it looks like I'm on my way to a hospital for reconstructive surgery or replace an eye or anything else, feel free to step in and stop the fight. And I didn't have that conversation with respect to Bruce Pritchard's statement.

I didn't have that conversation because I was convinced he wasn't going to show. I made that comment to Paul because I thought there was a chance he might. Not a bad guy to have in your corner just making sure that, you know, you don't end up permanently disfigured by Vince McMahon. And considering the irony of that not seven months later, he leaves for a million-dollar guarantee contract, the first of any kind of history, the irony is striking.

One of the major things that happened in 1995 after the launch of Nitroar, kind of led to something even bigger going on in 1997. But what is number two on your list for one of your biggest fights with Vince McMahon? This was another, me just wanted to screw with Vince and get inside his head, get him off of his game. Medusa called me, and I had known Medusa. I started in the wrestling business right about the same time as Medusa. So we both started in 87, I believe. I'm not sure if she was there a week or two before me or vice versa.

But we both work for Vern, and I got to know Produce it pretty well. We'd become friends. We did a couple house shows together and did a number of different things together. She was always been a really cool chick. She was working for Vince, and whatever the circumstance was there, let her know that, you know, the clock was ticking and she didn't really have much of a future there, whatever the conversation was. And I'll never forget. I was at a nitro.

And I believe Medusa called Janie Engel, my assistant, and Janie handed me the phone. I talked to Medusa, and she said, look, they're cutting me loose. Is there any room for me in WCW? And because we were friends, and I respected her work, not just because we were friends, but I did respect her work. Well, I said, sure. Now, we can make something work. And she goes, oh, and by the way, I still have the title belt. Do you want me to bring it with?

It was her idea to this day. I don't know. I haven't heard her told us. So she tells different stories about the, we all do, right? Because memories, whatever, always try to make the story a little more interesting. I'm not saying this because I hold anything against her. But I've heard her tell the story a couple different ways over the years. And it always ends up with me being the one trying to convince her to do something against her will.

That was not the case. Got it. But when she offered it up, I snatched it. She didn't even finish the question when she said, well, you know, I still have the belt. Do you want? Yes, bring that belt with you. Yes. We'll have some fun with that.

So I think one of the major end goals of this domino butterfly effect, as I like to call, so without Medusa taking the trash can out on Nitro, cutting the promo, dropping it into the trash can, the DOWD women's title, does the Montreal screw job with Brett Hart in 1997 happen without that moment on Nitro? Derek, I had never considered that. That is a really cool and probably pretty accurate perception. You're right. You're right.

To me, it's just obvious. Yeah, I think it is. You know what's ironic is that, But when Medusa called me, said, hey, I still have the title. There were no lawsuits going on. Right. We hadn't been sued for the Razor Ramon diesel nonsense, which we never should have, we never should have settled that.

I'll never forgive the lawyers in WCW for settling that. We should have won that easily. It should have been dismissed anyway. But by the time 97 rolled up. around. I had so much pressure on me to not do anything that could be considered anti-competitive with WW. Sure. Couldn't reference people there. If I did, I had to be very careful how I did it. I had to be really, really careful. And the truth is, I told Brett, you know, when Brett was, you know, he wasn't sure what to do. He knew, you know, Vince wanted to drop the belt. Brett was concerned

how I'm going to, how I would react to that. Because Brett didn't know me that well at the time. And I remember I was here in Wyoming. I was actually yelcunting. And I was having dinner about 30 miles up the road from where I am at a little restaurant halfway at Yellowstone. And we stopped in for dinner and I got a page and I called right back. And he was in this dilemma.

Man, what should I do? What should I do? I said, just do the job. Do what you need to do to walk out of there as a professional. and don't do anything you're not proud of. Just, I don't need the belt. You're broke freaking heart. Right.

