83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 397: Yeti Madness

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad take us back to Monday night for a classic edition of WCW Monday Nitro! Eric shares the behind-the-scenes story of how the infamous Yeti came to be — and who was responsible for the hilariously unforgettable idea. Then, Massive Heat host Raj Giri joins the show to break down the latest headlines in professional wrestling, including the continued rise in ticket prices. Plus, Eric reveals his Top 5 Reasons WCW’s presentation was better than WWE’s in the 90's — and you might just agree with him! RIDGE - Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code 83WEEKS at https://www.Ridge.com/83WEEKS ! #Ridgepod STEVEN SINGER JEWELER - No one does real diamond jewelry better. Experience the difference at Steven Singer Jewelers. Online at http://IHATESTEVENSINGER.com . Always fast delivery and FREE shipping.   JCW LUNACY - Juggalo Championship Wrestling drops BRAND NEW episodes of Lunacy every Thursday at 7pm ET exclusively on their YouTube channel http://youtube.com/@psychopathic_records check it out! BLUECHEW - Visit https://bluechew.com and try your first month of BlueChew FREE when you use promo code 83WEEKS -- just pay $5 shipping. STOPBOX - Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code 83WEEKS at https://stopboxusa.com/83WEEKS #stopboxpod SIGNOS - Go to signos.com, and get $10 off select plans with code 83WEEKS. 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.

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So by now you've heard me bragging about saving people money at save with Conrad.com years, but I thought, you know what, don't take my word for it. Let's ask someone who really did save with Conrad. Let's welcome in Tyrus. Tyrus, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm good, Conrad. How about yourself? Man, I'm delighted to talk to you. I got to ask, what made you come to Save with Conrad originally? Well, first, I'm a return shopper, if you will. I was listening to the podcast years ago now with you and Bruce, and I just figured We were in the mode for a refinance, and I heard you guys save money, so I called you guys, got hooked up with Jimmy way back then, and that's really how the ball started to roll. So initially you were interested in lower your monthly payments, or did you want to knock out some credit card debt?

Or what was your goal the first time you went to save with Conrad.com? It was mostly just to get the lower rate, but there's a little bit of credit card debt in there, too, so we rolled that all up. And you got a cheaper monthly payment on the other side of that? Yeah, yep. And with this time that I used, it saved me quite a bit a month. Yeah. So let's talk about what brought you back to Save with Conrad. First of all, thank you for using us not once but twice. I appreciate that. But that was your needs back then. When was that? Was that 2020 that you did that before? Yeah, it was around that maybe 2019 somewhere around that. Okay. So now a few years later, your needs have changed. What prompted you to go to Save Withconrad.com this time? Well, we were looking to refinance once again, because we bought during the high rate time, and we had, you know, a little bit of credit card.

And we thought, why not hit that refinance button? And originally, we were thinking, why not just go through the national brand that was servicing our loan? I called one of them over there, and he crunched the numbers, and he said, no can do. sorry. And then I thought, I'll just say with Conrad again. And I called and the delightful Francis answered and you know her. Oh yeah. And the first thing after I told her what the national brand said, she just said, are they stupid? We can. We can save you money. And she got the ball rolling. I worked with the OG Larry and saving $425 a month. All right. I love to hear that, man. $425 a month. I love that, dude. Congratulations.

Thank you. If you had someone who was on the fence, because I know that there's a lot of people who just know me as the wrestling podcaster, but if you had someone who listens to my pods and they're on the fence about whether or not this is a real service and can he really do this, I mean, what would you, what would you say to that? Absolutely do it. It worked for me multiple times from Jimmy way back when to Francis. And Larry, just the whole team, they just had nothing but great things to say they're easy to work with. They worked well with the inspectors and everything like that. It's just a great experience and I would recommend it to anybody. Well, I'm glad that we were able to help save you some money. And I would be delighted if we can help save you and your family some money.

Do what Tyrus did. Go right now to savewithconrad.com. You can talk to a live person, get a quick quote, or just drop us an email directly at Conrad at Save withconrad.com. And of course, we can still do it with the old school way. Give us a call toll free at 8884250105. Thanks for all the time today, Tyrus. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Conrad. In a lesson number 212, not equal housing lender. Save with Conrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fish Off, Eric.

What's going on, man? How are you? I'm good, bud. I am in State College, Pennsylvania, part of Pennsylvania. I've never been to before. That's always exciting. At Penn State, on the campus of Penn State, the mecca of collegiate wrestling. if you talk to people from this part of the country.

Don't talk to anybody in Oklahoma or Iowa can say that. But here in Pennsylvania, wrestling is king. So we're looking forward to a fun weekend. We've got some amazing wrestlers going to hit the map. Mason Paris, Kyle Dake, a lot of good stuff coming your way, man. There's going to be some great matchups. We've got Olympic champions, world champions, Bad asses from all walks.

Boe Nichols is going to join us. He's going to jump in about halfway through and cover our main event to action for us. So it's going to be a fun night. I can't wait. I had a blast watching Real American Freestyle, the maiden voyage. And I'm really excited that as folks are listening to this,

tomorrow night, Real American Freestyle number two is happening live from Penn State University. You just saw the card. If you're watching along with us here at 83 weeks.com, it's absolutely stacked. and I'm pretty fired up about this, man. What I'm really excited about, though, is, you know, the collector in me can't help but appreciate that you guys have some new

trading cards coming to me. Yeah, I mean, Shab Razin is doing a great job of getting this brand out there. You know, we've got sponsorships already. We've got a trading card deal that we're launching. There's just a lot of great stuff happening. And again, it's, you know, it's just the enthusiasm of a new sport, you know, something that's never been done before. So we're getting a lot of positive reaction.

One of the matchups I wanted to talk about that I'm really looking forward to because this cat, like, he ended up, you know, as an elite level, you know, wrestler, but he could have easily been a sports entertainer. As Pat Downey, I don't know if you've seen many of his clips, but he's a very controversial cat. I was thinking when we were listening to the open here, they just unbelievably good NWO music, that I should see if we could license that one time. I'd love to have Pat Downey come out to the NWO music because Pat Downey is about his NWO, his NWK could get. So it should be fun. So it's going to be a fun weekend. Tell everybody where they can watch the event, Eric.

Well, if you are local, you can come to the Bryce Jordan Center here at Penn State, but if you're like almost everybody else, you can check us out on Fox Nation. If you haven't subscribed Fox Nation, it's a great platform, a lot of really cool content. they're developing some of it 50 cents got a new series there a lot of really good stuff but of course for no other reason real american freestyle of fox nation real american freestyle is where you can pick up those tickets if you're in the pennsylvania area and within driving distance and you want to be able to say that you were there during one of these very first raf events but the fox nation app i just want to give them a cheap plug i have to admit before real

American freestyle. I did not have the app and wasn't even really familiar with the service. It's only like seven or eight bucks, Eric. The idea that you're essentially getting a PLE at this point for a few dollars is like maybe the best value in sports right now. It is. And, you know, we're putting a lot. Financially, we're putting a lot into these events. We're not cutting any corners at all. But the people of Fox are super excited about us. Obviously, you know, if you're a fan of amateur wrestling, if you're not high school wrestler, collegiate wrestler, or just a fan or family member of somebody who is an athlete, I mean, get out and subscribe it, Fox Nation, support Real American Freestyle, because that's what they're looking at. Fox is looking at

those new subscriptions, and we know there's a hell of a big loyal audience out there for amateur wrestling, for MMA, and really, wrestling is the foundation of MMA. It's built upon MMA is built upon wrestling and wrestling skills. So if you love MMA, check us out. We think you'll love us too, but check out Fox Nation. Real American Freestyle.com to grab those tickets. Of course, the Fox Nation app

is where you can watch the event. I'm going to be watching. It's happening tomorrow night, Saturday night. You don't want to miss it. And I'm fired up for it, man. I've been to state college before. I saw Alabama play Penn State there years ago. That's a beautiful part of the country. I'd never seen before, Eric. It really is. And, you know, I've traveled, you know, I lived in western Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh for a while

and traveled around the western side of the state quite a bit, even as a kid. But I'd never been in this part of Pennsylvania. And it is, I mean, just geographically, it's the mountains, just the terrain. It's a beautiful, beautiful part of the country. And that stadium, the Penn State Stadium, holy smokes. I mean, that's a hell of a stadium. well we're looking forward to it don't dare miss it real american freestyle dot com is where you can grab your tickets the fox nation app it's so early this is fun to be a part of almost like a

ground floor opportunity to be able to say hey i was there at real american freestyle number two let's jump into some rassling talk today though because we love talking about the way rasseling used to be and of course on this show that means we're going to be talking a little bit about monday nitro i can't believe this is real, but like 30 years ago, almost this exact same day, you and I are recording on a Wednesday that's unusual for us as folks are listening to this. 30 years ago yesterday, you guys did your first nitro from right here in Huntsville, Alabama at the Von Braun Civic Center. There are about 7,000 folks in attendance. Only 2100 of those were paid, so it's a

pretty small gate of 18,000. But in this era of trying to compete, But the juggernaut, the number one wrestling show of all time, Monday Night Raw, the optics are pretty important. So I know that sounds bad, 2,100 paid 7,000 in attendance, but looking big and being live, that was important for Nitrell, wasn't it? Absolutely. That was the reason why I went to the Mall of America for the very first episode, because we had zero confidence that we would be able to put a significant enough number of people in a venue to, make it look good on television. And there's a psychology to that. It should be kind of easy to figure out, but people, you just, most people don't think

about it, right, from a television producer's perspective. But if you're sitting at home and you decide to watch something, some live sports, live, live action, live whatever, and you tune in and you see that the crowd, there's kind of a crowd there, and they're not very excited, and they're not very animated. And the action that could be going on in the ring could be perfectly fine. But the audience just isn't with it for whatever reason. And it's a small, when it's a small audience, you've got to turn down the lights. When you turn down the lights, so you're not drawing attention to the fact that you've got a bunch of empty seats,

it takes away from the pop inside of the ring. Colors aren't quite as bright. It doesn't look quite as vibrant. It has a dingy, dark kind of feel that as a viewer, you're not going to really notice it. but what you're also not going to notice is energy. And while you're sitting at home, watching a bunch of people who are really, they're there, their asses are in the seats, and they're not having a good time, you don't feel that energy, you don't see that energy,

what do you think is going on subconsciously in the viewer's mind? And no reason really to watch this. Boom, you're gone, right? So you have to have enough energy in the venue, to translate to the viewer at home if you're live action sports. You have to. It's mandatory. Elvis Presley said it.