Nobody's going to care that, that you got beat in Montreal. It's not going to diminish the fan's perception of you. You're Brett Hart. So there was absolutely no way I was going to do anything with that belt. But Vince didn't know that because I pretty much established that I was willing to do just about anything. so yeah it's ironic but i think you're absolutely right man i don't think screw job would happen if it wouldn't have been for medusa coming up with the idea of throw the woman's title in the trash thanks medusa yes thank you medusa and i'm sure now we all know what number one is at least

in my mind after everything we've discussed the biggest launch the biggest nail in the coffin of we're here, we're going to compete. Your top fight with Vince McMahon has to be. Lex Lugar. Lex Lugar. And what's really cool about it is that move without question, set the tone for Nitro. You know, when you launch a business or a new product,

one of the things that if you're fortunate enough to have a great marketing team around, you in a marketing budget to work with and get all these brilliant minds. Everybody talks about branding statements. This was a branding statement. Yes. Bringing Lex in, surprising everybody, including my buddy, Bruce Pritchard, and everybody else in WWF, who had no idea that Lex's contract was up.

Or if they did, they weren't concerned and believed that they were going to re-sign them. It caught them so flat-footed. And that was the cool, that was a cool benefit of that tactic. But the most important result of doing that is I checked a box that I heard over and over and over again in all of the research and all the focus groups that we did all over the United States leading up to Nitro. The one common denominator And all of the feedback from those focus groups is we like surprises. Right. We like wrestling because watching wrestling, we often get things we didn't expect.

And I heard that over and over. It was the only consistent takeaway. There were maybe a few others, but they were that significant. That was a significant was always top of the list. So I thought, wait a minute. I've got an opportunity to do two things. It's one creatively pretty cool surprise for the show, satisfy that. Establish to the audience who were watching Nitro because it was the premier episode.

Nobody had ever seen it before. We didn't have any reputation, other than the one that, you know, WCW brought to the dance because of everything else we'd done up until the point. But that was a hell of a branding statement. Nitro was the place to come if you want to see the unexpected, if you want those big surprises. And we continue, along with other things, to try to create those surprises on Nitro because that became kind of our branding statement.

That's what we became known for. I think one of the really cool underrated moments of that of Lex coming to WCW is that you had something in Lex that came from WCW to the WWF, was pushed really hard up in 93, was never given that over-the-top push, and then was on his way down in the company. And he was all nice way to say, a mid-carter at that point in time. And you put him in the ring with Hulk Hogan. You put him in the ring with Sting, Rick Flair.

It's not just that you took a guy from their roster that was on TV over the weekend on syndication. You put him in a top spot. And you did it as someone who didn't have the best relationship with Lexington either. I'm going to put the creative juices behind this guy who I have issues with and trust issues with. and I'm still going to present him as a bigger star than the WWF ever achieved. And I think that goes right to the core of Vince McMahon because he's a creative guy at the end of the day. Yeah, you know, one of the things that always pissed me off, and when I say piss me off, it was more of a challenge than anything.

I didn't get pissed up when people say, yeah, but, you know, Vince really knows how to create talent. Er, because I knew it was true. That's why it pissed me off. I knew it was true. And WCW really hadn't. It's not what we were known for. And prior to me, you know, being in charge or otherwise, even after I was. And I always, I don't want to say resented, but it was like a goal of mine.

And with Lex, although I didn't create Lex, obviously, I've been around quite a bit at WCW before I even got there, and certainly in WWB, as the Lex Express and all that. But I made Lex a bigger star that Vince McMahon did, just like I made Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, bigger stars than Vince McMahon did. When you see Kevin Nash at a convention, he's not wearing diesel gear. He's not trying to push diesel merchandise. People wrestling fans, they know of Kevin Nash as diesel, but his star had never been brighter than it was when he was. as part of the NWO, and I'm proud of that. Absolutely.

So, yeah, that was, Lex, no doubt, was the first really major. That wasn't a shot over the bow. That was a kick in the balls. I love here. There's your headline coming out of this video. Eric Bischoff kicked Vincent McMahon in the balls with Lex Luka, debut in on Nitro. Eric, I don't think we missed anything, any other things that might have fallen on your list, maybe some honorable mentions. Well, there was this one time that Zane Bresloff and I were in Las Vegas.

There was a nappy TV convention. I've talked about this is kind of a fun thing. This is, again, trying to get inside of his head. Zane wasn't a drinker, and I was. And we were in Vegas for a couple of days early. It was the national advertising, production, television, whatever. it was, NAPD. It was all the major television producers and studios because syndication used to be a really big part of the television industry. It's not so much. But at one point

time, it was, it was a major part of the television industry. And they would have their conventions, into conventions. And I think they alternated like New Orleans, Vegas, Miami, whatever. There were really big freaking deals. I went to one in Miami and the Eagles were playing. one of the one of the television production companies that was there i can't remember which one it was a big one but they hired the eagles to play for a corporate party that night so it was a really big deal but one year it was in las vegas and zane brusloff and i was very close with zane my family i got a long great i go and zane knew everybody he was so wired in las vegas because he loved to gamble he didn't drink they loved to gamble sports book and

I was sitting there talking to Zane one day or one night and as you know, because Zane had a lot of friends in WWE. Right. I would get a lot of information through from Zane from WWE his contacts.

We were sitting down and I probably had a beer or two in me at that point. And he goes, hey, you know, it's just staying over at Treasure Island. He's got reservations there. I said, really? And Zane said, I've got some people I know there. If you want, I can cancel those reservations.

Now, the reason that that's meaningful is because it was really hard to get a hotel room during that convention in Las Vegas. People were booking that event, booking their hotel rooms months and months and months in advance. So I thought, God, would that be cool? Vince goes to check in. His room is canceled. He doesn't have anywhere to stay. Just another way to get inside his head and piss him off. Yeah, that's an honorable mention.

Not too many people know about it unless you listen to the show. I've discussed it. That was kind of a fun one. I can just imagine Vince McMahon yelling, God damn, pal, at a hotel train. What do you mean? I don't ask for a resume. I'm Vincent K. McMahon. You know it would be Bruce's fault at the end of the day.

Like, no doubt in my mind, he would put that one on Bruce. Like, I can see the conversation happening, and I can see just Bruce getting red-faced, and that would have been trouble. tremendous. But that was that was Zane Bresloff's idea. I just encouraged it. I got to tell you, I was late on the cash app train. I was using an old school app. And then when I started to do more in-person business, I realized, hey, I'm missing out. And now everywhere I go, I mean, every major convention, RussellCon, Starcast, Russell Kate, wherever they are, everybody's taking cash app.

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Visit Cash. Dot app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Five, four, three, two, one. It's time to count down the top five. We wanted to celebrate Nitro, Eric. I can't believe it's been 30 years by asking you, what were your top 5 WCW Monday Night Nitro moments? And I thought, hey, what better way to celebrate Nitro than to ask you your top

five moments? And we want to hear from you guys right now live on YouTube. What were some of your top five Nitro moments? We'll start with your number five, Eric, when Diamond Dallas page disguised himself as LaParka. This was a major surprise. I remember losing my mind as a young fan when I saw this. He's knee deep in his feud with Randy Savage in 1997.

LaParka was one of my favorite luchadors. And then all of a sudden, wait a minute, did Leparka just hit a diamond cutter? Bang, here's the big reveal. I loved it as a fan. But why was this one in your top five and so special to you, Eric? Because I think for me, now, GDP will have a different perspective because, you know, He lived it, and I didn't. But for me, as a producer, it was like, it wasn't the peak, certainly, of Page's success.

But he was sure on his way. And I think it was the moment, in combination with a lot of other things, but it was the real pivot point for Page to go from stardom to super stardom. and it's the magnitude of what, of how that moment catapulted DDP into the level that he ultimately became. It was an important moment and it was so well executed. You know, even in a shot that Super Dave just put up, you look at that crowd, they're behind the finish, they got the diamond cutter up, they're all on their feet. and when you can create that much energy and reaction as a television producer, and I'm certain as a performer,

it's a real sweet moment, man, and that was one of my favorites. What a magical moment it was. I know it's got to be on DDP shortlist too, but when we're asking you about your top five Monday Nitro moments, and again, we're live on YouTube, we want to hear your top five below. The number four moment that you pick,

was the genesis of Crow Sting. So to set the back story, the NWO has become a thing when Hulk Hogan joins the outsiders in July. And then we've got the August pay-per-view where the NWO is now in control of the big gold belt and they spray paint the world title. By September, well, that's the month for war games. It's going to be WCW versus the NWO.