The most important part of any one of his shows was the audience. And the point I'm making is very similar in that respect. And since we couldn't draw an audience, particularly in places like Huntsville, you know why? Even though, you know, Night Show was fairly, you know, had a buzz on it, wasn't really the hot show yet. But the reason we couldn't draw on Huntsville is because WCW absolutely destroyed that market with paper. They've been paper houses for so long in the southeast. There wasn't a market that we couldn't go to where we hadn't conditioned the fans in that market to the fact that you just don't have to buy a ticket to WCW.

They're going to go on sale. You can go buy one. or you can wait for about five days before the show and then you can go get one for free with a hamburger anywhere in town. And when you've spent years, as WCW did, before I took over, everything was papered because they produced all of their television

was produced in places like the Bon Brons Center. And all over the Southeast where you had those absolutely perfect venues, 5,000 to 10,000 seat venues, big enough to look good on television, but not so big that, you know, it seemed like you were putting on a wrestling event in a cave. But every one of those great buildings, we had burned to the ground by papering the houses for television. So to all of a sudden get the market to go, yeah, I'm going to drop 40 bucks for a ticket, we weren't there yet, which is why there was so much paper. let's talk about that episode of Nitro we start with the macho man's music he's going to come to the ring and wrestle Kurosawa this is a new japan relationship

Kurosawa actually wound up having about 40 matches with different WCW competitors but he did spend a good amount of time here between 95 and 96 in wcw we would see some other talent featured more prominently was this a quote unquote excursion for kurosawa was it supposed to be a short-term thing? Or why didn't he become a long-term player for WCW? Well, there were a lot of reasons. I think the primary reason that New Japan and Wanda Curacao to come over is because they wanted him

to become familiar with the American-style wrestling. He'd been in the dojo. He'd been part of New Japan, but he was young, didn't have a lot of international experience, and Masasaito felt that it was a good thing for him to come over to the United States for a short period of time to train, to compete, and just to begin to get exposure to the American system or the WCW system at that time. It was never intended to be a long-term deal.

A lot of times, you know, visa restrictions were the primary reason that a lot of guys couldn't come over and stay for lengths of time. In other cases, it was just, you know, they had families in Japan and they couldn't just disappear for six months and leave their families behind. between the visa situation and just, you know, real life, it was very difficult for guys to come over and spend any length of time consistently. I do want to ask you about this next segment. As a reminder, this is the go home episode of Nitro before Halloween havoc 1995.

Yes, that Halloween havoc. And in this particular segment, immediately following the Savage Kurosawa match, we learned from you on commentary, because this is still the era where you're in the sea and not yet Tony Shibani, that Hulk Hogan, the giant, and the entire Dungeon of Doom

are present in the building when all of a sudden you guys are interrupted by King Curtis. Now, I've always felt like these King Curtis promos, I imagine that they were shot in Hawaii, but this one in particular, I think, was done here in Huntsville. And King Curtis's positioned

as almost being the Dungeon of Doom's, I don't know, supplier of wisdom. You know, he's here babbling on in some variation of English and all of a sudden we see Sullivan appear with the giant and Gene Oakerland and they're talking about this insurance policy. That is of course a giant block of

ice in the background and Sullivan is referring to this insurance pump policy as the Yeti and he's talking about this being an evil dwelling in Hogan's heart and Sullivan says he doesn't think there's one bit of goodness left in Hulk Hogan and the giant is going to say that he is the real immortal not Hulk Hogan and Sullivan promises us that the Yeti will be in Detroit for Halloween Havoc. This is, uh,

of course, going to be the debut of the Yeti at Halloween Havoc. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking to yourself self. Okay, Yeti sounds like the abominable snowman. But what we actually got was a guy wrapped up in athletic tape that looked like. that looked like toilet paper dressed like a mummy not really a Yeti is this the GHB era of

WCW what's going on here how does this happen here it was a far more successful um angle creatively that people give it credit for because they didn't name a cooler after him yep they did that's true come out there's an upside right now i dude as you're laying this all out to me and i'm looking at some of those stills and you know i i i i've got to got to be careful because I loved Hulk. He was one of my best friends. But that doesn't take away the fact that sometimes he came up with some really ridiculous shit. As did I, as do all of us who are in the business of coming up with good ideas, you can't spend a career coming up with good ideas and getting paid for it without coming up with some bad ones along the way.

this was one of those and the reason I couldn't stop laughing is I'm imagining Hulk and Kevin Sullivan in a room laying this stuff out and bouncing ideas off each other because as goofy as this idea was in 1995 and believe me it was still goofy in 1995 it's not like we're looking back at something 20 years ago and say, yeah, well, everything was kind of goofy back. No, this was this was the epitome of goofiness even in 95. This is like Memphis kind of stuff, right? But both Hulk and Kevin had a lot of Memphis in them. And I don't know if it's because, you know, earlier in her careers, they were in, they had, they had success with that kind of storyline in that market or it's just they were having fun i don't know what the deal

was but that was bizarre bro i could i could have stopped it or at least tried to and i didn't so it's not like i'm blaming anybody else i'm not putting it on hulk i'm not putting it on kevin because ultimately i could have stopped it and i should have because it was downright horrible but it's it's funny now we can go back and get a chuckle out of it I have a theory about this. I want to pitch you. And I'm not saying that you think they were both high. No,

not at all. I was just kidding. I'm fully, I would agree with you on that. Well, they may have been, but that's a separate thing. I've had a theory for a long time,

especially when you look back at the NWA era, we'll call it the Jim Crockett Promotions era. They were positioning themselves like they were at real wrestling. And the WWF was more of the Hollywood stuff for kids. They didn't have cartoons. They weren't on lunch boxes and sleeping bags. They didn't have action figures, that sort of thing. They couldn't get any licensing or merchandising or any of that kind of stuff.

It was aimed at an older audience, you know, so it was more blood and guts and down and dirty. And I think that's why so many of our listeners really love it and gravitate to it now. But let's be honest, the majority of our listeners now grew up on WWF programming. They had the Hulk Hogan action figures and that sort of thing. So if WCW wants to be in that game and they want to aim to a more youthful younger audience, then it makes sense that you get the hero from the other channel, that's Hulk Ogan. So if you know that this dude made a mint from licensing, action figures, toys,

lunch boxes, sleeping bag, just kid stuff, then it makes sense that you would try to aim some of his storylines and angles towards kid stuff. And I know this is silly, the whole dungeon of doom nonsense and the Yeti and the block of ice, but let's take ourselves back to 1995. Wasn't the Mighty Morphingen Power Rangers one of the number one syndicated shows? at the time. Weren't they a merch monster, weren't they a licensing machine? So if you're thinking about it from a targeting the children standpoint, and I mean that in a positive way, not a negative way, but we're talking about monetizing merch and the Hulk Hogan IP. It makes sense that you

would have Hulk Hogan, like if Hulk Hogan appeared in a Mighty Morphan Power Rangers in 95, would anybody have really been shocked? I wouldn't have. It kind of felt like, yeah, well, that makes sense. It's going to on brand with Hulk Hogan and the type of things he does. So this to me, is an attempt to set the hook for those kids who watch Mighty Morphan Power Rangers who grew up with Hulk Hogan like it's okay if it's a little over the top and a little silly just like Mighty Mighty Morphan Power Rangers was I don't know that's just a guess that I think is worth discussing maybe well it's generous number one there's a very generous take on your part meaning you're ascribing some strategic or tactical you know plan to a creative

and I'd like to think that that was the case. And I could sit here and pretend that it was and give myself an out, so to speak, for allowing it to happen. But I can assure you that was not part of any conversation. This was solely a Kevin Hulk. They were in their creative groove, and they both loved this idea.

And they fed off of each other. Here's, you're partially right. in that one of the reasons that we brought HALC to WCW is because WCW has zero licensing. Our merchandising was abysmal. The number of shirts we'd sell at an event, well, we had to give the tickets away. How many people do you think actually bought shirts?

Right. And the idea was, well, if we, this is like macro, like looking at a big picture. Well, if we bring Hulk Hogan in, we'll get more licensing and merchandising deals. Kind of, yeah, possibly yes, potentially for sure. But a lot has to go into positioning yourself for those licensing and merchandising deals that take a long time and that you have to be very targeted.

The problem with the creative that we're talking about, you know, the Dungeon of Doom Creative and why it didn't work from a licensing, and merchandising perspective or from a television perspective is because if taking your your theory your perspective your theory if we had a kid's audience right then your your perspective would be logical and I would probably go yeah I didn't think of it but I probably should but we didn't have a kids audience our audience was like 25 to 90 The TBS and TNT audience was not, now we were trying to attract teens, or excuse me, 18 to 39, but clearly we weren't there yet, not with this stuff, right? So we're not satisfying our existing audience.

We're taking something that is so unique, I'll be generous too, we're taking some creative that is so unique that's targeted toward kids and we're going to put it out there knowing we don't have. any kids and we're going to turn off the core audience that we do have because they're not going to sit through this shit. So that was like the double whammy. If we would have had a children's audience and if we would have had some licensing and merchandising in place, absolutely your theory would be 100% applicable. But we didn't have a kid's audience and we didn't have any licensing and merchandising in place. We just came up with a really, really silly idea. you know we were fortunate enough to sit with kevin a few years ago at one of our top guy events here for ad free shows in huntsville and one of the first questions when we opened it up for q and a for our family members of ad free shows.com was hey why did you do the dungeon of doom you're this genius booker this is a terrible idea it's terrible creative why did you do the dungeon of doom and kevin gave the most insightful honest answer i've ever heard

about this and it made me rethink it all. He said he was like, well, no, and I know you necessarily won't love the answer, maybe, but I thought it was genius. He said, hey, we were trying to go with a new style of wrestling. We wanted to be able to feature

the cruiser weights and the Chris Benoit and we were trying to push the envelope with the type of wrestling that we knew the smart marks and the adults would like. But we also needed to serve Hulk Hogan, because Hulk Hogan, when he came over he needed people to work with that he could trust and he didn't trust a lot of

people and we knew that he would trust some of his friends so when Hulk Hogan and his friends come along now I've got all of these guys that are in the Hulk sphere if you will that I've got to find a spot for on the show would you rather have a bunch of hard hitting badass matches and then the Hulk Hogan silliness in one segment or should I have just sprinkled them all throughout the show like if i've got to put them all on the show let's get it in one segment let's do the silly over the top guy guy in one segment and i thought you know what that makes sense if you're going to slide earthquake and zodiac and some others in there okay get it out of the way and then let's go see christbin juan dean malenko and that sort of thing and it was like damn

that's pretty smart i never even considered that yeah if that was you know if that was part of the thought process and i you know i i wasn't there you know next to kevin or hall for this so I can't I certainly don't know but it's that makes sense to me so it's certainly plausible um Kevin was a very uh he's a very tactical person so this kind of feels like a Kevin thought process um so yeah I'll buy that and and look here's the here's the part that I really buy about Kevin's explanation when when evidently he said to you, he had to serve Hulk. Absolutely right.