And you guys had a quote-unquote fake sting, Jeff Farmer, dress up in Sting's gear. And we had a cliffhanger on a nitro that made people wonder, hey, is Sting with the NWO? And of course, we find out at the pay-per-view, no, it was the NWO trying to pull a fast one and confuse other people in WCW. And it wasn't too long before, wait a minute, what the hell's going on? Who's the, it's sting, but he's not colorful. He's not neon paint.

It's black and white, and he's got a leather jacket, and he's sitting in the rafters. why is the birth of Crow Sting in your top five, Eric? Probably for a lot of the same reasons that the DDP moment as Leparka was because it was and I think for me

it even goes a little bit earlier than that I think Sting was doing an interview he had his back to the camera and he just dropped some kind of he foreshadowed what was to come in a way that had people scratching their heads right? It's like wait a minute what did he just

why has he got his he's turning his back to us the people were confused in a great way right that was the goal is to get people going what the hell is going on with sting and then obviously

the crow sting character began and as you just talked about the real genesis of the character itself because it was so phenomenal man that was I always like to go back to the beginning of anything it's one of the reasons I talk about you know the spider web of life

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

world signing autographs as crow sting so how do you not look at that moment and go you know that was pretty important that was pretty cool it is interesting to think too because you know you take a look at a guy like cole kogan who certainly had two different iconic personas we know what we're talking about the red and yellow and then the black and white well sting kind of had the same thing too he had the neon colors, and then he had the crow thing. But where we would see Paul Kogan sort of post wrestling when he's just making public

appearances, he could go back and forth. Some days he'd do the yellow and red, and other days he'd do the black and white. I find it interesting that Sting has not really done that. He is maintained, with the exception of that one-off at Starcast, and then when his son's dressed up to pay homage

to the past and his final match in Greensboro last year, he's maintained the crow persona the entire time. I know we talk about the importance of the NWO to WCW, but the importance of the NWO to the Sting character can't be overstated because he never went back to neon. He stuck with the crow look the entire time. It changed his career. He may have been the biggest beneficiary of the NWO in totality. It may have been sting. man, that's an interesting perspective, and I agree with you on that.

If you think about, again, you know, stepping back, don't get mired in, you know, if you would have been a whole clean and whatever. Like, take your armchair quarterback or your armchair booker hat off. Just step back and look at it and think about it from a perspective. Sting was originally supposed to be the third man. He didn't get that opportunity, which in some respects was, probably a disappointment for Sting, especially given where the NWO eventually landed. And it continues to exist, right?

NWO is still one of the top ten merchandise items in the WWE merchandise catalog to this freaking day. And Sting had the opportunity to be the third man, and he wasn't. But if you look at, as you pointed out so well, who actually benefited the most as a talent? arguably Hulk because it was a second career for him it was completely reborn as a character

and enjoyed a tremendous amount of success as a result but Sting I think in many ways benefited even more than Hulk I mean Sting's been able to make a lot of money with that Crow Sting character for the last what's it been enough 25 years

yeah 30 years whatever it's been. It's a big benefit. I think it's pretty cool. And it certainly catapulted Sting. Sting was never as popular as a character in WCW as the Surfer Sting character. He was not a fraction as popular in WCW then in terms of scale, people that were watching and supporting as he was the Crow Sting character.

It was a much bigger character for him. I just think it's so interesting that, you know, the nostalgia is there for almost every wrestling personality, but where Hogan could reach back in his bag of tricks and come back with the red and yellow or the black and white, this thing is maintained the crows thing. You've got to think it's because it just resonated with fans in a bigger way. I had a conversation with him not too long ago, and he told me that the NWO angle really connected him with a large portion of wrestling fans who maybe were bullied at school or in youth sports or whatever they could identify with this one guy against this band of bad guys

these rebels these bullies because that's what the NWO was and Sting sort of represented the vigilante who could overcome all of that so those people who maybe felt they were being picked on or isolated from others or what have you in their real life maybe that character resonated more but I definitely feel like it pulled an emotional lever with fans that the neon surfers thing never did. Yeah, the neon surface thing was cool, it was exciting, it was colorful, it brought a lot of positive energy, woo, and all that was fun, you know, it's engaging. The audience could participate in it, right? And that's always really, really freaking important.

But I think the psychology, as you laid out so well, the psychology behind the character reached the audience at a different level. Now, the audience theoretically, they're watching because they're living vicariously. to one degree or another, they're living vicariously through these larger-than-life characters that they see on television. Same is true with dramatic series and probably sitcoms at some level. You relate to those characters in some unique way that makes you interested in them, right? Whether you're interested in their sense of humor or their ability to tell a story, their ability to make you feel certain things that you don't feel in the course of your normal day life.

the psychology with the sting character who's really an anti-hero right he was the ultimate good guy that's now willing to pick up a freaking baseball bat and clear a room because that room deserves to be cleared that's like an aspirational quality i think that most people at least like to believe is deep down within them some people probably believe it's right on the surface. And for some people it is. But I think almost everybody wishes they could be that guy that would show up and clear that room of the bullies that deserve to be cleared out. We all want that. We all want to be the hero.

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

that character was going to go take care of the bullies. And he was going to stand up for the little guy. He wasn't going to be picked on. And he was a vigilante. And on the other channel, who didn't want to live vicariously through Stone Cold Steve Austin and flip their boss off and tell him to kiss your ass and give him a start? Everybody wants to beat their boss up.

Everybody wants to beat up bullies. Like, I think it's interesting. that wrestling fans in 97, if you had some angst, you could live vicariously on Nitro or USA. And, yeah, both characters. Certainly Steve Austin was that blue collar, every man. It's got to show up to work and take crap from his boss or coworkers. He just said, you know what? I'm not doing this anymore.

That's every, I mean, I've worked a lot of jobs in my life, a lot of construction jobs, physical jobs, landscaping, digging ditches, roofing houses, you know, jobs where it's tough work. And you realize early on that almost every place you work, there's somebody, the immediate supervisor or somewhere up the line that just everybody's kind of like, man, I'd like to get that guy behind a, get him out behind a bar one night, just let him know how I really feel that was still called Steve Austin. But he did it, he did it in a fun way. It was visually fun to watch and live vicariously soon. Kung Fu Stick is with us here live and they say,

Eric, who was the person who could have did the sting gimmick, not the sting gimmick, but the sting gimmick. The idea being, we've talked about this a lot with the Undertaker, if anyone other than Mark Calloway does that, I think we all agree doesn't come off quite as well. You know, maybe it would have been a six week or a six month. I don't know that it would have been a 20 plus year career. But if someone else were to do this,

crow character. I'm not saying Surfer Sting. If Surfer Sting just stays with Steve Borden, if we need someone else to do this vigilante angle, and he's going to don the crow face paint and put on the black coat and sit in the rafters, is there anybody else that could have pulled it off or did it have to be

Steve Borden? I think it had to be Steve Borden because, again, you've got to go back and kind of remember at least what the general direction of the NWO and WCW was, was NWO is going to come in, decimate WCW, and NWCW is going to rise from the ashes and regain their position on the throne by taking out the NWO.

That was the premise of the long-term story that we had for that. Obviously, it took a lot of cuss and churns all the way in between, but that was the general premise. We knew initially that it had to be somebody that the wrestling fans identified most strongly with as a WCW hero. You had a choice at that time, arguably Rick Flair was that guy

in the minds of many. But the younger audience, the audience that we really had to kind of draft up and bring up along with us and expand, that was a thing. You know, you're hardcore wrestling fan, your devoted

traditional wrestling fan, it was Rick Flair all day long. But, The younger wrestling fan, the younger part of our audience, it was definitely Sting. And given the choice between Flair and Sting, I couldn't imagine Rick Flair dressing up like the crow, the bird on his knit shoulder, sitting up, and I certainly couldn't see Rickler scaling down on a rope getting dropped in the middle of the arena. I could see Sting doing it, and it was the right choice.