You know, you got the biggest star in the company. Yep. Who has got his own ideas, whether, you know, you think they're good or they're bad. The guy who's sharing this idea with you has made more money in the industry than anybody you've ever met in your life. Yes. So you've got to kind of listen. And sometimes, and I still do this to this day, I'll get into it with somebody and I may see things completely differently, creatively, or even business-wise, strategically.

And I'll fight, and I'll fight, and I'll fight to the point where my head's going to come off. And then I remind myself, I'm not right all the time. What if I'm wrong? What if this idea is a better idea? Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it won't work. And Kevin was faced with a lot of that,

with hope, not a lot of it, I shouldn't say that. And I also want to make it clear, because I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. Again, I wasn't in the room, so I can't tell you firsthand. But I knew both of these guys pretty well and worked with both of them very closely for a long period of time. Kevin Sullivan loved this idea. He loved this idea. I was with him when we first met King Curtis over in Hawaii. He was the most bizarre surreal experience in my life.

there was a connection between Curtis and Hulk but mostly Kevin that must have gone way back to something important because there was just a ton of genuine affection and respect between them and I know that Kevin was excited as hell to work with Curtis in this role and so was Hulk because he dug Curtis so I don't I don't think anybody drug Kevin kicking or screaming into this But I do see how he would have thought, okay, got an opportunity to work with King Curtis, and Kevin believed in him. I've worked with him in the past, had success with him. So it's not like you just hiring a buddy. There was a reason, right? And I think he looked at it and went, hey, I can achieve all things if we move forward with this. It doesn't really matter at this point.

I think it's great to go back and look at it, especially now. And it puts a smile on my face. embarrass me it doesn't maybe i've gotten over it maybe i've seen enough you know yety clips on my social media feed that i'd become numb to them but it is pretty funny it is funny and i uh i like it i enjoy it i think everybody else should too i don't want to ask you something i'll admit i uh i was not reading the torch in this era but in our preparation for today's episode i wanted to thumb through the torch and just see what wade had to say about this yetty debut and what he really zeroed in on is something that I'll admit, I just missed. And I get it. It's because I was watching it back

without real context of the time period. But I guess Holcogen does an interview immediately after this Yeti debut with the Block of Ice. And this is the man in black era of Hulk Cogan. Not quite the NWO, but he's got the black bandana. He's got the black gloves on. He's got the black shirt on. And he's doing an interview here with Mean Gene. And he says, my concerns this week have been about a lot of things about what to do with the black gloves, the black bandana, and what to do with the giant's carcass. Number one, after Detroit, brother, after everybody sees what I'm going to do with this nasty giant, just might hang on to the black gloves, brother, because everyone knows what a man with a pair of black gloves and a black rag on his head is capable

of doing, dude. Now, I didn't think anything about this when I watched it back, but now I'm realizing when I read the torch that this is like weeks before. the decision in the O.J. Simpson trial. And I didn't connect that, but ah, I saw, I see it. There's some criticism saying that, hey, we shouldn't have allowed Hulk Hogan to do this sort of promo in the torch. I didn't see it at the time. I mean, I didn't draw the correlation is what I'm saying. But now I do get where Wade is going with this. And I know you and I have a lot of respect and appreciation for Wade, but what do you think of Wade's

criticism. Should this have been allowed? Oh, that's so hard, you know, because you're looking back at something, what, 30 years ago and applying today's kind of social boundaries to a period in time where those boundaries didn't exist and people weren't dissensitive about certain things. I'd have to go back and listen to the interview, but the way you read it to me, It was walking up against a line of good taste, but there was no direct references. He didn't threaten to kill anybody. Yeah, I, like, for everybody who thinks that professional wrestling should be a safe, sanitized,

correct environment, go watch something else. this is people beating the piss out of each other theatrically yes it's theatrical violence people it's not socially correct theatrical violence because that would be stupid so I would have said that back to Wade then and I still say it today quit applying standards that your HR VP would enforce in a corporate environment to scripted violence. It's stupid people, stupid. There are a lot of VPNs out there, but now more than ever, especially if you're a wrestling fan,

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of footage coming to ad-free shows.com than right here, right now as we're talking about the Eddie. Let's take a look. So you get to work with Chris Benoit on Nitro. You work with him in Disney. You even worked with Randy Savage on Nitro. in Chattanooga. Yeah. And then a WCW. That was the night of the fake sting. Okay.

Tell me about that. I just remember we were in the locker room and they kept it very undercover about the fake sting. And we were watching the monitor and they went out there and they did the fake sting and the parking level. Okay, okay. And that's what inspires him to become the Crow character. So that was that show. That's cool. And I literally thought the fans were going to tear the place apart.

They were so pissed that Sting had screwed them. Yeah. and then Jeff Farmer came in later and he had the stuff on it. And it was like, oh my God, it's you fake it. I mean, they almost worked the boys, you know. I know you had a lot of TV matches against these big stars. Run through some of those with me. Benoit, Lugar, Savage, Jeff Jarrett.

Does any stand out above all the others or your singles matches on TV? So my job at that time was whoever the big show was facing or the giant was facing at the pay-per-view. I wrestled them on Monday or Thursday night. And then they would beat me and they'd be like, hey, I just beat this big guy. I'm ready for another big guy. And then the giant would squash it. I love talking about the good old days of some of the silliness of WCW. We are going to be having that entire interview posted at ad free shows.com.

If you haven't already, go check us out. You'll see there's over 100,000 hours of bonus content. You can do some live watchalongs, some live Q&As. We're just coming off a huge top guy weekend in St. Louis. make plans to join us right now at ad-freeshows.com and see what it's all about. You can even use our promo code Top Guy 75 and get 75% off your first month as a top guy. And in the coming weeks, I can tell you, we've got a big event planned. And I won't exactly say when or where just yet, but it's going to be here before you know it.

And I think we should have some announcements ready next week. You don't want to miss. But right now we're going to take a minute and talk a little bit about Mr. J.L. And some, uh, that's Jerry Lynn, of course. and Dean Malinko and some other great wrestling action that happened on Nitro. But before we do, I want to give a quick plug right now for all of my folks out there who are looking to save a little money this holiday season. How about a Christmas vacation from house payments?

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After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them please support our show and tell them we sent you so hey mr jell we know that's actually jerry lynn he's teaming with eddie guerrero here to take on chris binwa and dean malinko and this to me is what i think made nitrous stand out and the idea that this match with these four performers happened right down the road for me right now where i'm recording in huntsville alabama what a treat this was in 1995 and this is such a stark contrast what's happening on the other channel when you've got in-ring performers like Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko and Jerry Lynn I mean this is

really really special stuff and of course we're going to have some some silliness here because we are going to have Alex Wright get involved and Brian Pillman's going to attack him and there's some storyline you see the picture in a picture with the shark in the background doing a brawl with Scott Norton but the cruiser weights are such a stark contrast to the dungeon of doom I mean that's I guess it's like Dusty used to say, right? It should be like a buffet. There's something for everybody.

I mean, this is a perfect illustration of that. And that perspective was something that we talked about. And it was discussed weekly, right, when we were book in shows to make sure we at least attempted to provide that kind of buffet variety that Dusty, you know, talked about. But what I was going to, first of all, I want to just point out, Ron Reese is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Yes. He is the definition of gentle giant. He is just a wonderful human being, and it's great to see him and hear his voice again.

And I'm going to check that interview out because he's a quality human being. I hope everybody else checks it out as well. This period of time that we're talking about right now, this is fascinating to me. When we go back and cover a show where we cover a pay-per-view, as I've said many times before, it all kind of runs together. You know, I produced over 5,000 hours of television, half of it live. I don't know how many pay-per-views over the course of however many years. And they all kind of blend together.

That's why sometimes it's difficult for me to remember timelines because it all runs together. I need reference points in order to do that sometimes. But the period of time between the launch of Nitro, September 4th, 1995 through up and to Scott Hall's first appearance, May 27th, 1996. That window is for me one of the most interesting periods in my career because we were literally, and you can see it, you can watch it for about a year. If you go back and watch it chronologically, if you start looking at the changes in the format. You start seeing more and more of the elements that differentiated us from

WW. There are teens and preteens. We're going after 18 to 49. Yes, we still had some Dungeon and Doomish stuff in there. We still had some cartoony stuff in there. We still did some lighthearted, goofy shit in there. But the focus of the show began to shift in 95. and continue to evolve and led up to the NWO. So if you go back and you just look at that format and look at the things that we were really doing differently than our competition. And I encourage people that can if you have access to the platform

is go back and watch the WWE Monday Night Raw from whatever the date was of this. What was the date of the show? October 23rd, 1995. Okay. So if you go back and you look at October 23rd, 1995, raw, same date, Nitro. and don't get so lost in the matches

other than looking at the difference between the presentation of what WWE was doing and the presentation of WCW and then just watch that evolve over the course of about a year. And it really started to change about halfway through,

and three quarters of the way through 95 is when it really started changing because we could just see the reaction to the audience. What are they reacting to? What are the quarter hours telling us? What is the live attendance telling us? That's really your best resource is going to the venue and sitting out in the people. Don't sit back in a guerrilla position because you don't feel it the same way there.

But if you pay attention to the audience, they'll tell you what they really like and what they don't like. And we were starting to pay attention to that during this period of time as we really try to evolve the format and get that better than, less than different than strategy kind of. bred into the show. It really was an interesting dynamic to see what was happening on raw versus what was happening on Nitro because this match is going to finish. The one we're talking about is Jerry Lynn teaming with Eddie Guerrero, taking on Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko.

Mr. JL gets a pinfall victory, which is kind of a cool deal here. He pins Dean Malinko with a victory roll. I say it's a cool deal because we know that Malenko is going to be a long timer for WCW. Mr. JL, not so much, but it does feel like that wasn't always the case because he's getting a win on TV here. Meanwhile, what is happening on the other channel? Well, it's the number one intercontinental title contendership match. It's a 20-man battle royal with Bam Bam Bigelow, one, two, three kid, Bob Holly, King Kong

Bundy, Hunter Hurst Helmsley, comma the fighting machine, Henry Godwin, the pig farmer, skip the body Donna, Duke the dumpster Drosay, uh, Barry Horrible. There you go. Aldo Montoya, Marty Genetti, Radd, Radford, Jean-Pierre Lafitte, Savio Vega, Hukushi, O'Nardt, Fatu, Psychocid, and not Cain, but the evil dentist, Dr. Isaac Yankham, DDS. Some absolute silliness. So while everybody wants to come for you about the dungeon of doom, can we talk about the fucking garbage man and the evil dentist and all the other bullshit happening on the other channel. You know what the frustrating part is?

Those silly, I mean, that was silliness, right? That was teen, preteen, kiddie cartoon crap from an adult's perspective. But because, going back to what we talked about earlier, but because WWE had a licensing machine and merchandising machine in place, they were making money off that silly shit. They were. They were making a lot of money off that silly shit. In fact, I often thumped my chest. The name of the show is 83 weeks because we beat WWE 83 weeks in a row.

We beat them a lot more than 83 weeks. Maybe not a lot more, but a hundred and some odd weeks. 104, right? Yeah. But even during that period of time when we were just from a ratings perspective, bitch slapping Vince McMahon in WWE and their entire roster, they were kicking our ass financially with a lesser product

as goofy as some of that stuff was at that time they were still driving a lot of revenue that WCW wasn't driving because they had that mature licensing and merchandising infrastructure in place we should mention this is the Monday night nitro that happens one night after in your house number four

in your house number four happened the night before in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada They had 10,000 fans in attendance to see the British Bulldog and Diesel for the world title. It ended in a DQ, and it was so frustrating. I remember Bruce telling me the story that he was frustrated, Vince was frustrated, throwing the headset after, Nash was frustrated, Bulldog was frustrated, and I think part of their frustration was they knew that you guys were coming. They heard the footsteps, and they knew this product is not what we're looking for.

that undercard on pay-per-view included Gold Duss versus Marty Genetti, King Mabel versus Yoko Zuna, Razor Ramon versus Dean Douglas. So listen, capable performers, nice guys, but not exactly WWE at its best. And you couldn't

help but take a shot at that. When Mike Teney is going to plug the 900 number here on Nitro, which I know from memory, 1,900, 909, 9,900. He's referencing the in-your-house results. And Mongo says, You mean in your outhouse.

They have to move that thing. It's beginning to stink. And you added, as my buddy John Cougar would say, when the walls come tumbling down, this is fun stuff. You and Mongo are having a blast with this, aren't you? I miss Mongo's sense of humor, man.

He was dry. He would say the corneous shit. And sometimes he'd say it, you wouldn't quite get it because his sense of humor is so dry sometimes. And it would hit you like a minute later. You'd be in a middle of a set. That's good, Mongo. I miss him.

He was fun. He was fun to do commentary with. He was raw. You know, I didn't find Steve McMichael. Harvey Schiller did. My boss met Steve at a Bears game function or something like that. And called me and said, hey, you know, I knew who Steve was. I was, you know, I lived in Minnesota during the Vikings battles with the Chicago Bears.

I certainly knew who he was. But he said, hey, I got to, you know, Steve McMichael. interested in doing commentary, would you be interested? It's like, hell yeah. And the first thing I thought of was, and I've used this kind of comparison before, but I was looking for my John Madden. I was looking for that guy, not so much from a wrestling knowledge perspective, but that sense of humor, that spontaneity and the ability to take a situation

and have fun with it, that was why I was excited about Steve. he fit that so well him and mark madden mark madden was my other my other guy that i really wanted to feel like john madden right mark mark came really close because mark was more controversial than john madden never was as a commentator um but steem michael had that madden's sense of humor sometimes and i loved it let's also mention that we've got one more match here on nitro with sting and lex luger wrestling harlem heat buddy that's a main event anywhere in the country you want to talk about four guys at their best i think you could argue this is peak for all of those guys uh sherry's at ringside she's going to pull out polaroids of her

with colonel robert parker eventually the giant's going to run in and attack sting and lugar with choke slams hogan's going to come in the ring and ask randy savage to leave and let him face the giant alone one-on-one and before you know it the dungeon and savage are going to enter the ring for some chaos. And as the show is going off the air, the ice block explodes. Yes, this is the Yeti's ice block. And we are just days away from Halloween havoc. So that's the go home nitro. What a, what a visual. I hope you're watching with us at 83 weeks.com. Iran race come out of the thing. And what's great is we talk about this in our interview, Eric, of what instruction he was given or not given. And you got to see this. It's a

great interview coming soon to add free shows.com, but what was happening on the other channel after that battle royal? Well, they debuted Al Snow under a hood as Avatar and he got a win over Brian Walsh. And then the main event was a lundra blaze. Eventually, she'll be Medusa here in WCW. And she beat Bertha Faye with Harvey Whippleman to win the WWF women's championship, which you will see on Nitro soon enough. But that's what they were doing on Raw. I got to say, you won the show and you're you're one night removed from the wf pay-per-view and don't just take my word for it you won the ratings as well it comes out when we look the ratings up you guys got a 2.6 that night and uh monday night raw got a 2.2 so they're

fresh off of a pay-per-view you think that their viewership would be at an all-time high you're on your way to a pay-per-view and instead you win so with all the criticism there is to go around about the yety or the dungeon of doom or Halloween Havoc 95 You beat Raw the night after their pay-per-view. That's pretty good. Isn't that interesting? That's an interesting set. And I think, to me, at least it illustrates.

And again, this goes back to what I said, just because I don't like something doesn't mean other people don't like it, right? It's a very dangerous position for a television producer to put themselves in is to produce for yourself. If you start to think that because you like something or an idea, you know, checks all the boxes for, for your creative perspective, right? Because it's all subjective.

It's just, it's all individual. But if you are so convinced that your shit is always right, you're going to produce for yourself, you won't be in that business for very long. You learn the hard way that it's not true. And interestingly enough, we're new. Now, keep in mind, there was probably enough buzz on us because we did go head to head and we were competitive.

You know, there was a lot of shit going on that would have driven although it was before the internet, so, you know, a limited amount of it. But there was enough of a buzz on it for us to draw an audience. But it's really interesting to go back and listen to commentary about those shows back then and then listen to the numbers because today, to relate it to today, it's so easy for the Internet wrestling community. You know what I think of most of them. Because subjectively, they as a group, shit on something.

something, it may work great for the other 95% of the viewing audience because the internet wrestling community is not the tastemaker that they think they are. And it's really easy sometimes if you're too influenced by that community and the opinions of that community to lose sight of the fact that if you just produce for that segment of the audience for people with that perspective, you're likely missing out on 80 or 90% of the rest of the audience. And I think this is a perfect example. WWE was far more established, had much bigger stars, had been around in prime time a lot longer. We were still figuring shit out as we were going. We didn't even know we were to

launch this show six months before we did. So there was a lot of work in progress going on, but we still beat them. We were competitive. You know, when you're talking about a margin like that, 2.6 to 2.2 or whatever it was, that's a rounding error. It really doesn't mean much. What it does say is we were competitive at an early stage, and I'm proud of that. J.C.W. Lunacy, new episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, JCW has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment, bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comedy, and unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries, don't miss a single moment.

Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube, J.C.W. Lunasian. Well, something I know you're not proud of is that you sometimes get in the muck and mire with Dave Meltzer on social media. And it looks like you had a dust up earlier this week. Meltzer has been tweeting about you and you've been tweeting about Meltzer. What's going on, Eric? Oh, you nothing. I just, you know, it was not less, it was, I was on flight. I was bored. And I'm just, you know, I'm going through my timeline.

Part of it is to stay on top of what's going on in wrestling, knowing that, you know, we're here to talk about that. And I am fairly busy, so I don't have a lot of time to do deep dives into stuff. So I'm surfing my stuff, and I'm beginning to recognize how many, and as much as I bust balls for the Internet wrestling community, because of the vast majority of them deserve it. But there are still people in that community that really know what they're talking about. out that understand their shit and are in so many fans now who are really into the into that

community but aren't like drinking the dave melzer purple kool-aid nonsense that are actually looking at things objectively um the number of people that are calling dave mceler out for his silly shit is just inspiring to me because there's so much actual knowledge out there the wrestling audience no longer those who are really interested in the behind the scenes stuff no longer have to reply at a single source idiot

like Dave Meltzer or any number of other at the time dirt sheets now you've got real people Raj Gehry being one of them we'll call him an analyst is he part of the internet wrestling community sure he is so am I by the way

but he's smart he's run a business he's built a business he sold the business he knows the wrestling business. So when you've got guys like Raj, my agent Nick, over a paradigm, you've got people who really know the business calling out Dave on his bullshit. I just find it refreshing. I think it's great. I think it's the evolution of the internet wrestling community as more and more fans get smart to the fact that Dave doesn't really know what he's talking about. He's wrong more than he's right. And he is really. He is really.

really one of the most out-of-touch people I've ever heard commentate on a modern television product. It's bizarre. But people are starting to recognize that. And that's reassuring to me. You tweeted out, I've been preoccupied and not spent much time wallowing in the muck that is the ever-devolving segment of social media known as the IWC.

My take, there will always be the segment of the wrestling audience that will want so badly to be recognized as having some unique insight or access. An insight to a business they fantasize they're a part of. Not unusual, really. What is unusual is the level of delusion that accompanies this phenomenon. Dave Meltzer is the most obvious example of completely out of touch. Can there be any doubt example?

Between his delusional takes, desperate need to convince people he has access to inside information, he's more of a comedian at this point than a source. Grateful that social media and access to real info has a exposed to him. It's entertaining to watch. And then, of course, Meltzer couldn't help himself. And he says, Eric, you have a show on Saturday. Shouldn't you be promoting your wrestlers instead of

talking that you've got the pro debut of the greatest woman wrestler in U.S. history? I'll do your job for you here. You're stuck in a weird obsession that dooms your happiness. Anyone with half a brain sees through you and you're stuck playing to the most naive

because you've got a company to run and the only people who know the first thing about it and your show are the observer readers. So, I think it's funny that he's being critical of your, respectfully, I think Dave Meltzer knows a lot about wrestling matches and knows a lot about wrestling history. I don't know that he knows a ton about anything, you know, major media companies. Like, you know, I don't know, this feels a little, I don't know, I don't know how to describe it, but I will say that. That's because you're a good person and you're a kind

person and you don't want to hurt Dave's feelings because you, you, you respect Dave, but that's fine. I don't give a fuck. You guys completely disconnected from reality. And, you know, we're doing a fine job promoting. We'll probably see, I don't know, four or five thousand people here. You know, it's our second event. Our television partners are excited as hell. We're talking about the things we're doing in 2026 already. So, Dave, I'm good. I appreciate your concern, but I think we're good.