I don't think anybody else could have done that. I mean, physically, could somebody else have done it? Sure. A lot of guys could have done it. Could have been Crow Guerrero, I guess. But here's the reason why I think Sting worked so well. Keep in mind, Sting had been studying acting for a long time. In fact, I executed, produced an independent film with Sting called The Real Reason Men

Can Make Crimes, I think. I was the executive producer of that. I think it aired on TBS or TNT, one of those. the other but um sting was really committed to acting he was learning he was studying he was training with with acting coaches and that character you had to kind of immerse yourself in a character you didn't have the luxury of the spoken word there were no interviews to get that character over there was very little physical contact for a long time in order to get that character over there were no matches. There were no two-minute promos. But the character had to grow and build. And I think

because Sting understood how to use his body, his presence, his eyes, even though he was in full makeup, he made that character believable. I don't know that any other wrestlers on the roster at that time would have taken the same approach to that character as Steve Borden did because of his passion for acting. And I know people go, what do you mean acting? You know, I have to do standing with a bird. Yeah, try doing that and getting a reaction sometime.

It was more than just the outfit and the gimmick and the staging. It was more than that. It was a character that didn't talk, that did very little physically, that connected to that audience in amazing way. And that's great acting. We're visiting Eric's top five Nitro Moments. As a reminder, number five.

was DDP doing his best LaParka in the middle of the Randy Savage angle. Number four was the creation of Crow Sting. All right, guys, let's be serious here for a minute. Life happens fast. You know, one minute you're driving home after work and the next you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Your heart skips, your hands tighten on the wheel. And you start asking yourself, what do I do now? That's when you need someone on your side.

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The legal buddy app, always on your side, download the app today and enter the referral code legal. But number three is one that everybody remembers. This two is 1996. This will be our second 1996. This is from late July, just a couple of weeks after Hulk Hogan has become bad guy at the bash at the beach. I guess we'll call it the Disney Massacre where we found this all.

Ray Mysterio Jr. used as a lawn dart, but this got so real, Eric, that the actual authorities were called. This had to be a good feeling for you. It was so exciting. And, yeah, to have ambulances and cop cars in a fire truck rushing to the set because people that lived in proximity to Disney MGM studios that was watching Nitro live on television called 911 because of what they saw happening on live television. called 911 because of what they saw happening on live television, man, if that's not the sweet spot, I've talked before about the sweet spot. What's the sweet spot you say, Eric?

The sweet spot is when you get an audience that knows everything you're doing is scripted, but then you're able to create a scenario, a scene, a moment, where they go, yeah, I know this stuff is scripted, but that's not supposed to happen. That's real. That's the sweet spot. And we just nailed that sweet spot. It was awesome.

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

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

literally catapult wcw from second hind teeth in this monday night war or just in the promotional war of in the wbf had been king for so long and with this one move the winds of change were here it's number two on your list and well deserved scott hall's a big part of the entire success of nitro don't you think without question you know in that moment again it's you know the same thing with the ddp thing you know with playing laparca and you know kicking off the randy savage angle or you know the very all the things we've already talked about It's like, for me personally, it's like, where did it all begin? What was the moment that changed so much?

Because those are the moments that I put so much value in, right? They're not necessarily the most fun moments, but they're the most important ones. And I think when Scott Hall came down through the crowd, ever been done before, everybody thought, oh, my gosh, this must be real because I've never seen it before. nobody does this and if they don't normally do this then therefore it's not supposed to happen therefore it's real that was the psychology behind that scene and to see it play out not knowing them what we've all learned since about how again w.O would become and how it would impact the industry really but to go back and look at that moment now or to relive that moment in my mind it's pretty

freaking Austin because that was the beginning of so much. That was the beginning of Stone Cold Steve Austin. That was the beginning of the attitude era. That was the beginning of, you know, everything that you saw in WWE roughly a year later started occurring because of that moment when Scott Hall came down through the crowd and let everybody know that he was here to do, he was here to make a statement. It was awesome. We're live right now at 83 weeks.com. Hit that subscribe button and most importantly, turn on the notifications bell. But let us know below what's your top five moments in Nitro history.

Yesterday was the 30-year anniversary. Eric's breaking his down. Number five was DDP doing his best laparca. That was 1997. In September of 1996, the birth of Crow Sting came in at number four for Eric. The Disney Massacre, which led the Ray Mysterio, doing his, best lawn dart impersonation that was late july 1996 that's number three on erics list number two we just heard is the debut of scott hall coming down through the crowd but eric's number

one top five moment in nitro history is the lex luger debut why is this number one eric because it's set the tone for nitro and nitro changed you know people always said oh it's going to change the wrestling business forever. Okay, whatever. Very few things, very few moments, very few ideas, very few decisions actually change the industry. The rest of it is like participation trophies and make people feel good about themselves or each other. This moment, the launch of Nitro, and because of the impact and the buzz that Lex Lugar created, absolutely catapulted Nitro. right out of the gate. I talked about it earlier.