I just think it's interesting that, you know, I do like Dave and I like Dave's work, but it's very obvious that he has a bias at times. The idea that, I mean, you and I, you've told me the, the real life behind the scene success of real American freestyle. I'm speaking, of course, not just about ticket sales, but the relationship with Fox Nation. And I know that not all of that is public, so I'm not saying anything, but I am just saying, we know how well it's going. And for him to be like, it's not going well and no one knows about it and you're not doing your job.

It's like, he doesn't even have a frame of reference to say that. Where does that come from? Well, because he's out of touch. It's hard to imagine. You've got to use your imagination. look if you notice we're not promoting real American freestyle to the pro wrestling audience I mean we'll talk about it here but we made a decision for now to really focus on the amateur wrestling side the amateur wrestling fan base as much as we can't we want to reach

everybody don't get me wrong we've got local TV running we've got local radio running Fox has got national TV running. I guess if you want to knock Fox Nation or Fox corporate because their spots are seeing all over across Fox platforms, if you want to suggest that Fox isn't promoting, maybe Dave you should take such an amazing knowledge of the industry over to Fox and talk to them because, you know, they're running national ads and things are going just fine. But Dave doesn't understand the business. And that's the part, I guess the reason that I'm entertained by people exposing just exactly what Dave doesn't know and doesn't have access to is because for so long he's conned people into thinking he does. And it's really ironic. You know, I never spent much time thinking about the word projection. I've heard it used a number of times in a number of different ways and, you know, completely understand it.

But it's never a thought or a concept or a word that I've ever used. to or never assigned to somebody. But I think with Dave, projection is a big part of who he is. For 25, 30 years, whatever spent, he's been calling people, wrestling promoters are con men. Yes.

I'm a grifter. Dave, what are you? You've spent your career milking people out of money, convincing them that you have access to information or you have knowledge that you clearly don't have. And it's becoming abundantly transparent at this point.

I mean, you can't look and listen and read what comes out of Dave Meltzer's scrambled brains and think that he's got any kind of a feel for this business. The only people that feel that way are the lowest common denominator, that part of the Internet wrestling community that is so desperate to feel like they're connected to something and they have inside information about something, in this case, professional wrestling. And the only way that they can get that edge to get that knowledge is through a guy like Dave Meltzer. And he charges him 15 bucks a month to get it. 50% off most of the time, but, you know, the point.

And I think that's a fraud. I think that's a con. I think that's grift. And it's interesting how much time David spent over the years calling anybody that calls, him out, a con man, a fraud, or a grifter, when in fact, Dave is the classic example in this industry of a fraud, a con man, and a grifter. To be clear, I know you were painting with some broad strokes on your flight to State College, but I don't think when you were referencing the IWC that you were necessarily

talking about Sean Ross Sapp at Fightful or Mike Johnson at PW Insider, or Brandon Thurton at Wrestlingnomics or John Pollock that post wrestling, you get where I'm going. You don't mean all of these folks. You have an issue specifically with Dave Meltzer and maybe his disciples. Nick, my agent. In fact, the reason that I was motivated to write that, to post that tweet was because Nick had posted something earlier on that was really astute.

It was a great observation. It's got a really good handle on what's going on at WB and all the potential ramifications. of that. And Nick is a perfect example of someone. He's in the entertainment business. He's a lawyer that happens to be an agent that's in the entertainment business and represents some of the top stars in WWE. So to think that Nick doesn't have an inside track to a lot of things that are going on that we as fans, even though you and I both have friends in WWE, he's got information I don't have. It's a part of his business. And there are more and more people like that coming forward to the

industry in the internet wrestling community that are bringing valid credible information and knowledge and sharing it freely he's not even charging 1499 a month to do it right so that's that's why i wrote that and in fact nick is the one that pointed out in and i can't remember it verbatim but essentially what nick said is hey there's a lot of great information out there from mike johnson from PW Insider, from Sean Ross App, give your money to them. Just don't give it to this out of touch, whack. There are good sources of information out there, and there are people that do their best to bring you credible, accurate information

and leave their personal weirdness out of it. Dave can't separate himself from his weird taste on shit. He's got a very unique, I'll use the word unique instead of weird. He's got a very, very unique perspective that probably only a small single-digit percentage of the people that watch wrestling would ever agree with. There are a lot of VPNs out there, but now more than ever, especially if you're a wrestling fan, you need the best VPN, and the best is NordVPN. If you're like us and always on the road, logging into public Wi-Fis and hotels and Airbnbs and whatnot, it's time to get a VPN. NordVPN is fast, reliable, and has flexible plans to suit your needs. Using NordVPN, makes your digital life safer, easier, and smoother.

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we actually went live with this show i saw a report from wrestlenomics about tk o ticket prices can you tell us what's going on with that yeah i mean basically what we've kind of already known right is that ticket prices have been going up under tk o a lot um and you know an interesting thing in that article is that ticket sales are actually up from last year and the year before so even with the increased ticket prices, the number of tickets being distributed that have been going up. So, you know, it's one of those things we've talked about on this show before where it seems like ticket prices may have been a little underpriced before, under Vince, but then again, under Vince, the product didn't get as hot until really after he started until he was kind

of ousted from creative. So it's tough to say, but, you know, they've seen with UFC, what they can charge. Obviously, they're trying to shift WWE into that area, and we'll see if they can get there. I mean, you know, I was looking at prices for the Denver Smackdown coming up next month, and it's probably about double what I've ever seen for that show, at least. So it's going up, but, you know, home prices and football tickets and everything have been going up as well, but it was noted in that article that WWE tickets are going up at a faster rate. It seems like they're trying to make up the lost time and we'll see. I know some people are like, can this sustain? And until people stop buying tickets, obviously it can.

I mean, doesn't it make sense, Raj and Conrad? I mean, you have a product. It's a widget. And you sell that widget. People go, well, I really like that widget. So you raise the price a little more and they go, whoa, I want more of those widgets. And you keep building widgets and you keep increasing that price until you find your threshold. And then once you find your threshold, you then began to adjust your prices accordingly, meaning you'll have your sales, you'll reduce ticket prices if research indicates that you're starting to drop off. Ticket sales are starting to decline. But until you know where that is, I'm not shocked, but it's interesting to me that people are surprised that any company will continue to increase the price of the product until

they find that threshold. Yeah, we've seen it in the past with pay-per-view. You know, like I remember when Mayweather fought McGregor and fought Pachia, and the pay-per-view price was like $100, and people are like, oh, this is just too much. This is, they've gone way too far, and it ended up being the biggest pay-per-views of all time. So if there's a demand for it, people will pay. I know it's tough for others who want to go and they're feeling like they're outpriced

and they've been fans of the product for a long time. But the one thing is if there is a demand for these tickets, if WWE doesn't, or TKO doesn't charge these prices, Hub and the other ticket brokers will. They'll collect those tickets and sell those at a higher price. Another really good point. Yeah. So whether it's AEW, whether it's WWE, if you underpriced your tickets,

someone else is going to overpriced. I wonder how WWE ticket sales compare to, you know, it's hard to come up with comps, but rock and roll, you know, concerts, what have concert ticket prices done over the last 12 months on a percentage basis compared to what WWE has done in the past 12 months on a percentage basis? It would be interesting to see what other forms of value entertainment that people actually go to,

what those ticket prices have been tracking like. Because I can tell you from our own experience in only two events of Real American Freestyle, I am absolutely shocked when I look at some of the prices for buildings that I previously worked in and produced television in. I mean, it's a different world today financially than it was even eight years ago.

So, I mean, everybody's got to eat those costs and they're passing them on to the consumer. So with all the research people like to do an analysis, it would be fun to see somebody compare, you know, the top five rock and roll shows and ticket prices over the last 12 months and compare that to WW's ticket price increase and see where they sit. Ross, 22 years ago, Charlie Munger was actually quoted at saying, he was quoting his friend Bill, and he said he was ahead of the Beckman instruments and it produced

some complicated product where it failed and it caused enormous damage to the purchaser. It wasn't a pump at the bottom of an oil well, but that's a good mental example. And you realized that the reason this thing was selling so poorly, even though it was better than anybody else's product was because it was priced lower. It made people think it was a low quality gizmo. So he raised the price by 20% or so and the volume went way up. And I know that's been the case with the UFC. Like when the UFC first started to take off and because I was going to UFC before it was really popular. I'm not trying to be that guy, but I'm just saying I remember affordably priced tickets.

I sat front row at UFC's, and I bought them on third parties like Stubhub, and they were like a thousand bucks a seat, and that's third party. You can't get anywhere close to that now, but I was there in those arenas, and they were not full. Now that the ticket prices are astronomical, they are full, it feels like this thing to aspire to. It feels like a more important night out. It feels like now it's easier to get a ticket to Hamilton, but I saw it in 2016 when it was the hot ticket and it was a hard ticket to get. It was packed, and it was because it was hard to get.

because it was expensive. There is something with human psychology there that is at play here with these tickets, don't you think? Absolutely. And you see that when a concert comes, or like you mentioned, Hamilton, when you know it's something that's going to sell out quick, that builds your own excitement, you know? Like it builds anticipation for that event. It's just human nature. And you know, you're absolutely right. You know, we went to Taylor Swift a couple of years ago. And I remember the amount that they're charging on the secondary market, was multiple, multiple, multiple times of what Taylor Swift was charging on Ticketmaster. And so that's all revenue and that's not going to her.

That's going to these other outlets. So, you know, it's all supply and demand at the end. And what we've seen because at that same Ressonomics article, they noted that AEW ticket prices have gone down this year and their attendance has gone down. So, WWE, prices gone up. And their attendance has gone up. Now, I do think ultimately with pro wrestling, there is going to be, you know, a level that you hit where it does start to come down. And we might be getting there sooner than later, but I just haven't gotten there yet. So it's smart business.

I know it sounds, it looks greedy to a lot of people, but it just makes all the sense in the world looking from the outside end as far as a financial decision. Well, I'm interested to see how the rest of the wrestling world processes that information because it does feel like the exact opposite of what people expected. And I'll admit, I was a little shocked last week when I looked and I saw that John Cena's last match was not sold out. And then I remember, wait a minute, this is the new TKO. They've jacked the prices up. Prices are way high. And now on some level, Eric, even though this goes against the way Vince McMahon saw things. a sellout's almost a bad thing because it makes you wonder hey did we price it too low if you're

going to sell out you want to sell out like the day before the day of if it's an immediate sell out maybe we left money on the table what do you think of that eric yeah it's funny i was looking at uh socials this morning and anticipation of the show and i noticed i think it's russled tix i was looking at a wwe event i think it was smack down in the middle of december scaled for 16,000, they've only got a thousand tickets left, something like that. And we're, what, months out, a month and a half out, whatever it is? I mean, yeah, you kind of wonder, where's that threshold? How much money am I leaving on the table?

But as Raj's pointed out, man, they're continuing to sell tickets. Three months out, they'll be sold out probably weeks before the show. How does this affect at all the AEW approach? Raj. We know that AEW has gone the other way when there was first speculation or talk of rising WW ticket prices. I saw some local ads on social media that AEW was putting out, talking about how affordable it was for a family. And every time Eric and I talk about this on social or even here in the comments on YouTube, we'll see comments from people who wanted to take their kids to see WWE, but they couldn't, even though they could a couple of years ago.

Is that an opportunity for AEW or in your opinion or is it a mistake? to target the lower more affordable ticket prices. Well, I think it's smart on AEW's part because, you know, basically they're taking a negative, like a drop in ticket sales that they've experienced, but spinning it with a positive. Like, hey, our competition is overpricing their tickets and we're bringing ours down. We're more family friendly. So you kind of switch the narrative.

So in that respect, I think it's smart. We haven't seen it make a difference yet. And maybe it will, but ultimately what it comes down to is the product, being hot and feeling hot and until they get there i don't think people are going to go well i'm not interested in this product but tickets are only 60 bucks so i'll go you need to get them interested in wanting to go to the show let's talk about the other big news this week rage we've learned earlier this week that warner brothers discovery is officially up for sale now this is something that everybody in a w and all their fans are

certainly paying attention to myself included we heard earlier in the year that they were going to do some sort of a split you know warner this way discovery that way and we're just shuffling some assets i think this is all just to avoid some some red ink and then we hear maybe they're going to be doing a deal with paramount to merge but now it looks like they're up for sale what does this mean what do you expect yeah well paramount you know originally did make an offer i think it was twenty dollars a share I wish it was obviously low, and that's what you do in these situations, is you start low and then get to the right sale price. And it's smart for WBD to not just be accepting one offer to open it up. Netflix has kind of been downphing the idea that they're interested.

If one would think if they were interested, it wouldn't be on the linear side, which includes TBS, TNT and everything. It would just be for the movie studio and HBO Max side of the side of the company. So, you know, this is one of those things where the ramifications of this could be huge. I mean, no one knows this better than Eric of like a sale can do. And if the new executives are not fans of the product or have a different view of what their, what their goals should be and what their programming should be, it could change things dramatically. And that's why, you know, sometimes when I see stuff like, you know, on the paper you last week, where they have people. stuffing people's heads in fish takes. And it's like not a big deal for wrestling fans. We've seen stuff that's worse. But at a time when there's going to be a lot of uncertainty and you

want to, I would think make your brand more advertiser friendly and more media company friendly. Like you want the executives for these other companies to look, be like, oh, this looks like a product that would fit on our stations. And AEW has had a magnificent relationship with WBD. And but, you know, Once you get new owners in there, that could all go out the window quit. When you not only have this subjective nature of what you're talking about, meaning the violence and drowning people on paper, whatever, you're right, man. We've seen stuff that crazy and worse. So in the business to survive.

But what's interesting to me, and this is not me trying to say, I told you so, but I did tell you so. And less years ago, probably four now, three or four years ago, My position was if Tony Kahn doesn't learn and commit to growing his audience and growing his business, there will come a point in time when he's going to get the plug pulled out of him. You have to show some growth. If you've got new owners coming in, because it's all going to come down to math. It's just math, folks.

Nobody loves wrestling enough or hates it enough to make a decision based necessarily on their personal taste, but they will let their personal taste influence the way they interpret the math, meaning, can you sell this stuff? What's ad sales doing with it? What has the audience done over the last 12 months? What's the audience done over the last 36 months? Is there any reason to hope or believe that this franchise, this property, has the potential for growth? And if there is a reason. Please identify it. And let's determine whether or not it will create enough growth to make this thing financially viable because it's not. I don't care what anybody says. Ain't buying a $185 million deal anymore. It never did. It's bullshit. It's it's a chunk of money plus a lot

of promotional time that has a valuation that is part of that $185 million. It's not $185 million bills. So let's just get past that part. Well, if the ratings are, I just saw something this morning. They premiered at $1,4003,000 or something like that. And they're at about $400,000 today on average or $500,000, whatever the number is. What is a potential new owner going to look at that's going to suggest to them, yeah, but this is going to turn around? because this guy here, this Tony cat, he knows what he's doing.

Or these creative people over here, they've really got a handle on this. In fact, look at what they've done over the last six months. There's hope. That doesn't exist. So they're in a precarious situation. And on top of it, they do such distasteful stuff that it turns away whatever advertisers they do have. Yeah. You know, with Guy Evans, his Nitro book, you know,

you have executive after executive in there talking about how wrestling needs to overperform other sports and other forms of entertainment. You know, years ago, Young Rock got much lower ratings than Smackdown, but would get higher ad rates. So, and now with the new rating system and then wrestling ratings are even lower, I think it's more important now than ever to really look at that growth and really look at, are we doing everything we can to turn this thing around. And, you know, at the time we'll tell, it hasn't been.

And it's easier said than done, but you need to overperform. A point 11, that is what Dynamite did last week, you know, 18 to 49 rating. That's very different than a point 11 NHL game rating. Right. You really have to be like double or triple to get even close to the same ad rates. So you have to overperform And right now With this new rating system

The ratings are just looking uglier And at a time when there's Obviously going to be a lot of shifting In the media landscape All right guys, let's talk about our weiner meets You know, all of these episodes are brought to you by Bluetooth They're a day one sponsor and why is that? Well, because it really works

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Let's talk a little bit about some contract stuff. This is always interesting and I think people always go back to the Monday night wars when they hear about things like this. Eric, I'm not sure if you saw, but Andrade L. Edelow, my former brother-in-law, he was quietly released from WWE, I don't know, several weeks ago. And there was rumor in any window that he had ghosted them and there were other reports that Perhaps he had not one, not two, but three failed wellness violations. I don't know exactly what the real story was, but that's what the chatter was.

And then all of a sudden, he shows up on dynamite under a mask and he attacks John or Kenny Omega. So I think fans immediately assumed, hey, he's been with CML in the past. He's been with New Japan in the past. He's going to be in this forbidden door. It'll be Andrade versus Kenny Omega in St. Louis. Then we never saw him again. And the report came out, I believe, Raj, that WVEs and a cease and desist, I guess there's a new version of these contracts where the TKO contract is different from the old one.

What's going on there, Roche? Well, this is the thing is normally when there's a WWE release that we've always seen. There's a 90-day non-compete. And so I think a lot of people assume it means you're released and then you have 90 days, right? But that's not the case. You're still under contract with WWE for those 90-compet. days. Now, was that unclear on Andrade's contract? Was it, you know, because almost every other contract has had that. So that's where it gets a little, it gets a little weird. So yeah,

Andrade appearing then on dynamite would be a breach of contract because he technically would have still been under WWE contract at that point. Now, WWE having this clause that there's a one year non-compete, now that's where it gets dicey because does that, is he being paid during that time? Because that changes things a little bit. But if you look at non-complete clauses over time, you'll see a bunch of instances where like a one to two-year contract, a non-compete is deemed enforceable. But then once you get longer and longer than that, that's where he gets Dicey, Brock Lesnar famously, you know, in 2005, he agreed to leave WWE to go start an NFL career and agreed to sign a 10-year non-compete.

Obviously, the NFL thing didn't work out, and Brock fought in court, and it was dropped. So there are going to be terms and contract durations where the judges are going to be like, this isn't fair. And so much of it depends on, Raj. And I've been on the other, I've been on both sides of it. no i've only been on one side of it i've never tried to sue anybody or get out of a non-compete personally but i've been involved in the process and every jurisdiction is different every judge and every jurisdiction is going so obviously in in wwe's case they're probably

using connecticut as you know the state in which these things need to be fought out or Florida, wherever it is. California, for example, good luck enforcing a non-competeing California. Good luck. Florida. Good luck. Alabama. Alabama.

Try enforcing that shit in certain states. You'll get laughed at a court. Judge won't even talk to you. But there are states that will. So I think, and again, I mentioned my agent, Nick, he had a really good breakdown of this, you know, the non-compete scenario. And it really comes down to, do you have the money and the time to challenge it? If you do, you'll probably win. You'll burn a bridge in the process, and you'll blow probably 150 to 250 grand in the process, depending on who you are and how hard

you have to fight. But you'll probably win. Most people aren't willing to fight it. They'll just write it up. But it'll get challenged eventually. And I've had a challenge. where I wanted to challenge it and I wanted to fight that were attorneys that were working for me, just tell me it's not worth it. Don't fight it. It's not worth it. Chances are you're going to lose. So somewhere along the line, somebody's going to challenge it and it'll get, it'll get modified.

Yeah, I mean, I've kind of been on the same boat, Eric. I've sold websites in the past and businesses where, you know, I'd have non-competes that. vary from two to five years. And they would be so vague that sometimes an opportunity would come up. And I'm like, well, I feel like this shouldn't be upheld under this non-compete, but actually going to a lawyer and fighting it, it just wasn't worth it. Because, you know, the amount of time that it would take to eventually even get out of it,

it's just not worth it. So, you know, again, it might. Again, we don't know if Andrade is getting paid or not. We don't know if they're actually upholding this one-year non-compete or if it's just in there and they're going through their legal department to see what's going to happen. How did he end up on TV if he was under contract and had a non-compete? Right. From the A&W side, how does that even happen?

I think they assumed that WWE just cut all contact with him when they released him and didn't enforce or didn't have a 90-day non-competeer. which, you know, again, just knowing how WW has always has done business for the longest time, they've always had that in there when they've released talent. I mean, it doesn't do. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it threw me off guard too. And I was like, okay, well, maybe it was just because of the disciplinary issue.

And they just wanted their, you know, to be done with it. So, you know, again, I don't know if it's something that Andrade misunderstood or he didn't have his lawyers take a look at it. But it didn't seem very unusual. I mean, I can understand Andrade not necessarily being flu. in contract language, right? Half the contracts I sign, I, like, shush, thank God I have attorneys because I can't get through it or retain half of it, even if I do get through it, right? So I can understand how the talent might have gotten confused.