We came out of the gate competitive. We didn't have to work up to trying to be competitive at WWE. We went from a distant number two, pretty much where Tony Kahn is today, in about the same relative position. We went from that to kicking his ass in less than 12 months. But that initial 12 months, we kick his ass one week, he kick ours the next. We were competitive right out of the last. of the shoot. And it was because, in many respects, because of that moment that we created,

that the wrestling audience told me they wanted. It was born out of research, as we've already described. It wasn't like, oh, I got this great idea. I'm so smart. I'm the most creative wrestling person in the world. No, I just listened to the freaking audience and figured out a way to do it. That way was Lex Lugar. And Lex Lugar, because of this situation, again, timing is everything, right? Sometimes it works for you. Sometimes it works against you. Timing was on our side. The audience was telling us what they wanted. It was the key to our success. The situation with Lex Lugar was so unbelievably unique in terms of the timing and the opportunity that it created. That moment to me is why it's my number one moment because that

moment, in my opinion, changed not only my fortunes, Lex's, everybody in WCWs, but if anybody should be thankful for that moment, it should be any stockholder in WWW. because that's the reason WWE started doing what we were doing, which is targeting that 18 to 49 year old instead of teens and preteens, going live every week, just like we

taught them to do, introducing more reality-based storyline, Stone Cold Steve Austin, all in my Tyson, Mr. McMahon, all of that was a result of that moment with Lex Lugar, in my not so humble opinion.

We're live here and we've got to a comment from yes have some who says the first episode of nitro was burned in my brain and i consider it one of the best television pilots of all time alongside the sopranos lost and breaking bad i know you have a whole second act after pro wrestling where you just did television but to hear that your first episode of nitro at least in this fan's opinion is up there with the pilots for the sopranos and lost and breaking bad that's got to make you feel good doesn't it Sure. Of course, I'm a human being. I like to hear good shit. I get enough of a bad shit. So every once in a while, yeah, I'll take that all day long and

and be grateful for it. Thank you very much. Well, we're going to talk about some more good shit, as you said, because I felt like, man, I could not have a different, a more different list than you because I don't think I could have a top five nitro moments without mentioning when I'm going to squeeze into your honorable mentions list. Goldberg beating Hulk Hogan at the Georgia Dome for the big gold belt. Like, that felt like the high watermark for me for WCW. Like, I think this is one of those moments where as a wrestling fan, you remember where you were when it happened.

I was at my parents' time share at the landmark in Panama City on Front Beach Road. And Monday Night Raw was a taped raw where they had DX doing some regrettable cosplay as the nation of domination. But you had Goldberg, this understanding, unstoppable force that came out of nowhere. We didn't even know his name a year prior. Now he's beating Hulk Hogan in the Georgia Dome in front of what seemed like 100,000 fans.

Of course, it wasn't. But that's on my list, Eric, and it's got to at least be an honorable mention for you, right? Oh, of course. And arguably,

it could be on anybody's number one at the list because it was a huge moment. I think we had like 40,000 people in attendance and it was huge. And, you know, it's like it goes back to the beginning of Nitro. You know, part of the format, the Nitro format that changed the wrestling industry legitimately, not as a participation trophy phrase. Arguably this match in putting it on free TV, which was part of the strength of Nitro. I talked early on with Nitro in the format. We're going to bring matches and angles that you typically wouldn't see on Realty.

television. We're going to bring that pay-per-view quality content to weekly television. And a lot of the people, a lot of the dirt sheet writers at the time was like, oh, he's going to kill the business, this is going to be horrible, the pay-per-view business is going to die after putting all these big matchups on free TV. All of the geniuses who've convinced themselves and others that they understood the wrestling business because they, quote, unquote, studied it. All of them said that it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Well, here we are, years later, after dominating the WWE with a formula that everybody said was going to fail, to take it to the next step and put arguably, in fact, a lot of people were so critical of it.

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

It was absolutely pay-per-view quality. In the minds of probably the majority of wrestling fans, absolutely should have been a pay-per-view. In fact, some people say, that's the beginning of the downfall of WCW. Like, what the fuck? But, yeah, that was a very cool moment, and arguably, number one, in a lot of people's minds.

I feel like Lex Lugar is perhaps criminally underrated when you think about magical moments because you have, as your number one, Lex Lugar's debut, switching teams. He was in the WWF doing a house show on Sunday night, on Monday night. Here he is at the Mall of America, challenging Hulk Hogan.

But it was when he beat Hulk Hogan on Nitro 100, the first ever three-hour Nitro from the Palace of Auburn Hills, the same building where years prior, he was supposed to win the world title at SummerSlam from Yoko Zona. He's unsuccessful. And I think everybody thought for sure based on the Lex Express, well, he's definitely going to win the world title.

It didn't happen for him. But it does a few years later when he does the unthinkable. He beat Hollywood Hulk Hogan. How in the world is this even possible? That is definitely on my honorable mention list. I mean, just the reaction from the crowd alone, I think it's got to be on the list of biggest pops in WCW history. But then even the backstage celebration after

where you see Ray Mysterio, Lex, and others trying to furiously scrub that NW. Spray paint off the world title. This has to be on the honorable mentions list, doesn't it? Oh, it's such a cool moment. And again, because of the way my mind works, I'm always looking to go back to the genesis of things and where it all began. To me, that's the most fascinating. Without question, in terms of a big moment, Goldberghogan, obviously, this right there with it for different reasons. But this moment's right there with the Hogan, Goldberg, you know,

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

it was Rick Flair's return to WCW Television in the fall of 98. He comes out and they recreate the horseman and announce that he's back. And it leads to a fiery confrontation with you on camera. And people who had been reading the observer in the torch and calling the hotlines, they knew that there was a back and forth. That led to the iconic, fire me, I'm already fired. I mean, just a great moment on WCW television. And the reaction from the fans that night in Greenville, I mean, it was a, it was a pretty special moment.

That makes my list of honorable missions. Would this be on your list as well? Nah. I mean, it was a cool moment. And if you're a Rick Flair fan, especially, absolutely one of his highlights. I thought it was excellent television. But I don't know that I'd, I don't know. if I'd put it in there with your other two

honorable mentions. It wasn't quite that impactful, but certainly a great moment. I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. I got to go out there and work with Rick Claire. If you can't have fun working with Rick Claire, you're in the wrong business. So for that aspect, you know, I really

dug it. I don't know if it had as much impact on me as maybe it did on others. Well, it was a fantastic moment as a fan who was keeping up with some of the behind the scenes, because I think as wrestling fans, we all want to suspend our disbelief we want to be able to point the things and say well listen i know what the show is but now this well that was real that felt real it felt like well it

mostly was real yes that's the sweet part and i guess i shouldn't be looking at this a little differently in terms of significant moments because it was another example of the formula that made nitro successful which was the reality based television when i talk about that And I referenced reality-based television. It probably means different things to different people. But for me, it's taking real-life scenarios that people are aware of, modifying them somewhat, playing with them a little bit, getting a little creative with them,

and bringing those real-life issues into a scripted environment and doing so and keeping it believable. This was a great example of that. You know, one of the challenges, you know, I mean, anybody that knows right clear knows. he wears these emotions on his sleep. It's not going to be hard to figure out what Rickler's thinking in any given minute, right? That can be challenging at times, but it can also be a real gift.

And in this case, from a television producer's point of view and a talent's point of view, in my case, working with Rick, same reason I used to like to work with Steve Austin because it came so easy, because Steve Austin could make you believe it was real. McPowley could make you believe it was real when he wanted to. Rick Blair could make you believe it was real. And in this scenario, with this backstory, which was very real, and because Rick did wear his emotions on his sleeve, that intensity is seemingly portrayed hatred of me. That was not acting. That was Rick wearing his emotions out of sleeves. And just letting me have it but within the structure of a story that had a payoff that's kind of

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