That's a stretch, but yeah, let's assume that he was just confused or didn't realize it for some reason. You still have the AEW side. I mean, they've got a responsibility to vet this, knowing that he was previous. under contract and knowing that previously WWE was very strict about their non-competes, that's the part that makes me go, how the hell did that happen? Did you just keep Andre's word for it? Yeah, that's the really confusing side is you would think their legal team would have been

able to capture, that would capture that part of the contract. Because again, every WWE release that they brought on has had that stipulation in there. Now, obviously, if someone's contract expires, then they don't have that non-compete. If they were released, that's always been there. So I am surprised that they missed that. And I don't know if it was just one of those things that Andre assured them, and they just felt like they didn't need to take a look at it. But, yeah, that's something you don't want to do, because you could get sued for that as well.

Yeah, there's tortious interference. There's all kinds of potential shit that actually costs, you know, three times more. So if there's damages and you can prove damages, and it's torsious interference, now you're going to triple them. Triple those damages. So it is a serious issue and one that is surprising, to be, to be honest, from AEW's perspective. Yeah. Well, I don't think we're going to see any resolution on this anytime soon.

I mean, my preliminary conversation, and it was just by text, uh, was with Mike Dawkins, our gimmick attorney around here. And, and he sort of laid out the practicality of, hey, you could sue and push back here. but realistically, WWE has seemingly unlimited resources to fight this, and you're going to be on the sidelines the entire time anyway. So what is the risk reward here versus just waiting it out and finding some sort of middle ground?

But I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't pretend to have any inside information, Eric, but if I was to venture a guess, it feels like if you are Andrade and you're using your wrestling brain, you're thinking,

hey man, maybe I'd just reach out to someone in AEW or I show up at the show and I say, hey, I'm free and clear, I can appear, let's do something. And if he left on good terms and they have seen several other WWE contracts in the past, maybe they just made the assumption that, hey, he was good to go and we'll figure it out later. And I guess that's cease and desist. If that, if that's just a guess on my end, but if that's really the way it went down, it doesn't like we're going to see him anytime soon.

Do you think, Raj, it would be wise because we were just sort of hinting at an individual performer would not want to sue WWE. Could this be something Tony Kahn wanted to take interest in battling himself? Because obviously, if we're going to go dollar for dollar and spend on this silliness, that feels like WWF versus WCW, not necessarily former contractor versus parent company. Would this be a fight that would be interesting to Tony or would he not pursue that in your opinion? I mean, just legal proceedings just cost so much money. And we've seen like over the past year, Tony,

like trying to cut expenses, you know, doing these residencies for dynamite to save money. So he doesn't seem like he's an overspending mode. There have been a bunch of free agents that have opened up that he didn't sign that I think a couple of years ago he might have taken a look at. So I just don't think he's, it's a fight worth fighting for him. There's not much to gain out of it. I think in addition of the money, and I mean, Tony, if he wanted to spend the money, And he could certainly spend the money and be competitive with WWE in the process when it comes to legal fees.

But he's going to have to sit through depositions and discovery. Tony Kund does not want to sit through discovery or depositions. It's even if you can afford it, it's a time suck. It's going to take up so much your time and focus. I just don't think Tony wants it. I can't imagine it would be worth it to him. This is not, I mean, it's no offense to Andrade. I don't mean this to sound like it's going to sound because I can't help it.

But this is not a guy that you're going to spend a half a million dollars in legal fees fighting for. Well, to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that you're going to do it just for Andrade. I just mean in the future for all future, you know, contracts in the wrestling space, if someone leaves. Because, I mean, let's be real, as you said, it's going to be really hard to enforce in those individual states. But Eric, you've, you've known a guy pretty well who had a. a wealthy billionaire in the background who sort of helped fund his legal case and it worked out for everybody. So maybe Tony Kahn is going to take a page out of that book. I don't know. I don't have any inside information. You know what? I would be fascinated by that if that would be an interesting

one to watch because it would end up creating a precedent. It would end up changing the way the business operates potentially or potentially Tony get his ass kick to just walk away with an empty basket of an empty fruit basket, but it'll be interesting to see. I'd like to, I don't want to say I want to see a challenge, but if it comes, I'll be watching it closely because it'll be very impactful. Just one more thing. Oh, I'm sorry. Just one thing. I don't know if Tony would want to be successful in this case, because remember, this is a breach of contract. This is a contracted WWE guy showing up on their show. And I'm sure Tony doesn't want a contracted AEW guy, just feeling like they can show up on WWE TV.

There's that. So you don't want that breach of contracting, it can go both ways. So I just don't think you'd want that's something you want to happen to yourself. It's a slippery slope. We also found out earlier this week that Samantha Irvin, who used to be a fantastic announcer for WWE, she still has a year left on her non-compete. She's been gone from the company for a year, Eric, but I guess that was part of the terms of her release.

Is that the way you understood it, Ron? Yeah, that's the way I understood it. It kind of seemed like a shortened version of the Brock Lesnar deal that he made when he was able to get out of his contract. And again, two years, it just seems like a long time. But it's one of those things. When you agree to it as to get out of your contract, I just think that's a tough one to fight. I'm sure there are some states where, like Eric mentioned, there are some states like California and other states where they probably let you out of that. but there are others that won't.

And why would she sign a two-year non-compete? Why would she sign that? The story goes, she didn't want to be an announcer. She wanted to be more involved and be a wrestling persona and be a character and be on the show. She didn't want to, quote, unquote, just be the announcer. And so I guess she wanted to just, if they weren't going to give her that opportunity, she wanted to start doing that sooner rather than later. She just didn't enjoy being an announcer.

Okay. It sounds like she had some outside projects. and was going to sit out for two years. Yes. Good for her. Good for her indeed. I know you're on a time crunch here, Raj,

but I do want to ask, Seth Rollins, you know, he's the big news right now. We saw he was injured at the most recent pay-per-view. They sort of fast-tracked Bronzer. They've taken the title off of Seth. It looks like now it's going to be punk and Jay Uso.

It felt like maybe they were planting seeds for a Jay Uso heel turn. What do you expect is next here? for the world title and for Seth Rawlins. I do think it does freshen things up a little bit. I felt like the creative was kind of getting a little scale, and now all of a sudden you have all these different options. You can go with the heel, J. Luso. You can go with Punk and then, you know, defending it against Braun down the road.

So it opens it up. I think punk wins the title. I think, you know, I think Brock can use a little shot in the arm, and Punk has been a proven ratings draw, or at least in the past it has been. So I think it helps mix things up. We've seen Jay Luso as champion. We saw the Netflix numbers during his term, you know, his reign.

Not that they were bad or anything, but it just, you didn't get any spikes or anything like that. So I think it's a good time to try something new. And with Seth Rollins, it's looking like it could be a while before we see him. Hopefully he's back by WrestleMania time by WrestleMania season, but we don't know yet. This is not the first time that he's been the world champ and had to drive. drop the title because of an injury. Sometimes it feels like with Seth Rollins, if it wasn't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.

I just hated for Seth. He was on such a role right now. Yeah, you could argue he was doing some of his career best work right now, just with the way he was leading this faction, the way they were teasing the stuff with Braun, the subtle stuff where you knew it's coming down the road, and when it happens, it's going to be big, but they're not rushing it yet.

And then they had to obviously rush it. But yeah, it just really sucks to see that happen. What was the nature of their game? What was the nature of his injury? It was a shoulder injury when he was doing the coast, when he did the coast to coast during his match. Rotator cough, anybody know? I don't think they've said exactly.

We saw him walking around with a sling, and that's the report that it's a shoulder injury. And, you know, there's two narratives out there. One, it could be a long time, and the other is maybe he could do some sort of Band-Aid technique and be back in time for WrestleMania, but either way, it's less than ideal. Bad news, man. Shoulder's

shoulder surgery seem to be the most complicated and the hardest ones to rehab. Yeah. Well, it's no problem rehabbing with Raj Geary here. We get our download all the news that's fit to print. Raj, I appreciate the time as always. Where can our listeners

keep up with you every week? Keep checking out Massive Heat on the watch podcast Heat Wrestling.com YouTube channel. And yeah, check us out. And I'm following me on Twitter at the Raj Geary. oh man you have i don't know if you've been following raj this past week eric but he's been on fire he's been pissing everyone off i mean i love it i love it between him and nick it's like i don't

even have to post anything anymore these guys these guys have taken it to a different level and i'm enjoying it people get so upset over the most minor like wrestling take that it's it's insane it's but it is fun isn't it i mean it's kind of hard not to be like the puppet master and pull the strings and watch them dance. It's kind of fun. Yeah, yeah. I can get tiring after a while, too. Like, after three days of people still tweeting the same thing over like, okay, guys, let's move on.

It's like those tweets just keep ricocheting around in social media. I don't know. That'll do it for us to click here with Rise Geary. Rice, thanks for all the time. And happy belated birthday, man. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Have a good one. Thank you.

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Brought to you by savewithconrad.com. All right, Eric, one of my favorite parts of the show every single week. give Eric Bischoff's top five. And today is an interesting top five that you came up with. I got to be honest. I didn't see this from coming. The top five reasons that Nitro's production was better than Monday Night Raw. Now, this is interesting because for years and years, it's been parroted that WWE had much better production. And you say, nay, nay, WCW doesn't get there just due. Let's start with Eric Bischoff's number five on the top five reasons that nitrous production was better. And this is an easy one. Nitro was live.

every week here fundamentally changed the entire industry and people use that term all the time oh it's changed the industry nothing has changed the industry more than a decision that i made personally to move nitro to a live weekly show it took wwe almost two years to follow suit and they've never looked back since. Live television, live wrestling in particular is what really helped change the landscape of the wrestling business in a legitimate way, not just for WCW, across the board. It's interesting, too, when you think back on how important this was really and truly, because live had not been a staple.

I mean, even Saturday night's main event was not live. and I think people just assumed it was because Saturday Night Live was a show also in NBC, but it was not live. And as the Internet was growing, I don't know that wrestling could have survived without pivoting to live. Do you? No. No, I mean, again, if you step back, like if you were a financial analyst that was studying the business of the wrestling business back that,

and you looked at the critical markers, those moments, along the way over the last 20 years or whatever, whatever time period you're looking at, what changes were made that radically changed the trajectory of the industry. Again, you won't find one of them, in my opinion. Well, here are the top two.

And kind of one of the top two. One is Nitro's commitment, and by the way, it was a very expensive commitment. One of the reasons that nobody did live every week is because live was really expensive. WWE at that time would do, it'd show up at a location, one episode would be live,

and then they'd hold that same audience and tape next week's episode, right? The reason they did that is because traveling every single week for a fresh show is very expensive. Everything is, you're doubling your cost. When Ted said, Eric, go head to head with WWE, and go win, the very first thing I determined was live. When I sat down with that yellow legal pad, live tape.

They're tape, I'm going to go live. Biggest differentiation, market differentiation was being live. Now you fast forward, one of the reasons that WWE has done so well financially in the public markets, as well as their mergers and acquisitions, or acquisitions, I should say, is because the value of those broadcast rights, went up so significantly, mostly because it's live and because it target 18 to 49-year-olds. It took Vince two years to figure it out, but he finally followed WCW's path, so to speak. They went live every week, and they started targeting 18 to 49-year-olds instead of the teens and preteens.

Those two things have probably had a more significant impact on the business of the professional wrestling business, than anything else because none of those things would have ever happened. Netflix wouldn't have happened if WWE wasn't live sports or live sports action, live action sports, call whatever you want. They would have not ever gotten that deal. Their stock prices would have never gotten to the point. They would have never gone public for crying out loud. So yeah, I think going live was critical.

It comes in at number five, but it could easily be number one. By the way, from an ad sales perspective, it's huge too. I can tell you as a local advertiser who spent millions of dollars between Alabama and Tennessee, just promoting my mortgage company, the thing I got the best results on, the thing I got the best bang for the buck, the best return on investment without question was live. I only bought live sports and live local news. And let's be real, local news is what it is, but nobody's going to DVR local news and watch it later.

They're just not going to do that. So news and sports, what do they have in common? They're live. is Eric's number five. Let's take a look at Eric's number four on the top five reasons that nitrous production was better. The cruiserweight division's presentation. Now, I know what you're thinking to yourself. You're thinking to yourself self. That's not really production, but I agree with Eric. It is because technically the WWF did a light heavyweight division, but nobody talks about it. Nobody remembers it. Nobody celebrates it. It was the

production and the way these guys were presented as not less than, right, Eric? Correct. And, you know, production is, you know, a subjective because to some people, production includes, you know, the obvious lights, audio, pyro, the number of cameras you have, what kind of audio system you have set up. Those are all physical manifestations of, quote, unquote production. But production also includes creative. Production also includes pacing. Production also includes format. Really like boring shit nobody ever talks about, right? Nobody ever talks about format when they talk about professional wrestling. But they should because the format, in this case, the live format that Nitro introduced into the industry as being the first weekly live show

on national show. Sorry, I forgot where I was going. I'm trying to make a point. I lost myself. Keep going. Well, we were just talking about the way you shot these matches too. Oh, so the entire presentation is all a part of production. And we made it specifically, we made a decision for the cruising weights to be at the crossover section.

So we'd go on at eight, Raw would come on at nine, and we'd both be on from nine to 10, right? We were two hours for a while. They were one. It was the positioning, the format that positioned those cruiser weights right at the cruising weight or right at the top of the crossover hour. And why did I want them there? You ask, because people, there's viewing habits, right? There's viewing patterns. It's almost subliminal or subconscious in people's minds. But at the top of the hour, people have a tendency to pick up their remote and see what's going on next. Well, I didn't want them to pick up the remote and see what's going on over on Monday Night Raw. If I had them by up to myself from eight to nine when we were unopposed, I wanted to hold on to them.

And it was a creative process as well as a production effort to make sure that these matches took place right at the crossover. They would generally start about three or four minutes before nine o'clock and they'd carry through to about three or four minutes. minutes after the 9 o'clock. That was kind of like the target time within the format for cruising weights. And specifically wanted the action, and this is why I'd work with Kevin or whoever was agenting the match and responsible for it, this is where I'd want the peak of the action at that 9 o'clock. So I want a bodies flying through the air at straight up 9 o'clock because I knew then if I had

them, if I had those viewers, and they're watching that action, they're not flipping the channel. So I would agree that production and the Cruiserweight Division were synonymous in many respects. Number three on Eric's list of the top five reasons that Nitro's production was better than WWE's Monday Night Raw. It's the Nitro look and feel the sets, the lighting, the music. And I know this feels on the surface like a little thing, but it is not a little thing. That set is so iconic. I mean, this entrance with the pyro out of the corner posts and the light under the ring, like I remember you could sort of see through the ring skirt. It was sort of glowing. I don't know, dude. I feel like if WWW dusted this off just for a one off, you'd take grown men to tears.

They loved it so much. And man, let's remember, Monday Night Raw was just three big letters, R-A-W. That's all. It was three giant red letters, R-A-W. this is a whole other ball game here in the presentation, Eric. That's why it's number three, right? It is. And, you know, one of the things that I talked to David Crockett about, and there were a lot of other people involved beyond David. But I wanted, when it came to the set design,

I wanted the night show, I wanted the open of the show. This is the way I described it to people. This is the way I described the show to just about everybody that worked for me on the production side, is I want this show to feel like, a party. I don't want it to look like a sporting event. I want it to feel like a party. I want people sitting at home to say to themselves consciously or subconsciously, man, when this party comes to my town, me and my buddies are going. That was the vibe. That was the energy, including the look and the pyro and everything else. That's why we did the nitro watch parties. We fabricated

that shit and then it became a reality. We shot those things. Make trying to to make people believe that there were actually people sitting around having nitro parties. And about three weeks later, they started sending in tapes and people were actually doing it. So those are all instruments, tools, production tools that we use to make nitro feel like a party, including the graphics in the set. Well, I can't wait to talk about number two on the list, but before we do, I want to remind you that over at save withconrad.com, man, I can help you own a house for less than you're paying and rent. Yes, I'm talking to you. If you feel like you're stuck in that apartment,

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go right now to signos.com that's sig nos.com and get $10 off select plans with the code 83 weeks that's signos.com the code is 83 weeks and you'll get $10 off select plans today that's sig nos.com signos.com and the promo code is 83 weeks coming in at number two on eric's list of the top five reasons why nitrous production was better than Monday Night Raw, and this is a fun one, reality-based storytelling and on-location segments. That's a big deal. Tell us about it, Eric. Well, the reality-based storytelling was something that, as we talked about earlier in this show, was something that really started to evolve with Nitro when I realized what I was up against going head to head with WWE and looking at that 18 to 49-year-old target audience.

nobody else was paying attention to, I didn't know exactly how to appeal to that audience. It was a process, trial and error to a degree, but I knew, for example, I wanted Scott Hall to come down to be Scott Hall. I want to give him a gimmick name. I hate gimmick names. First of all, most of them sound stupid. And the only thing that they do is give ownership and control over the licensing and merchandising of the company that employs set talent.

and gives them a gimmick name. I wanted Scott Hall to be Scott Hall. I want to Kevin Nash to be Kevin Nash. I want to Bill Goldberg to be Bill Goldberg. Yes, we had other characters, and we introduced characters, like Mortis, for example, because we were still trying to find ways to satisfy certain segments of the audience. But the core, the focus, the A stories, the most important stories, were reality-based. and that's right up there with live 18 to 49 reality base we did it first we did it best

in some respects with regard to the NWO but another absolute game changer I mean the NWO segments looked real you know it was an air of realism and we know eventually everything else would follow the the bloodline docu drama content the broken Matt Hardy but The NWO stuff, I think that's why it resonated. It felt real. And the on location stuff, like when you guys shut down the park at Disney, everybody's calling 911 and the Mall of America shoot, like it felt relatable. Well, maybe until they wheeled out a big block of ice.

But let's get number one on Eric Bischoff's top five reasons that the nitro presentation and production was better than Monday Night Raw. the NWO takeover presentation. I mean, this is exactly what we've been talking about the whole time. Maybe there's no better example than the NWO. It was so different than everything we'd ever seen before, right? It was.

And the audience was, they were dying for it. They didn't even know they were dying for it. It just snuck up on them and grabbed them. But everything about this presentation, you know, and one thing I want to make clear, though,

And I firmly believe that the nitro production back when we were head-to-head was better. Now, better in this case is also subjective. From a technical point of view, you could certainly argue that Kevin Dunn and his crew could absolutely produce a higher quality when it came to production values, lights, camera angles, audio. whatever nobody does it better to this day than wwe in fact nobody's even close anymore um in wwee with kevin done and his team were always able to produce a glossier tighter product than wcw WCW WCWs felt more real it allowed the viewer to feel like they were in the venue and i've said this many times you've heard it watching wwee back in the day was like watching Disney on ice. The production values were so high that it didn't

feel live. You could have been watching it at an IMAX theater. It was that good. Nitro felt like you were at a party and you were part of the show. And that subconscious subliminal difference between the two products is one of the reasons why Nitro was so successful head to head. Because we just felt like the right place to hang out it was unbelievable man i mean you let the nw o seemingly break the the fourth wall you know when you hear the announcers sort of whispering like hey what's going on yep it just makes it feel more dangerous more authentic it felt like a hostile takeover some great graphics here and great stills if you want to join us and watch along with us here at 83 weeks dot com yeah wcw wasn't just compelling and wrestling

competing against the WWE and wrestling. They were reinventing how wrestling looked on television. And yes, everyone caught up, but years later. So let's recap Eric's top five reasons that Nitro was having better production than Monday Night Raw. It was live every week, the way the cruiser weights were presented, the look and feel, the sets, the music, the fire, the reality-based presentation, and of course, the NWO.

What was your favorite piece of WCW production? Why did you like the way Nitro felt versus the way Raw felt? Let us know in the comments below, and we will be looking for those comments next week here on the show. I should mention that we also can help you save a little cash over with savewithconrad.com. If you haven't already, did you know that we can help you knock out that credit card debt just in time for the holidays? Don't put Christmas on a credit card.

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love to have some social interaction for you. We're even going to start doing some teases about what we're talking about on social. So follow us everywhere at 83 weeks. I'm talking to you, Twitter and Facebook and even Instagram. And keep up with Eric this weekend before Real American Freestyle at the Rail Eric Bischoff over on Instagram. And of course, it's happening as you're listening to this tomorrow. Real American Freestyle.com is where you can grab your tickets. There's still a handful available at Penn State University.

or just do what I'm going to do. Fire it up on the Fox Nation app. It's available in the app store or anywhere you enjoy your apps. Look for it. The Fox Nation app. It's only like seven or eight bucks a month. And you're going to get what's essentially a giant PLE here included. Kurt Angle's going to be there.

It's going to be a who's who. Is it not, Eric? It is indeed. You're going to see some great matchups. Olympic champions, world champions. The elite of freestyle wrestling is going to be there. Some of the biggest names, Mason Paris is going to be there.

It's going to be a hell of a night. And some of these guys, you may see in the future in the UFC, in WWE, and you can follow them during their legitimate athletic career right now, this weekend, starting tomorrow at Fox Nation. Grab those tickets now at real American freestyle.com, and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Fishoff. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Here to tell you a little more about what ad-freeshows.com is all about.

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